Questions:

1. When we look at a family as a system, what insights do we gain?

2. Do the three elements of a narcissistic family (children are parentified, learn to have no needs, lose trust) sound familiar? How?

3. What are examples of overt and covert narcissistic family situations?

Once I am ready to back track my childhood, will post... .


Thank you for starting this thread.

Adult children of PDs need the tools to move on with our lives and live a life of radical acceptance and transformation.

Hi all,

I'm in!  I'm three for three - parentified, reactive and reflective and the trust thing. (Just ask my T - she did say that, not only were the other t's a challenge for me, it was also other relationships! )  I didn't know that I "fit" somewhere - Thanks for the thread!

js

Lots of interesting stuff here.

From justhere:


Covert systems present a special challenge, because "there's nothing wrong with us." Family systems theory talks about families having "rules." Dysfunctional families have a "no talk" rule. Secrets are kept.

From MyBigMouth:


Sounds like you're feeling pretty low about this right now, but that's actually a lot of insight. Family dysfunction continues across generations unless someone recognizes it and stops it. But it's hard, really hard, to be the one who steps up. You should be commended for your courage. There is a recovery process, which we'll get to later in the workshop.

From joiesophie:


Trust not learned or unlearned in childhood is very difficult to (re)gain. What strategies help us learn to trust while respecting our own safety? (By holding off on making a larger contribution right now on this thread, AXA is displaying a very healthy strategy, I think--honoring limits and where you are right now.)

From nonna:


 

Very interesting point. It makes me think of the "roles" within family systems. They are represented in different ways, but key features are:

*Roles are rigid. (If you try to move off your assigned role, you WILL get push back.)

*Roles are assigned by the system to meet the system's needs.

Examples of family roles (adding on to those justhere mentioned) include Hero, Family Scapegoat, Rebel, Overachiever, Little Parent. Do other examples come to mind?

Where DON'T we fit in the family dynamic?

B&W

This is an interesting topic for sure.

I can identify with some of the ideas, but not all are resonating with me. Normally I am on the boards due to BPD behaviors from my DH's FOO, but I have long felt that there was more to my own FOO than I could put a finger on. There is definite dysfunction, I just don't know how to name it.

*skewed responsibility--children meet parents' needs instead of the other way around. Children are parentified. -

This has happened to me, at times. Maybe more than I realize. My father, who is not my biological father, but adopted us after marrying my mom has terrible anger problems. The message was always not to rock the boat and "make" him mad. As he has aged and mellowed some, he has turned to me several times to care for him when he was ill or recovering from heart problems. He will listen to me when I fuss at him about his various health problems, but will not take the same advice from anyone else. This feels wrong to me because to me he should be listening to his wife, not his D. Also, related to my mom: I see her more and more as a waify figure who has for as long as I can remember played dumb or pretended that she can't do things to get other people to do them for her. As often as she plays the waif, she is assertive and can figure out most anything she wants to do, and then does it. She is terribly manipulative and often tells white lies, and until I came in contact with DH's FOO I did not recognize my mother's  manipulations as potentially damaging. I had always worked around them and learned to be manipulative in some ways myself.  I've always reacted very strongly to my mother lying and playing dumb, so much so that I am overly sensitive to people thinking I might be dumb and my sense of honesty is probably overblown. The upshot is that I very easily recognize when I am being manipulated or lied to.

*reactive and reflective--"rather than act on their own feelings in a proactive way" (better not to have feelings that cannot be expressed or validated), "children wait to see what others expect or need and then react to those expectations." Children learn not to have needs or to expect needs to be met.

This one stumps me. I still cannot name very many of my feelings besides love, anger, embarassment, happiness, confusion and frustration. I understand that there are a larger range of emotions that I feel, but have no way to identify or name them. I feel a larger range of emotions than these but have no vocabulary for describing or expressing them. This is something that bothers me very much and that I have actively worked on for the last 17 years.


*problems with intimacy--children unlearn trust. Although their needs may have been met as infants and toddlers, as they develop and their needs are more complex, the family system buckles. Children learn not to trust their caregivers and, by extension, others.

I have problems with trusting people in general and also in individual situations, although I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt until they prove me wrong unless I feel something "off" about them, in which case I distrust them until they prove otherwise. More often than not my gut feeling is right and the person or situation is not to be trusted.

Overtly narcissistic families are the classic dysfunctional families--easy to recognize, for a therapist at least, if not the individual. The authors point out that even obvious dysfunction is often repressed or denied by those within the family system, noting "the patient who can readily identify the reality of his or her upbringing is the exception, not the rule." In these families, there is often physical abuse, sexual abuse, severe emotional abuse, and/or neglect.

Covertly narcissistic families are more subtle, harder for the therapist--and of course the family member--to recognize. The family may appear "normal," but the "needs of the parents were the focus of the family, and that the children were in some way expected to meet those needs." In these families, there is often emotional abuse and neglect; one sibling may be strongly favored, or a parent may draw all attention to him or herself or expect caretaking from a child or children from a young age. Emotional incest may be an issue.


? I think my family falls into both overt and covert. Some problems, such as my dad's anger are overt. Almost anyone who knows our family knows that he has a BAD temper than often flares for no apparent reason. In fact, his FOO has a nickname for the rampant anger problems among the entire family. They refer to their tempers as "The match" strikes without warning, flares and quickly burns out, often with the recipients left compeltely stunned by what just happened and the angry person wondering why people are crying, mad at them, or reacting angrily towards them. On the other hand, my mother's machinations and lying are more covert. For most people that know her well, they would be surprised and shocked to hear that she lies and plays dumb so often. They view her as a nice, sweet lady (which she is most of the time). Even in the face of lying, she manages to turn the  situation comical or lighthearted so that rather than feeling angry, you feel like you've heard a funny story to pass along at a party. Despite all that, I've never felt physically neglected or that my parents were the focus of everything. There have been many times when us children were the center, more for mom than dad. I have felt that my sister has been favored over my brother and I on many many occasions, leaving me resentful towards her. She would say that I was favored. All of us would agree that my brother was the black sheep from early on, and continues still. Mom would admit that she favored my sister due to guilt and grieving for the loss of our biological father, which happened while she was pregnant with my sister. Mom also often tells me that dad favors me. Brother is often left out of the equation.

Mapping out the patterns of a BP (especially in a family) can help the sane person see the BPD/NPD, gauge one's own reactions accordingly, and set boundaries.  It's also a stark reminder that relationships between adults are 50/50 and shows the parentification of children.


Oh dear god yes.  uBPDm had narcissistic qualities and the faculty/staff/clergy at my school were extremely narcissistic, using dogma and catechism to reinforce servitude in female students.  Female children are supposed to be the caretakers of others, practicing and perfecting selfless servitude for their future husbands.  Any selfishness meant that your family, future husband and even God will leave you.  uBPDm didn't allow me to see much of my FOO until I was 15, so these poisonous people were the narcissistic family she pushed onto me.


Overt example: "We're both sick, but you should make enough soup for the both of us." - I was SEVEN YEARS OLD!  This involved opening a can of soup with a handheld can-opener and using the gas stove.

Covert example: "All you Girl Scouts should emulate The Virgin Mary.  She gave up her entire life to serve God, her husband Joseph, and her son.  Since none of you are old enough to get married and have children yet, make sure you serve your families, teachers, troop leaders, and your male peers.  God will know if you aren't doing this."

Roles

-I was quite clearly 'The Peacemaker' as the middle child, and I guess I was my father's 'Golden Child', even though he severely verbally/emotionally abused me

-My sister, as the eldest, was 'the Achiever', and was cherished for that, but then was the blackened child too, because she did not do everything my mother wanted her to do.

-My brother was 'The Jester' and was supposed to make people laugh whenever the moment called for it.  


-Learning about dysfunction

-Learning about PDs

-Learning, implementing, and enforcing boundaries

-Limiting contact with the abuser

-Learning about our own feelings and behaviors

-Practicing learned healthy behaviors with those that we feel are healthy

-Venting our anger, and doing it in a way that addresses our abuser

-Forgiving our abusers when we are ready

-Accepting our situation and trying to move forward 'in the moment'

-Letting our hurt and anger go


When we become who we were meant to be when we were born.  When we learn healthy ways, and act in healthy ways.  When we refuse our roles, or any roles.   When we learn that it is okay to just be ourselves, regardless of how our family responds to it.

Hi all,

This is harder for me than I thought.  I think it is because I finally DO fit in a system, there is a description for what I lived through.  So many times, I've read about families, and my family had issues, but didn't seem to have a name. Alcoholic dysfuntional, overtly dysfunctional, and now - what I probably had, covertly dysfunctional and narcissistic.

It's got a name.  It wasn't my fault.  It never was - but now it's even more real than before.

Being parentified : That started from the get go.  I think, in a way, that I was born a caretaker.  Sometimes I wonder if people were "happy" or better yet, "relieved" that my mother would have "something to do", when learning I was coming into the world.

Learning to have no needs : I had to be a quick learner in order to survive to, the next year.  Having needs meant needing attention, and, usually, the attention was negative.  This is where people talk about children "acting out" because negative attention is better than none at all.  That wasn't me.  If I wanted something - I needed to plan and hope it was a good day for my mother, sometimes my father and possibly my sister.  Learning to go it alone at the age of 4 is something I did out of survival, not desire.  :)id I have a roof over my head and food to eat?  Yes.  And I was reminded of that anytime I wanted anything else.  Being noticed just because I was a person is still something I am getting used to.  

Having trust : This goes right along with having feelings.  It took me, well a very long time to understand I could have feelings and that no one would hit me for having them.  Literally.  When my current therapist would ask me how I felt, I would snap at her "Why do you care?".  Working with a therapist who was willing to wait it out has made all the difference.    And she's waited for several years, patiently.  I had trusted "strangers" (people outside the family) and was usually disappaointed - and no matter how careful I was with my trust, I would be betrayed by authority figures at the least expected times.  Therapists, for example.  I would trust them, and they would just, well, not believe me, or not care.  The first therapist, when I shared just a small instance of how weird my family could be, (after a YEAR of working with her) demanded that I bring in my sister, (who I rarely talk to)to vouch that I was telling the truth.  I felt like the therapist wanted to prove that I was a liar and simply was creating a story.  If I wanted to make up stories, I wouldn't be making this kind up.  

I never considered trusting my family.  That wouldn't make any sense.  And NOBODY would believe me.  

js

There's also the lost child.  Here's a good website for that: www.setyourselffree.com.au/freeresources.html

I was definitely a lost child growing up, but I was/am also a whole mix of things.


1.  The family system, I think, helps us look at how a few or several diverse people can (or attempt) to live under one roof as a structured and functional unit.  It's a biological system, also, something that work, "roommating", etc. are not.  Whereas you can go and find another job, new friends, you cannot choose another family.  Dealing with the different personalities in the family helps, I think, with preparing someone for how to deal with the different personalities outside the family.  Actually, mom's emotional needs (comforting when she was sad) had to be met by us kids because my father was "the reason" she was sad.

2.  I'm not so sure.  The childhood is drawing a blank, but I think some of them definitely came up in adulthood/adolescence.

3.  I'm not sure if ours was totally overt and covert.  We "seemed" normal on the outside.  We did things together and never really put our dirty laundry out.  We had the physical abuser (father) and the less obvious verbal abuser (mom).  I don't know what everyone THOUGHT of us, if they saw that we were such a good happy family.

I have seen families where I really thought they were "normal".  But when I look closer, I think I can see some dysfunction and issues there.

Sounds like you played the 'Caretaker' role very well B&W.  So, I'm assuming there was/is some anger/grieving to deal with in the loss of those opportunities to develop yourself ?  

After I thought about it a bit more, I think I've taken a turn at several of the roles: The Lost Child (probably my predominant role), the Hero (in sports) and later in career (kind of co-Hero with sister), the Surrogate Spouse (with mom in high school), the Scapegoat (since my 'Hero/Scapegoat' sister committed suicide).  I say predominantly the Lost Child because I feel the magical thinking in relationships and life in general, and tendency to withdraw in times of stress, has cost me the most, and has been the most perpetual.  

Finally, I am free of all roles and just trying to undo my dysfunction and live healthy

I've also been thinking that there may have been two, or possibly three, unhealthy dynamics in our family, one caused by my mother, one caused by my father, and one for the family as a whole.  In regard to my father, I was his favorite (Golden Child ?), my sister was kind of Daddy's Little Girl, and my brother was "a mistake" ?.

In regard to my mother, I was the 'Ignored Child', and at times, her 'Surrogate Spouse and her 'Caretaker', my sister was 'the Star' (publicly) and 'the Scapegoat' (privately), and my brother was 'the Baby'.

However, overall in the family dynamic, uBPD mother was 'the Caretaker' and workaholic/alcoholic father was 'the Scapegoat'.  My sister was 'the Achiever' or 'Hero' and then later became 'the Scapegoat' when she couldn't find balance in her life, and became 'needy'.  I was 'the Peacemaker' and the 'Lost Child' and couldn't find a voice in the family.  Later I became 'co-Hero' and then 'the Scapegoat' when my sister was no longer there to be blamed for our family chaos.  And my brother was 'The Mascot' or 'Jester', but has now adopted an extremely pessimistic life-view, and is now being alternately 'Whited' and 'Blacked' by Mom.  :)ad has mellowed out, but is still self-centered at heart.  

B&W thanks for posting those roles - as embarrassed as I am to admit this, I think I was the mastermind. Looks like I need to look into that a bit more.

Really interesting and honest discussion here.  Thanks everyone for sharing.   I was reading Lawson and how she talks about the Queen tending to marry the King.   My uBPm fits the Queen role completely and totally and if I think about my dad he was the unparalleled king making us a very nifty narssisstic family.   I have always been extremely proud of myself for breaking the cycle and of alcohol and abuse from my father and but I really seeing now that I've struggled far more to break the cycle of my mother and and the toxic effects she has had on me.   

When you talk about the roles, I would say I have mostly been the lost child.  It feels that both of my parents needs were (and my mom's still) so strong and demanding, there was no place for me.   I just sort of got squeezed out.  Where that leaves me now is that in my 50s I am still struggling to find out who I am.  I have been a mother and a damned good one even with my fleas  my-issuesbut now my children mostly live elsewhere and I"m back to looking more inward.  My greatest fear has come to pass, I was afraid I would look inward and find emptiness.   I keep hoping there is more of me underneathe all of that but getting through the muck has been tough.  I have been a writer and I am trying to reconnect with that, but I'm not sure of what "my" self is in my writing.   


I also still struggle at times to even *know* what it is I'm feeling.   It makes me sad to even write those words.  How can a person not know what they are feeling?   Yet it takes me time to figure it out, esp. if I feel threatened or triggered in some way. 

I guess its better late than never that I'm working on all of this,

LD

Feelings.  Wow.  I "KNEW" I 'understood' what feelings were. Rationally. Intellectually.  HAVING feelings?  That was a whole different concept. Because of the family, I thought people who had feelings, well, were, stupid.   Or warm and fuzzy.  And much less important.  This sounds so much like my father, it helps to be writing it down.  My mother 'held' the feelings for the family.  The out of control, don't know what to do, act out part of the system.  And she would be critiqued by my father and older sister when she would be off on one of her 'walk aways'.  It always puzzled me that neither one of them would see the rage and the episode coming.  but I guess that's because they were all about them? 

I'm finally in a better place with having feelings - everything between therapy and church has made a difference.  Seeing people be angry, have feelings, have someone (therapists) explain that feelings are okay made all the difference.  And that hugging WAS good. And that having feelings and being angry, didn't mean that I would become my mother, out of control and suicidal.   

Entitlement :  What a button for me.  I was never 'entitled ' to anything - see the quote - so when other people, at work, especially, 'get something by apparently 'whining', I am SO angry!  It's like, I've become invisible one more time - just as in the days of long ago in the family system.  So- there IS a reason why I feel this way!  Thanks, B & W!

js

In my family, I wasn't just not taught boundaries - I got assaulted and punished for having them. Example: my stepfather was looking for something he misplaced, and just walked into my room and started going through all my things, opening desk drawers and rooting through them, etc. I said "Stop going through my stuff!" and got slapped and snarled at - "Your stuff? What do you think is your stuff in here?"

Same with feelings. Like all kids, I would turn to my mother for comfort if I was upset about something. And like all normal human beings, I experienced anger. Sometimes, if I showed any kind of feeling like that, anger, frustration, sadness, my mother would go nuts and attack me, with slappings, screaming, throwing things. Those fits went on for hours. I learned that certain feelings were not just "not OK" for me, they would put me in danger.

I guess I alternated between Hero and Problem child, depending on how my mother felt about me at the time. If she wasn't feeling aggressive and punishing, she would come to me for comfort and advice, even when I was as young as 7 years old. When she was in her more destructive modes, I was either sick - she dragged me forever to various doctors, trying to find that elusive something that was wrong with me - or I was the very face of evil, to be eradicated.

After writing these things down, I kind of feel like I need to... .I don't know, lie down or something.

We have many good examples of roles we all play(ed) in family systems. We're also getting to how children's needs are not acknowledged and the results into adulthood--lack of entitlement, ownership of our own feelings, and boundaries.

A discussion of family systems would not be complete without covering triangulation. One tidy definition of triangulation is "where a person takes their frustration with one relationship to another person, adding a third person into the original relationship and causing power, control, and communication imbalances throughout."

A simple example would be when one parent is giving the other the silent treatment and turns to the child to say, "Tell your father/mother XYZ." Another is when a parent speaks alone with a child and says, "Your father/mother is crazy. What are we going to do?" Or "don't tell your sister/brother, but... ."

BPD sufferers, as we know, tend to think in black and white terms. They also tend to push away when they feel too much intimacy and pull us back when they feel too much distance. Those two dynamics alone can set a series of jangling triangles in motion in a family.

1. Does anyone have an elegant example of how a family with a BPD member(s) gets snarled up in triangles? (I'll post a case study later in this workshop.)

2. How do we avoid getting caught up in triangulation?

B&W