Arlington, Texas writer Suzanne Groves’s new book, You’ll See, is a deeply personal, mind-opening journey through her experiences as a victim and survivor of an abusive father who had narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). 

According to psychological researchers, people who have NPD exhibit inflated opinions of their own importance. They always want to be the center of attention; they show little empathy for other people, including their own spouse and children; and they often have low self-esteem hidden within their toxic personality mix. Groves wrote her book hoping, she states, “to validate and inspire others” who have experienced the lasting damage NPD abuse can cause.  

Released April, 2024, the well-written work takes the reader inside Groves's “lifetime of enduring psychological abuse and trauma at the hands of my father, whom I would ultimately discover to be both a narcissist and an addict.” She continues, “Some readers may find this memoir challenging because it includes stories about emotional abuse, eating disorders, alcohol abuse, and abandonment. Please engage in self-care as you read this book.” 

Groves describes both major and minor events in her life where her father’s responses cut deeply into her feelings of accomplishment and self-worth. To outsiders, Groves writes, her family life "looked normal, if not privileged." She notes: "I never lacked for food, clothing, or shelter. We took family vacations. I received a wonderful education.” 

But there were many moments when she wanted, needed, and sought her father’s acceptance and approval for good things she had achieved. She ended up being sharply criticized instead, she says, for (1) making him look bad (in his eyes), or (2) for not doing something exactly as he had told her to do it, even though she knew it was the wrong way. 

Her father’s narcissism also manifested itself in other ways, her book shows. One morning, Groves fell off her skates and broke her arm. Her father insisted it was just a sprain. He watched some TV shows and then took a shower, while she waited hours in agony, until he finally drove her to a hospital. She had fractured a bone, and her arm needed a cast. Groves writes: “We got home around seven. Mom greeted us at the door, got me situated in bed with a snack, and took Dad his cocktail because he had had a rough day. Differently said, I was supposed to be the center of attention at that moment, yet it was all about him. He never apologized for making me sit in pain for hours before it was convenient to take me to the hospital. I’ve never forgotten feeling like such an inconvenience.”   

The book also chronicles the author’s parents’ troubled relationship, which continued during Groves’s college years, career advancements, and two marriages. Before her father died in 2021, her mother developed heart issues and dementia and went into long-term care. 

“Hearts can only endure so much disappointment before they literally break,” Groves writes. “The world had broken Dad’s heart because nothing and no one ever was enough to make him feel appreciated, if not idolized–one hazard, I suppose, of narcissism. In turn, he broke hers. And mine.” 

You'll See offers important insights into a problem that has been difficult for researchers to study because many people with NPD become very good at hiding their condition from outsiders. But within a family, as this book shows, narcissistic personality disorder can rip apart relationships and cause serious emotional damage if not properly diagnosed and treated. And, perhaps worst of all, Groves emphasizes, "the effects [of NPD and other forms of psychological abuse] can outlive the abuser, almost in perpetuity."