Emotionally Distancing Yourself with Love
Healing from and Coping with Narcissistic Parents
People like us who have experienced some type of emotional or physical abuse with a narcissistic or difficult parent have learned time and again that we have to be involved with the difficult parent to help them solve their problems, stop potential fires, and help pacify them.
In short, we feel like we must be constantly involved in emotionally-managing our difficult parents.
You cancel your entire day whenever they want you to drop everything to come help them, even when it isn’t an emergency.
To emotionally distance yourself, you can use your energy to interrupt the internalization of their snide comments, like how you are “ungrateful.”
You can feel angry or frustrated in the moment and still be able to recognize your parent is throwing childish tantrums. Though they are lashing out at you, they might not mean what they say.
For example:
avoiding the narcissist,
being entertaining to pull focus,
or taking care of estranged family members.
I felt overwhelmed when I was first learning about this concept of detachment. I would do whatever I could to avoid conflict. To understand narcissistic parents, let’s look at the similarities to dealing with an alcoholic parent.
Narcissists are often charming and personable individuals with a moody tendency to abruptly change their personality. The same whirlwind can happen when an alcoholic is drunk or when a narcissist has encountered a hairpin emotional trigger.
Try this the next time a narcissistic person mildly triggers you: Notice any feelings of frustration or urgency. See if you can emotionally distance yourself with love from the situation. If they have asked you to do something for them, delay that action. Take physical space from them. Consider not responding immediately. Delay that text message to them. Don’t call back right away. In that moment, calendar a little bit of time for yourself that you would have otherwise spent being “on call” for their demanding whims.
Detachment does not necessarily require you to cut off all ties with your parents and suddenly feel no pain. Instead, emotionally distancing yourself from them with love creates a healthy space for you to protect yourself from their behavior.