If Your Narcissistic Parent Triggers You, Read This

A triggering moment with your parent can steal hours, days, sometimes even weeks from you.

So I’d like to share a process you can use to manage your triggers for the rest of your life.

Step 1: Understand What a Trigger Actually Is

The first step is understanding what a trigger actually is.

We define it as a cue that causes a strong reaction — like a word, date, smell, or place — because it’s linked to past experiences with your narcissistic parent or family system.

This strong reaction could be:

• Emotional — like shame, anger, or anxiety
• Physical — a tight chest, racing heart, or clenched jaw
• Thought-based — like rumination or negative self-talk
• Behavioral — like nail biting, shutting down, or people-pleasing

This understanding is important because the second step is identifying your triggers.

Step 2: Identify Your Triggers

In our opinion, there are two ways you can go about this.

Number 1. If you see your parent regularly, spend some time after each interaction journaling about what came up for you — emotionally, physically, in your thoughts, and in your behavior.

For example, when I first did this, I noticed that I’d feel on edge, get a really bad stomach ache, ruminate, or sometimes even pick fights with my husband when I got home.

Number 2. If you don’t see your parent often, make sure you’re in a good headspace and somewhere that feels safe, then try writing about all the triggering moments you can think of.

This could be them “forgetting” or ruining your birthday, a comment from a relative that clearly came from them, or even just seeing their name pop up on your phone.

It honestly doesn’t matter which approach you go with here, they both can work well.

But keep in mind the goal is to create an honest, personal record of what happened and how you reacted emotionally, physically, in your thoughts, or in your behavior.

So choose the one that feels most doable, and go with that.

Step 3: Create a List of All Your Triggers

The third step is to create a list of all your triggers.

Read what you wrote in the previous step and list the cues that caused a strong reaction.

They could be something like a word, tone, look, date, smell, or place — anything that seemed to set off a strong emotional, physical, thought-based, or behavioral response.

I asked our community to share some of their most common triggers, just so you could get a sense of what yours might look like, and they told me things like:

• The smell of egg salad because I was forced to eat it as a kid.
• Sarcasm because growing up it was used to shut me down or make me feel stupid.
• The “I can’t say anything” whenever she’s called out on her manipulation.
• Christmas and Easter because everyone’s with family and I’m alone.
• Movies or shows with happy families because it hurts to see what I never had.
• Being left out, ignored, or blamed for something I didn’t do.

So, there’s no right or wrong here.

Triggers can look very different from person to person.

But if you’re ever wondering what counts as a trigger, try asking:

“Does this potential trigger make me feel better or worse?”

If the answer is “worse,” it’s worth paying closer attention to.

Step 4: Come up With a Response Plan

The fourth step is coming up with a response plan.

This means deciding how you want to respond the next time you’re feeling triggered.

I’ve found it most helpful to have both a short-term and a long-term response.

A short-term response is a grounding technique you can use in the moment to stop yourself from spiraling, like:

• Chewing a piece of gum
• Running your hands under cold water
• Taking a deep breath
• Or Counting back from 100 by fives

A long-term response is more about: okay you’ve stopped the spiral… now what?

How can you decrease the likelihood of this trigger happening again?

In our opinion, there are three things you can do:

1. Set boundaries
2. Learn how to talk to a narcissistic parent
3. Decide how much contact you want to have with your parent

 I’ve created videos that teach you how to do each one of these, and they’ll be on this page when the articles come out:

10 Strategies for Dealing with a Narcissistic Parent

Final Thoughts

Thank you for reading today’s episode the Unfilteredd: Narcissistic Families podcast.

If this was helpful and you’d like to read the next one, please subscribe to our newsletter — we’ll let you know as soon as the next episode is released.

My name is Juliana Akin — your guide to overcoming the effects of narcissistic abuse — and I can’t wait to connect with you in a future episode.

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