By Danny Neary
Hey, you're a covert narcissist like me? Well, at least that's what people and "doctors" tell us but we both know we're just misunderstood and our kids don't appreciate us enough right? Anyways, what exactly is a covert narcissist you ask? Well, covert narcissists are people who crave admiration and supposedly lack empathy towards others despite the fact I gave my life and body for other people, my children! But you know that's what they say, we lack empathy but unlike overt narcissists we don't present ourselves as super confident and disdainful towards others. Instead we latch on to people and seek to comfort ourselves by being super important and codependent to them. Which makes life really fun and exciting for our kids who don't even deserve us and will inevitably disappoint us!
So, as a covert narcissist who's entire family has let her down I can tell you that it is incredibly important that covert narcissists like you raise your kids well. Deep down you know, just like I do, that you're flawed but you don't want to address those issues head on because that would be too painful. So, instead you need to latch on to your children, expect them to be perfect and ruin Christmas for them every year.
Now you may be wondering how a covert narcissist's parenting style would be different than an overt narcissist's/ Well, that's important to note because an overt narcissist would be dismissive of their kids because they think they're too good to be bogged down with their problems. While a covert narcissist, like you, would be heavily invested in every aspect of your kid's life but always find a way to make it actually all about you. Because your life was tough and you deserve to turn every conversation around on how much harder you had it than your spoiled little kid who doesn't realize you listening to all their "problems" is exhausting for you and you already had a cold or something.
Birthdays are another day when we covert narcissists can really shine as parents. Whatever our kids want or desire we're willing to give it to them and then immediately use it to guilt them into feeling bad about themselves and apologizing for stressing us out. You know raising kids is not easy and it's really important that they learn on the days they're most likely to have lasting memories of that they could be a lot nicer and more thankful for all we do for them. Be sure to be nice and make them feel special, no aggression just extremely passive aggressive and make backhanded comments that will haunt them deep into their adulthood.
If you have more ideas feel free to leave them in the comments below, because apparently I'm not good enough for the readers of my blog either. I really put a lot of work into this thing and the least you guys could do is like, subscribe, and share my posts on Facebook. Anyways, happy parenting I've got a kid who I need to call so he knows to feel bad about neglecting me on his trip to Europe.