Anxiety, Incomplete Data Sets, and Narcissism Recovery

If you have a parent with narcissistic traits, chances are good you worry. That’s not surprising, since you have a parent who is an emotional four-year-old. That means you grew up with a parent who consistently put their thoughts, feelings, wants, and needs ahead of yours.

Instead, you probably experienced plenty of parentification, which means you were responsible for figuring out things about the adult world, and then you were responsible for figuring out how to handle them.

The thought patterns that arise out of this kind of childhood tend to look like “What if…?” thinking. For example, if a classmate laughed at you when you got an answer wrong in class, your childhood knowledge of the world would make it easy for a single “What if…” thought to spiral. Children can easily go from “Someone laughed at me today when I got an answer wrong in class!” to “What if everyone at school always laughs at me every time they see me for the rest of the school year?”

This is important, because the foundation of generalized anxiety disorder is worrying about a variety of topics, most days, most of the day, and finding it difficult to control the worry. If your childhood was made up of “What if…?” thoughts you couldn’t answer, across a variety of situations, and you didn’t have a parent to help you, it’s easy to see how that can lead from childhood worry to adult anxiety.

While anxiety is more complicated than what we’ll explore today, there is an aspect of worry that can be boiled down to a single sentence. If you can put that sentence to work for you, identifying thoughts that generate worry and then addressing those thoughts becomes much easier. Given that life is challenging enough on its own, you don’t want or need to amplify your worry on top of it!

So, today we’ll take a look at anxiety, incomplete data sets, and narcissism recovery, and explore how you can put these together to worry less, and act powerfully instead.

What’s an incomplete data set?

Most people are familiar with anxiety, and you’re probably familiar with narcissism. But you may be wondering what incomplete data sets are, and what they have to do with anxiety and narcissism recovery.

Remember word problems back in elementary school? When I was a kid, word problem tests usually had one problem where there wasn’t enough information available to solve the problem. The point of the question was to see if you could identify the incomplete data set. I hated math, so these were my favorite. All I had to do was answer “incomplete data set,” and boom! Done. No math!

In adulthood, it can be challenging to sort out questions for which you have a complete data set from those you don’t. In part, that’s because we ask ourselves so many questions throughout the day: Should I get up now, or sleep in for another 30 minutes? Should I pack my lunch, or eat out? What should I make for dinner?

Those questions have one thing in common: You have the information you need to answer them, and answering them is in your circle of control. You know that if you get up early, you’re giving up getting more rest. If you sleep in, you’re giving up getting things done. If you pack your lunch, it might not be as enjoyable as buying lunch, but you’ll probably save money, and eat more healthfully. What food you have on hand (or your ability and willingness to go shopping) will dictate what you eat for dinner.

Incomplete data set questions are different. These are questions you can’t answer, because there’s some aspect of them that you don’t know yet, and this information isn’t in your circle of control. Examples include, What will traffic be like today? Will my toddler have a meltdown at drop-off? What is my ex with narcissistic traits going to text me about next?

You can’t answer these questions, because the answers to these questions lie in the realm of someone else’s circle of control. You can decide whether you check traffic before you leave, and which route you take, but ultimately, traffic will be dictated by the weather, road construction, and other drivers—all aspects outside your control.

Likewise, you may be able to influence the kind of morning your toddler experiences, which could affect drop-off. Your ex may be in your circle of influence, and how you text them might influence how they text you back. But ultimately, what your toddler will say and do, and what your ex will say and do, is in their circle of control.

You can make some educated guesses, based on what you know about traffic in your area, your toddler, and your ex and narcissistic behavior. But you can’t know what will happen in the future, so these questions represent incomplete data sets.

If you have a parent with narcissistic traits, chances are good that what you do with incomplete data sets is to immediately start worrying. Your worry might sound like this: What if my toddler has a meltdown at drop-off today? What if all the other parents and all the teachers think I’m a lousy parent? What if I’m late to work? What if I get fired? What if I can’t find another job, and I lose my apartment? What if I’m homeless, and I lose joint custody? What if I never see my child again?

In under a minute, it’s possible to go from a meltdown at drop-off, to never seeing your child again. A simple, reasonable question can become a full-blown panic attack. Even if you don’t have a panic attack, you might spend your morning getting ready and driving to drop-off feeling anxious, instead of enjoying your precious time with your child.

And if you worry all day, every day, that worry is hard on both your mind and your body. Worry leads to the release of a variety of brain and body chemicals, including adrenaline, cortisol, and thyroid hormones. And the worst of it is that worry, unlike problem-solving, rarely results in solutions that benefit you.

How do I recognize an incomplete data set?

You can see how learning to identify incomplete data sets can benefit you in both mind and body. You’ll worry less, so you won’t have to deal with the hormonal cascade that worry brings on. And you’ll be able to enjoy the positive aspects of your life in the present moment, instead of worrying about a future that hasn’t arrived.

So, how do you get started? Awareness is the first and most important step. Because many worry-based thoughts tend to be "What if...?" based, start noticing your thoughts. If you're engaging in what-if thinking, instead of ruminating or allowing your worry to spiral, write down your first what-if thought.

Once you've identified the thought, ask yourself if this worry is something that's in your circle of control or influence. If it is, you can make a decision and take action in some way. If that's the case, it's probably not an incomplete data set.

However, if the worry is about something that's outside your circle of control or influence, and you don't have all the information you need to address the worry, it's probably an incomplete data set.

So, what do I do with an incomplete data set?

Before you address an incomplete data set, you want to ensure you’re squarely in your circle of control. This is critical, for two reasons. First, you want to act on whatever is in your circle of control. And second, you want to steer clear of trying to control things that are outside your circle of control.

These statements seem obvious enough, but people with narcissistic parents often struggle with circle of control. They’ve spent their childhood being told they were responsible for things far outside their control, like their parent’s thoughts, feelings, and actions.

And the parentification that’s part of growing up with a narcissistic parent means you have spent your childhood trying to figure out how the adult world works, so you can parent yourself and manage the challenges of childhood. This often leads to feeling like you’re responsible for everything, even when that’s not the case.

Family roles often play a part in this, too. If you grew up as the scapegoat or the lost child, you might have been ignored or even punished when you were successful. If you were a golden or hero child, failure mean losing your narcissistic parent’s approval. Either way, that can make acting powerfully in your circle of control feel terrifying.

So, make sure you’re solid in your circle of control, and you’re holding yourself responsible only for your thoughts, your feelings, and your actions. Identify who and what you can influence. Everything and everyone else is in your circle of no control or influence!

What’s the sentence I need to help manage anxiety?

Once you’ve identified an incomplete data set and you’re in your circle of control, you’re ready to put a simple sentence to work for you. But before you read it, consider these two questions:

• How many difficult things have you handled in your childhood, adolescence, and adulthood?

• Can you think of a time when you asked someone for help (including indirectly, like reading a blog post), and you got the help you needed?

  
  

Once you’ve answered those questions, here’s the sentence you can use when you run across an incomplete data set:

Whatever happens, I’ll handle it, and if I can’t handle it, I’ll ask for help, and I’ll keep asking until I get the help I need.

Before you think to yourself that this sentence isn’t helpful, pause for a moment. Then think about how you answered the questions above. Chances are high you’ve handled many difficult things—in childhood and adolescence, even! And because you’re here on this website reading this blog, you’ve demonstrated, at least once, your ability to ask for help.

Is that all there is to managing incomplete data sets?

It sounds like I’m making this sound simple. All you have to do is look for incomplete data sets, do what you can in your circle of control, then remember that whatever happens, you’ll handle it, and if you need to, you’ll ask for help. Easy, right?

Well, not so much. If it were easy, you (and everyone else) would already be doing it. There’s a significant complication to managing incomplete data sets. And if you have a parent with narcissistic traits, chances are this complication applies to you.

If you experienced childhood trauma, those traumatic memories may make it difficult, if not impossible, to successfully manage incomplete data sets. The impact of parentification is a common source of childhood trauma that can negatively affect your response to incomplete data sets.

As mentioned, you may find it familiar and comfortable to see yourself as responsible for everything. That can make it challenging to stay in your circle of control. You may find it hard to believe you can ask for help, let alone ask for help until you get the help you need. After all, your parent didn’t help you when you needed it. Why would anyone else? And these thoughts and feelings can be subconscious, rather than conscious. That can make it especially challenging to change them.

Family roles can resurface here, too. The fear of being punished for being successful, or being abandoned if you fail, can also be subconscious, rather than conscious. When that’s the case, it can be hard to understand why there’s a part of you that finds it frightening to act from your circle of control. Changing this subconscious thinking can be even more difficult.

Because there’s more to anxiety than recognizing incomplete data sets, acting within your circle of control, and being a caring parent to yourself, you may need more support than a blog post can provide. If you have a parent with narcissistic traits, and you’re wrangling with anxiety, I encourage you to seek out a therapist who specializes in trauma, anxiety disorders, and narcissism recovery. Check out my blog post on how to find a therapist here, and look into the resources available in your community. Ask for a free consultation, meet with several potential therapists, and see if you feel a connection. You deserve to thrive!

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