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Omar Bazza

1 Nov, 11 tweets, 2 min read

[THREAD] I want to revisit a topic because I have been seeing a lot lately. Narcissism in parents. It has a very deep impact on children and their growth. It can shatter self-esteem and make people feel used and manipulated. However, there comes a point where child realizes it.

Narcissism in parents can manifest in many ways. Some of the most common ones are: have a grandiose sense of self, needing constant admiration and no criticism, take advantage of others, etc...Outwardly, they may appear confident, arrogant.

But for people who live with them, they know there is a very fragile ego underneath it. Whenever people with narcissism are challenged, they get impatient, angry, lash out and turn abusive when it is challenged. They are not receptive to any type of criticism.

Children of a narcissistic parent tend to first want to please the parent, do anything to gain their approval because the love is very conditional on the terms set by the parent. However, after a while, they realize that they can never fully gain that approval.

The parent will always find something to criticize, to demean. There isn’t a point where the parent would feel 100% satisfied with their kid, which means they often withdraw their love or become abusive, specifically when they are challenged.

As adults, the children may still want to please their parent(s), may still feel guilty to resist them even if the demands are too much, like that parent choosing their partner, choosing their career, where they live, etc...In fact, the narcissistic parent relies on that guilt.

However, there comes a point where we need to set those boundaries. No matter what! The parent may lash out, get impatient, angry, but that reinforcement that the child gives the parent would need to stop. This helps show the parent that their behaviour won’t be reinforced.

The initial is extremely hard. The parent will literally try every tactic to get that power back. They fed on it and it provided their ego boost. To have it suddenly gone is something they cannot imagine. Therefore, the removal of those reinforcements becomes critical.

This is specifically true if the child starts living away from home or abroad. They can start to dictate when they want to engage with the parent and cut off the conversation when it turns too abusive. It can be hard to completely cut off a parent.

But creating these boundaries and starting to live life on your own terms can help a lot with staying in touch with the parent without letting them cross those boundaries. Given the deep psychological torment that children of narcissistic parents went through,

it is crucial to go to therapy to solve it and get better. There can be a lot to untangle, but please know that there are solutions and you can unlearn so many of those behaviours you grew up with and live a very happy life.

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More from @bazzapower

Omar Bazza

@bazzapower

29 Oct

[THREAD] In the last thread, we discussed what depression makes us do. Let's do the same for anxiety. It is important to recognize the signs and start with a few coping mechanisms. Anxiety, generally speaking, is simply the fight-or-flight response that activates too often.

Our fight-or-flight response allowed us to survive, to escape or fight in dangerous situations. However, there are times when this system activates because of small issues or non existent danger. When it does so too often, that is when anxiety is diagnosed.

Anxiety has physical and psychological symptoms. In the physical symptoms, the most common ones are fast heart rate, shortness of breath, sweating, tensing of muscles, tunnelling of vision and even as far as derealization and depersonalization in extreme situations.

Read 9 tweets

Omar Bazza

@bazzapower

27 Oct

[THREAD] Let's talk about what depression makes us do. Given that it is the leading cause of psychological disability around the world, depression can make some changes within us and it is important to recognize them and seek help when you notice some of these changes.

One of the first changes is withdrawal. We tend to stay away from social situations or connecting with friends even if it used to make us happy before. We also feel a lack of self-esteem, sometimes going all the way to self-hatred. We are quick to pin down all the problems on us,

even those that we have no control over. We also start to feel disorganized. We can't gather the energy to do much so we start to become disorganized whether it is our house, or missing appointments and deadlines because we didn't write them down or have time to focus on them.

Read 8 tweets

Omar Bazza

@bazzapower

25 Oct

[THREAD] I want to take a moment to share a small exercise that can be very helpful and is super easy to do. This is especially helpful for those of us who have had anxiety or depression for a long time. This is because we tend to internalize that depression and anxiety so much.

We start to believe more and more the thoughts that come with them. That's problematic because they are external and don't reflect who we truly are or really believe in. But overtime, they kind of wear us down. Therefore, we need to get used to keep a list.

On one side of the list, we can put thoughts that we believe are truly ours. On the other side, we put those thoughts that we believe come from our depression and anxiety. How do we separate the two? It will mainly come with evidence.

Read 7 tweets

Omar Bazza

@bazzapower

23 Oct

[THREAD] I want to touch on gender differences in mental health. It is a very tricky topic in the sense that there are a lot of environmental issues at play that can skew the numbers a lot. When you look up mental illnesses, they tend to put the percentage of men and women.

There are a few problems with that. First of all, it doesn’t take into account non-binary and transgender individuals. This is problematic because it really doesn’t help with the validity of these numbers. Also, it doesn’t take into account so many factors.

For example, we will notice that women are more likely to have depression and anxiety. However, women also live in a patriarchal society where constant inequality, oppression, and fear for safety will make anyone feel more anxious and depressed.

Read 8 tweets

Omar Bazza

@bazzapower

22 Oct

[THREAD] let’s talk about how hormonal imbalances can cause mental health symptoms and how to deal with them. The connection between the two is well known and there are many conditions that would affect it such as PCOS.

In those cases, the symptoms would be higher during those periods of hormonal imbalances. The most common mental health issues related to those would be depression and anxiety. We often underestimate the role of hormones in mental health, but they are very important.

They carry messages from our brain to our bodies, activate or deactivate many bodily functions and regular our moods and behaviours. Many studies that PCOS in particular is strongly linked with increased depression and anxiety. The mental health symptoms can also be severe.

Read 10 tweets

Omar Bazza

@bazzapower

21 Oct

[THREAD] I want to talk about agoraphobia a bit. It is a process that happens when we have too many panic attacks or anxiety outside and therefore slowly withdraw more and more in our house. The idea of going outside or in open spaces scares us (almost opposite of claustrophobia)

The reason why this happens is because when we have anxiety attacks, they are more likely to happen outside where there are so many stressors that can trigger those attacks. Therefore, our mind starts to associate the outside world as a dangerous place.

After a while the idea of going outside in itself becomes enough to trigger that panic attack. It is something that can really impact our work, social life an general well-being. The longer it goes on, the more likely it is to become a habit and the harder it is to go outside.

Read 8 tweets

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