My Father Is a Narcissist

His emotional abuse had a huge toll on my sex life

I didn’t know about narcissistic personality disorder when I lived with my father. But I did know that something wasn’t right.

My home was supposed to make me feel safe and secure. But instead of a haven, it was a constant emotional battleground.

And the parents who were supposed to give me love and validation mostly spent their time gaslighting me and minimizing my feelings.

There was no physical abuse. I don’t have scars on my skin to mark the damage that had been done. But there was harm, and the effects have lingered so long I worry that they’re permanent.

Living Under a Narcissist’s Roof

I’ve heard my whole life that a parent’s love for their child is unconditional.

But then I would think of my relationship with my father and realize that this simply couldn’t be true.

My father’s love for me - if we can even call it that - was very much tied to some idealized version of who I could be. And whenever I’d fall short of it, he would express disapproval, disappointment, and withhold any warmth whatsoever.

And I always fell short.

What stung the most was his expectations about my appearance.

He wanted a daughter who was thin and svelte. I never was. I was plump from childhood and stayed that way. I assume that’s the way my body is meant to be. My natural weight isn’t rail thin.

If it is natural, it didn’t matter to him. Fat shaming was a daily reality. Eating “too much” (even if it was less than he and my little brother had on their plates) would be met with warnings and mockery. He commented on my weight like it was a casual topic of conversation, reminding me constantly that I was too big for his liking.

When it wasn’t my appearance, it was my accomplishments - or the lack thereof.

He insisted I could improve my grades if I worked harder. So, I tried. And I did. I proudly turned a B into a B+ and occasionally found my way to an A.

His reaction was always the same: “Well, it’s not an A+. You should try harder.”

After high school, I got into the college of my choice. It was an extremely exciting moment for me, especially since it was a smaller school with limited admissions and a reputation for academic rigor.

I was still giddy with excitement when I announced it to my parents.

My giddiness died as soon as I told him. I didn’t get a congratulation. I didn’t see him smile. Instead, he told me “Well, it’s not like it’s Harvard.”

When it came to me, his motto was always the same: “You can always do better.” Sports, school, looks - nothing mattered unless I had reached the pinnacle. No matter how far I climbed, I always somehow came up short.

I’ve tried putting a positive spin on it. I tried making sense of his behavior by telling myself that his methods may be harsh but his heart is in the right place. I told myself that he just wanted me to succeed, to achieve more than he had, to be the best person I can be, and that he did that by constantly reminding me that I could reach greater heights.

I would love to believe that, but unfortunately, his treatment of me simply doesn’t bear that out.

Instead of building me up, he always made sure to tear me down. He took every sign of confidence as his opportunity to pounce on me.

If I said anything that even remotely implied that I had some kind of worth or ability, he would normally smirk, point out some shortcoming of mine, and belittle me for daring to think I could accomplish anything.

When I told him I was aiming to become a clinical psychologist, he groaned and shook his head. “Oh honey,” he said, condescendingly, “That’s like a kind of doctor. You have to be smart to do that.”

So, yeah, pardon me for not thinking his chronic disappointment in me wasn’t all a tactic to help me get into Harvard.

Diagnosing From the Armchair

As a child and a teenager, I couldn’t understand my father’s behavior. He seemed like a walking mess of contradictions.

On the one hand, he was disappointed that I never lived up to his expectations. He insisted that I could work on my looks, work on my smarts, work on my skills so that I can become the kind of daughter he could show off or brag about instead of one he seemed to regret having.

And yet if I ever took steps to improving anything about myself, he would constantly tell me that it was futile.

He was also volatile and unpredictable. I had to walk on eggshells because he was prone to aggressive mood swings, and what might make him happy one day could royally piss him off the next.

I only managed to make sense of it all after I stopped living under his roof and got some distance from him.

I always knew there was something wrong about my household, but living away from it gave me a lot more perspective. My father’s behavior wasn’t just difficult. Our relationship didn’t just have the kinds of strife every father-daughter relationship does. No, what he did to me was abnormal and emotionally abusive.

Once I realized that, I sought answers. And I found them when I discovered narcissistic personality disorder, or NPD.

I never did become a clinical psychologist, so I can only offer an armchair diagnosis. But still, I’m confident it’s the right one because it’s the only thing that explains my father’s baffling conduct.

Narcissistic personality disorder, in a nutshell, involves having an insatiable need for admiration, validation, and attention from others, coupled with deep levels of insecurity. And it all comes packaged with a lack of empathy or concern for others.

And this is the thing I never fully understood about my father. He didn’t belittle me and treat me the way he did as an expression of tough love. He did it because he felt that I was reflecting poorly on him.

He couldn’t love me because I didn’t do enough to make him feel admired by others. I didn’t bring him the attention he’d get from having a glamor model for a daughter - or barring that, at minimum a professional athlete or highly regarded neuroscientist.

And, on the other hand, he constantly had to minimize and belittle me as a way of aggrandizing himself. My father is constantly comparing himself to others, so he needed someone he could always feel superior to. And - just my dumb luck - that happened to be his own daughter.

It was also handy for him to have a scapegoat. Whenever he came close to feeling like a failure or felt bitter about the way his life turned out, he could conveniently foist all the blame on me. If only I’d be smarter, prettier, and more talented, I wouldn’t be dragging him down and all his problems would be solved.

Loving and Fucking When You’re Damaged

There are a lot of things I struggle with because I was raised by a narcissist. But probably the biggest ones are love and sex.

Missing Out on Love

I’ve missed out on a lot of potential relationships. I might have ruined my chances more times than I realize. And I can’t fully enjoy the love and sex I do get. Mostly because I can’t believe others see anything good in me.

I don’t know if I’ve ever believed a compliment. Anyone who says something nice to me, especially about my appearance, immediately becomes suspect.

My default is assuming some ulterior motive. At best, they just don’t want to tell me the harsh truth. At worst, they’re manipulating me. But I have a very hard time believing that anyone could sincerely think, let alone say, anything nice about me.

If I get a compliment about my looks, my mind immediately thinks “Oh, they’re just trying to be nice to the ugly girl.”

I even have a hard time believing my husband really loves me or finds me attractive. At times, I’m convinced he feels stuck and is making the best of a bad situation by playing along. Other times, I think he’s just delusional - that he’s decided to overlook all my obvious, glaring flaws and tricked himself into not seeing them.

Where others can just enjoy being complimented and loved by their spouse, I can’t experience it without a tinge of suspicion and incredulity.

I’m also into the idea of opening up my marriage a bit, especially after my kids are a bit older. But instead of feeling excited about it, I just worry that it will never happen. Being this insecure doesn’t make me a great date, so I feel like every attempt to move things forward with someone else would end up dead in the water.

Missing Out on Sex

I’m also not having the kind of sex I want.

I’m not talking about the stuff I can’t physically do, or that would wear my husband out way too much. I don’t mean wild, swinging from the chandeliers sexual exploits.

I just mean that there are things I want to do and would be a lot of fun, but there’s one thing and one thing only that holds me back: feeling ugly.

It doesn’t take a lot of complicated theorizing to figure out how to draw the line from my father reminding me daily that I was too fat and not pretty enough to my present day belief that no one could ever possibly find me attractive.

I’m getting better about sexual positions. I used to limit my roster to those that didn’t make me feel self-conscious about my body. It didn’t matter how pleasurable or exciting the position was, there’s no way I would do it if I felt it put too much emphasis or attention on the parts of my body I deem “problem areas.”

I’ve been married almost ten years and I still can’t have sex with the lights on. Even worse, I often keep a shirt on even in the dark. I’ll pop my tits out my tank top but I won’t remove it because exposing my stomach, even with the lights off, feels to risky.

And I really wish I could take naughty photos and share them online. I love seeing those bold, fantastic people who flaunt their ordinary, beautiful bodies on Reddit and I really wish I could contribute, too. But as much as I appreciate the people who share their nudes, I can’t get over the thought that no one would want to see mine.

And yes, I know no one is going to cry me a river because I can’t share my nudes with strangers. But it’s still something I think would be a lot of fun, something I would love to do, and I can’t because I haven’t figure out a way to love my body enough to do it.

Missing All the Red Flags

A while back, I was trying to sort through my father’s feelings for me. At one point, I thought “Well, he must have loved me when I was a small child, right?”

I immediately felt a wave of shame wash over me. I felt embarrassed that I could have been so cocky to have that thought.

Yes, I see so little value in myself that I felt arrogant for thinking that my six year old self deserved love. Love from her father, no less.

That would be bad enough, but it also meant that I dated, fucked, and otherwise put up with guys that I should have avoided entirely.

Looking back, there weren’t just red flags, there were usually dozens of them. But I missed them all. Growing up in a household where love was scarce and my emotions were basically a chew toy didn’t equip me to see trouble even when I was staring right at it.

And even when I did see it, it often took me a long time to get out of it. It was hard for me to extricate myself from abusive people because part of me figured it’s what I deserved. I mean, if my own father couldn’t love me, how the heck was I supposed to demand respect from guys who only knew me for a few weeks?

Inching My Way Out of My Father’s Shadow

I’ve gone no-contact with my father. There’s simply no way to have a healthy relationship with him, and cutting him out of my life is the only way for me to have a healthy relationship with myself.

But still, it’s difficult. The damage caused by his emotional abuse can’t be shrugged off and doesn’t disappear just because he has.

He may live across the province, but I still live under his shadow.

But there are some positives I try to focus on.

I credit it in part with finding Mr. Austin. He was the first guy I dated who truly seemed to want to get to know me. Like, really know me - he didn’t just want to hang out or fuck, he was curious about every little preference, opinion, and experience I had.

He gave me the kind of validation and deep attention I didn’t know I needed, and certainly didn’t feel worthy of.

So I latched on to him. Hard. A little too hard, maybe - I moved in with him very soon after we met. But it all worked out. Somehow, he found my desperate clinging endearing and we’ve carved out a nice little life together.

Learning about NPD and analyzing my father’s treatment of me also gave me the ability to spot red flags from a mile away. While I spent my teen years stomping right into some pretty sketchy situations, I now have a finely tuned radar for toxic people and emotional vampires.

I can usually clock them long before others can, while they’re still charmed by them or making excuses for their behavior.

It’s been a huge time saver and I’ve quickly cut myself out of a few relationships that would have done nothing but drain me dry.

Despite those advantages, I’ve still got a lot of emotional scars. So, I’m on a journey to self-love.

I try to see good qualities in myself.

I do my best not to cringe when someone gives me a compliment. I’m even learning to appreciate some of them.

I’ve been looking at the bodies of other regular people in the hopes that I can start to accept my own regular-looking body.

I’m trying to act a little more confident, make a few bold moves, in the hopes that if I fake it enough, I’ll start to really feel it.

I try to cut out the cycle of negative self-talk before it spirals down into some dark places.

I’m making some progress, but it’s slow and it will take me a while. It’s not hopeless anymore, though. I believe I can heal, at least partially.

I still struggle. I still feel my father’s shadow over my life. But for the first time, things are looking up.