Abuse in the narcissistic family is typically understood as a set of overbearing behaviors stemming from the narcissist’s outsized self-importance and impaired empathy. Narcissists dominate family members with their excessive neediness, selfish demands, antagonism, hypersensitivity, and unrealistic expectations. But neglect, both physical and emotional, also is a defining feature of the narcissistic family, with devastating impact.
As opposed to outright abuse, neglect is the absence of support and therefore can be difficult to identify, even and especially for the person neglected, particularly a child. Child Welfare Information Gateway identifies neglect as the most common form of child abuse and sites data showing that chronically neglected children have “more severe cognitive and academic deficits [and] social withdrawal” than children abused in other ways. It defines four primary types of neglect (with some of my own additions here):
- Physical neglect: failure to meet a child’s basic survival needs for food, clothing, hygiene, and shelter; and failure to provide supervision and safe conditions
- Medical neglect: failure to meet a child’s health care needs
- Educational neglect: failure to ensure a child receives an adequate education to think critically and function in society
- Emotional neglect: failure to provide a child with attention, affection, and other forms of emotional nurturing
Neglect in the Narcissistic Family
All types of neglect can occur in a narcissistic family. The narcissistic personality‘s extreme self-focus and low to absent concern for others inevitably translate into negligent parenting. While social pressures to fulfill parenting roles and provide the appearance of normalcy or even exceptionalism drive most narcissistic parents to meet their children’s most obvious needs, many children in such homes receive sporadic and highly conditional care. An infection may go unnoticed until it is severe. An unsupervised child may get injured, in trouble with the police, or violated by an older child or adult. A habitually hungry child may look for steady meals at a neighbor’s or friend’s house. A child may be burdened with so much responsibility at home that s/he drops out of school. A serially ignored child may turn to drugs or self-harm to manage loneliness and depression.
Learning Not to Need in the Narcissistic Family
Children from narcissistic homes learn early on not to need. Such children are taught through words and deeds, tones and silences that in the universe of home their parents’ needs take precedence and their own are often cause for resentment and even punishment. Since we all need physical and emotional support at any age but particularly when we are relatively helpless children with little knowledge of the world or power over our circumstances, such messages are nothing short of devastating.
Children taught not to need look for ways to survive without their parents. They attempt to mask their vulnerabilities and bury their feelings, things that are ultimately impossible in the long run. Inevitably they feel shame about their normal needs, and learn to fear and hate their own human vulnerability. Neglected children may appear unkempt, with unwashed hair and clothes, untreated illnesses and injuries, and malnourishment. But signs of neglect, particularly emotional neglect, are often behavioral and less obvious. Neglected children may display a range of symptoms, including
- difficulty trusting,
- withdrawal/self-isolation,
- depression,
- low self-esteem,
- anger,
- aggression,
- hypervigilance,
- rigidity,
- lack of empathy,
- perfectionism,
- excessive care-taking of others,
- emotional reactivity,
- dissociation,
- self-harm, and/or
- extreme risk-taking.
The Double Bind of the “Perfect” Parent in the Narcissistic Family
Neglect is hard enough to endure for any child, but in the narcissistic home it is often exacerbated by messages from impaired parents that they are perfect and their children are fortunate to get whatever they offer. Extremely narcissistic parents fundamentally feel they don’t “owe” their children anything, and when they do things for their kids they typically expect something in return, such as profuse appreciation, compliance, or some form of service. For narcissists, relationships are transactional, and they expect to get more than they give. Children quickly learn to rely on their more responsive parent to meet their day-to-day needs and to show gratitude for even the most basic gestures from their narcissistic parent. When both parents are narcissistic or otherwise impaired, children learn to manipulate to meet their needs, rely on siblings or other family members, and/or look outside the home.
Children of narcissistic parents experience a cognitive dissonance, or conflict between reality and what they are told is happening, about the neglect in their home. They naturally feel empty, frightened, and angry about their parent’s neglect but constantly receive the message that the parent is above reproach. Narcissistic fathers may be touted for being generous and dedicated providers while mothers are loving and self-sacrificing care givers. For the child dealing with a very different reality, the neglect becomes that much harder to recognize and make sense of. Often it is easier for the child to deny reality or blame her- or himself than to admit that the family line is a lie and the care they are getting is tragically deficient.
Listen to Julie’s groundbreaking audio course “Understanding Narcissism” with code JULIE.
Read Julie’s critically acclaimed book The Narcissist in Your Life: Recognizing the Patterns and Learning to Break Free from Hachette Books.
Need support? Julie provides specialized narcissistic abuse recovery coaching to clients around the world.
Related Articles by Julie L. Hall
- 8 Types of Narcissistic Family Scapegoat
- 12 Unspoken Rules of Engagement in the Narcissistic Family
- The Narcissistic Family: Cast of Characters and Glossary of Terms
- Healing a Sense of Foreshortened Future in Adult Children of Narcissists
- The Narcissist’s Caretakers: Caught Hook, Line, and Sinker
- What the Narcissist Fears Most
- Narcissist Parents Are Hurt Machines to Their Children
- Identifying the Covert Narcissist in Your Life: A Checklist
- Understanding Narcissistic Rage and Why It’s Not Your Fault
- Setting Boundaries with Narcissist Parents
- The Dos and Don’ts of CoParenting with a Narcissist Ex
- How to Protect Your Children from Your Narcissist Spouse
- Why Narcissists Will Never Love You and It’s Dangerous to Love Them
- Horrid and Shocking Things Narcissists Say and Do
- The Overt Versus Covert Narcissist: Both Suck
- Seven Things Narcissists Will Never Do
- Enabling the Narcissist: How and Why It Happens
- How Narcissists Torture Others and Believe They’re Right to Do It
- Seven Sure-Fire Ways to Spot a Narcissist
- Maddening and Bizarre Things Narcissists Do Explained
- Behind the Narcissist Mask: The Bully, Coward, Liar and Fraud
- Why You Should Not Feel Sorry for the Narcissist
- Adult Children of Narcissists Face Trauma-Induced Health Risks
- Raised by a Narcissist? 11 Healing Things to Do for Yourself Right Now
- What Raging Narcissists Break: A Real-Life Damage List
- The Dilemma of the Golden Child in the Narcissistic Family
- Narcissism 101: A Glossary of Terms for Understanding the Madness
- The Narcissism Disease Cluster in Families and How to End the Cycle
- A Daughter’s Story of One Hell of a Narcissistic Mother
- The Narcissist Parent’s Psychological Warfare: Parentifying, Idealizing, and Scapegoating
- Raised by Narcissists? Why You Can’t Afford the Wrong Therapist
- 4 Insidious Ways That Narcissistic Abuse Isolates the Victim
- It’s You and Me Baby: Narcissistic Head Games
- How and Why Narcissists Are Highly Skilled Abusers
- The Strength of the Scapegoat in the Narcissistic Family
- Life in the Fun House: Narcissistic Mirroring and Projection
- The Paradox of the Narcissist’s Unrequited Self-Love
- A Golden Child Story of Guilt in the Narcissistic Family
- 9 Best of the Worst Narcissist Mothers on Screen
- Understanding the Narcissist’s Disrespect, Envy, and Contempt
Image courtesy of fusion-of-horizons, C.C.
View Comments (22)
Thanks. Good article.
Yep. All of the above.
Julia, thank you so much for writing this blog. It's helping me to process what the hell happened growing up, why I have no support from my family that others seem to take as a given, and that I was right to fight every single day in my head against the shit that poured out of my father's mouth.
The line:
"Inevitably they feel shame about their normal needs, and learn to fear and hate their own human vulnerability. Neglected children may appear unkempt, with unwashed hair and clothes, untreated illnesses and injuries, and malnourishment."
hits close to home. I'm still afraid or ashamed or something to get medical care, I feel like I'm doing something wrong by buying new clothes, brushing my teeth, or applying for a job. I'm afraid of nearly everything involving people. Everything normal is a struggle that I'm hammering down into a routine just by surviving. After 10 years away from them, I've managed to make some really good, really close friends, I'm barreling my way through school to become a chemist, and I just got a job as a tutor. It's possible, it just feels sometimes like some other, much more generous person is carrying me through on autopilot.
I really understand. Keep it up. You deserve all of those things. That person succeeding is strong, smart you. Go go go!
The "some other, much more generous person is carrying me through on autopilot" is the God who loves you more than anything. ❤️
You are in my thoughts and prayers.
This was a really good one, Julia! Why does it seem like, we quickly learn to "deny reality" and then later it takes at least ten times as long to dig ourselves out of that hole? It's like a Chinese finger trap!
Thanks Rebecca. I love that finger trap analogy. The thing about denial is that in many ways it protects us when we're young but, paradoxically, leaves us stuck as we get older. A certain amount of it is necessary in childhood because we simply are not equipped to face the fact that our parents are tragically self-involved and at best conditionally loving. Yet to heal and evolve as adults we must grow out of that survivalist denial.
This is the best description of what happens with a narcissistic mother and what has happened to me in my life that I have ever read. There are so many blind to the reality of it and we suffer even more in silence because of it. Thanks for this article. :)
This is just the opposite of how my husband is with his children.. he actually will not cut his apron strings
from his (my bonus) children. His son is 30,married and has a baby on the way but i don't believe he can make a
decision without calling his dad.. Daughter is 20 lives with us and he waits on her hand and foot. Makes her or goes to Starbucks to get her coffee or breakfast, then packs her lunch makes her bed and whatever else she wants . i however have yet to get the 1st cup of coffee brought to me in 8 years. i truly believe he thrives
on the tension he causes between us, the more i say don't the more he does and then blames me for every argument we have.. I'm at my wits end now battling divorce or stay in the never ending cycle of blame and shame
Holy sh*t.
Never before have I read such an accurate portrayal of the home I grew up in & the father I continue to know.
It’s as if a camera was recording everything...
Thank you so much. My wife has stopped all communication with her family. The damage that they have done has left us both devastated and wondering how their evil became our normal when we interacted with them. I pray one day that we both can become stronger and not be so fearful of the retaliation and pain that they(her parents) spread and thrive on.
The lump in my throat is hard to swallow reading many of these. I was born with birth defects and when my stepddad officially adopted me at 1, he said to the Magistrate that he would be able to take care of me, for now, he was my dad. My surgeries stopped when I was 12. He told me that I'd never be beautiful so I'd better be smart instead. My mother passed all of this responsibility over to him. She just never thought I'd amount to anything. So I studied hard and got into several art schools. I wanted to be an art therapist. I lasted one year. Neither my mother not stepdad sent anything to help. I would eat out of trash cans and dig in the garbage to find toothpaste and shampoo and such because I wanted to stay so badly. They would always say, "how are you ever going to stay, don't expect me to help." I have struggled forever. It took me 7 years to earn a Bachelor's in Psych. ( we were military and moved around a lot) I still struggle believing people, trusting, thinking I'll ever amount to anything. I was telling my husband that if anyone were to ask, what was the worst thing being raised by a family of Narcs, both malignant overt and covert. The worst thing is only ever surviving, never thriving. Holding on and not ever going any higher. A deep seated feeling of failure. My mother died and stepfather stopped talking to me 25 years ago. It's as if I never existed.
Hi, Raine, I'm very, very sorry for the crap they put you through. Janet Reed
Hallo Raine, I'm very touched reading your story. And still you DO exist.... I'm sure you are an incredibly creative person and the more you say 'yes' to yourself, you can thrive in ways you never imagined. I am learning to thrive - small steps after not believing in myself for so long. Love to you, Marion