Published on The Huffington Post May 23, 2016 If you are familiar with the narcissistic family system you know there is typically a scapegoat and a golden child. Both are projections of the narcissistic parent (or parents), false identities assigned to children who do their best with the roles cast them. The scapegoat is targeted with rage and blame, while the golden child is the idealized favorite whose successes are celebrated and failures are airbrushed away or, through narcissistic contortionism, attributed to the scapegoat.
It is easy to see how the scapegoat is harmed in this all-too-common dynamic. To varying degrees, overtly or covertly, s/he is systematically belittled and shamed, carrying responsibility for the narcissist’s self-hatred, frustrating job, or burnt toast. It is harder to see the damage done to the golden child. Children in this role appear to be above reproach—adored and always excused. But, like the scapegoat, the golden child is merely a pawn in the narcissistic family system, an engulfed extension of the narcissist whose identity is tied to the parent(s) and whose boundaries are continuously violated.
Extreme Neediness
Lynn from Chicago grew up with an engulfing narcissistic mother and a frequently absent narcissistic father. “My mother was kind and loving, and she could be a lot of fun, but she suffered from depression and narcissism,” Lynn explained. “The narcissism was clearly a condition that was brought on by pretty intense neglect when she was a child. She had a weak, detached mother who wouldn’t protect her, and her father was harshly critical and behaved as if he didn’t love her.”
Lynn said that her own father’s neglect and scorn of her mother, like that of her mother’s father, furthered her mother’s feelings of being unloved. Over time her narcissism became more pronounced. As the first child, Lynn became her mother’s support system. “I was her person—the one she would get love and attention from,” Lynn said. “Her extreme neediness came out in the form of jealousy whenever I would go out with my friends or try to have any kind of life of my own. She would act offended and hurt, and I would feel really guilty.”
A Terrifying Threat
Lynn recalled a terrifying incident that occurred when she was about seven: “My mother was very unhappy because of problems with my father. She locked herself in the bathroom and said she was going to kill herself because no one loved her, that we’d all be better off without her. I was afraid from that moment on that she would do that, and it was my responsibility to keep her alive.” At that moment, Lynn said, her life went on pause.
Over the years her mother continued to threaten suicide. “My father would just huff in disgust and leave. It was too complicated for me to manage having relationships other than with my mother. My only friends were people I would hang out with at school when my mother couldn’t expect me to be at home.”
Jail Sentence
Lynn described the experience as “horribly suffocating.” She said, “I felt the whole time living at home I couldn’t breathe. It was like I was in jail.”
Lynn said that when her sister came along she didn’t fall in line with the role of being there to provide attention and love for their mother. “She rebelled against the family dynamic and was angry about it. It wasn’t in her personality, and, besides, that role was already filled by me. Mom didn’t exactly scapegoat my sister, but she was befuddled by her, and our father would complain about her to relatives.”
Countdown to Freedom
By the time Lynn entered ninth grade she had started a countdown of the days until she could leave home. “I just wanted to get away. I thought, ‘Okay this is my job until I can get out.’” She said she was worried about her sister having to deal with it when she left home, but when she finished high school she felt she had put in her time.
After graduating from college Lynn was lucky enough to find a therapist who understood narcissistic families (read more about the importance of finding the right therapist). “During our second session she diagnosed my mother. It blew me away. I worked hard for the next four years to understand what it meant.” By the time her mother followed her to Chicago, Lynn was in her late 20s and had gained enough perspective to draw boundaries so that they could have a workable relationship.
Golden Child’s Delayed Emotional Growth
“As an adult I was able to assert my own independence and come back to her with compassion. I knew she wasn’t out to hurt me—that was never her goal. I became her emotional caretaker part-time again, but she had developed ways of taking care of herself after I left. In our later years she has been able to be supportive, encouraging, and involved in lovely ways with my daughter. I always feel that she’s on my side. But if there is something wrong like I’m sick or she’s upset with my father I have to comfort her.”
I asked Lynn about the difference between the role of the scapegoat and golden child. Her wife was scapegoated in a very narcissistic family, so she has insight into both experiences. “The golden child probably has it easier in those formative years,” Lynn said. “But I developed emotionally slower than I should have because I was put on hold. You are there in service and you put off your emotional growth. For some people it’s forever. Every role in the narcissistic family takes a beating.”
Helpful? Buy me a coffee.Julie L. Hall is the author of The Narcissist in Your Life: Recognizing the Patterns and Learning to Break Free coming December 3, 2019, from Hachette Books. Preorder your copy now.
Need support? Julie provides specialized narcissistic abuse recovery coaching to clients around the world.
Related Articles by Julie L. Hall
- The Overt Versus Covert Narcissist: Both Suck
- Maddening and Bizarre Things About Narcissists Explained
- The Hidden Trauma of Neglect in the Narcissistic Family
- The Narcissism Disease Cluster in Families and How to End the Cycle
- Why Narcissists Will Never Love You and It’s Dangerous to Love Them
- How Narcissists Torture Others and Believe They’re Right to Do It
- The Narcissist’s Disrespect, Envy, and Contempt
- Why Narcissists Play the Shame Game
- How and Why Narcissists Are Highly Skilled Abusers
- The Narcissist Parent’s Psychological Warfare: Parentifying, Idealizing, and Scapegoating
- 7 Defining Traits of the Narcissist
- Raised by a Narcissist? 11 Healing Things to Do for Yourself Right Now
- The Paradox of the Narcissist’s Unrequited Self-Love
- It’s You and Me Baby: Narcissist Head Games
- 7 Things a Narcissist Will Never Do
- The Narcissist as Human Parasite: Are You a Host?
- 4 Insidious Ways That Narcissistic Abuse Isolates the Victim
- Behind the Narcissist Mask: The Bully, Coward, Liar and Fraud
- How to Protect Your Child from Your Narcissist Spouse
- The Challenge of Setting Boundaries with Narcissist Parents
- Understanding Narcissistic Rage and Why It Is Not Your Fault
- The Strength of the Scapegoat in the Narcissistic Family
- Adult Children of Narcissists Face Trauma-Induced Health Risks
- Seven Sure Ways to Spot a Narcissist
- The Dos and Don’ts of CoParenting with a Narcissist
Image courtesy of orvalrochefort, Creative Commons.
6 Comments
Narcissistic families … it truly is like it was said, “Every role in the narcissist family takes a beating.” And that beating is sometimes public, but most times it happens in private … without witnesses. No child should have to endure this kind of abuse.
Thanks for your comment Saoirse. Indeed most often the abuse is hidden at home, the only witnesses members of the family who are manipulated and terrorized into submission and often, sadly, complicity.
I feel like you can play many roles in a narcissistic family. I was the golden child until I wasn’t. Not being perfect I became the scapegoat. Not wanting to be the scapegoat, I became the rebel and the heralder of all the family secrets. Eventually I became the outcast and I was and have been banished. Many of these roles and patterns have continued in work and friendships.
Our family golden child demands every entitlement from her throne. She feels zero guilt.
I have a narcissist brother who was the golden child because he was the male. He has totally isolated his children from family relationships due to his fear of being found out. I finally stopped communicating with him because of his rages and constant insults. Every insult he used towards me was a perfect description of himself.
Only recently, I have realized I must be the golden child. I am the oldest of my siblings, and have been the recipient of all the perks and benefits my mother wanted to provide, which virtually guaranteed my career success. Ever since undergraduate school, I knew I wanted to become a professor and with my mother’s total devotion to my success, it made sense. Along the way, we grew to be very close and she still means so much to me. This eventually led me to where I am today, Purdue University. Reflecting back I recall that all I really had to do in order to receive this love and support was to carry out every request she made regarding my younger brother. He was her scapegoat.
I never thought about it when we were kids, but my mother always hated my younger brother Just one example out of many is I remember when he was about 8 years old, for some reason, she made him eat his dinner off the floor while the rest of us watched from the dinner table. I remember thinking I’m glad it wasn’t me. There was a lot more though, like she would constantly talk about him horribly behind his back to his teachers and really anyone who would listen, so even from a very young age, he must have wondered why other adults seemed to immediately dislike him. She continued to do that for years well into his adulthood, and everyone in the family has never mentioned a word of this to him as we were instructed not to. Everyone in our family, even our father, must have been afraid of my mother, and so did everything they could not to upset her. She had unquestioned authority in the family, that is for certain.
Regardless, over the years she was able to fine tune her use of her scapegoat and when he began high school, she took her treatment of him to a new level. She said she had a long talk with my sister and determined that he had sex with her. She said it happened in the house when we were all at home, which was weird since no one heard anyone scream or anything you would expect if something like that took place, but she said it happened. She didn’t mention it to him, but for the rest of us, she gave us instructions on how to treat him from that time forward. Looking back it is interesting that she didn’t file a police report, or take my sister to the doctor, and she has never gone to therapy, so it was never documented in any official capacity. What she wanted to do was carry out a long term plan of revenge and we were to participate as instructed. She began by spreading rumors to all his friends, all our relatives, and everyone in town that he was an abusive pedophile rapist, but make sure not to tell him because he could become dangerous. She told the school principal to let all the teachers at the school know. It was a little strange, but she would always laugh when she told the rest of us about who she spread the rumor to next. I remember this continued after he went to college, the same college I attended. She asked me to spread the rumor all around campus even before he started his first semester, and I did exactly that. Some said that was betraying my brother and other people who liked him said why would you do that, your brother is a nice person. I said I was supporting my mother, and that is the right thing to do. I asked him one time about it, he said it wasn’t true. He said he wanted to take a lie detector test, but he wanted my mother to also take one. What a joke, that would never happen, I just dropped the whole subject and didn’t mention that to anyone. I wasn’t about to take that information back to my mother, it was just easier for me.
My goal was to become a college professor, so I went along with all of it, you just get used to it as time passes. When he went off to work, she would get me to find out where he worked, and she would call his employers and tell them what a horrible person he is. It must have had some impact and he never knew my mother and I were secretly working against him like that. My mother would laugh at the thought of him getting horrible treatment from his coworkers due to her handiwork, she said someday he will need therapy or worse. All these years have passed and I don’t know where he is now, he doesn’t communicate with the family. So, there are positive aspects to having a mother with narcissistic personality disorder, which I found lacking in how people discuss their upbringing. I didn’t think growing up with her was bad for me and still don’t. It actually worked great for me. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made and at times, that is the way my mother wanted it to be, it was best not to question it. Point is, look at me today, I have a prestigious position that I worked for and deserve. And my mother is very proud of me being a leader in the English Department at Purdue University.
Thomas J. Rickert
Purdue University