The Link Between Our Urge for Relevance and Not Feeling Real
It's not just survivors of narcissistic parents who experience this
According to Jay Reid, the author of “Growing Up As The Scapegoat To Narcissistic Parents,” many people raised as the scapegoat child of a narcissistic parent struggle to feel that they themselves are real. They experience a disconnect from the world around them—a deep friction of not belonging.
I understand these feelings and think many Abnormally Normal readers also do. Being the scapegoat child of a narcissistic parent isn’t the only path to questioning our place in the world.
We seek relevance to prove to ourselves that we are real.
It’s not glory or boosted egos that we desire; we just want to be recognised as valid. We want to be seen as a person in our own right, not a mere extension of a parent. Our quest for relevance is a means to disprove our ingrained internal belief system, which continually whispers of our irrelevance and fuels our displacement in this world.
I sought recognition in the wrong places
Children raised in healthy households are p…