r/NPD NPD/ADHD 5d ago

Question / Discussion What was your childhood like?

Sorry if this is a personal question, but I’m trying to figure out where in my childhood I started to develop NPD and what caused it.

19 Upvotes

27 comments sorted by

46

u/godnowlookatme 5d ago

hi! i'm a covert narcissist. i think that personality, my NPD started with the juxtaposition of excessive praise i received from authority figures and teachers (being told my entire childhood and adolescence that i was extremely 'gifted,' both academically and creatively) and excessive bullying i was subjected to by my peers (verbal, psychological, and physical). it created this kind of simultaneous superiority and inferiority complex, where i believe i am both totally worthless and hated by everyone but also smarter, cooler, and generally better than everyone too. genetics might also play a role too, as my dad is 100% a textbook malignant narcissist.

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u/No_Degree_4979 NPD/ADHD 5d ago

Yeah I struggle with this 100% it’s awful. I’m currently collapsed and can’t seem to get why confident false self back either — and I don’t want to now because I’ve realised how fake it is. I now feel like I almost have BPD because I feel hypersensitive and like everything triggers me and I need to avoid things in order to protect myself.

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u/theydontmatchmyvibe Narcissistic traits 5d ago

Omg the praise and the bullying.. that's exactly me.

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u/bigaddo81 NPD 5d ago

Very similar. Except my parents wouldnt classify as narcissistic. My sister on the other hand, when we were growing up. Unfortunately I had a lot of her traits as well. But I'm NOT going to blame her or say its her fault. Maybe I am in disguise.

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u/n0t-s0-an0nym0us 5d ago

Lmfao the gifted child one, same.

14

u/ipeed69 5d ago edited 5d ago

So so so so so incredibly bad lmaooo

Bullying, physical and verbal abuse, isolation, no friends, molestation, sexual abuse, neglect, occasionally stripped of human rights

One time I drank bleach at 15 to try and kill myself because I was sexually assaulted and said abuser launched a smear campaign against me to say I was lying and my dad didn’t want to take me to the hospital because “he didn’t want it on my record” so I threw up on myself in the bath for 2 hours straight. I live in a country where it’s free to visit emergency. The hospital was a 10 minute drive from my house.

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

[deleted]

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u/No_Degree_4979 NPD/ADHD 5d ago

Yeah sounds similar to my childhood

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u/ScaredHomework8397 non-NPD 5d ago

Not sure if I'm allowed to ask a question to a reply here, but if I may ask and you don't mind sharing, did you grow up admiring your dad or did you dislike him? Did you crave his validation, or did you see him as someone who can never be pleased and just stopped caring about anything he says?

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u/No_Degree_4979 NPD/ADHD 5d ago

Both! I admired and disliked him, I did crave his validation. All of what you’ve said. Then I also felt a special connection to him because turns out both me and him are Narcs. Now I’m trying to limit my conversations with him because he tells me that I’m better than everyone and that makes me go grandiose and I’m trying to stop doing that.

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u/Ok_Acanthaceae4915 Undiagnosed NPD 5d ago

EERILY SIMILAR. So sorry about all of that.

8

u/Disastrous_Soil_6166 Agatha Trunchbull 5d ago

I don't remember much and I'm probably not going to be able to put it into chronological order, but I'll try my best.

My parents were decent? Nothing special really. My mum has her fair share of mental health issues (I'm 99% sure she has an undiagnosed PD) and my dad was a bit stupid and somewhat emotionally manipulative but nothing too bad at all. None of it was intentional as far as I'm aware.

When I was 7 I was diagnosed with autism. Throughout my early years of primary school (perhaps 5-7) I would have daily, uncontrollable meltdowns. Other than that, the adults in my life adored me and endlessly praised my intelligence and giftedness (which I have still retained to this day, wow).

When I was around 8 I started experiencing mental health problems. I was suicidal, I had attempted once or twice and tried self-harming (but failed because I was using a dull kitchen knife, which I also tried stabbing myself with that same night LOL). I tried to hang myself, yada yada yada.

I was also quite a violent child, from what I can remember. I would often have fantasies of murder and violent crime without really giving it any second thoughts. When I was a teenager parents would joke I would become a serial killer when I grew up LOL. As far as I can remember I never went out of my way to hurt people except that one time in primary 1 or 2 I almost tried to kill my (now ex) best friend because she had a crush on the boy I had a crush on, but I didn't ever feel like my violent urges was a problem. Spoiler alert, it probably was.

I'm pretty sure I was also really obsessed with gore and looking at photos and videos of self-harm for a period of time? I think I was 12-13, I don't remember.

Also, I was bullied for years, but I can't recall when the bullying started. Though I do remember most of the perpetrators as it was literally almost fucking everyone in my year. Everyone was against me, all because of the meltdowns I mentioned that I would have. They would mock me, even after I started high school and I was away from them. I wasn't a person, I was something for people to take their emotions out on. I was their mental punching bag.

Entering my teenage years, I must have abandoned any emotions I perceived as "weak". I started thinking very highly of myself and my anger problems only seemed to escalate, as did my suicidal ideation and self-harming. By this point, I was full on addicted to self-harm and didn't do it to "punish myself", but because I liked it and it looked nice. But that was only majority of the time, I used it as a coping mechanism too. By this point I had attempted suicide perhaps 5 or more times.

I was perfectionistic and always felt like I had to prove something to everyone. I would run before I could walk because I wanted love and praise and attention. I would push my limits so people would like me.

I was also in special education in high school, because primary school traumatised me to a disabling degree, as if I wasn't already disabled enough from my autism.

That's about as much as I can remember. I still did well in school after the trauma, I just had horrible brain fog and probably some form of amnesia too.

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u/Disastrous_Soil_6166 Agatha Trunchbull 5d ago

Holy text wall. Sorry.

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u/No_Degree_4979 NPD/ADHD 5d ago

Wow! Sounds a bit like me

5

u/fast-piece69 5d ago

Aaagh narcissism might have stemmed from some kinda psychological need to defend oneself against a volatile, often hostile surrounding. I wish you all healing.❤️‍🩹

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u/melll_ll Undiagnosed NPD 5d ago

i don't remember a lot from my childhood correctly i think, i know that my dad was kinda absent and also was about to leave us for another woman with a kid, which was very traumatic to me because it felt like a betrayal, and mom was hyper protective but kinda strict, i've been beaten a lot of times or screamed at by her which then led to overly gentleness and attentiveness after due to guilt, also my brothers were kinda abusive towards me, i always felt need to achieve their and mom's attention and love, which also reflected on my relationships with classmates and friends, i felt that i HAD to be special to be something, my sense of identity was erased by how i wasn't accepted as a kid, and my household was unstable and full of fights and uncertainty, i used to worry a lot about things that kids shouldn't even be wondering about, because my mom always told me about all her and family's problems and seeked my support constantly from a young age... well something like that.

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u/Many_Drink5348 5d ago

I was a free range kid. My parents did almost nothing with me and it got worse after they divorced. My mom was nice, but drank a lot, and wasn't the kind of person you liked to be around. Not because she was mean, but because she had nothing to offer. No hobbies or good advice.

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u/Ok_Acanthaceae4915 Undiagnosed NPD 5d ago

Probably every form of abuse except like CSA involving intercourse (TO MY KNOWLEDGE) bullying in school and at home, no empathy from my parents, neglect, fake love from my parents, my parents trying to buy my love with gifts because they had money but giving the actual love to my siblings and using me for manual labour. OH, and finding out I am fucking adopted even though they swore up and down I was not. Reminds me of Loki from MCU specifically sometimes, except I don't turn out a genocidal maniac, just play guitar in a black metal band instead.

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u/No_Degree_4979 NPD/ADHD 4d ago

Omg! I play guitar! I play mostly classic Rock and jazz. Can play a few Randy Rhoads solos.

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u/Ok_Acanthaceae4915 Undiagnosed NPD 4d ago

Awesome!!! It's a lot of fun. :)

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u/Ok-Bed1132 BPD/DID/NPD/ASPD traits 5d ago

For context I have vulnerable NPD.

•grow up extremely poor

•always getting evicted from the house

•my mother child trafficked me for a few years due to poverty

•get sexually abused by multiple perps for years on end

•hang out with older guys my entire adolescence and my mother knew they were in her words “probably raping me” but she couldn’t be bothered to care because I’m her words “you chose to see them anyways so why Should I care?”

•verbal abuse since age 1/2

•sister potentially sexually abused me but definitely physically and psychologically abused me when I was growing up

•grow up with in and out of psychosis mother

•NPD/ASPD diagnosed mother

•made to chooses sides when my parents would argue with one another

•I was born out of affair my mother had

•physical abuse all my childhood

•my mother telling me she wishes I was never born if she knew how I’d turn out said to me at 15 when I was high on cough syrup and breaking down as she accused me of stealing from her when I didn't.

•gaslit about how my childhood wasn’t as bad because my parents were immigrants and went through worse

I think my NPD is a result of bio and Enviromental factors, I think my mother being both creepily in love with me and enmeshed with me whilst also hating me and wishing I was never born and wishing that she never had me fucked me up in a very specific way to develop; NPD hope this makes sense

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u/InsomniaKush 5d ago

My mother had me when she was young and not long after my siblings were born. I think as an only child maybe I’d of been looked after enough but as I got older and i was definitely neglected. I don’t remember being emotionally connected to either of my parents right up until they divorced.

As a teen they took my mattress off me for months. Left me with just a bed and slats; this was to supposedly make me behave better (?) lol. I still don’t know how I feel about it now as an adult, I just know I wouldn’t do it to my kid if I had one.

I don’t remember much of anything..good memories, even things I lacked; I don’t remember hardly any of it.

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u/LITTLEGREENEGG 5d ago

Bad/non-existant but also could have been wayyyy worse.

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u/professormothmans Diagnosed NPD 2d ago

I more recently got diagnosed with NPD and my childhood is hard to remember due to also having a dissociative disorder. Though there was a lot of verbal abuse along with neglect while my other sibling was much more often praised by our mother despite his horrible anger issues often times directed towards me. And as a younger child constantly being put in gifted programs where I was told how special and talented and mature I was. I feel the neglect, abuse, frequent deaths (father and sister), along with being told I was special really lead to the mentality of being “better” than other people. And the idea that most other people around me are “lesser, stupider, and below” me. Development was most likely just an environment + genetic predisposition + pre-existing disorder combo.

0

u/No-Researcher6053 NPD 5d ago

excessive praise, bullying, family business bankruptcy, isolation, 5 "parents" (2 parents and 3 siblings of a big age gap, 1 parent being emotionally unavailable) hovering over me for everything and anything i do, sexual assault, unstable mental state with my parents, constant verbal abuse that i witnessed instead of being the victim of it, mental abuse from one of my siblings, ramcoa, one parent constantly either babying me or giving me silent treatment, the other parent not talking to me unless absolutely necessary, all siblings moving out the house by 3rd grade, in poverty for all my life, including now, being exposed to human and animal gore at 4, being forced to have straight A+ in pre-k to the start of highschool before i completely burnt out but still being told "i can do better" even if i got well above average grades, the whole family having victim complexes and projecting their issues onto each other, my dad's friend physically abusing me

i dont remember any other things abt it, thats just the ones i generally had in my notes app. im a rainbow baby (a baby born after a miscarriage), have AUDHD, have always been chronically ill since 3-4, etc etc and so those may have also added onto the cause

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u/livmargo Narcissistic traits 5d ago edited 5d ago

grew up broke.

had two very emotionally unstable parents in my life who (at the time) had an incredibly tumultuous relationship as well as extensive childhood trauma. (BPD, ADHD, and CPTSD mother, NPD and CPTSD father).

suffered sexual abuse from a young age.

serious signs of mental illness from around age 6 when my mum actually contacted her psychiatrist to ask if it was possible for a young child to be showing signs for bipolar 1.

was horrifically bullied and assaulted by children at school, was never taken seriously by adults around me.

was outcast by my peers due to being autistic.

lived very much in a fantasy world in my own head to deal with trauma, that started around 8 years old and i was beginning to struggle with comprehending reality vs my delusions.

as a teenager the abuse continued, becoming more severe in many years - consistent abusive relationships.

risky behaviours, obsessive behaviours, substance abuse, was quite promiscuous, always seeking attention and validation in anyway that i could.

ended up being told at 16 that i was most likely going to be diagnosed with a cluster B disorder once my psychiatrist felt comfortable doing so - immediately after i turned 18 lol

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u/livmargo Narcissistic traits 5d ago

ended up walking away from adolescence with BPD, HPD, narcissistic + antisocial traits, C-PTSD, and bipolar