In a memoir essay I wrote about my disturbing relationship with my narcissistic father, I explained how his neglect, sadistic taunts, objectification, and abandonment nearly destroyed me.
The proverbial silver lining that I was groomed throughout my childhood to absorb a narcissistic family system is the ability to bring my recovery full circle by providing trauma therapy to those like me, who were born into families defiled by patriarchal narcissism.
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Hence, given my personal distress and what I see evident in survivors of familial narcissistic abuse who come to me for psychotherapy, it has become clear that when dominance replaces love in marriage and child-rearing, the narcissistically disturbed family takes on nefarious cult-like characteristics. It is characterized by trauma bonding.
Those with malignant narcissism, or what is referred to as narcissistic personality disorder, have deep-rooted, persistent and intractable symptoms, rigid personality traits, and exploitative ways of working. They hold extreme expectations, reinforced by a deceptive sense of entitlement and “specialization” that demonstrates an absence of empathy, along with intense needs for expansion, attention, and admiration.
Their persistent lack of compassion and insight permeates their relational maneuvers. A disturbed narcissist needs constant control and has an uncanny ability to impersonate his emotions to manipulate others and achieve desired results. In the most extreme form, malignant narcissists are psychopaths, driven toward criminality and a desire to destroy others in a sadistic way.
Within the narcissistic family system, trauma bonding sets the relational template.
Trauma bonding is a form of stubborn attachment reinforced by a recurring cycle of abuse in which the narcissistic spouse and narcissistic parent are imbued with immense power.
Family members are reduced to display, a term coined by psychoanalyst Otto Fenichel in 1938 that describes the narcissistic objectification of a specific target. To survive, the narcissist’s family uses an adaptive coping strategy of acquiescing to and normalizing the terrifying dynamics to mitigate the risk of psychological annihilation. The pathological loyalty that develops with a narcissistic abuser is known as Stockholm Syndrome.
The insatiable needs of the narcissistic spouse and parent demand relentless compliance and worship from their family. Children are groomed to be mirrors.
They serve to reflect the grandiosity of their narcissistic parent (the miniature golden child) and bear the hatred and “badness” of the narcissistic parent (the scapegoat).
For the malignant narcissist, their children and spouses are merely a means to attract attention and prop up their false personalities. The children and spouses of narcissists are forbidden from being there for themselves or seeking any accountability. They exist solely to satisfy the primal, predatory needs of the narcissist.
The narcissistic family is like a cult, collectively obeying and conforming to the dictates of the leader of the narcissistic family.
Techniques and methods such as exploitation, triangulation, gaslighting, punishment, and marginalization are systematically applied to achieve thought reform, assert control, and derail individuality. The love bombing, which makes the show feel special and loving, is interspersed with terror and constant indoctrination into absolutist beliefs.
In the narcissistic family, any deviation or opposition from the collective mind is met with an aggressive onslaught of punishment or banishment from the narcissist who heads the family. Extreme forms of psychological manipulation brainwash the family into compliance.
Also, “love” is permeated with fear of managing family members. Isolated in a closed system in which external influences are monitored, thought processes are controlled. Dependency is imposed as the lives of family members revolve around the demands of the dysfunctional narcissist.
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This type of daily psychological tyranny harms family members. My client Sean sadly recalls how months of psychological mind games and stonewalling from his parents and siblings were more corrosive than any of the beatings his malicious father regularly inflicted.
Author of Narcissistic Mothers and Covert Emotional Abuse: For the Adult Children of Narcissistic Parents, Diana Massey writes: “Spouses of narcissists cannot be independent or emotionally secure people. They are there to maintain the atmosphere in which narcissists can thrive, and that is the toxic atmosphere.” It is the miscommunication and stress that allows them to play their games and be “the good ones.”
Therefore, the marital duo between the malignant narcissist and his spouse is based on complicity. To maintain the travesty of normalcy of the outside world while chaos reigns behind closed doors, the narcissist must assert his dominance over his wife.
By controlling finances, perpetrating thinly veiled sarcasm and blame for feigned transgressions (gaslighting), and feeding the spouse’s guilt and desire to make amends through intermittent feigned remorse, the narcissist destroys the spouse’s stability and sense of self.
As the family atmosphere of disharmony and fear escalates, the narcissist’s wife is increasingly shaken and traumatized. At this stage, physical abuse, social isolation, infidelity, and sexual assault are common developments.
When children are part of the narcissistic family constellation, they act as pawns. The favored golden child is groomed to imitate the narcissistic parent and wreak havoc on the lives of those who question the narcissist’s motives. This includes the non-narcissistic parent.
This form of child abuse is known as emotional violence, known as parental alienation, in which the narcissistic parent uses their child to distance and reject the other parent to establish unquestionable loyalty and devotion.
By triangulating the child in marital disasters, the narcissist positions himself to appear faultless in his child’s eyes while subverting the child’s perception of the targeted parent. The child’s oppositional and disrespectful behavior toward the targeted parent is encouraged and rewarded by the narcissistic parent.
In divorce proceedings, parental alienation is used in an attempt to influence court decisions regarding custody battles and child support. The narcissist will use the child as a tool to either deny the terrible allegations or have the child make up harmful lies that indicate abuse by the innocent parent.
This favorite child is an enabler of the narcissistic parent and is constantly involved in creating distress by inciting intense conflict between the chosen targets to divide and conquer. This may mean alienating the scapegoat sibling or denigrating the non-narcissistic parent.
They have been brainwashed into believing that fulfilling the narcissistic parent’s evil agendas by spying on family members and promoting smear campaigns, will ensure that the narcissistic parent is loved. Their involvement with the narcissistic parent feeds the delusion that by pleasing their parents they can manage their chaos and pain.
Sometimes the favored child enabler is constitutionally prepared to experience sadistic pleasure as a narcissistic extension. If so, they are likely to develop narcissistic disorder themselves. Furthermore, if the non-narcissistic parent is a submissive, compliant helper and fails to provide protection, the harmful consequences for all children are further exacerbated.
If the mother is the narcissist in the family, the daughter is seen as the source of supply needed to indirectly attract the kind of attention and admiration that the mother craves.
As a result, the daughter of the narcissistic mother is out of touch with her true self.
The daughter is merely a tool used to satisfy her mother’s infantile needs and satisfy her mother’s insatiable appetite for total control. What the mother does not allow, the daughter represses, represses, and denies, so challenging a narcissistic mother means abuse and punishment for a long time.
On the other hand, the child of a narcissistic mother is often idealized and groomed to give up his inherent needs for love and care, taking on a romantic and parental role.
This is known as covert or emotional incest, a violation of trust and abuse of power that is the norm between a child and a narcissistic parent. This skewed reversal of roles and tangled dynamics is presented to the child as a badge of honor.
In the worst-case scenario where the narcissist is psychopathic, physical abuse may also occur. In these cases, the psychopathic parent may be a pedophile and a threat to other children.
As the scapegoat child, I was the designated source of contempt.
Driven by envy, my narcissistic family members ridiculed my talents, needs, and feelings while sadistically labeling me as ungrateful and selfish. You are put under a microscope to pounce on every perceived flaw and begin to indulge in flattery and self-loathing. It also ignited within me the need to break away from the reality of unrelenting cruelty.
Object relations theorist Ronald Fairbairn has shown how attachment processes in severely abused children necessitate the use of separation to maintain the good deified parental object. This strategy is essential for the abused child’s survival. The intolerable betrayal of abuse and rejection must be isolated and rejected.
Therefore, the child blames himself for protecting his good and humane parents. The child believes that his or her badness is to blame for the caregiver’s cruelty. This provides the false hope necessary for survival.
The endgame in the narcissistic family system is complete submission. People who have been primed to internalize the insatiable needs of narcissistic caregivers, overwork, endure abuse and neglect, and disavow needs for dependency, restriction, and intelligent guarding are especially prepared for subsequent narcissistic abuse.
Although these tendencies are not a definitive measure of who becomes the mark of a narcissist, these traits indicate that the person is a naive and malleable resource who can be easily seduced and controlled.
