Narcissistic families: factories of emotional suffering

Narcissistic families are real spider webs. In them, part of their members, especially children, remain trapped in the threads of emotional suffering. In these dynamics there is always someone who puts their own needs before those of the rest, thus establishing absolute power. This power, in many cases, serves to boycott and manipulate with a single purpose: to be nurtured, recognized and validated at all levels.

Those who have grown up in a dysfunctional environment with these types of characteristics usually agree when it comes to reflecting a reality: “From the outside, everyone believed that my family was perfect, but from the inside we were living in hell.” It is not easy to get out of these situations, and although these types of ties often have their own fingerprints and particularities, we could say that in essence, narcissistic families share several points in common.

The most characteristic thing is undoubtedly the existence of a set of very specific unspoken rules that grow within these toxic and, above all, pathological homes. They are norms that arise around a person and where the rest are vetoed from any right, any recognition. So, It is common for children to lack emotional access to their parents, to be neglected, and to be subjected to silent abuse. and permanent.

On the other hand, It is very common for all these types of dynamics to remain silenced forever in the branches of our family tree.. In fact, at the moment in which the child, now an adult, finally manages to leave that degrading environment, it is common for the father, mother or both to call him or her a “bad son” for abandoning them, for daring to cut that bond. .

Narcissistic families and “scapegoats”

Sara is 20 years old and studies psychology. She has not lived with her parents for a year and now, from a distance, she is trying to rebuild her life. Take perspective and reconstruct internal fragments in order to overcome the past and try to move forward. His, his wound, is concentrated in that narcissistic family with which he grew up and where the play of forces started and was shared between both parents.

His father suffered from some type of personality disorder. He knows it now thanks to his studies; However, no one ever dared to recommend that he go to a professional, to ask for help. He didn’t do it because The context in which he lived made his possible narcissistic disorder something tremendously functional. The reason? Her mother was the instrumental piece, but also another victim, someone who gave in to each of her needs and who was never able to set any limits.

Sara, for her part, was the “scapegoat”, she was the projection screen of a narcissistic father.the receptacle of his frustrations, failures and anger. His older sister, however, was the “golden child”, that is, that figure that the narcissist uses to mold her in his own image. and that, for some reason, he considered that she was endowed with better talents than Sara; Her situation affected him so much that he came to think there was something “defective” about her.

Common dynamics in narcissistic families

Having drawn the portrait, we can assume that it is not an easy task to leave these environments. It is not because the fact of having grown up in them means having integrated many mandates, many destructive schemes and rhetoric that create a considerable impact on the child’s mind. These would be some of those dynamics.

Your family is the best, don’t tell the outside world what’s going on. The narcissistic family takes great care of their image. In fact, one of his most repeated messages is that “we have no problems, we are a perfect family.”Parental dysfunctions. If in a normal family, the parents’ objective is to emotionally nourish their children, offer them security, affection and education, in narcissistic families the children only have one obligation: to nourish the parents. Lack of effective communication. This data is very characteristic. The most common type of communication in narcissistic families is triangulation. That is, the information is never direct and a clear passive-aggressive behavior is applied based on tension and mistrust. For example, in the case of Sara, our protagonist, every order, wish or comment issued by her father will reach her through her mother, who will act as an intermediary and use all of her efforts to get Sara to obey.

How to get out of an environment made up of a narcissistic family

Mark Twain wrote, in his book huckleberry finn that we do not have to define ourselves by the wounds suffered by our family systems. In a corner of our heart there is always a piece of our own being that remains as “optimistic” as it is vital, and that should allow us to run from “absolute nothingness” to happiness.

To achieve this, to get out of that barren and poisonous environment that narcissistic families represent, it never hurts to reflect on these dimensions.

Understand that Someone with a history of narcissistic behavior usually does not change easily. However, there are therapies for this, but very few take the step to admit that there is something in them that is not right. Let’s try not to feel guilty for what our narcissistic family members may do or not do. Let’s put enough cognitive protections in place to not reach the point that Sara reached, and come to think that there is something “not right with us.”Talking about your emotions or how you feel is of no use to a narcissist, it is useless. We can be more damaged. Therefore, we will limit ourselves to using phrases like “I understand what you are telling me, but I am not going to allow…”, “you must understand that you have no right to…”, “I ask that from now on…”. We must set limits assertively. Look for allies in your family or in your social environment, people who can understand and support you.Put distance from the narcissistic family. Now, putting distance does not always mean breaking all ties, but rather being clear about what situations we can handle, what we can tolerate or how often we will see them.

In conclusion, Living in an environment where emotional principles are distorted is neither healthy nor tolerable, even less so if there are children in that dysfunctional context.. The most common thing is that, when they become adults, they are the type of people incapable of saying “no” or understanding that they have every right to set limits, to say out loud what they want, what they need and what they will not tolerate.

Let us therefore keep this information very much in mind.

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