we all need other people to meet our emotional needs for comfort and closeness. That’s what relationships are all about. - Lindsay C. Gibson

When you're using terms like 'narcissistic' or 'self-absorbed', they tend to paint the personality with a broad brush," Gibson says, adding that sometimes "the parent does have good qualities, the parent is sometimes [emotionally] available, but the problem is that those times happen on the parent's schedule, depending upon how secure or good that parent is feeling about themselves.

Many children of such parents learn to subjugate themselves to other people’s wishes (Young and Klosko 1993). Because they grew up anticipating their parent’s stormy emotional weather, they can be overly attentive to other people’s feelings and moods, often to their own detriment.

Children stay in alignment with their true self if the important adults in their lives support doing so. However, when they’re criticized or shamed, they learn to feel embarrassed by their true desires. By pretending to be what their parents want, children think they’ve found the way to win their parents’ love. They silence their true selves and instead follow the guidance of their role-selves and fantasies. In the process, they lose touch with both their inner and outer reality.