The Detrimental Impact of the Narcissistic Parent

Photo by Kat J on Unsplash

Most women desire the fairytale relationship portrayed in movies. There’s this highly gratifying and comforting sense around the Hollywood version of love. You fall in love with prince charming, get married and start a family or some variation of that theme. However, in reality, sometimes that prince charming turns out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It completely catches you off guard wondering what went wrong and how to fix it. Prince charming, to your surprise, is a covert narcissist. Charming and charismatic to the outside world almost to the point of a fictional comparison. Behind closed doors, the princely robes come off to reveal the monster underneath. 

The Scapegoat and the Golden Child

As you start building your family, you begin to see more subtle changes in your spouse. One child is overwhelmingly doted on and placed on a pedestal while another child is treated like a trash bin collecting all of the narcissist’s negative feelings. He specifically decides based on his own arbitrary rules who gets to be golden and who gets to be the scapegoat. 

The scapegoat is blamed for everything that goes wrong in the narcissist’s life. They are made to feel inadequate and nothing they do is ever right in the narcissist’s eyes. The golden child, on the other hand, is the “perfect” one. Nothing they do is wrong, and they are the apple of the narcissist’s eye. When they misbehave, they are never disciplined while the scapegoat is overly disciplined even in the face of evidence where both children are responsible.

As their mother, you see the difference in how they’re being treated. You voice your concerns to your spouse who gaslights you into believing you are crazy. You’re also caught up in your own battle of survival trying to avoid bouts of narcissistic rage by walking on eggshells in the presence of the narcissist. All it takes is one phrase or utterance to set the narcissist off. 

The Aftermath

Siblings in a narcissistic family are bonded by emotional trauma. They experience psychological warfare that most people wouldn’t understand or believe based on the covertness of the narcissist. The children’s sense of self-worth is so psychologically beaten out of them that it takes a long time to get it back if they are fortunate enough to do so.

The covert narcissistic parent is subtle in their emotional abuse of their children, using insinuations and subtle daggers difficult for their children to recognize. The kids are left with the impression that they aren’t good enough because they aren’t doing whatever it is the narcissistic parent is visualizing in their head. Unfortunately, the children then end up confused from the gaslighting, making them feel like a failure or inadequate, needing to strive harder to earn the love and approval of the narcissistic parent. This is exactly the goal of the covert narcissistic parent. To make new supply/victims, suppress opposition and create chaos. To them, children are and will be used as tools for the narcissist’s needs.  

The golden child develops a scattered sense of identity. Their narcissistic parent’s thoughts and feelings become their own, interfering with the child’s proper development of self. The parent expects the child to mirror all of their traits, and the child, wanting to please the parent, follows suit. The child has difficulty with their own thoughts, feelings, and opinions and typically has difficulty thinking for themselves. As a result, the child struggles with boundaries. Since the parent has no boundaries with the child, the child either grows up with zero boundaries and gets taken advantage of by others, or has such strong boundaries that they don’t let anyone in.

The scapegoat acts out in school, lashes out at others and develops extremely low self esteem. They feel that everything they do is wrong and nothing they do is ever enough.

Both children often develop severe anxiety anticipating the next narcissistic rage and wanting to avoid it at all costs, trying to conform to whatever the narcissist wants or needs. This anxiety bleeds into their everyday interaction with others. 

The children also typically develop severe depression and have suicidal thoughts. Both the golden child and the scapegoat lack self-esteem from constant criticism, demeaning remarks, and subliminal messages thrown at them from the narcissistic parent. If the children are not provided mental health therapy during childhood, their trauma can lead to trouble in their adult life. Most children require trauma therapy from a trained trauma therapist, preferably familiar with narcissism, to heal from their childhood upbringing. 

Narcissistic parents psychologically damage their children. 

Was it My Fault, coming 12/1/2021. Click here to pre-order.