“A family is a tyranny ruled by its weakest member.” George Bernard Shaw nailed the truth with this quote, and no better example is the narcissistic family.

The Narcissistic Family Playbill

The narcissistic family can be understood as a play with characters that serve the lead—the demanding, reactive, and delusional narcissist (usually a parent). Narcissistic families have uncannily similar patterns from one to the next, with basically the same unspoken rules and roles for family members. If visible to the outside world, the performance would appear to be a tragically sick and cruel farce. To the family players burdened with their roles, often since birth, the act is their painful normal.

The Narcissistic Family Cast

jack nicholson scary face from the shining, narcissistic family

The narcissist is the family tyrant.

Narcissist This is usually a parent or parents but may be a child/sibling. The narcissist is the family tyrant, whom everyone else revolves around trying to avoid criticism, conflict, or outright attack. There also may be a hive of narcissists as grandparents or other relatives.

A person with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) experiences disrupted attachment with caregivers in childhood that impedes healthy emotional and moral development. The child is unable to establish secure self-esteem, an individuated sense of identity, or a trusting and empathetic connection with others. S/he compensates with ongoing assertions of superiority, entitlement, control, exploitation, and antagonism, which may be overtly or covertly expressed.

As parents, narcissists invert the parent-child relationship by putting their needs before those of their children. They may be neglectful, engulfing, parasitic, and/or outright bullying and abusive.

Enabler/Codependent The primary enabler in the narcissistic family is usually a partner/spouse, but may be a parent or child. Codependent enablers support narcissists by complying with their entitlement, denying their abuse, accepting their narratives about the family, and acting as apologists for the harm they do. Narcissists typically manipulate enablers through alternating abuse and special treatment. Enablers are perpetually avoiding attack while also seeking rewards such as affection, praise, or money. The enabler is often under the delusion that s/he is the only one who can truly understand the narcissist and meet his/her needs. Enablers commonly experience trauma bonding with the narcissist, becoming emotionally and physically addicted to codependent abuse cycles.

Enablers may be a complex mix of codependent and narcissistic, or they may be covertly narcissistic. A common pattern is for a covert narcissist to partner with a more overtly dominant narcissist.

Flying Monkeys Children, other relatives, and/or friends, flying monkeys are enablers who also perpetrate the narcissist’s abuse on targeted victims, most often a scapegoated child. Like the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz, they assist in the narcissist’s dirty work and carry out abuse by proxy. The most manipulable members of the family become flying monkeys, who may be narcissistic themselves.

girl painted in gold—golden child, narcissistic family

The golden child is trained to please.

Golden Child The golden child is the narcissistic parent’s idealized favorite, bestowed with special status and privilege. Narcissists project their delusional ideal self—what they want to believe about themselves—onto the favored child and engulf the child’s identity into their own. Roles and rules in the narcissistic family can be fluid and changeable, and narcissistic parents may reassign the part of golden child to another if it suits their shifting agenda or if family circumstances change.

Scapegoat The child targeted as scapegoat functions as a projection of the narcissistic parent’s repressed shame and self-hatred. Blamed for family problems and disappointments, this child is fair game for abuse from the enabler and flying monkeys too. Oftentimes the scapegoat is different from the family culture in some way. This child may be the strongest, most aware, and/or most empathetic child, the one who questions the family system and perhaps stands up to the narcissist in defense of others. Unlike the golden child, the scapegoat is least invested in upholding the family system because s/he recognizes its injustice and benefits least from it.

The Narcissistic Family Glossary of Terms

Gaslighting This is a form of psychological abuse that involves undermining another person’s mental state by leading them to question their perceptions of reality. The narcissistic manipulator uses denial, dismissal, distortion, and other forms of lying to erode victims’ belief in their own judgment and, ultimately, their sanity. The term comes from the 1944 Hollywood film Gaslight, a classic depiction of this kind of brainwashing.

Hoovering Cruel and prone to splitting (seeing others as all good or all bad), narcissists often alienate or discard those around them. If sources of supply pull away, narcissists may attempt to hoover (as in vacuum-suck) them back. Or they may try to hoover previously discarded people that they see as valuable again.

Narcissistic Rage A defining feature of the narcissistic personality is emotional dysregulation and reactivity, including hair-trigger rage about anything perceived as an insult or threat. Far beyond normal anger, narcissistic rage is terrifying and may include physical violence. It can be overt or cloaked in passive-aggressive behavior such as guilt-tripping, silent treatment, or smear campaigns.

goat, narcissistic family

The scapegoat sees things from a different angle.

Narcissistic Supply Like a parasite, the narcissistic personality is highly dependent on others for emotional sustenance, demanding attention, agreement, and adoration. Anyone the narcissist can exploit—a partner, child, relative, employee, student, or friend—is a potential source of supply. Without others to demean or draw validation from, the narcissist is an empty husk.

Projection We all project from time to time, but the narcissist does so compulsively and often with little awareness. When narcissists project, they direct their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors onto others so they don’t have to take responsibility or carry painful emotions. Because they lack self-awareness, don’t respect boundaries, and cope by externalizing their feelings of anger and emptiness, narcissists project as a matter of course in all of their relationships. If the narcissist lied, you are the liar; if s/he is childish, you are immature; if s/he insulted you, you are mean; if s/he demanded reassurance, you are insecure; if s/he ate food off your plate, you are a selfish pig.

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Learn much more about narcissistic families in Julie’s book 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.

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Goat image courtesy of Eva Rinaldi and kkirugi, CC.