When Narcissistic Parents Die: What to Expect (And Not to Expect) and How to Care for Yourself
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Trigger warning: this article contains descriptions of child abuse and neglect.
I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California and a certified Narcissistic Abuse Treatment Clinician. Over the course of the last year, both of my narcissistic parents died within months of each other.
Here is what to expect, what not to expect, and how to care for yourself when narcissistic parents die.
1. Expect the social pressure to engage in “acceptable mourning.”
Well-meaning community members acknowledged the death of my mother by speaking of the death of their own mothers and offering condolences. This felt awkward and invalidating, but I was afraid to share my true feelings out of fear that I would be seen as ungrateful.
My mother’s death was a liberation; it was not a sad occasion. This is a woman who regularly opened my mail to invade my privacy when I lived with her and claimed it was an accident. This is a woman who delighted in my pain at the death of my grandmother when she told me about it alone in the car when I was 15. This is a woman who tried to convince me to stop medication as a depressed young adult leaving an abusive relationship.
Ultimately, my mother was a woman who lied about who she was in order to secure the resources of my father, which she did by getting pregnant with me. (My father tearfully revealed this to me when I was seven years old. At the time, I was not sure what to do with the information. Now I know that this was love bombing.)
It was not until my thirties that I learned about narcissistic parenting and the negative effects it has on children. Slowly, I started to free myself from a family that showed no actions towards changing. I knew I had to take control of my healing with the help of a good therapist and others who had similar experiences. I had the resources to cut all personal contact with my family, which I know not every survivor has the capacity to do.
What the outside world expected me to feel was loss and sadness. What I experienced was relief that one of my lifelong tormentors was dead.
I do not regret not being at an abuser’s deathbed. I am proud of myself for holding the line and shredding all communications that were not pieces of legal paperwork. I am proud that I prioritized my mental and physical health over misguided social expectations to “make amends” when I was an innocent child born into a war she didn’t know was a war.
The world pressures me to feel regret, shame, and sadness due to the social norm of honoring one’s parents— even if they are abusers and exploiters.
If you bring a child into the world for selfish purposes, do not expect that child to be at your funeral.
How to Care for Yourself:
Validate your feelings. The death of a narcissistic parent is not the death of a “normal” parent who advocated for your best interests. How would you speak to a best friend if they spoke about the death of their abuser? You probably wouldn’t shame them for feeling relief. Children of narcissists are brainwashed to be their own worst enemies, which includes pathologizing, invalidating, and denying our feelings.
Know that well-meaning people might not be able to help you. Condolences may be the last thing you need right now–and that’s okay. Take them for whatever they mean to you (or whatever they do not mean to you.) Kind people can be misguided and ignorant. It’s OK if you don’t need the kindness of people who can’t help you.
Remember that the idea that “mothers can do no wrong” hurts victims of abusive mothers, and is not a belief based in reality. Child Protective Services exists for a reason. If you feel any shame feeling relief at the death of your abuser, know that this shame comes from social conditioning to think and say otherwise.
2. Do not expect people in your family of origin to fully understand—or acknowledge—what happened to you.
The only way family members will be able to fully emotionally support you is under these three circumstances:
- They do not deny you have been abused.
- They do not deny the negative effects of the abuse.
- They support any boundaries that you have stated to preserve your health.
If this is not the case, you need to do the following:
- Determine whose support is essential to your daily functioning.
If you need to engage with people who defend the narcissist in order to survive, do what you need to do in order to get by. Seek the support of a therapist who is an expert in narcissistic abuse (one with an NATC certification)to help you remember you are worthy of self-care.
If you are in a more privileged position, you have the option to think about whether or not you need to engage with this person.
- Assess who can partially support you.
Are there people in your family who are sad about what happened to you, but still pressure you to honor abusive parents? If this is the case, figure out how you can navigate this situation when they say or do something upsetting. Do you walk to the other side of the funeral home during the viewing? Do you tell them you need to take a phone call? It’s important to proceed with strategies to preserve your time, energy, and health with anybody who can partially support you.
- Figure out what you most value and do a F.O.G. (Fear, Obligation, and Guilt) check.
For family who can provide partial support, make sure that engaging with them is grounded in your deepest values and be prepared with strategies for self-care.
If you attend the funeral (or any events around the funeral), it is important that you attend grounded in your deepest values, not fear, obligation, or guilt (which are tools of narcissistic parent control). It’s a good idea to go to a funeral to support other family members if one of your deepest values is family. However, if your value is health and you know that going would compromise your mental or physical health in any way, it’s better not to go.
How To Care for Yourself:
Take at least 15 minutes to assess your family of origin by answering the following questions:
- Who knows what happened to you?
- Who is aware of the negative effects of the abuse?
- Who supports your self-care and your unique boundaries?
- Who pressures you into not telling the truth about your abuser(s)?
- Who do you need to have contact with for essential needs?
It is important to take an inventory of who supports your mental and physical health—and who does not. It is typical for members of a narcissistic family system to pressure victims into forgiving a dead abuser; this is a spiritual principle, not a behavioral one.
It’s more effective to identify obstacles and prepare for them instead of hoping and wishing the behavior won’t happen. Do some strategizing with a therapist who understands narcissistic behavior.
Keep this exercise in a safe place where the enablers of your narcissistic parent cannot find it. Do the exercise in your therapist’s office or give it to a trusted friend. Don’t give the narcissist’s enablers more ammunition to gaslight or invalidate you.
3. Don’t expect people to tell the truth. Expect them to lie about who your parent was.
My father’s obituary states that “[h]e was a great father.” Perhaps he was to the three sons who followed in his footsteps, but as his only daughter, neurodivergent and free thinking, that was not the case.
They did not see what I saw because they are gendered male. (The only other explanation is that they saw my father’s behavior as normal because they also subscribe to ideas of toxic masculinity and female subjugation.)
A “great father” would not have repeatedly bullied his daughter about her weight since she was four years old. A “great father” would not have celebrated his daughter’s accomplishments in public and screamed at her behind closed doors for the same accomplishments. A “great father” would not have abandoned his young kids on a military base at night in a car for cigarettes. A “great father” would not have taken the side of his daughter’s sexual harasser. A “great father” would not have left their seven-year-old daughter to wander the streets because a child babysitter that they hired failed to look after them—and then yell at this child for being traumatized and dysregulated when she was finally able to come home.
Narcissistic abuse thrives on shaming, silencing, and discrediting the victim. It flourishes in circumstances when victims lack privilege, are socially and physically vulnerable, and when they are children who do not know how to advocate for themselves.
How to Care For Yourself:
- Remember that you have a right to use any safe, accessible, and legal coping skills to heal.
Not everyone has the privilege to cut contact with a narcissistic family system. Assess the resources that you have in order to heal. If you are in need of any essential resources, find out where those are in the area. Remember that you have been conditioned not to reach out for help if you are the child of a narcissist.
- Remember that pressure to conform to social norms can kill you—and resisting that pressure can save your life.
The pressure was on me to attend the funeral and the events around the funeral, “make amends” and “be nice.” The pressure was on me to be at his deathbed and stop being “so angry” at a man who never went to therapy for his own anger management problems. The pressure was on me to say he was “a great father” and go along with the typical narrative of erasing the past and turning the abuser into a saint because they’re now dead.
According to Stanford Medicine, “qualitative studies have found that Filipinos who reduce white rice intake are socially viewed as rejecting Filipino culture.” This is chilling and disturbing to me, considering that the risk of diabetes is high for Filipino Americans—and that it increases with the consumption of white rice and other processed carbs.
As a Filipino American, the pressure to engage with those who think your abusive parent was “great” is no different than the pressure to consume white rice. The message is the same. Sacrifice your health for other people’s comfort.
We are social creatures. This does not mean that every group is healthy for us. It is important to run the pros and cons of engaging with any social, cultural, or family group and assess what is ultimately sustainable for your mental and physical health.
This is why I ask my clients (particularly those of marginalized or multiply marginalized status), “What is more important than being liked?” This question is meant to help navigate the social pressure to put aside mental health, physical health, and values in order to fit in.
- Remember you are not alone.
The survivors of Jeffrey Epstein, particularly Virginia Giuffre, inspired me to write this article. Witnessing the ways they share their stories with grace and bravery when their pain has been denied and used as a political pawn motivates me to tell the truth about my parents. Their enablers will not have the last word.
Anyone who now believes that my father was a great father— and my mother was just “doing the best that she could”—are like the people who justify what Epstein did because he had privilege and power. My father was a man with status and money. My mother was a healthcare worker and a union steward. That did not make them any less abusive. That did not make them “great parents” by default.
I now know I am on the right side of history when family members and friends of my parents inevitably deny what happened and attack my credibility. As a certified Narcissistic Abuse Treatment Clinician, I now know that this is typical of what abusers and their enablers say. And I now know that clinicians and survivors defend me when I was previously alone and thinking everything was my fault.
Forgiveness is a spiritual principle that does not align with behavioral science. Being unforgiving—and staying unforgiving—is a powerful path to healing when abusers do not change.
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Disclaimer:This blog does not replace in-depth, individualized help from a health professional or provide any diagnosis or treatment. By reading, you understand this statement and commit to seeking psychotherapy or medication support if needed. You also understand that Mari Verano, LLC will not be able to intervene in a crisis or court situation. Please seek your own legal and/or crisis resources.
