EP 26 The Roles of Children with a Narcissistic Parent

In this episode, I'm talking about the roles children are assigned in narcissistic family systems. We break down a little bit about the scapegoat, the golden child, and the ones caught quietly in the middle who learned to survive by becoming invisible.

These roles were never our identity… but many of us grew up believing they were.

We explore how narcissistic parents project their own wounds, expectations, and need for control onto their children, shaping the way we see ourselves long after childhood ends. From the pressure of perfection to the pain of blame and invisibility, these survival roles often follow us into adulthood and impact our relationships, self-worth, voice, and sense of belonging.

But healing begins when we realize we were never meant to live inside the role assigned to us.

TRIGGER WARNING: ABUSE AND TRAUMA

We'd love your feedback. Your voice matters here. Feel free to email us at WildlyHerPodcast@gmail.com. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Wildly Heard, a podcast about rising from psychological and emotional abuse and stepping into purpose, authenticity, and true identity. Each episode unpacks the journey of healing, from learning to recognize the scars of abuse to reclaiming your voice and embracing the truth of your identity. We'll explore what it means to walk free from fear and self-doubt and how to rebuild a life that is rooted in confidence, joy, and wholehearted living. This is what it means to be wildly her. I'm your host, Pamela Moore, and today I want to start talking about um people who grew up in a home with a narcissistic parent. And specifically, what I want to dive into today is the roles that children can fall into. And these are roles that are assigned by that narcissistic parent. But it with children, especially because it's in those formative years and we're really trying to discover who we are, we learn very early on how to protect ourselves and survive in an environment where love and safety are inconsistent. And so these roles many times will develop into identities that we carry into adulthood. And so I want to break down kind of what these roles are and a little bit how they look and how it is inside the home. So the first one that I want to talk about is what's called the scapegoat child. And it's called this because this child tends to carry a lot of the weight of the blame of things when things go wrong, in big or small, but somehow they tend to be a little bit of an outcast for the family. And they are positioned generally to be the problem. So they become, in a sense, this emotional container for everything that the narcissistic parent cannot face within themselves. And so the more that the blame is put on them, the more blame becomes their identity. So over time, they don't just feel blamed, they actually become it. And the criticism that they face is many times through being evaluated and picked apart, constantly corrected. It's like this chronic sense of um someone saying you're not quite right, no matter how hard they try. And most often, these are the children who uh very naturally pick up on truths. They're very naturally inquisitive, very naturally um analytic in nature, and so they tend to ask a lot of questions. Those questions that come will feel like an attack to the narcissist, and so they will shift that now to victimization and blaming and criticizing that child. And so when they speak up, they're either met with being too sensitive, too dramatic. Um, most often they're um told that they are being disrespectful, and and a lot of that is kind of where that gaslighting is. So, in a sense, it's teaching these children slowly to distrust their own perception because they feel a need or they see a need to question something, and sometimes it's even it's not that they are trying to rebel in any way, they're just naturally inquisitive. But questioning anything of a narcissist feels like an attack on them, and so they will start their gaslighting and flipping the script. So approval may come from time to time, but it comes in small, inconsistent doses, and it's often um coupled with compliance. So if there are moments growing up when this child will have a similar interest or um shine in a certain area where they get some kind of recognition, the parent will have some give some type of approval, but it's short-term and it's inconsistent. So the one thing that may get you approval today may not tomorrow. So it's it's that inconsistency that builds that um emotional dysregulation, it keeps it unsafe because they don't know what they're doing wrong. Many times this child will be compared to other children in the home. So part of the criticism may be, why can't you be more like? and they'll name another child. Um, and because they see things very clearly and they're naturally inquisitive, so they these are the people that naturally are are truth seekers. What happens is that desire for truth becomes dangerous, and so they're actually punished when they name dysfunction, they're met with that kind of backlash and punishment for it. And sometimes there's a pushback from them, and it's not because they're bad, it's because something inside of them refuses to stay silent all the time. So they'll be pushed and pushed and pushed, and then they just won't, for whatever reason, at some moment in time, not be as compliant and not just go along with the flow or not just stay silent. And so it appears that they're pushing back, breaking the rules, being disrespectful, and so they get labeled as the bad kid in the house sometimes. Um, and sometimes that is that narcissistic parent will shift that so that the focus now is on the behavior of that child and it's distracting from the true dysfunction of the home and what they're doing. One other thing you may find with these children is as they start to get a little bit older, they may disconnect from the family. So they may be the one that as a teenager um is not as enthusiastic, not as involved with family get-togethers or gatherings or things like that. They tend to kind of drift away, be a little bit disconnected from the family, be a little bit of a loner, and it's their way of kind of shutting down and protecting themselves because they feel like they don't belong anyway. And they're not conscious thoughts at first, they're very much these felt experiences that will settle into the body and it and it creates these deep set beliefs in our subconscious. And so, long term, when when these children find themselves in adulthood and moving outside of the home and kind of doing some things on their own and coming into themselves, there are a lot of ways that it'll show up the effects of all of this. And so some of that can look like self-sabotage. Um, sometimes they'll deal with uh chronic self-doubt. So, usually second-guessing decisions, um, especially emotions, because they they're not accustomed to feeling all of their emotions. These children also many times will have um a type of amnesia where they have no memory of their childhood or parts of their childhood, the behold um timelines that are just missing completely from their memories. And so they don't really trust themselves. And they also will sometimes take on this role of being hyper responsible. So they'll they'll take on a lot of responsibility because what they're doing is trying to prevent problems before they happen. So they constantly are going around trying to fix, manage, and anticipate because somewhere they feel responsible for everything that goes wrong. The other extreme of that is they'll go from people pleasing and overexplaining to a place of complete shutdown because there was no middle ground for them growing up. It was either taking responsibility or being invisible. And so if they, if they if them taking the blame isn't making somebody happy or they can't fix it and prevent the problems from happening, then sometimes what they'll do is just shut down and not do anything. They just kind of check out. And that starts in the in that time frame where I was talking about as they start to get a little bit older as children and they kind of check out from the family. They'll do that as adults as well. These people will have extreme difficulty receiving love because love that comes in a healthy form is extremely unfamiliar and it can it can feel suspicious, actually. It's not something that they are accustomed to, and love for them was always conditional. So um the hard part with with children who fell into scapegoat um many times is that there will be this deep quiet grief inside of them. And it is a grief that is buried deep inside for the childhood that they didn't get, and for denying themselves truth and having to adapt and shut off that natural part of their brain that wants to be inquisitive. And so shutting that down it it frustrates our our very being. And so there's a deep, quiet grief that is bottled deep inside of these children, most often as adults. And sometimes what you'll find is they are so disconnected from emotions or expressing emotions that they just don't know how. And we can only physically hold in emotions for so long, and then they'll actually explode. So there may be extremes with this type of person as an adult. Um, and again, this is generalization, so it can fall somewhere in the range of this, but it may be somebody who is seemingly emotionally cut off, like they can't cry, they can't um express deep heartfelt emotion, um, but then they have maybe explosive anger, or they they kind of explode in in odd moments or over things that may seem small, but it's because it's been building for so long. Um one thing that's very interesting, and I've seen this um personally in Family Dynamics, in other survivors that I've met with and and had relationship and connection with, and also uh I've I've I've seen this um just in studies that I've read and things that I've I've looked at. The scapegoat child, the one who was labeled as a scapegoat or who grew up kind of in that role, many times because they are the question askers, the truth tellers, some point in their adult life, these are usually the people who break the patterns. These are the ones who, when they finally understand that it was not about them, healing for them is about becoming something new. And so they tend to do the hard work, they tend to ask the hard questions, and these are the people who tend to really, really break the patterns that you'll see from childhood. And so they also will be very protective of their family, um, their spouse and children away from the dynamics of the family that they grew up with. So their family unit will be separate. Um another extreme role that I want to talk about is the golden child. And it's hard for me that it's called the golden child, and I understand um the references here, but I think it portrays sometimes this um idea that somewhere there was a privilege in being the golden child, like somewhere they got the better deal, but that's just not true. It's it's the same, they're still dealing with trauma as well. It's just tethered in a different way. So the golden child is the one who um becomes idealized by the narcissistic parent. And so they are praised, elevated, showcased, they're the best, the favorite. These are the the children who make the parent look good. Here's what I want to stress it's not because somewhere they are naturally doing all of the best. There's something that the narcissistic parent puts on a particular child to measure up, to to be on that pedestal that they're being put on. So the admiration that comes is extremely fragile because it's not based on who that child is, they actually become an extension of the narcissistic parent. So their identity is not their own. Their achievements, their appearance, many times, the choices that they make, these are all reflections of that parent's image. And so any type of individuality that they try to hold, it's like a betrayal to that parent, and it's shattering this um this showcased perfect picture that they have mentally of this child. And so these children absolutely will shy away from any type of individuality, away from the expectations or the pedestal that's built by the narcissistic parent. And it's high. So there is this unspoken rule for them that says, don't ever fall from this pedestal. So in their lives, mistakes are not just mistakes, they're threats to that role that they play. But if they make a mistake, the narcissistic parent will shield them from any accountability. So the parent may excuse, deny, um, overlook their harmful behaviors that they're doing. And it's not out of care for them, but it's because acknowledging the flaws would disrupt this illusion of perfection. And so they're very careful to deny um any kind of mistakes or flaws in that child. They also many times with the golden child will triangulate that child against others in the family unit. So they will be the ones positioned in direct contrast to the child who is the scapegoat. So remember, I said with the scapegoat, the parent will sometimes say, Why can't you be more like blank and name another child? Most often it's the golden child that they name. Why can't you be more like them? The challenge with this is that it creates division, and there will be this silent division that comes between siblings without them even understanding what's happening. The triangulation can also be against the other parent. So many times the golden child will be the one that the narcissist will go to um for their own praise and admiration or um or consoling them if they if they want to discuss their wounding. So they will take their marital problems sometimes to the golden child and and triangulate them against the other parent or against other children. They may come to them, you know, and complain about how hard it is to parent this other child because they're such a problem, or they create all of this for the family, or things, and so there's this triangulation that happens. And the hard part is that the golden child, because they're children, they're not mature enough to understand what's happening. And that becomes a normal behavior for them. And they don't understand that it's wrong, but they also don't understand why there is this division that happens when they desperately want to connect with others in the family. The hard part for these children is that they grow up only being accepted as long as they reflect that parent's idea. So the minute they drop any type of this um perfection that the parent has set up for them, that pedestal that was built for them, then their love could be withdrawn. And so for them to keep the love of that parent and to be accepted is to be perfect and to hold this performance constantly because it it establishes into their belief if I'm a disappointment, I will literally lose everything. And they will hold this belief in their subconscious. It's actually it gets it. This is that belief that gets into their the depth of their being, is who I am is not important, it's how I'm seen. And so all of that creates in them this illusion that they can't fail, they can't fall apart, they can't be human. And nobody can handle that kind of pressure. It just is impossible. In our humanity, perfection is impossible. This is why success will never feel satisfied. For them, every success means there's always another bar to meet, and they also will uh uh uh absolutely require external validation because they'll feel lost without it, because that's what they've had. That's where their sense of worth has come from, was the constant validation for their perfection, for who they performed as. Um these people as adults will often find difficulty um with authentic emotions because they're so used to performing that they suppress their own needs, they suppress their own sadness, they suppress their vulnerability. So because those things were not safe, we remember we're not allowed to be human and have have faults, um, or you know, it wasn't allowed. So, in that, as adults, they they then will struggle to to differentiate between the performance and what's authentic in them. And another thing for these children as adults is they may carry a deep, deep sense of guilt for being the favored child. They will uh many times struggle as adults to understand why they were favored and the others were not, or why the others didn't feel favored by the same parent. Um, connection many times will feel strained and broken as adults, and a lot of times as Adults they will have a tendency to replicate this role. So careers, relationships, friendships, they will on a subconscious level will seek out environments where they are valued for their performance and not for their authenticity. Because authenticity feels like a failure and it's it's not um worthy, the performance is that's where the value lies, and so they'll tend to on a subconscious level kind of seek out those environments. The hard truth is that the pedestal is not a place of ease. It absolutely becomes a place that they're afraid to fall from. And so the hard part for these children as adults is learning to be themselves and to just be human, to not be impressive, to not be perfect, and to not be holding it all together, just real. And learning how to separate their identity from their performance. So that in and of itself brings a ton of grieving as well. So they'll have their own grief that they hold inside. The the other thing I want to talk about here is so there's those two extremes, if you think of on like the spectrum of extremes of where children may fall, the roles they may fall into with a narcissistic parent. If there are more than two children in the home to have these roles, the other children will absolutely vacillate between the two roles. And what happens many times is the other children tend to get caught up in the middle so that they become the invisible child. This is where you'll find children who fall into um sometimes a caretaker role. This is what some therapists refer to as like the parentified child. So these are the ones that go around managing the emotions of the entire family. But they're doing it in a way where they're also disappearing. So they learn how to disappear without ever really leaving. They learn early that attention, positive or negative, comes with a cost. So they step back, they stay quiet. These are the children who need less. So they often become deeply independent and self-sufficient to an absolute fault. It's not because they're taught self-sufficiency and independency, it's because for them, no one was coming. So they learned it to survive. Emotionally, they will feel numb and disconnected. So there's no drama with them, there's no demanding. These are the really good, easy kids because they're independent and they don't require anything and they just kind of keep to themselves. They have they have no major needs. These are the children that can take on the emotional responsibility for others that includes the other siblings. So if the other siblings are having a hard day, they'll want to go and console them. But so much so, their empathy is so deep that they will even find themselves taking on the remote the emotional responsibility for the parents. And this can be true of both parents. So the narcissistic parent they will take on the emotional responsibility. So when that narcissistic parent falls into victimization, this child many times will be heartbroken over it and deeply wounded and trying to console that parent. For the other parent who is the victim also of the abuse, when they struggle in survival with anxiety or with depression, these children will feel emotionally responsible to help that parent as well. Or to take care of the siblings because mommy, mama's sad or daddy's sad. And so they tend to want to help everybody else because they want to check on you and take care of the little ones too. So they will soothe, fix, and anticipate, these are the ones that try to hold everybody and everything together. And they will do this in a way that they set their own needs aside, and they learn that very early on, that there's no room for them because they're so busy caring for everyone else. And they actually are the children who will receive praise for being so mature and so responsible, but it comes at such a high cost of their childhood. These are the children who who come into adulthood having extreme difficulty expressing their needs or even knowing what they need because they've ignored themselves most of their lives. These are the people who have a tendency to isolate or withdraw when they're overwhelmed. They feel like the background character even in their own lives. They really desperately want connection. They just don't know how to get it. They will overgive and overextend at their own expense. It will be to their own detriment. And the so their burnout will be will be constant. They're constantly burning out. These are people who are um generally um naturally very empathic. So they will feel other people's emotions, but the dysfunction here is that then they will feel responsible for other people's emotions. And that's where the the empathy gets distorted for them. And these are the people that in adulthood, and you may, if this resonates with you, it will really hit home, but you may even know somebody like this. These are people who become the safe place for everyone else without ever having a safe place of their own. One thing that I want to stress is that regardless of where children fall into these roles with narcissistic parents, most kids will grow up in that environment with an intense wounding that manifests itself in a multitude of things. So you will see dysphoria, you will see amnesia because children will just forget whole parts or even sometimes their whole childhood because they've dissociated so much. You'll see compulsive behaviors, addictions. Um a lot, a lot of people who grew up in a home with some type of emotional or psychological abuse as adults will suffer from um a form of PTSD that's called CPTSD, stands for complex post-traumatic stress syndrome. And that unfortunately is not recognized in the DSM in the United States, but worldwide it is accepted. And so CPTSD will bring with it a whole host of difficulties from insecure attachment issues, lack of boundaries, you'll see even biological issues such as hypersensitivity, autoimmune disorder, skin problems, pelvic pain, a host of other things, as well as emotional dysregulation like difficulty communicating, dissociation, depersonalization, derealization, impaired memories or amnesias. Many people with CPTSD will also suffer with eating disorders, dysmorphia, sleep problems, difficulty regulating attention or focusing, completing tasks, kind of those things that are similar to ADD. And because it's not recognized in the DSM, sometimes children who grew up in these environments as adults, when they go to seek out help, the diagnoses will be they'll you'll find a multiple of diagnoses, and it can range from bipolar to ADD to borderline personality disorder and several others. So if any of this resonates with you, if you grew up in a home that you know for sure there was this type of abuse, if you know for sure one of your parents was abusive in this way, I highly, highly suggest finding a therapist who specializes in trauma victims and understands how CPTSD affects the brain and they can help you process through this trauma and the grief that comes, regardless of the role that was placed on you. The other thing I want to share is that I've only shared a very small piece of the puzzle. So this is very broad, broad speaking on this. I'm I'm there's so much more. Because it matters also if your narcissistic parent was the father or the mother, because there are different dynamics when dealing with men and women narcissists. It also matters as the child in the home, if you were like the father with a son or a mother to a daughter. So it matters kind of who you are as well. So I highly encourage you to do your due diligence, research, um, find resources that speak to your unique situation and can give you the in-depth information that you need for this. There are a host of resources available. I I highly recommend Dr. Romini. She is a clinical psychologist that specializes in narcissism. You can find her work online everywhere. She's written a host of books, one specific to adults who grew up in this type of environment. I highly recommend looking into her resources. She has a YouTube channel and multiple social media outlets. You can find clips and videos and things that you can watch. Um, she's also been on countless podcasts over the years. She has been an excellent resource for me and for my children. I cannot recommend her enough when it comes to anything narcissism. She absolutely is a go-to. Her information is so, so good. Another resource that I think is extremely, extremely important is a book by Eleanor Payson. It's called The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists. This book talks about being in relationships with narcissists, but there is a whole section specific to um children growing up in the home with a narcissist and a lot of the dynamics of what happens. Because as true as it is that children can grow up in the same home with the same parents and walk out with completely different um beliefs and struggles and ideas of their childhood and ideas of how their home was. It is especially true when you have a narcissistic parent because they absolutely put roles on you. And depending on how you fit into those dynamics, it really affects kind of how how you have to heal from that. This book is an excellent resource. I I love this. The other thing that she does in this book is um she will explain when you want to put boundaries in place as an adult to a parent, um, when it how to structure conversations, um, when it's best to have certain boundaries in place, um, some contact to no contact. She really lays things out, and it's such a great resource. I think that is a really good place to go. If you've not read that, I highly, highly recommend Eleanor Payson's book as well. Um, one thing about when you're looking at resources, the reason that I I want to stress that you do your own due diligence is because it helps so much to have somebody else explain it in a way that validates you. And it helps you to feel less crazy. Because what I want you to know is that the roles that were put on you, that's not your identity, and you are not the toxic one. Unfortunately, you grew up in an environment that was not safe for you to be a child, to explore your own identity, to be who you were created to be. And I also want to stress to you do your due diligence because I need you to know that there is hope. So, whatever the struggle is that you're having, it is not something that you have to have for the rest of your life. It is possible to do the work to break free from the torment, the anxiety, the pressure of it all. You absolutely can. I've seen it, I've met other survivors who have done this work, and I've done so much of it myself. I know this one, and I know that it's possible. So I highly encourage you to do that as well. And I I always, always want to end with this, because even if you are that adult out there and you grew up in this environment, and you grew up with this level of toxicity, then you know, you know, you have seen how dark it can get, and you understand the level of torment that can come. And so I need you to know, I want you to hear me that I absolutely see you and I believe you. Thank you so much for listening today, and I hope that you felt the love and the encouragement that's being sent to you. Feel free to share this podcast and follow us so that you'll get notifications when we release new episodes. And until we meet again, dear friend, be kind, be courageous in truth. Love yourself as deeply as you would a close friend, and keep leaning in to the joy and the beauty of discovering what it means to be authentic, whole, and wildly.