Listen to Julie discuss this article in detail in her interview on Narcissist Apocalypse Podcast.
This article first appeared on Psychology Today, March 15, 2020 In simple terms, a narcissistic family is one in which the needs of the parents are the focus and the children are expected in various ways to meet those needs. The healthy family model is turned on its head to support the parents rather than foster the children’s development.
As in other kinds of dysfunctional families, there is abuse and corresponding denial of the abuse. There is also secrecy, neglect, unrealistic expectations, an impoverishment of empathy, disrespect for boundaries, and ongoing conflict.
Unspoken Rules in the Narcissistic Family
Narcissistic homes have unspoken rules of engagement that dictate interactions among family members:
1. Acceptance Is Conditional To gain acceptance, you must comply with the family narrative and value system. Expressions of difference are rejected and pathologized.
2. Submission Is Required Everyone is expected to submit to the dominant narcissist’s authority, no matter how ignorant, arbitrary, cruel, or destructive it is.
3. Someone Must Be Blamed for Problems When something bad happens, from a lost job to a spilled glass of milk, someone must be blamed for it. Typically there is a family scapegoat who is made to bear the main burden of the family’s problems, frustration, and unhappiness, as well as the dominant narcissist’s projected self-loathing.
4. Vulnerability Is Dangerous Mistakes, accidents, and weaknesses, even ones you take responsibility for, are cause for shaming treatment that can persist for years.
5. You Must Take Sides Just as there is always blame and shame, there are always sides, and if you are not on the dominant narcissist’s side you are wrong. Children often feel forced to choose between parents, siblings, and other family members.
6. There Is Never Enough Love and Respect to Go Around Renewable resources in healthy families, love and respect are limited to the narcissist and whomever else is deemed worthy, usually a favored “golden” child. Respect for one person means disrespect for another.
7. Feelings Are Wrong The feelings that make us human, help us connect and get our needs met, and protect us from harm are selfish and must be repressed. Only the narcissist has free rein to express feelings, have emotional reactions, and make demands.
8. Competition, Not Cooperation, Rules the Day One-upmanship, favoritism, and constant comparison create a harshly competitive environment that undermines trust and breeds hostility and betrayal.
9. Appearances Are More Important Than Substance Even if everyone is suffering, they must smile for the family photo.
10. Rage Is Normalized Everyone is expected to swallow and endure the dominant narcissist’s irrational, explosive, and perhaps also violent rage. This may be magnified by other forms of mental illness and/or addiction.
11. Denial Is Rampant To sustain the dominant narcissist’s control over the family, there is denial of
- abusive incidents;
- the continual atmosphere of fear;
- the ongoing mistreatment of the scapegoat; and
- routine forms of neglect.
12. There Is No Safety Although the scapegoat is targeted with the most abuse, everyone is on hyperalert because no one is safe from blame and rage.
Listen to Julie discuss this article in detail in her interview on Narcissist Apocalypse Podcast from December 9, 2021.
Julie L. Hall is the author of The Narcissist in Your Life: Recognizing the Patterns and Learning to Break Free from Hachette Books.
Need support? Julie offers specialized narcissistic abuse recovery coaching to clients around the world.
Related Articles by Julie L. Hall
- 5 Things Children of Narcissists Wish Everyone Would Stop Saying
- Your Narcissistic Mother Hates Your Body, and Here’s Why
- Are You Being Bullied by Narcissistic Monologuing?
- Decoding the True Narcissist: 7 Definitive Traits Explained
- Big Sissies: How and Why Narcissists Get Worse with Age
- Narcissist Parents Are Hurt Machines to Their Children
- What the Narcissist Fears Most
- Understanding Narcissistic Rage and Why It Is Not Your Fault
- The Dos and Don’ts of CoParenting with a Narcissist Ex
- 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
- 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
- The Burden 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
- Raised by Narcissists? Why You Can’t Afford the Wrong Therapist
- It’s You and Me Baby: Narcissistic Head Games
- Identifying the Covert Narcissist in Your Life: A Checklist
- The Strength of the Narcissistic Family Scapegoat
- How to Protect Your Children from Your Narcissist Spouse
- 9 Best of the Worst Narcissist Mothers on Screen
- Understanding the Narcissist’s Disrespect, Envy, and Contempt
- Healing a Sense of Foreshortened Future in Adult Children of Narcissists
- The Narcissist’s Caretakers: Caught Hook, Line, and Sinker
Featured image, “Meeting Adelie” by Paula Rego, courtesy of Pedro Ribeiro Simões, Creative Commons.
11 Comments
Thank you for this excellent, concise summary of the family playbook when a parent(s) is/are narcissistic.
Thank you you’re putting my thoughts into words something which I could not do but I knew something was not right! Now when ask why did I leave home I can put my thoughts to words with your help!
Yes, that was my family. I was never allowed any feelings. If I complained or was sick. My narcissist father would say “Whos fault is that?” I was the scapegoat.
20+ years of being the Scapegoat daughter to an insane narcissist sociopath. I would very much like to print a copy of this list and give it to all the people who a.) try to force me into contact with my mother, b.) who ask why I don’t live with my mother, and c.) All the people who tell me to JUST GET OVER IT and stop complaining.
This pretty much nails it. My life before no contact with my “family” in 2014. They dropped me like a hot potato. And that includes extended relatives. Bunch of black hearted phonies.
Since I discovered this site I have found the most succinct and comprehensive descriptions and explanations of NPD behavior and I have been studying and researching for many years. It has been very helpful because the abuse my family has and still receives has been unchecked for almost 30 years.
Wow. This one hits hard. Also, rule #1 is spoken in my family. Everyone literally agrees and said out loud that if you don’t bring anything to the table, youre useless. They see nothing wrong with conditional love and it feels like a cult.
I have a lot of guilt and shame for staying with an abusive narcissist for 27 years. Each of my three children experienced being the scapegoat, or the golden child depending on how they were performing and how they reflected on their narcissistic father. We lived by most of the 12 rules in this article. The kids had to side with him after the divorce or else they would be punished. I want to hear from adult children of abusive Narcissistic fathers. I want to tell my kids how sorry I am and how trapped I felt when I didn’t want to break up our family.
I was the scapegoat in my family if you want to call it that My father ruled the roost with the Devine right of Kings I did my best to stay out of his way. I did pretty good until I reached 23 and realized I was not where I wanted to be. So then he suddenly died and I naturally took it personally. Life is better now. My bachelor days were not a walk in the park but, I managed to survive. I am now 61.
This brought me to tears. Tears that released the hurt, the suffering, the shame, the truth.
I found the truth of what I know is still denied but will always be truth.
I’m not the problem and it is what it is, my reality.
Here’s to living in search of the real me, not what they want me to be. A victim no more.
Unspoken rules in my narcissistic in law family, where, for several generations, emotional abuse that could be caused by narcissism has been normalised and exists side by side with love, loyalty and fear, as confirmed by my husband. His brother and his wife show narcissistic behaviour that to this day goes unchallenged by the family, because there would be world war seven if the family confronted them and my husband does not want to lose his brother. His words, not mine. I was unaware for a long time, then aware but unsure of what to do, then one day, I struck back. At that point I understood the family dynamics and was highly suspicious that my sister in law was ready to mistreat my son. And she did. Under my husband’s nose, the grandparents, uncles, everyone was there. I was not there, so my son had to deal with her on his own and I could not step in. My husband saw it all and did nothing because he doesn’t want to lose his brother (remember?) My son was seven years old at the time. I have a background in law enforcement and can talk the talk. So I listed all the evidence I had about their abusive behaviour, why that was not ok, also a little bit about enabling behaviour and very clear consequences: I would testify against my brother in law if he was ever again threatening to beat up my husband and would not tolerate any abuse of my child, or the local constabulary would be very busy very soon. I sent it to my brother in law, sister in law and several family members, including my father in law. Before Xmas, so that it was a particularly memorable and happy one (yes, I’m sarcastic here) for them. But, it was a long road to get there for me, because loosing a supportive family unit goes against our survival instincts. At the end, it was a conscious choice I made, and one I gladly made, because it is my birthright to live my life free of abuse and fear, and that goes for my husband and son also.