How Being The Daughter of a Narcissistic Father Affected My Sex Life

First of all, I am not a sex addict; to the contrary actually. I used sex to find something that I was desperately missing during my childhood: connection to a human being.

My dad is a narcissist. He could not control his emotions and used his anger on me and my brothers. Psychically and mentally. It was not until the age of 12 that I discovered that it is not normal to be hit by your parent.

His whole being would change when he became aggressive towards us.

I knew when his eyes turned icy blue that I had to hide. I could never run far though, because he always knew where to find me. He denied my reality and forced me to apologize for my ‘bad’ behaviour. And if I didn’t, I could expect to be (physically) punished for it.

He always blamed every bad event in his life on his family, and never ever apologised. And maybe the worst was that the day after he wouldn’t even remember what had happened. It made me question if I had made it all up. More over because my mum mostly chose his side as well and always said “he also has his good sides” and “it’s not that bad”.

It made me lose trust in myself and other humans, because my whole childhood was a blur of gaslighting and manipulation. My dad was withholding his love if I didn’t act a certain way, so I learned to always try to please him.

I don’t actually have many memories from that period.

I developed the ability to leave my body during my dad’s narcissistic rages, also known as dissociation. I was known in our family to be the stoic one: I never showed any of my emotions.

Craving human connection

But the more I lost the connection to myself, the more I was craving to find it elsewhere. I realised a lot of men were interested in my body; it gave me the feeling I could at least do one thing right. It gave me a high when they told me that I was good in bed.

I started to have only one goal in the weekends: to seduce somebody and sleep with them. My whole self-esteem was based on the fact if I could ‘score’ at night. After the sex I wasn’t interested anymore. I would often go home right after because I wanted to wake up alone.

My girlfriends always loved hearing my stories; I was definitely the one with the craziest experiences in our group. I slept with so many men during my 20’s that I don’t even remember them anymore. It felt good to be desired and then have the ‘power’ to walk away. I often had multiple fuck buddies at once, and many times two or three different guys were in my bed between the evenings and the mornings.

Paying the price

Having so much empty sex took its toll as well though. The ‘connection’ I was getting, was all based on my body and not on who I really was. I didn’t love myself, so how could a man love me? I was always there for their sexual pleasure, but nobody really wanted to get to know the real me.

All my friends around me started to get into relationships. My sex partners would tell me as well at some point they met somebody and they were not gonna sleep with me anymore.

I felt emptier and emptier after each sexual escapade. I went on a quest to sleep with even more men, to hopefully find that special one that could be interested in me as a human as well.

But the more I was looking, the further I got from finding it. I built a wall around me and developed the same narcissistic traits as my dad had. If men didn’t love me anyway, why wouldn’t I just get what I needed from them?

Female narcissist

I was so used to hiding my emotions that at some point I really couldn’t feel them anymore. I lived my life looking for experiences that gave me adrenaline; the one emotion I could still feel. The more dangerous an activity, the better. It even made me feel good that my mum or my friends were worried about me, and honestly I wasn’t scared to die.

I didn’t feel empathy for others either. I always found my female friends to be too sensitive and didn’t get why they were acting like pussies about everything. I made friends with boys, because they invited me to the cool things. And I rewarded them with sex afterwards.

I traveled the world alone as a woman and realized many people started to look up to me.

According to outsiders, I had so many guts to do all that alone!

Guys started to get intrigued with me and my lifestyle and I realised I could use them for what I wanted. They were becoming a narcissistic supply to me. It made me feel good to see how much in love they could fall. From never being wanted, I made it my mission to be the one they could never get.

The turn-around

I figured out that it made me feel superior if I could get guys to fall in love with me. So I pretended to be the perfect woman. I was adventurous, caring, sexy, fun to be around, did all the crazy things they did and took them to travel the world with me. All the ingredients to be put on a pedestal by them.

I shook their world. I was a woman unlike they ever met before. It felt so good that all these men suddenly wanted to be around me. I finally felt loved and desired. But these men could never give me what I was really looking for...

The human connection.

They loved me, sure. But I could do almost anything to them and they still wouldn’t leave me. It sometimes even became a game for me to see how far I could go before they would finally break up. And if they didn’t, I got so annoyed and frustrated with their adoration for me, that I brutally dumped them at some point.

Deep insecurity

I was very insecure about myself at that time, even though it didn’t look like it from the outside. I couldn’t keep long-term friendships and many girls acted envious around me. They could see the way their boyfriends looked at me, and they didn’t want to invite me to their events anymore.

My life shaped itself around traveling to many countries and meeting new people all the time. When they figured out that I couldn’t really connect, it was time for me to leave again.

Sex started to become frustrating as well. I was so sick of men always looking at me with hungry eyes. So I changed my behaviour completely. If I couldn’t get that real connection, I was not going to share my body anymore either. At some point people even thought I was lesbian, because I repelled men so much.

Don’t touch me

I got overly protected of myself. Even with boyfriends, I just couldn’t enjoy sex anymore. It became such a burden and it took all my willpower to get intimate. I completely lost my whole libido. I didn’t want anybody to touch me anymore.

I even thought I had just passed my sexual peak (I was not even 30 at the time!) and something I had to deal with. Sex became something my boyfriends had to ‘deserve’ and that was the only way to still get me to do it.

Spiritual awakening

I lost count of how many men I slept with after 100 partners, but it was quite an exceptional amount. My girlfriends all had about 10–15 bed partners, and I didn’t even know the names of mine anymore!

I realised something must be wrong with me. I was not a sex addict, and now sex was even something I couldn’t enjoy anymore.

Then I got into a spiritual awakening. A lot of things happened in my life during that time. I felt empathy for the first time while taking magic mushrooms.

I found a partner with whom I had tantric sex with for the first time. I learned how to embrace my femininity during ecstatic dances. I met people that really wanted to get to know me. I discovered that I was a covert narcissist. I broke up with the man I loved the most in my life.

Connection in myself

I got in such a profound learning experience that I went into a Dark Night of The Soul. I finally discovered that I was not going to connect with anybody else before truly connecting to myself.

I got to the root of my toxic sexual behaviour: my dad’s narcissism. I finally understood why I lived my life the way I did. I got to know my inner child, and cried more than I cried in my entire life. I felt angry, blamed my mum for not protecting me, felt disgusted by all the men that had entered my body.

I fell into a deep dark hole of never feeling good enough. Never feeling like I was worthy of love. I fell so deep that the only way out was up at some point.

Forgiveness

After all the tears and anger and disgust I felt during that period, a sense of gratitude appeared. I started to forgive myself for my behaviour, for using men the way I had used them. I forgave myself for using my body as a vessel to find connection.

And finally, I forgave my dad. I forgave him for always blaming me. I forgave him for wanting me to be perfect. I forgave him for telling me I looked like a whore when I was trying to be sexy. I forgave him for never accepting any of my boyfriends. I forgave him for always criticizing me.

And ultimately, I forgave him for being a narcissist. Because the truth is, narcissists are the way they are because of their own childhood trauma. It is not a conscious decision to be narcissistic. It’s a shield to protect yourself from even more pain.

Sex is now something that I only share with people who deserve it.

Sex is to enjoy with people who see the sacredness and specialness of physical intimacy as much as I do. My body is a temple and my best ally. Not something to be used and abused by whoever feels the need to put their dick in me.