Many of us who were raised by narcissistic parents find ourselves in toxic relationships when it comes to work, friends, and romance.

You may have believed that you are the common demoninator in all this toxicity. Therefore, it’s your fault that you can’t seem to find a relationship that works.

Truth is, the experience of being raised by narcissistic parents makes you more susceptible to other narcissistic and toxic relationships.

That doesn’t mean you’re codependent (a common misconception about narcissistic abuse survivors). But, you’ve been conditioned to accept or expect certain behaviors that others wouldn’t tolerate.

Narcissistic parents make you believe love is hard to get

You’re used to tiptoeing around and tying yourself in knots to assuage your narcissistic parents’ rage or contempt.

Love to you feels hard to get or even impossible. The idea that love would flow freely to you, and you could be yourself and still receive it, is foreign to you.

In fact, narcissistic parents can’t love you, so your efforts were always futile. But, the child inside you doesn’t know that.

It clings to the fantasy that if you only try hard enough, do better, or are more loveable, you’ll get that love and acceptance you crave.

Too often, being more loveable means abandoning yourself by dropping your boundaries and standards so someone else can walk all over you.

As an adult, this is dangerous and invites predators to take advantage of you in ways that can be ruinous. However, as a child it was an intelligent way to keep yourself safe by assuaging your narcissistic parents’ worst tendencies.

We gravite to the familiar

The peace and freedom that come with a loving relationship will feel boring and uncomfortable to someone who grew up in chaos. You may feel that it lacks “passion”.

Surely, love can’t be this easy. Love is something I have to work for and yet never receive.

So, you feel repelled by someone who accepts you and treats you kindly. You will sabotage such a simple relationship and gravitate to something that reminds you of what you grew up in.

And people who are securely attached may not feel comfortable with you because it’s not what they’re used to, either. That may be hard to hear, but it’s important to tell the truth in order to heal.

Speaking of secure attachment, that is the outcome of attuned and healthy parenting. Narcissistic parents like yours would create in you an insecure attachment which makes relationships frought with difficulty.

Attachment styles can be overcome and healthy relationships will be in your future as a result. However, understanding how attachment style impacts you is key to changing your relationship patterns.

narcissistic parents don’t allow boundaries

Most people who’ve grown up with narcissistic parents don’t know the meaning of the word boundaries. Unless they’ve done some work on themselves, of course.

In adulthood, boundaries keep you safe and protected by letting others know what you will and won’t tolerate. As a child, however, NOT having boundaries kept you safe because it satisfied the sick needs of the parent.

Narcissistic parents view their children as extensions of themselves instead of separate people. That means boundaries are NOT ALLOWED and they are DANGEROUS because they put you at risk of abandonment and other punishment.

It is ridiculous to be expected to suddenly wield those boundaries you’ve avoided all your life. Especially when your nervous system has been conditioned to experience boundaries as life-threatening.

Telling someone to suddenly set boundaries when that was detrimental to their safety in childhood is naive and misleading.

You need to first tend to your nervous system and understand the very good reasons why boundaries are so hard to set before you can implement them effectively in your adult life.

you overlook the red flags

It’s not that you don’t see the red flags. But, you’re so used to overriding your intuition that you overlook them.

If, as a child, self-protection meant not having boundaries and abandoning yourself, why would you run from red flags as an adult?

Your instinct for self-preservation is different than those raised in healthy homes. It relies on stroking a narcissistic ego, and defusing tension rather than running for the hills as a securely attached person might do.

You were often able to please your narcissistic parents enough to stop them from blowing up at you, giving you silent treatment, or hitting you. Or whatever the punishment looked like that day.

Your survival skills have been honed to ensure your short-term safety, not your long-term relationship goals. So, you navigate adult relationships with a view to keeping this person happy long enough to stay “alive” right now.

Your long-term safety and happiness do not enter into the equation. And this makes a lot of sense if you look at the way you were raised and what self-preservation looked like to you.

it’s not your fault

It’s not your fault that you gravitate to toxic relationships after being raised by narcissistic parents. In fact, one of the diagnostic criteria of complex PTSD is relationship struggles.

By understanding and adapting to or even changing your attachment style, you can enjoy healthy and fulfilling relationships.

By regulating your nervous system before embarking on boundary setting, you will become successful at it.

Giving yourself compassion as you learn to do the opposite of what kept you safe as a child is a form of re-parenting.

You may be looking for someone outside of you to give you what you need. As a survivor of narcissistic parents, however, you can give yourself the care and attention you keep looking to other people to provide.

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Before you go, I invite you watch my free masterclass on the 4-step process for healing your childhood trauma. This is based on my proven program for transforming your trauma into growth without falling back into old patterns.