Healthy Family Systems
The healthy, functional family system is like a galaxy, where everyone in the family gets to be a star. At the center of the galaxy, everything is revolving around core values.
The core family values are love and truth, which the parents revolve around. When very young, children revolve around their parents in a tight orbit like planets.
Since the parents are orbiting truth and love, the children are also entrained into that essential orbit. Children are nurtured to be independent and are granted increasing independence over time and eventually orbit truth and love with the parents as equals. They get to be their own star.
The goal of the parents is to build their children up, to equip them for life. Everyone in the family is of equal importance. The kids get to be themselves and actualize their unique potential when the time comes for them to be independent.
A movement towards the children’s eventual independence & success is nurtured and encouraged by the parents.
Tyrannical Narcissistic Family Systems
By contrast, the narcissistic family operates more like a tyranny or a cult. The star that everybody orbits is the narcissistic parent’s or parents’ inflated self-concept.
The narcissistic parent is not orbiting the center of the galaxy – love and truth. They are a wandering renegade star engaged in a tragically misguided self-glorification project.
- Their children have a tendency when older to either attempt to become their own renegade stars (narcissists themselves) or fall into the orbit of other narcissists.
The narcissistic family is, as Dr. Mc Bride allegorizes in her book on daughters of narcissistic mothers, like a solar system, where everybody in the family revolves around the narcissist’s misguided path.
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The unspoken rule in these families is that they do not discuss this dynamic, and it becomes a family secret.
Dr. Karyl McBride, 2009 Will I Ever Be Good Enough? (71)
Love and truth are replaced with abuse, control, and repression. The boundaries are either too rigid or nonexistent and chaos reigns.
The children are exploited by the parent(s) and made to feel unsafe. The goal of the parent(s) is to use the children for their own benefit.
Some family members are treated as if they were more, or less, important than others.
Roles in Narcissistic Families
Alcoholic Family Roles
Family therapist Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse saw 6 typical family roles in the alcoholic family:
- The alcoholic (or other substance abusers) for whom the alcohol takes priority over the family
- The chief enabler is a co-dependent spouse who tries to keep the family together
- The family hero is a high achiever who makes it look like everything is okay
- The scapegoat, who takes the blame for all the family’s ills
- The lost child, who keeps a low profile
- The family mascot, a jester who acts as comic relief for the family
Wegscheider, Sharon, 1981 Another Chance: Hope and Health for the Alcoholic Family (85-88)
These roles have been extended and adapted to other types of dysfunctional families.
Typical Roles in the Narcissistic Family
- The narcissistic parent
- The enabling spouse
- The golden or all-good child
- The scapegoat or no-good child
- The lost or forgotten child
The golden or all-good child is the recipient of all the narcissistic parent’s positive projections and is their favorite child. While the ‘hero’ saves the family by being perfect and making it look good, the golden or all-good children may struggle to live up to his status.
The golden child is usually the victim of emotional and (covert) sexual abuse by the narcissistic parent. He is also a witness to, and sometimes takes part in, the other children’s abuse. Many specialists believe that witnessing your sibling’s abuse is as damaging as receiving it.
The scapegoat, or no good child, is the recipient of the narcissist’s negative projections. The family script becomes that they can never do anything right or they’re defective somehow, bad or problem-causers.
In some models of dysfunctional families, the scapegoat is also known as the rebel. However, the name ‘rebel’ implies that the child has chosen this role, which is debatable.
The scapegoat is usually the victim of emotional and physical abuse by the narcissistic parent.
The lost or forgotten child just doesn’t seem to matter to the narcissist and avoids conflict by keeping a low profile. They are not perceived as a threat or a good source of supply, but they are usually victims of neglect and emotional abuse.
Tina Fuller, an adult child of a narcissist, who wrote a book on narcissistic parents, has come up with her own categories
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In my findings, adult children of narcissists usually fall under one of three categories. I have named them Conformer, Rebel and Runner.
All children start out as conformers, but it’s the parental feedback that determines a child’s category.
Fuller, Tina It’s My Turn (789-791)
The Conformer is another word for the golden child, the Rebel is the same thing as a scapegoat, and the Runner is very similar to a lost child.
But what Fuller does is give the impression that the child is active in choosing their behavior: they conform, rebel, or run away.
By contrast, the golden/scapegoat/forgotten model implies that the choices are made by the parent. But Fuller at the same time states that all children start as conformers and then act in either of three ways depending on parental feedback.
In other words, the children conform to their parents in rebelling or running away. This paradox reflects the struggle of being the child of a narcissist. It seems impossible to escape their control. Even rebellion against them is a result of their choice.
In the narcissistic family, the attribution of roles by the narcissist may differ from the role ‘chosen’ or most suitable for the child.
Therefore, a high-achieving child may be the narcissist’s scapegoat despite acting as the hero and making the family look so good.
Equally, the narcissist’s golden child may be a total loser to the outside world. And a child might rebel without becoming the scapegoat, but rather a lost child to the narcissist.
To add to the complexity, roles can change over time. In addition, one of the parent’s heroes may be the other parent’s scapegoat, etc. The role is therefore determined by the observer.
Everything is very much a matter of perception in crazy land.
Favoritism in Narcissistic Families
Whatever the roles really are, the narcissistic parent has a favorite and everybody knows it.
This creates envy and division amongst the children. This helps the narcissist in several ways: it channels the hatred of the children away from them and towards other members of the family, and it enables them to rule according to the adage ‘divide and conquer’.
Even the golden child will be made jealous of his siblings by the narcissistic parent, who will ensure they highlight something the others have that they don’t.
There is therefore very little chance of mutiny as the children are too busy hating each other, or competing, to see where all of this is really coming from. The narcissistic parent sells to his children the fallacy that love from them is available, but that it is something in limited supply, and that they will only receive it if they win a competition against the rest of the family.
The favorite child, or ‘chosen one’, acts in fact as a decoy for the real family secret.
While everybody can see favoritism, the narcissist will deny it in words, but not in actions. Narcissists are much better at hiding and denying than this, so what’s really going on? This obvious denial of an undeniable truth serves the purpose of hiding the truth.
The real family secret is hidden by the obvious non-secret fact that there is a favorite child in the family, a ‘chosen one.’
There is only one favorite in the narcissistic family, and that’s the narcissist themselves. They are the real chosen ones.
There isn’t space for two ‘chosen ones’ in the world of the narcissist. Understandably, the golden child is the least likely to see this truth. In the meantime, this child is the recipient of everyone else’s hatred.
This does not mean that the narcissist doesn’t have a favorite child. They do. The golden child is indeed the one they love the most. But this love is not true selfless unconditional love for who the golden child really is.
It is love for the narcissist’s positive projection onto the child. In other words, the narcissist loves themselves through the golden child. What they love in fact is an idealized image of themselves projected onto the golden child.
This child unconsciously knows that being loved depends on complying, or conforming, to the narcissist’s projections and wants. The golden child lives in constant fear of losing parental love and becoming a scapegoat or forgotten child.
By contrast, the scapegoat(s) is (are) the receiver(s) of negative projections and the recipient(s) of hatred and violent abuse.
Possibly, it’s the rejected true self of the narcissist that is seen in or projected onto the scapegoat(s). This might explain why the most sensitive of the children, i.e., the one most in touch with their true self, to begin with, becomes a scapegoat.
It may be that the scapegoat is the one who resembles the true self of the narcissistic parent, at least in the latter’s eyes. This unconscious identification could also explain why narcissistic parents generally seem to scapegoat a child of the same sex since this facilitates the identification process.
Another factor for choosing the recipient of negative projection could be reminiscent of or bear some resemblance to, people from the NM’s past. For example, if the NM was very envious of a sibling, such as the golden child, she may scapegoat any of her own children who remind her of the hated sibling.
Gender Wars in Narcissistic Families
One of the biggest divisions created by the narcissist is the war of the sexes. Gender matters in the world of the narcissist, and everyone is made to believe that the other side has a better deal.
Everybody has heard of ‘Daddy’s little girl’ or ‘Mommy’s little prince’. When the narcissist is the mother, she is more likely to project her negative traits unto her daughter(s), to be envious of them, and be in competition with them.
By contrast, the boys, or at least one son, are more likely to be her all-good or golden children. But in a family with only female children, a girl will become the golden child. And in a family with more than one boy, there will be at least one forgotten male child.
One reason why narcissistic mothers will scapegoat a daughter rather than a son may be cultural. In many cultures, the son is more valued than the daughter. A woman’s narcissism may therefore be caused by the belief that her gender is a flaw, the root cause of her feelings of rejection or abandonment.
Her hated true self is therefore very much a feminine one and will therefore need to be projected onto a daughter rather than a son.
It does seem that girls become more conscious of their mother’s narcissism than boys if one is to observe what comes out in books and on the Web. This awareness may indicate that, of all the roles, the Scapegoats (or Rebels) are more likely to see the light than any other of their siblings.
Being the Scapegoat rather than the golden child may therefore be a blessing in disguise.
The important thing to remember is this: the narcissist is not capable of truly loving anyone, not even themselves. No one is getting their love because there is, very sadly, no love to be received. Neither ‘the boys’ nor ‘the girls’ are getting anything good out of this.
Anything that looks like love from the narcissist is an illusion, a trickery. Don’t be fooled anymore.
The Narcissistic Family Image
The term ‘role’ is very appropriate for the narcissistic family. Indeed, as the image matters more than substance to the narcissist, the family works hard on its external appearance.
The narcissistic family starts performing as soon as they have a witness, an audience. The narcissistic family on stage is very different from the family off stage.
On stage, everyone participates in the idyllic display, even the rebel, which shows how strong the family dynamic really is. On stage, the narcissistic family seems happy and may create the envy of others who wish they could be part of this fantastic, fun, and loving crowd.
This envy is the supply the whole family craves, it seems to compensate for all the pain endured during the time off stage. Perceived envy is the fuel that runs the narcissistic world.
Defense Mechanisms of the Narcissistic Family
Denial is at the root of narcissism, and at the core of the narcissistic family. Any exposure is a threat to the survival of the system and must be addressed accordingly.
ACoNs who raise any concerns about the family’s dysfunctions report being ostracized by the whole family, including siblings they thought they were close to.
Criticism, or any introspection, is perceived as an attack, and the response of the family is to attribute a fault to whoever makes the criticism. In other words, if you call the family crazy, the whole family will call you crazy back.
This is how, in the past, so many children of narcissistic families, some very high-profile ones, have ended up in mental institutions. Some of them were lobotomized, and others were submitted to electric shock ‘therapy ‘.
Most came in with the neuroses of an abused child but ended up with much worse. Thankfully, most mental health professionals now understand family dysfunctions, and you will not be thrown into an institution by force.
But who can survive being alone against the people closest to them?
The only way out is out.
Support groups, competent therapists, and loving friends are the ones to go to instead. This does not mean that you must necessarily cease any contact with your family, but that you must be aware of the limitations of your family.
IAN’S TAKE
I started as the golden child, rebelled, became a scapegoat, did a runner, and might be the forgotten one.
I believe that the root of all family dysfunctions is a flawed way of loving and that it is inherited. True unconditional and selfless love is an ideal that no family can live up to. What varies is the degree of ‘corruption’ of love in the family. Sometimes it can get really bad, but in most families, it’s just a bit twisted.
It can be very destructive, however.
It is unconscious, partly because that’s all the family members know. And trying to lift the veil of denial about this dysfunctional love can be met with the strongest of rebukes. If you call the family crazy or lacking, the family will call you crazy or lacking back.
If you are reading this, it is likely that you have seen what others in your family can’t and may never be able to see: the family’s flawed way of loving and its destructive effects.
Parents do the best they can but sometimes their best is not good enough. Sometimes they even do bad things unconsciously, usually by repeating bad things that were done to them. There is no link between the intention and the consequence of an action, as a result, we can be damaged by actions resulting from good intentions.
If we confront our parents about the negative consequences of their actions, they will not be able to see it. The greater the dysfunction, the greater the denial. Sometimes, confronting someone with a reality they cannot face results in bringing the worse out of them.
Parents cannot be forcibly faced with their shortcomings, and they will never change. Accepting this is difficult but is key to moving on. They did the best they could and can’t do more.
Loving them is accepting their limitations; not necessarily tolerating a relationship with them, but seeing them as they truly are.