I see how my father was many of these different descriptions to each individual child. I suppose this is based on each child’s role.. aka golden, scapegoat,etc.

In the case of the “dead” mother, the father took over. Spoiled the beautiful blond haired daughter, and never stopped picking on the son, 2 years younger. Daughter hides her narcissism well. I was caught unaware.

This makes sense to me now. Father role to a narcissistic child.

Thanks, Sam!

Dr Vaknin, what might be the effect of such fathers on children who have a “good enough” mother and/or who did separate and individuate properly in infancy? Do such children still develop narcissistic or other problematic traits and styles without the depth of true NPD or other identity/personality pathologies? I would search, but I’m unsure what term to search on - perhaps because the answer is just the rest of the DSM because my question is too broad to be sensible.

@samvaknin

5 ай бұрын

Such children would develop styles, not personality disorders (e.g., narcissistic style).

Nothing to do with the subject of the video, but a while ago I found a help group for daughters survivors of narcissistic abuse. The group's directors banned me after finding out that I repeatedly watched videos from this channel. I can tell she don't have any sense of humor left lol 😂

@ReemTahir

5 ай бұрын

I’m confused, why did they ban you?

@Ravenafeedsravens

5 ай бұрын

What's the reason?

@productioninquiries881

5 ай бұрын

A ton of "experts" don't like Sam. It's strange because so many greats in the field were not doctors or traditionally trained, but more researchers and explorers of behavior.

@euaalanaoliveira

4 ай бұрын

@@Ravenafeedsravens she was a victim of narcissists, but seemed very unresolved about it, even though she led a group to help survivors. She certainly hasn't gotten over the trauma.

@fingerprint5511

4 ай бұрын

@@ReemTahir They are book therapists, ones who read and believe they understand, Sam is experienced and has natural insight that they could never have so it reveals their lack of true insight, how limited their experience is.

Could you hypothesize what happened in this case of my friend? I had a friend who as a child was raised by her father to become a cyclist and won medals, as her father was a big fan of cyclistics. She was very good, won many medals as a junior and then she even was a part of a national representation. In order to get better grades at school, he or she decided that she would stop cyclistics in order to pursue a study. After high school, she was required by him to study an university, as their family was quite rich and famous in a small city isolated in a mountains. She fled to Englad and worked there in unqualified job instead, but then she returned and tried to please her parents by studying robotics in a famous university. She suceeded in obtaining a bachelor's degree, but before finishing it she got depressed and had an existential (suicidal) crisis. After that, she was forced to finish her master's in order to maintain family status and went to an university in my city where we met and got friends, the university was expected to be less demanding as it was not so famous - easy path to degree as she said. During first year, she told me that she is bisexual and not sure about her orientation. The second year, she told me about being suicidal and I somehow randomly managed to talk her out of that by talking about how homeless people have it much worse and do not kill themself, that she should just lie anywhere and wait for death to come instead of killing herself, that instinct will force her to take care of herself. I also had some depressions in past, but never felt suicidal, absolutely no idea how the feeling is. Then she went in the summer semester to student exchange in Taiwan and she was happy there and found new boyfriend from, but then she failed some projects and two exams and had to study another year just to do two exams, so basically very easy. But she wanted to take a break from study, as she felt depressed due to failures and maybe also shame that others finished their degrees earlier. Her father sold her car during her being in Taiwan and so she had to bring her stuff to my city in another car which she had to return home, so we saw each other only for a short while. She was suicidal again and told me that she was addicted to a dopamine when she was wining races and that she replaced this craving by getting good grades in university and by successes. I laughed at this as a reason for killing herself, women at 25 years old should not be like this. Also she was afraid of getting real job, as her first experiences were rather harsh - people were not enough enthusiastic according to her, or she sometimes failed to deliver as our study plan was a mix of programming and robotics and she did not specialised enough. She was thus dependent financially on her rich family. She hated herself and had very low self-esteem, even when she was perfect - not only had she a bachelor's degree, she was a very good driver, she was a skiing instructor, she had a flight license and she learned Chinese in Taiwan. Weird is that as I spend much time with her, most of time she was like a ghost or a robot without showing any emotions. But she also had many friends and socialized very easily, so she had emotions sometimes. Anyway, two weeks before having to return to finish her degree, she split with her boyfriend as he was in another city, then visited some of her good friends including me, and even moved her stuff to my city, but the day she had to finally arrive she hanged herself in her parents house. Day before she died, I sent her a photo of me and my half-homeless father having a party about my finsishing my degree during summer as I failed my previous attempts. My father prepared a party for us. Only post-mortem I had found she had daddy issuesm, she never talked with me about her daddy. Her death totally wrecked me and even after several months I am still depressive and cannot concentrate on anything and I hate myself for not calling emergency when she told me third time she is thinking about suicide and she made an attempt few monts ago and then a week ago by staying outside near a train tracks. As she did not jumped or even tried to jump, just slept there, I did not considered it an attempt, but now I know even that is an attempt after studying some materials on suicide.

@Private-nu6yc

5 ай бұрын

You are applying a commercial value system instead of an inherent value system by stating that: 'had very low self-esteem, even when she was perfect - not only did she have a bachelor's degree...' Personal growth is not the acquisition of skills. Watch the video of Sam Vaknin titled 'Is Personal Growth Always Positive?'

@Ravenafeedsravens

5 ай бұрын

Hmm. Somehow you sound like a friend who devalues the woman's emotions. You wanted to know about the woman, but, instead, told us a lot about yourself. :-/ You don't have to be homeless to be depressed, and not every homeless person is necessarily depressed. :-/ Shows you have stereotypes about homeless people and that you have a rigid understanding of depression. Sam Vaknin has great videos on the topic of depression.

@jantrupl5900

5 ай бұрын

@@Private-nu6yc That is what puzzle me - when she did something well, she presented that as not good enough. She did not value her past achievements at all, only for a moment as a source of her as she said "dopamine hit". But she got depressed over failures and loses. She was very intelligent and she might have of course created a story to tell her friends before suicide, and in reality it might have been stuff like that she really was not bisexual but lesbian and her parents disaprooved of that. But while she had also some girflriends, she was happy with her last boyfriend, so the depression is probably from some failures, as she never failed anything before. I wonder if she did not valued her skills because their aquisition was a kind of race that have to be won and get a good grade, so she really replaced winning in sport with winning in study. She was mentally and physically abused by her trainer up to the point of her crying when she was young in order to become victorious so that the trainer also have results, so a trauma might have been at play...

@Private-nu6yc

5 ай бұрын

She had an erroneous perspective of feelings and self. Neither of her skills was expressive of her own motivation, nor her successes ever touched her true self - no amount of it would have been good enough for the purpose; that's what drove her Sisyphean pursuit of them. Personal growth is completely independent of external factors, once started in infancy. The true self is never determined by the external. Self-worth cannot be added nor can be pursued. She was not living for herself but for other people's ideas of her. It is possible that transitioning from identifying as bisexual to something that her parents will disapprove of is an attempt to assert her individuality. I remember that one of the Miss Americas, Cheslie Kryst, had achieved an illustrious education and won pageant awards, yet still felt inadequate despite her success and ultimately committed suicide. These stories are far from unique, sadly.

@amandanichols375

5 ай бұрын

Sounds eerily familiar minus the rich family. Kicked out early at first chance they had. I first knew of BPD in early 90’s. In 2015 and after 20 yr ssri withdrawal ended up with cptsd/ dark night of the soul. Cptsd and a chronic illness trifecta led to undx autism. Years studying trauma, attachment wounds, emotionally absent parents, primary care and early development. The Pysch industry simply haven’t a clue about ASD in girls/women. Interesting longer history of autism worth investigating. As I learned more about ASD, I see my boomer dad is undx ND/ASD. It’s likely all his siblings are as well and why there weren’t any extended relations. Similar with mother of larger family. I have two first born arrogant parents with strong masking and high avoidant traits- looks a lot like PDA- profile of autism in children. In many cases , the child’s autonomy threatens the parents with little cognitive intelligence and they need to control other external elements because they never learned how to self -soothe. I’m deeply sorry about your friend. I’ve see similar stories of young women who suffer like this. A lot of learned masking to survive in these families. Autistics hit burnout repeatedly when unsupported. Your friend’s story had similar start/stops , near successes, and dramatic exits that I hear again and again from late and self diagnosed autistic women/girls. The shame from being intelligent but seemingly an idiot to others, creates an unbearable existence of never being good enough at anything one sets out to do. They disappear from social media and relationships in despair and learned helplessness often seen with family scapegoats. Don’t know if relevant but there was a lot of internalized misogyny in my system/gender dysphoria. My dad’s covert body shaming became more overt as he got older as did his racial prejudice. He was once on a pedestal in comparison to ‘refrigerator mother.’ He’s a coward who never protected his 4 daughters. He is also likely emotionally abusive behind closed doors. My mother became his mother and both are adult children. Their children (daughters) were competition for them.

Question for you Sam, My question is : Can the fathers also be in more than one category.. Antisocial, Fantasy and submissive.. as well as having a harsh critical sadistic /touch love characteristics?

@samvaknin

5 ай бұрын

Yes.

So what happens when you have been puzzled by you family’s dynamics your entire life, discover you have adhd at 47, realize your father has it and realize his “dysthymia” and depression and unhealthy attachment to his mother his entire life is rooted in covert narcissism? I have vowed most of my life to not be like him. So am I a compensatory Narcissist?

36 months? That's so early.

@samvaknin

5 ай бұрын

Pathological narcissism is a pathology of infantile primary (healthy) narcissism.

Idk how my father's father was, but I know he had mental problems. My father is a blend of the majority of the things you said throughout this video.

Very stuck on mothers being a narc, then the father being the socializer. Both should be parenting together, socializing together. Male throws ketchup, complainer 4 help, threatens, bribes, small animal & child abuser, imprisoned of another person son aged to force a decision the other would not do, obligatory & all around sociopath

Dear Prof Vaknin, if a child was raised unfortunately by a dead mother (emotionally volatile, depressed, absent) before the age of 3 and already showing some narcissistic traits at 4 years of age (domineering, lack of empathy, sadistic, dysregulated), can the child develop to be emotionally healthy? If the mother figure has dealt with her trauma and become a better mother, and the father and other important figures in life help the child socialise, would the child be able to sublimate and have a coherent whole self image?

@SaritaSingh-dx8lv

5 ай бұрын

I would like to think so 😊 they are still very early, you can teach, nothing that a lot of love won't solve, they just have to feel that they have someone to rely on who won't abandon them

hello dr. sam I am a follower and admirer of your work and I would love to be able to make it reach Spanish speakers like me. Would you agree to me translating your videos without any profit, completely ceding any financial gain to you? I studied law and plan to study psychology later, and beyond learning by transcribing each video, it would help me with my language skills. I would be very grateful for a response from you, I greatly admire your work, your knowledge and your way of explaining things. thank you!!!

@samvaknin

5 ай бұрын

You can do anything you wish with my videos, as long as it is non-commercial. I made my work available under the Creative Commons license.

@bdbtsh

5 ай бұрын

@@samvaknin You are awesome!! Thank You so much

Dr. Vaknin, what about the mother who was abused by the narc father before the child was born? Is it still her fault? Thank you.

Do you have a video on the childhood SA to borderline pipeline?

@samvaknin

5 ай бұрын

Only about impacts of CSA in adulthood.

Someone that I know of having daddy issues suffered from anxiety disorder and panic attacks for about a year soon after his father died due to a stroke. Do you have any explanation about this?

@samvaknin

5 ай бұрын

Search the From Child to Narcissist playlist.

Could the impaired Executive function in ADHD be connected to these fathers? I can't do things without strong tangible stimulation to the task, independently; but if I have an external source of pressure of stim (deadline or reward) I can keep doing tasks. I can't trigger myself to the gym, but if my friend needs a ride to the gym I'm down to work out. I can I regulate/ stim myself?

@samvaknin

3 ай бұрын

Search the comorbidities playlist.

@Ottobawt

3 ай бұрын

@@samvaknin Thank you Professor. 🙏

14 mintues in you’ve described my husband who is the dead father and his son who is almost 10 years old is a narcissism. I plan on leaving their enmeshed toxic unhealthy relationship. All he does is enable and baby his son, don’t hold consequences all while his son has daily tantrums and arguments trying to control his father. He has some kind of separation anxiety or insecurity with his father. They are more of husband and wife than me and him. He’s put his son in between us so much we’ve never had any privacy as husband and wife. I’ve come to the conclusion that his father is grooming him and he is teaching him his toxic negative family traits. The boys mother is also a dead mother she emotionally and mentally disattached since the day her son was born. The step son of mine loves control so much and was never taught anything or enrolled in school only a spoiled child from a grand mother figure, no discipline or structure. He likes to target and control very small children much younger than him he takes his anger out on them it makes him feel more powerful to control them because kids his own age are not allowing it. I think he’s going to grow up raping or molesting my husband. I’m taking me and my daughter out of it.

@elnoor3392

4 ай бұрын

Wow I just finished the last entire video the ending adds extra validation. In my case with my husband and step son yes they are doomed which is why I’m walking away

@elnoor3392

4 ай бұрын

Wow I just finished the last entire video the ending adds extra validation. In my case with my husband and step son yes they are doomed which is why I’m walking away

How do i leave my nice-guy narc who acts like a good dad in front of others? Im so hollowed out but seeing my kids unhappy when i leave will break my heart. My own dad was a weekend dad but very much absent and i used to dream about hugging him because he hated all physical contact. So now, how do i tell my brain its ok to leave him??