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.
Related: The Narcissistic Seduction In Three Terrifying Parts
Hence, given my own 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 in order 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. In order to survive, the narcissist’s family uses an adaptive coping strategy of acquiescing to and normalizing the terrifying dynamics in order 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.
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. In order 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 in order 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 will 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 in order 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 will likely 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 suppresses, 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 mentally ill, 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. To be put under a microscope for the purpose of pounced on every perceived flaw, and to initiate 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 own 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.
No matter how strong one’s ego is, one cannot emerge unscathed from a narcissistic family. Family survivors of narcissistic abuse are vulnerable to experiencing complex trauma. They will suffer from devastating sensory discomfort and chronic feelings of danger and fear.
According to Tracy Malone’s PTSD Checklist at the Narcissistic Abuse Support Center, hypervigilance, depression and pervasive anxiety, dissociation, flashbacks, and cognitive dissonance are just some of the symptoms sparked by narcissistic abuse.
Likewise, in the book The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in Trauma Healing, Dr. Bissell A. van der kolk,
“Long after a traumatic experience has ended, they can be reactivated at the slightest hint of danger, mobilizing disturbed brain circuits and secreting massive amounts of stress hormones.”
Hence, these survivors who embark on the path to recovery grapple with a fog of confusion and alienation from reality. As the victims piece together a coherent timeline of surreal family dynamics, they will oscillate between emotional torrents of panic, shame, grief, rage, and debilitating numbness. They will also identify developmental catastrophes caused by chronic narcissistic abuse.
In fact, given my personal struggles with familial narcissism, the development of interpersonal discernment and discernment was not possible. Constant neglect and abuse left me so starved for intimacy that I lacked the life skills and acumen to satisfy it. This struggle is not unique to those born into families headed by malignant narcissists. Intimacy is coupled with danger.
Either acquiescing to the needs of others regardless of the harm incurred, or taking opposing positions become habitual relational patterns. Longings for love collide with simultaneous fears of dumping and abandonment. Moreover, the glorification of sick care obscures the difference between genuine generosity and a conditional sense of obligation driven by survival concerns. This is especially true for survivors of emotional and physical incest.
Breaking free from Stockholm Syndrome in order to heal attachment injuries is an arduous task for survivors of familial narcissism.
Deconstructing the imprint of slavery, unable to adapt or identify with the abuser, while piecing together an emotionally coherent narrative of one’s history is the burden of the survivor.
Through this courageous and painstaking process, complex bereavements will lead to the naming and reclaiming of boundaries, conditions, and norms. Only through this brutal and often protracted project can a full and fulfilling life free of narcissistic tyranny be achieved and toxic generational patterns can be broken.
