Where Do Narcissists Come From?

Understanding narcissism, attachment, trauma and protective beliefs

Spend any time on social media, you have likely heard people talk about narcissism or label someone a narcissist. Some of it is helpful content but like most things on social media it can become overused and misused. This series will help give you language to begin to understand what is narcissistic personality disorder, the impact on families and in relationship. But even more than that I want to invite you to begin asking, “what am I believing about myself?” 

Why? Because, it is those beliefs that can lead us to be vulnerable to abusive relationships or act in abusive ways. 

Where do these beliefs come from? Starting in infancy we begin to shape our beliefs about ourself based on how our parents and/or significant caregivers respond to us. We are wired to protect these connections because having caregivers is necessary for our survival. This is what in psychology we call the attachment drive, which motivates us to seek out and form connection with others. While we are wired to connect, we also have a drive to defend and protect ourselves. This is an instinctual response of self protection. This drive steps in to help protect us from painful thoughts and feelings. Recruiting our mind to distort our reality as a way to cope with what otherwise might be too painful or overwhelming. When this becomes frequent or chronic, it can lead to problematic thinking and beliefs. 

We all can display narcissistic traits at times, but this does make someone a narcissist. Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a clinical diagnosis involving a persistent pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and difficulties with empathy and relationships. Both the expression of these traits and diagnosis exist on a continuum. While the cause of narcissistic personality disorder is complex, including genetics and neurobiology, however abusive parenting plays a significant role. 

When a child is raised in a home where one of the caregivers themselves has narcissistic personality disorder, the child grows up in a home where physical, emotional, sexual and/or verbal abuse may be occurring. If you are the innocent child, this is incredibly painful and your brain begins to identify strategies and ways of thinking to help protect you from this overwhelming pain. 

As a child I have to protect the relationship with my parent, so the brain has a survival strategy to help cope with the conflict of connecting with my parent and protecting self. This is where the story telling begins. At the core is a desire to avoid contact with the shame of these attachment wounds. This is not a conscious process, nor do we as children have the ability to understand the consequences or impact of these protective beliefs and behaviors. 

If it were simply an abusive environment that creates a narcissist then every child in the family would become one. That just isn’t what we find. What we do find is that everyone in the family has complex trauma as a result. Being raised in a home where a parent has narcissistic personality disorder does make it more likely that a child may develop narcissistic traits or vulnerable to getting into relationship with a narcissist. 

Within the same family one child may attempt to protect from the shame and protect their connection with their caregiver  with the belief “I am not good enough”, driving them to over work or seek to people please. Another sibling may develop the view of themselves as being better than others, allowing them to avoid the pain of their vulnerability and powerlessness in their family. 

I share this with two goals in mind: to increase compassion for self and others and that untangling the distortions and becoming healthier is possible. But before I go further, I want to be clear that abuse in any and all forms is never okay.

In the next post in the series, we will look at common dynamics found in families where there are strong traits of narcissism or narcissistic personality disorder. Our series will continue to expand into relational patterns in romantic relationships. The goal of this series isn’t just to help you identify narcissistic traits or narcissists, but to recognize your own beliefs and patterns that keep you stuck.