For years, the children you raised in the house the narcissist lived in will keep their memories of what happened, and not in a good way.
They survived everything, too, just the same as you did. Only for them, everything they saw and had to deal with was hidden from you for years. They didn't want you to see their pain or confusion, but in all honesty, they lost a lot surviving the narcissist.
Today is about honoring them, and speaking about the chaos they simply could not avoid.
1Your kids saw it all
I know children are young and innocent, but they are anything but oblivious. They will pick up on any tension in the house the same way a wild dog will pick up a scent in the forest.
If you come home quiet, the first person to notice will be your child, who wonders why your mood is the way it is. What changed? Who upset you?
The same at dinnertime when you could cut the atmosphere with a knife, your children will be the one looking at you, waiting for you to say something that will make them feel at ease.
They can hear it when you're upset, and crying in the bathroom while you're running the shower. Don't think you're doing it quietly, because you're not.
This was a version of you that was hollowed out by the narcissist. You were made to walk on eggshells.
While you were second guessing every moment with the narcissist, your children were watching, wondering what will come next. As dysfunctional as that was, it was normal to your kids; this became all they knew.
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When something is normal, everything is built on top of it. A person's entire view of the world is built on what they see and experience daily, whether those things are right or wrong.
It's a lot to take on, and I think is a main reason why those parents feel an element of guilt years later, wishing they could've done more to protect their children at the time.
2The version of you the kids never got to meet
The saddest part of all, but please stick with me on this. There will have been a version of you that both you and your kids never got to meet. Before the relationship came along, you were a confident person, and since the narcissist got under your skin, they will have taken all of that from you.
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You used to laugh so easily and make decisions that you wouldn't be made to feel bad about, or decisions where you wouldn't even flinch.
Imagine that.
Imagine living the kind of life, permanently, where you could be you, and nobody would question or criticize you for it.
The children will have lost that safe and loving atmosphere that should've been so prevalent in their own home. Kids need that kind of predictability; they don't want to keep guessing where and when they're going to feel safe, or what mood their mother or father will be in each day that passes.
Instead, they'll have gotten the complete opposite. The household that flipped in a split second. If someone was in a certain mood, that would be all it takes.
The children's thoughts bounce to:
Why is everyone so quiet? Why are they mad? What did I do wrong? Is it my fault? How can I make it better?
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Genuine questions, I think you'll agree. In the dark when they're alone, these are things the children will all wonder, but never to you.
They won't want to stress you out any more than you already seem to be.
3Years of silence that proves they want to protect you
Your kids hold back on telling you anything because of how much they knew you were already carrying.
Imagine that for a moment. A child who should be taken care of holding back because if they speak up, they feel they will add more unhappiness and pain to their already suffering parent. That's got to hurt, right?
Because of this, they hold back. They don't blame you in any way; they just want to protect their parents, you, from further stress. You're already carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, so adding to the pile feels like something they just do not want to do.
Tucking it away might seem like the only way to cope for them. They act fine, even if they don't feel it. They want to be okay, so they gloss over it and become an easy, low-maintenance kid who just cruises along and you don't have to worry about them.
It's not uncommon for people who suffer from narcissistic abuse to want to shrink themselves to be smaller. It's a little more heartbreaking when you see a kid do it though, isn't it?
4You were surviving all that time, and so were your kids
Don't think of this as a long list of things you did wrong. There can be no wrong when it comes to trying to survive. It's not a small thing to try to get by, but of course, it feels much bigger than that when you're in it.
Remember though, your kids were surviving alongside you. It was their experience, too, and they'll have picked up patterns that will gently need a little unpacking the older they get.
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Conflict brings with it a state of anxiety that makes a person not be able to fully trust their feelings. They may over-explain, or keep apologizing. They become these hyper-independent people who are always on guard to maintain and guess other people's mood and behaviors.
That's a heartbreaking way to live, but it's a firm result of experiencing and living with narcissistic abuse.
Although your experiences will have been different, they will have all revolved around the same person. It's extremely difficult to see it at the time, but I know the pain of you both can come together, which will always happen.
5Eventually, you will have 'The Conversation'
The conversation will one day arrive at your doorstep, and you'll be so pleased that it did. The most important thing you can do is make sure you are their safe space, and open up those doors of communication as soon as they're ready to do it with you.
You don't need to sit down and work out a prepared speech to give them, because I feel like kids should lead in what they want to talk about or open up with.
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I know how things were. I'm here if you want to talk about any of it. You're safe to feel how you feel. There is no such thing as a wrong emotion.
Letting your kids come to you in their own time will mean you're empowering them with something that's shrunk them their whole lives.
It's what they needed all along, after all; someone who stayed and was able to help them manage their emotions, not mask them.
Finally, they get that, and so do you.
