The Secret Life of Living With a Narcissist Part 2-In The Family

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Growing up with a narcissistic parent can have a profound impact on one’s physical, emotional, mental, and social development. This post is for the adult children of a narcissistic parent, the parents in a relationship with a narcissistic partner, and those who want to better understand the possible impacts of having a narcissistic parent. Understanding the family-specific types of manipulation experienced can help adults break generational traumas that they are at risk of continuing. Children of narcissistic parents are at risk of developing a form of PTSD called complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) where repeated exposure to trauma leads to a wider spectrum of symptoms, including a longer duration and increased severity of them.

It used to be believed that infants or young children in households with a lot of domestic fighting and violence weren’t really impacted because they were too young to be aware of what was going on. We now know that the younger a child is exposed to the chronic trauma that such a household can bring, the greater the long-term impacts can be on their neurological and social-emotional development. For a young child, each time they are startled by the sound of yelling, visually exposed to fighting and physical aggression, or they suffer inconsistency and neglect from a distressed or angry caregiver, their stress responses begin to prioritize the areas of their brain that are developed. This prioritization can lead to underdevelopment in some areas and overdevelopment in others.

Brain development in infancy and early childhood are foundational to future development and some of these changes can be permanent. It can lead to a reduction in the size of the prefrontal cortex and cause impacts on the hippocampus, amygdala, serotonin levels, and more. This can have impacts on emotional regulation, attention, memory, IQ, language, and one’s ability to regulate cortisol levels. The development that occurs prior to age 3 is extremely important and by age 5 the brain is at almost 90% of its adult size (although brain development will continue until the mid 20’s). Earlier onset trauma is often associated with more internalized symptoms- such as low self esteem, depression, and anxiety, whereas school-aged onset traumas often present more externally- like acting out or aggressive behaviors. The good news is that while these early ages of brain development are very important, the infant and early childhood brain also has a lot of neural plasticity (the ability of the nervous system to adapt itself, functionally and structurally, in response to experiences), meaning with positive early intervention it has the ability to provide some possible changes to those negative impacts.

The ability to remove a child from an emotionally or physically abusive environment, including in cases of limited visitation with a narcissistic parent, can reduce the overall negative impact on a child’s development. Family or individual therapy for the child can help reshape emotional and social development through art, play, talk, and movement therapies. This can include helping the family unit with healthy boundary setting, behavioral changes, assertiveness and self esteem building, and reversing negative cognitive distortions. Also remember that narcissism exists on a continuum, so not all narcissistic parents will engage in the same degree or variety of negative behaviors. While a narcissist will likely be more resistant to therapy, it can still be used to help the rest of the family unit reinforce healthier boundaries and emotional responses.

Outside of the home a narcissistic parent may look like the loving caregiver their children hoped for, but at home they can yell, criticize, threaten, and control their children’s lives, treating them as an extension of or representation of themselves. Not all narcissistic parents are aggressive, some can hurt their children by oscillating between criticizing, ignoring, and depending on them. Think of the alcoholic parent whose children have to act like the adult and care for them or clean their daily messes as that parent makes them feel like a burden. Children of narcissistic parents often experience shame and guilt, developing a poor sense of self esteem, even among those the narcissist may dote on because that ‘love’ always comes with conditions.

A narcissistic parent also often has an enabler. The enabler may begin as family members, such as the narcissist’s own narcissistic parents. The enabler may also be their spouse, which can shift to external family figures or friends if their spouse begins to set boundaries or seek help. A spouse might not be fully aware of a narcissist’s behaviors initially, but they can slowly begin to find themselves socially isolated by the narcissist with only other enablers allowed around as reinforcement. An enabling partner may also become codependent- making excuses for their partner, fixing their messes, unquestionably accepting their account of things, and receiving a large portion of their abuse in private or public. This is how one form of generational trauma can begin. A child may find themselves dealing with a narcissistic parent as well as a narcissistic grandparent or aunt/uncle and then eventually a narcissistic partner/in-laws as they are more likely to gravitate towards similarly unhealthy relationships unless they have positive interventions in their life.

Narcissistic parents often maintain their control by playing favorites amongst family members, called triangulating. Triangulating is when the narcissist pulls another individual into their relationship with someone else for the purpose of manipulating one or both of them by creating conflict or deflecting from their own behaviors. It can leave both individuals doubting their experiences or dropping their boundaries as they are played against each other by the narcissist. One common form of this is the ‘golden child’, ‘invisible child’, and ‘scapegoat’.

Some children may be exploited by the narcissist, while others may be trained to have the same false sense of superiority as the narcissist. These roles that the narcissist places their children in can also shift based on the narcissist’s needs or wants. The children can be placed in competition with each other for the role of the golden child, further emotionally isolating them from their siblings and building more control for the narcissist. Children can also trauma bond with their narcissistic parent over time because of this type of manipulation. A trauma bond is an emotional attachment between individuals of vastly different power dynamics (like the narcissistic parent and their child) that slowly forms as the individual in power trains the other to respond in specific ways to them through mixed patterns of positive and negative engagement. This leaves the individual feeling grateful for any form of attention from the narcissist and more likely to blame themselves for any negative attention they receive. This can also lead to codependency, or an unhealthy and excessive psychological and/or emotional dependency on one’s relationship with the narcissist. It’s an extreme fear of abandonment. The opposite manifestation of this can be a fierce need for independence, leading the grown children of a narcissistic to struggle with trusting or relying on others even at healthy and necessary levels.

An estimated 75% of narcissists are male. Many times the narcissistic father can be portrayed as the more overt or verbally aggressive type of narcissist. They can be assumed to engage in more narcissistic rage, which is either an outburst of intense anger/rage or extreme passive-aggressive actions following what a narcissist sees as a setback or challenge to their control. This can include the threat of physical violence or the passive aggressive form of pretending someone doesn’t exist through days and weeks of silence towards the victim while they still address others in their child’s presence. In response a child can develop an internal need to ‘take up as little space as possible’, trying to make themselves invisible. They can also learn to overly anticipate the emotional needs of others and become overly people-pleasing, prioritizing everyone else’s needs and constantly minimizing their own. Or they can grow up lacking confidence or emotional regulation, developing narcissistic or codependent traits of their own that were modeled by their parents. It can lead to daughters that undervalue themselves and sons that feel like they can’t measure up to their father’s expectations. These can become life-long traits without intervention.

These traits can exist in both narcissistic fathers or mothers, though. A narcissistic mother is often seen as the most difficult type of narcissistic relationship for their children to get support from outside of the family unit. This is because they are often more passive-aggressive and covert. While they may be less physically aggressive, they can use constant microaggressions that make it hard for a victim to convey the overall level of emotional abuse they’ve received at their mother’s hands because the examples of their abuse are less extreme, but they are constant and unyielding. Just the anticipation of a hurtful comment or the fear of falling into a manipulation tactic from their mother can leave the child in a constant state of stress and hypervigilance, which can have damaging long-term impacts. This type of narcissistic parent can lack the ability to empathize with their child’s experiences and will often minimize or blatantly deny their child’s memories, all while presenting a completely different or victimized form of themselves in public or on social media.

A narcissistic parent can be threatened by their child’s potential and seek to target their child’s self esteem. This child can become the scapegoat for all of their parent’s insecurities and anger. As a child grows and gains independence this can intensify. A narcissistic parent can target their child’s intellectual, romantic, and social pursuits (including career choices or personal successes) by minimizing or criticizing them, especially in private. They may emotionally manipulate their children from building any form of stability away from them, sabotaging their relationships by constantly placing themselves in them or sabotaging their careers by demanding their child’s time or putting their ability to work at risk. They can use guilt-trips against any children that pursue their own choices. They can criticize their adult children’s appearance, abilities, parenting style, finances, relationships, etc., causing their adult children to have a constant feeling of imposter syndrome- the idea that they don’t actually deserve their successes or any of their happiness. It instills a fear that they are at constant risk of someone finding out that they’re an ‘imposter’ and leaving them or taking their successes from them.

With all of the different forms of manipulation and the shifting roles and competitiveness amongst the narcissist’s children, it is also common for siblings to have vastly different views of their experiences. They may feel like they were the scapegoat when other siblings view them as the golden child. In truth, they likely spent time in both roles, and more. If they were substantially in the golden child or the narcissistic child role, they may argue that their parent did not have any narcissistic tendencies at all, even though they still were greatly impacted by them.

There are also more types of family roles and forms of manipulation than I’ve listed (as described by specialists in the field of narcissistic personalities) that you can find in some of the books I’ve linked below.

The Good News:

I’ll admit that when discussing narcissistic families, the mood can be pretty heavy. There is an upside though to the resilience that can be built in the face of this adversity. Children of narcissistic parents can display an innate ability to read body language and quickly register when someone’s actions fail to match their words. This may be born out of the overdevelopment of the ‘survival’ responses in the brain. Still, they may struggle with enforcing boundaries once they are aware of possible negative traits in others they meet, but with therapy and distance from the narcissists in their lives, they can have the life skills to flourish independently. Once these individuals are able to live independently from their narcissistic parents and heal from the emotional abuse and cognitive distortions they experienced, their resiliency can become a strong foundation in how they choose future friendships and/or partners. They may begin to recognize the amount of their lives that they’ve already been fully responsible for their own successes and self care. It can help them build a more realistic and positive view of themselves in comparison to the one their narcissistic parent wanted them to have.

It may still be common to find yourself around another narcissist, but your ability to recognize them and to set strong boundaries earlier on can be better than if you’ve had little experience with that type of personality before.

Also, while generational trauma tends to exist within narcissistic households, it is not a guarantee that it has to continue. Today there is a much higher awareness of mental health needs and support for individuals outside of their family units to set healthy boundaries and process their experiences. It allows for different family dynamics, parentings styles, relationship health, and coping skills. Once you’re able to recognize what you’ve been up against, you’re able to address it and heal from it.