THE NARCISSISTIC FAMILY

Families equal survival for a child.

In families with a narcissistic parent, the coping and defence mechanisms that each child develops will greatly influence their adult behaviour in times of stress. A self-focussed, hypercritical, strict authoritarian parent lacking in empathy will require children to behave in such a way as to ‘please’ the parent.

The child learns that consequences of preferencing their own independent choices over those of the self-obsessed parental figure are too harsh. Some parents can single out one child for blame and bullying. The child might develop a negative self-image and harsh inner critic, based on continual criticism that never goes away. Siblings might grow up conforming to the set of rules governed by the narcissistic parent, and learn that ‘siding with the bully’ is a way of protecting themselves. They might grow into bullies themselves – at school, then at work, and then towards their own children. If the bullying child is the eldest or the only male (so their behaviour is justified by cultural norms), they might bully their siblings their entire lives, with the behaviour worsening on the death of the original narcissistic parent.

The Bully

This habit of hurting siblings as a result of being hurt by the narcissist is called displacement. Since any expressions of displeasure or disagreement are forbidden and punished by the narcissist, the hurt child (or adult) can then transfer those expressions onto a different object. It is their defence mechanism. Like an employee who gets berated by his boss. He has to repress the need to retaliate or defend himself because this is considered inappropriate at work. So he comes home to take it out on his partner. In order to justify his release of pent up tension, the employee convinces himself that his partner is the cause of his discomfort (transference). His partner becomes his scapegoat.

Many groups have scapegoats.

The Meek Child

Children of narcissists may become meek with weak boundaries, a passive communication style and go on to tolerate higher levels of abusive behaviour from those around them – let themselves be pushed around or walked over, with no skills for standing up for themselves. A meek adolescent might cope with self-harm or eating disorders to regain a sense of control. The adolescent might rebel with delinquency or alcohol abuse, especially if this maladaptive coping response helps them ‘belong’ to another group. If the predisposition towards depression, anxiety or alcoholism is present in the family, these might manifest in the older adult.

When a child is never praised or validated for their own independent achievements, this child might develop a schema that says, “no matter what I do, I will never be good enough” and become over-achievers, constantly striving for perfection to prove their critical parent and harsh inner critic wrong. Narcissists have a communication style that frequently involves triangulation (withholding praise and validation from one child, but praising that child to others). This can create a culture of jealousy, and an internal faction that alienates and scapegoats the achiever.

Group Dynamics with a Family Scapegoat

Once a family scapegoat has emerged, the group dysfunction can only worsen with time. The faction might repress their jealousy of the ‘achiever’, layer over their ‘inappropriate’ emotions, and capitulate by becoming competitive against the scapegoat. In order to compare favourably, they must find fault and project blame. Put simply, they need to make the scapegoat wrong and bad so as to disguise from themselves their own ‘bad’ thoughts or deeds. Over time, both the faction and the scapegoat accept that this scapegoat is to blame for every incidence of internal conflict.

When it is You Who is the Scapegoat

When a meek adult sibling suffers a crisis (such as abuse or abandonment) and reaches out to the family survival group, the bullies unsurprisingly respond with bullying. Your crisis stimulates fear (of abandonment) and anger (at abuse) in the bully, and they then pinpoint the cause of their uncomfortable feelings as being you. They cannot offer compassionate listening and non-judgemental support because their knee-jerk reaction is always to blame you. ‘Everybody’ in the family knows it is always you to blame when you stray from their notions of conformity. Your crisis becomes all about them and how uncomfortable you and your crisis make them feel. They ‘gang up’ on you, making their group more cohesive against you, and making empathy for you impossible for them.

If you respond with expressions of pain, such as, “please stop blaming me, accusing me, projecting your fear and anger onto me”, they can only interpret this as criticism of them. Like the sibling who persistently tickled you until you were gasping for air, struggling to get out the words, “stop, please stop tickling me” – that sibling took pleasure in having so much control over you (and tickled you even more for their own gratification). That adult sibling will respond to “please stop hurting me” with more hurt, completely denying your reality. The projected blame of the group is a more profound reality to them than that of the scapegoat. The group shores up their ‘right’ to bully you.

As counsellors, we are taught that directly confronting someone who is operating from a defence mechanism is futile and will only elicit aggression. Before I learnt this, I sure found it to be true in my own family where the group dynamic was formed around a narcissistic parent. The group bore two bullies and three meek children who all coped with meekness in different ways.

As counsellors, we are taught that directly confronting someone who is operating from a defence mechanism is futile and will only elicit aggression. Before I learnt this, I sure found it to be true in my own family where the group dynamic was formed around a narcissistic parent. The group bore two bullies and three meek children who all coped with meekness in different ways.

Few children of narcissists develop healthy conflict resolution skills as children. They learn that the only way to resolve a conflict with a narcissist is by forever acquiescing to the narcissist, no matter how unreasonable this ‘solution’ may be. The narcissist must have their own way at all times. The consequences of not getting their own way will be government shut-down that causes suffering to everyone. They are not big on win-win outcomes. To them a win-lose outcome is far preferable. Agreeing to disagree is not an outcome that flourishes in a narcissistic household. The group around a narcissist learns that conflict resolution can only occur when they pile up on the scapegoat and that scapegoat apologises – including for things they should not have to apologise for. Without intervention or healthy role modelling for conflict resolution, these children grow up to be either bullies or helpless victims of bullies. And no-one wants to admit to being either, so the dysfunction continues.

We might now be able to see this, since it is us who is grappling with the crisis and scapegoating at once. The resultant threat to our survival forces us to examine the dysfunction all around us. However, we cannot change the dysfunction by ourselves. The dysfunctional communication styles are too deeply embedded to unravel without intervention at a group level. We cannot change the people around us, we can only change the people we choose to be around. We may be forced to leave our old survival group and create a new one, or stand alone in the wilderness.

Breaking away from our original survival group is a painful process that requires enormous courage. As per the established group dynamic, it is you, the victim scapegoat, who will have to apologise in order to restore homeostasis and closure of sorts.