My extended family fully fits the description of "Narcissistic Family"

[zachira]

I have been learning a lot about narcissistic families. My immediate and extended family fully fit the description. It is all about maintaining the family image no matter what and supporting the roles that children are chosen for since birth. The golden children can do no wrong. One of my narcissistic cousins  who was treated like a god by the family bought her son his own tombstone at his request knowing full well that he was talking about ending his life. The family continued to worship her despite how she was enabling her son possibly committing suicide, and nobody criticized her. One of my aunts who was a lifetime family scapegoat made endless sacrifices for the family like taking care of my siblings and me for a week when my father had a heart attack while out of town with my mother. When my parents returned and my aunt was out of our house, both parents talked about my aunt with the usual anger and contempt as they frequently did no matter how many acts of kindness and generosity she did. I am finding on my long trip in which I am seeing many relatives of many different generations, that there are many people who are nice to me, as long as I don't expect them to have any compassion for how badly I get treated by the family members who are the cruelest to me. On the other hand, when I briefly explain to friends and many other people how I get treated by the family, they are shocked and feel sad for me. What is interesting to me, is some of the cousins seem to have been brought up in families with nurturing parents, where they do seem to have healthy relationships and happy lives, yet the taboo remains to keep quiet about the dysfunctional cruel behaviors of certain extended family members, and my complaints get invalidated if I say anything that can be construed as negative about a golden child. It is okay though to smear a family scapegoat, no matter how unfair and untrue the allegations are, and nobody says anything to defend the scapegoat, even if it is a very young child. Only one cousin, who is a distant one, has validated that my sister and BIL are both narcissists. She took me out of the room to quietly tell me this so no family members would hear what she had to say. I truly feel so rewarded being liked for who I am and having genuine relationships with people. I was telling a family friend about how I prefer people who tell me they disagree with me over people who pretend to be nice, and he said he felt the same way.

[zachira]

Just saw a good friend tonight. She has observed how my cousin is being terribly abused by his wife. My cousin is physically disabled and has Alzheimer's. I have spoken up for years about how abusive my cousin's wife is, and been told to mind my own business for the most part. The family mostly ignores abuse and gets mad at anybody who draws attention to the abuse.

[Woolspinner2000]

Hi Zachira, 

It's sad that it takes so much to be able to find validation when it is a need that we all have. I'm sorry that it is so tough in your family and wish you had more support. I am thankful for the BPD family here that is helpful and validating for those basic needs.

Like you, I have also experienced those who are validating in my family and those who aren't. I've slowly learned who is safe to talk with about past family history and who isn't. As much as I desperately need that validation at times, I choose also work on validating myself. There are times when I need to sit down with paper and pen and write out some facts of what I know to be true, that it actually IS factual. The combination of both hearing and writing and then reviewing my notes is something tangible that becomes a solid learning tool for me. I can review and remind myself of truth even when my feelings want to lie to me.

Just some thoughts I wanted to share with you. 

Re. your cousin, can you make an anonymous call to elder care services?

 
Wools

[zachira]

Wools:
I do think you are right that I need to focus more on validating myself. I am still in some ways very much trauma bonded to the family, though not nearly to the degrees I used to be. I am sad that so much of my life I bought into the family narrative that I was not a person of worth and internalized the blame the family placed on me, as they desperately need scapegoats to avoid facing how flawed they feel so deep down inside.
I have thought of reporting my cousin's wife for elder abuse and I worry it could make things worse for him. He is trauma bonded to her and would likely not do well if he was no longer in his home living with his wife.
Thank you for caring as always. I am glad you are back here helping members again after taking a well deserved break.

[Notwendy]

Your family sounds like my mother's extended family. In general, they are nice- they can be very gracious and generous, but also critical and invalidating.  For us kids, we never felt fully accepted by them and gravitated towards my father's family who loved us unconditionally.

The badmouthing behind someone's back is something I have heard from my mother and I know they have said things about me and she has too.

Even if they are nice to me when I do see them, I don't feel comfortable around them. Being around them also helped me to be empathetic to my mother- it would be tough to grow up in this family as they aren't validating. I don't think they are the cause of her having BPD, but it had to be hard for her.

I agree that the best step is to be more self validating and not look to people who can't do that for validation. It doesn't mean they are bad people. These kinds of patterns seem to be familial- and it may be something they didn't learn to do.

But you can learn it

[zachira]

Notwendy,
I was actually thinking of you when I posted this. I do think your mother's family is a lot like my family. Unfortunately, it is both sides of the house. I also was thinking of you when I wrote about my cousin who is being abused by his wife. Both my BIL and my cousin are doormats for their abusive wives.
I see the future as continuing to have very superficial relationships with the few family members I will have contact with and continuing to get my needs met for love and friendship with friends and a significant other.

[Woolspinner2000]

Hi zachira,

It's good to hear from you too. 

Thank you for caring as always. I am glad you are back here helping members again after taking a well deserved break. 

Thank you. It's good to be back and able to help and encourage where I can. It has been a tough, yet a good growing time away, which I very much needed. So much learning!

I think that self validating is one of the most difficult challenges the adult children of a pwBPD face. It's not at all easy because we were trained otherwise. My T has always said that if we learned it, we can unlearn it (as compared with being born with it). I find that to be such a strange thought, but it makes sense. There's this aspect of 'lil Wools within me that sometimes wants to just stamp her llama foot and say, "I don't want to have to unlearn that!"  The work is just too hard. But then after a good night's rest, perhaps I can get out of bed one morning and say, "Today is the day I am willing to work on it."

It's perfectly fine to seek to have some of our needs met in healthy ways through others. Ultimately we also need to remember that we know ourselves better than anyone and stand the best chance of meeting our own needs. You'll get there; I am confident of it. I feel it's a balance: some of others helping us, some of us caring for ourselves.

 
Wools

[zachira]

Wools,
Indeed it is a balance: We need to be able to validate ourselves while having healthy relationships with people who are capable of validating us. I too am working on unlearning so many things, especially the family narrative that I am a worthless person who has nothing to offer.  Some of the things I pay attention to now about evaluating whether a person is healthy for me to be around are: 1) Is this person comfortable in their own skin, and comfortable sharing their feelings and thoughts? 2) Is this person genuinely kind to others?

[Methuen]

It's funny but I've never thought of my mom's family as narcissists.  But reading your post has me reflecting that there could be a few traits, although I think they all suffered from anxiety, depression, trauma, and I suspect 3 of them have uBPD like my mom.  My mom had 8 siblings with the youngest being a half-sister (same father).  The children grew up relying on each other for survival (especially the middle ones close in age).  What I've noticed since your post on this topic, is that the middle siblings all scapegoated the oldest, and the youngest half-sister.  I grew up with these family scapegoat stories, but have never known either of the two scapegoated aunts.  Being a child, (kids don't have critical minds yet), I just assumed all the stories were facts.  Your post has helped me to recognize the real dynamic that was probably at play.  Maybe they were good people.

What I am sure of, is that no matter what good they could have done, my mom and her siblings would have continued to tell the same old negative stories.  The narrative was never going to change for them.  Of this I am certain.  Having scapegoats served some need for them.  Every time an aunt came to visit (I saw them at least once a year), I heard the same stories get told over and over.  My first memories start from about the time I was 6, and those stories got repeated every annual visit until I left home at 18.  They "got something" from believing and repeating those stories (it "fed" some need).  Whatever it was they "got", I don't see them ever choosing to "give it up" (say if the sibling did something good), if that makes sense.  

My mom has always struggled with uBPD, but since my dad died, she is the center of her own universe, and nothing matters unless it serves a purpose to have her needs met.  To me this seems like a narcissistic trait, but I've not read up on narcissism like I have on BPD. Who knows, maybe the trait was always there, but I didn't see it until dad became ill, and she became very abusive towards him.

[zachira]

Methuen,
It happened to me too, hearing the same negative stories being told over and over again about the scapegoats. It took me a long time to see the scapegoats as really decent people who didn't deserve the smear campaign and never were given credit for anything good they did. Yes, the scapegoating seems to serve a purpose; I believe it is to put someone else down so they don't have to feel so badly about themselves.
Dr. Ramani's videos on narcissism on youtube are a great resource and have helped me to not take so personally how I get mistreated by certain family members.

[Notwendy]

One thing I recall is feeling invisible or like an accessory- like a piece of furniture in the house- to my mother and her family. They ask about me and the kids but they don't listen to the reply. When I am with them, I keep the conversation on them. Ask them about their families or what is going on with them. I share very little and when I do talk, maybe it's about something like a TV show we both like. This keeps the visits superficial.

[Methuen]

They ask about me and the kids but they don't listen to the reply.

Wow, I never stop being amazed by the patterns shared by our BPD parents.  My mom too.  I always thought it was just her quirkiness and especially her ADHD (she has no ability to stay focussed on anything if it's not about her), but have slowly come to recognize and accept it's probably  more than that.  I don't feel it was always this bad with her.  I feel it has really worsened since my dad died and with her aging issues.  But maybe it's also just me being more aware, because I replaced my dad as her caretaker by default when he died. 

I wish I could have a conversation with him now that I have experienced what he must surely have sheltered me from.

Superficial is truly all they are capable of, especially at this stage of life (elderly), unless it's about them, and all their problems, complaints, trivial daily details, other needs, or gossip (she tries).  I don't do gossip (strong boundary there), and am slowly trying to lay the foundation for a boundary around too much negative stuff.  That only leaves superficial as the only safe thing left to engage in.