Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Recovering from Narcissistic Family Systems: Part One
157 Plays11 months ago
We’ve all heard the terms narcissism and gas-lighting everywhere lately, but how do you really know if someone in your life is a narcissist? (Hint: We ALL have narcissistic tendencies at times!)
Today’s episode is Part One of a two-part series on recovering from narcissistic family systems, and Julie sat down with expert Pamela Madsen to discuss how to redefine your role, set boundaries, and heal your relationship with yourself if you have experienced the difficulties of having a person with abusive narcissistic behaviors in your life.
About today's guest:
Pamela Madsen is a Licensed Professional Counselor, owner, and clinical director for Sea Change Psychotherapy in Buckhead. Pamela specializes in working with adult individuals and couples at the intersection where trauma meets eating disorders, substance use, or anxiety disorders. This often comes along with chronic health conditions, infertility, spiritual injuries, and relationship difficulties. Pamela also works with therapeutic injuries and compassion fatigue. Pamela is trained in EMDR, DBT, Radically Open DBT, and is currently completing Internal Family Systems therapy certification. She has worked at higher levels of care and is a second career professional that comes with understanding workplace performance pressures. Her clients are perfectionists and high achievers who struggle to feel connected to others. Her clients struggle with work-life balance and burnout, have complicated feelings about their family, have difficulty trusting others, and long to finally understand their feelings. Pamela is currently completing her doctorate in counselor education and supervision. She has served on the Diversity and Inclusion Council of Buford City Schools District. She is also an executive board member of the Atlanta chapter of the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals.
Get in touch with Pamela:
https://seachangepsychotherapy.com/
Recommended
Transcript
Season Two Introduction
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome back to season two of Outside of Session. I'm your host, licensed clinical social worker, and therapist BFF, Julie Hilton. This season, I'm interviewing some incredible guests who also happen to be experts in their fields. Mental health, motherhood, spirituality, and so much more, I can't wait for their stories to be told.
Narcissism Two-Part Episode
00:00:35
Speaker
These are all the conversations I'm having outside of session.
00:00:46
Speaker
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to outside of session. I've got another two part episode for you because once again, the conversation got rolling and it was just too good to cut off. And so I'm going to end up splitting this into another double episode for you. This week and next week, we are going to be talking about narcissism and recovering from narcissistic abuse in childhood. And I learned so much from my guest.
Pamela Madsen's Work
00:01:11
Speaker
Her name is Pamela Madsen, and she's a licensed professional counselor
00:01:14
Speaker
She's the owner and clinical director of Sea Change Psychotherapy and Buckhead. Pamela specializes in working with adult individuals and couples at the intersection where trauma meets eating disorders, substance abuse, or anxiety disorders. This often comes along with chronic health conditions, infertility, spiritual injuries, and relationship difficulties.
00:01:38
Speaker
Pamela says that her clients typically struggle with work-life balance and burnout, having complicated feelings about their family, having difficulty trusting others, and they long to finally understand their feelings. I have a feeling you're really going to enjoy this episode and that you're going to find ways to relate no matter where you are in life. So with all of that being said, help me welcome Pamela to Outside of Session. Pamela, thank you so much for being here today.
Narcissism Trend on Social Media
00:02:06
Speaker
I'm so excited.
00:02:08
Speaker
Thank you for having me, Julie. Yeah, this is going to be a topic, you know, I've done a lot of different topics this season and I'm really interested in this one because it's not one that I specialize in and I'm excited to learn from you. So today we're going to be talking about narcissism and specifically recovering from narcissistic abuse in childhood, right? Yes. That is kind of your forte.
00:02:31
Speaker
So I wanted to start to say that I feel like narcissism is very much a buzzword right now. Like I see it on social media all the time. I have lots of clients asking me like my opinion on, do you think this person is a narcissist? Which I don't know how I feel about that. Like on one hand, I'm glad maybe that there's some awareness and people are learning, but I also think that maybe we're overusing it a little bit. What are your thoughts on that?
Understanding Narcissistic Traits
00:03:00
Speaker
I do.
00:03:01
Speaker
I think it's been becoming very popular and featured a lot on social media. And while I appreciate all of the awareness about emotional abuse, I think one of the difficulties that I see often is how weaponized the term has become in silencing people a lot of the times. And even used by people with a lot of narcissism to silence
00:03:30
Speaker
the people they're perpetrating abuse against. I think it's also important to know that all of us have narcissistic traits as a continuum. Sometimes all of us on maybe our worst moments might appear to be more narcissistic at times, but that's true of any behavioral traits. We all have them. It just depends on if it's pervasive across all of your relationships and fields of life that it's problematic.
00:04:00
Speaker
to determine whether or not it needs clinical attention. Yeah, I agree. I'm glad that you're saying that because we've talked in a lot of different episodes about there's always a spectrum, right?
Defining Narcissistic Abuse
00:04:10
Speaker
And you can have qualities of or tendencies of, but that doesn't mean that you have a clinical diagnosis of something, even things like anxiety, right? Like we all experience anxiety. That doesn't mean that you have an anxiety disorder. And so what you're saying is that's true even with narcissistic traits.
00:04:31
Speaker
Yes, that is definitely true. And it's also more pervasive, like younger ages, specifically more self-centered as children and adolescents than we are as adults, where it becomes problematic is where the additional component of emotional abuse is added in. So narcissistic traits are fine.
00:04:54
Speaker
to have like in I guess moderation, everything in moderation. Yeah. Yeah. So let's start by like, how do you define narcissistic traits, but also a narcissistic abuse? Like in all of the work that you do, how do you summarize it? So
00:05:17
Speaker
You know, narcissistic abuse, I guess, a succinct
Indirect Communication in Relationships
00:05:19
Speaker
definition would be emotional, psychological, financial, sexual, physical harm. Um, you know, can I mean include most often as emotional neglect, um, where you're in relationship with someone who challenges your reality, um, is uses criticism, um, when communicating their needs to be met, um,
00:05:46
Speaker
They use a lot of indirect communication.
00:05:49
Speaker
that feels harmful, right? You'll often see that person not understanding boundaries, physical or emotional. They will see people as an extension of themselves. They aren't able to accept or tolerate criticism. They avoid accountability for their own decision-making or want to avoid consequences of their actions.
00:06:18
Speaker
make things your fault instead. And so it's an incredibly validating relationship. Yeah, absolutely. I'm like trying to write these down as you're saying them because that's it. Those are such good points that you're making. So when you say indirect communication, what do you mean by that?
00:06:36
Speaker
Um, so I, I do couples therapy. So this one's probably one of my very favorite examples and I use it all the time. Um, so you know, so let's say like you want a date night, um, with your, with your partner and say, um, you know, you never take me out anymore is one way you could ask for quality time together. The other way you could ask is, um, I'd like a date night with you. And, um, you know, one of them really
00:07:06
Speaker
opens up communications. That would be the second one, by the way. The first one doesn't really bring romance in, right? It actually makes it almost seem painful. It's like repelling. But the person who's asking for the time together, their need is actually, that's a noble need. They're asking for a connection. They're just doing it in a way that coerces compliance.
00:07:32
Speaker
Yeah, that reminds me I did an episode last season on manipulation in relationships and how how we all manipulate
00:07:40
Speaker
that it's not always meant to harm, but sometimes manipulating just means trying to go about it in a different way than being direct. And for a lot of people, directly asking for your needs to be met is so scary because maybe you've had someone who has invalidated your needs or purposely tried to withhold meeting that need of yours. So you learned along the way to ask indirectly. So that could be through things like the silent treatment,
00:08:06
Speaker
um through using guilt like trying to get guilt people into doing things for you like um the person that says oh um you never spend time with me anymore that kind of thing they're trying to use guilt to actually like you said get you to do something that is a valid need i want to spend more time with you because i love you but it's too hard to ask for it directly um so that's what you're calling indirect communication is they're not just like getting to the point you're going about it in a
00:08:36
Speaker
unproductive way, really. Right.
Complexities of Narcissistic Traits
00:08:39
Speaker
I guess I've worked with a lot of individuals where I've seen a lot of narcissistic traits and some people that meet the personality disorder criteria. It's incredibly difficult to work with clinically, but they're still people. I think that's really important to remember here is that they're people, they hurt. Absolutely.
00:09:07
Speaker
us and clinically we're, we can't give up on them. Right. Um, but that also does not mean that like in a personal relationship, that's a different kind of role, like as a partner or, um, or a child or colleague, even right. Um, that you don't have to stay in that relationship because that's a different role than the ones that we take on clinically. Like we're going to continue to care for them and try to support growth for them.
00:09:32
Speaker
They can grow and change. It's longer work. And one of the difficulties about that is their perception is that there's nothing wrong with them if they're just working really hard to get other people to comply to meet their needs. And since they have a difficult time perceiving difficulties in themselves, there's not a lot of openings to
00:10:02
Speaker
uh, get in there as a counselor and help heal. So do you think that that is a genuine, um, like lack of aware, like self-awareness or is that like, how would you describe that? Because, because I think you're right. Like most of the time it's hard to get people to, to see that they need help and that their relationships could improve around
Client Insights on Narcissism
00:10:24
Speaker
them. Because like you said, like they don't really think that they're the problem. But do you think that that's genuine or is that purposeful manipulation?
00:10:33
Speaker
Does that make sense? Yes, absolutely. It could be either one, but really what we know about narcissism is that root is this very fragile self-esteem, which I know does not make sense when you look at their behavior, right? But what we're seeing though is that person is so heavily protected by this internal guard.
00:11:03
Speaker
that their perception is that they're always at risk of being exposed as inferior. And they use bullying tactics to gain compliance. They want to be close to people. That's why they're trying to coerce you into coming to spend Thanksgiving dinner with them. And the way they ask is so painful, right?
00:11:32
Speaker
It's just so sad to see people working actively against what their goals are. Yeah. Yeah. So you're typically working with a partner, family member, like you're not very often working with a person that is displaying these behaviors, right? Like it's normally the people in their life that are seeking out therapy, right?
00:11:54
Speaker
Yes, typically they don't come in for counseling unless it's in couples therapy or maybe family therapy. And I do see that from time to time, but in general,
00:12:06
Speaker
I work with the adult children of parents with these traits. Okay. Okay. So I would imagine that a lot of times people come in to see you and we always call it the presenting concern. It's what the client identifies as, this is what I'm struggling with. This is what I need help with. And I don't think a lot of times people are coming down and sitting in your office for the first time and you can say, hi, I have a narcissistic parent. Can you help me heal from it?
00:12:36
Speaker
I don't think that's really how it goes, right? What do you notice that people already have awareness of and they come in saying, I wanna work on this or I need help with this? Like what do they already have awareness of? Well, so my clients, they come in most often and they'll say, they aren't sure what's wrong with them. They can't seem to manage their professional stress. They may have trouble making decisions. They struggle with perfectionism.
00:13:06
Speaker
They might also describe a dependence on substances and sometimes disordered eating behavior. They are very self-critical and they believe they need that criticism to continue being successful or to get things done. I know you're familiar with also the common description from clients with narcissistic abuse in their childhood that the narrative is, I had a pretty good
00:13:29
Speaker
I had a pretty good family. We're really close.
Reconciling Family Image with Reality
00:13:32
Speaker
And then the next, when you ask about like specific childhood memories, they'll say next. I don't remember much of my childhood. Yeah. So that right there is a very discreet signal of emotional abuse and neglect. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're absolutely right. I cannot tell you how many clients that, um, like in that initial assessment, they'll describe their family as
00:13:58
Speaker
pretty close. A lot of times they'll say we were probably a pretty normal family, had a normal childhood. But then when we really start digging in, it's like they've never been able to look through it through the lens of an adult and how painful things were. Is that what you see typically?
00:14:18
Speaker
Yes, that's certainly what I'm seeing. Kind of the next step in working with these folks after they disclose, they come from a great close family, close knit. That one's really the common phrase. And then they don't remember their childhood. So I'll ask the client to describe each of their parents in three words. When you take the family unit relationship out of the equation and you start to drill down into the relationship with the individual family members,
00:14:46
Speaker
You don't hear words that sound like closeness or connectedness at that point. You might hear words that indicate close in proximity. So as in spending a lot of time together or on the phone a lot, oh, we text all day long five times a day. But the individual relationships they describe are more like, you know, critical,
Survivors' Skills and Facade
00:15:04
Speaker
opinionated,
00:15:05
Speaker
having a sense of being responsible for meeting their parents' expectations. They'll describe them as draining. Often see hesitation in answering that question in particular, because they're going to be betraying the facade of having it all together in their family. There's a lot of shame experienced when they deviate from that perfect family image. People have admired their family for years, and the loyalty binds of narcissistic trauma bonding are strong.
00:15:35
Speaker
I don't know that I've ever thought about that before. That's so interesting. Because I have had those clients before where they feel so much guilt when we really get in there and start exploring. And again, this is not something that I necessarily, well, I work a lot with CPTSD, so complex trauma. And a lot of that probably comes from a narcissistic parent, right?
00:16:00
Speaker
And when they, when they start to share, there's so much guilt of they've kind of got their parent, their mom, or whoever on a pedestal a little bit. And that's been the family narrative is that she's, you know, this, the, the matriarch of the family. And she's so, um, like involved in all of our lives and she said, you know, and so when they get in there and they start to describe, okay, well, what was painful about some of these childhood memories, there's a lot of guilt that comes with,
00:16:31
Speaker
like admitting even to themselves that things were painful along the way? Yeah, it's, well, it's part of their identity then has become that they came from a good loving family or a good family. And we often feel a lot of shame about
00:16:51
Speaker
not coming from a good family. I think I like to challenge that one a little bit because good and bad are really judgments, but maybe as a community, we can start talking about healthy versus a struggling family. Especially with the clients that I work with, they're usually professionals
00:17:15
Speaker
Where just because of our my practices They're so image-focused that their work they have to appear to have it all together too and coming from a family where they experienced emotional abuse would Would be maybe challenging for them professionally Yeah, that's interesting because you know a lot of times I think people think that
00:17:42
Speaker
people who have lived through this kind of emotional abuse, it makes you maybe fragile.
Clients' External Focus and Self-awareness
00:17:48
Speaker
But I think that it's almost the opposite. Like a lot of people that have experienced this kind of childhood, they have learned how to, it's like they have a unique set of skills that they've developed. They read people really, really well. They can be incredibly in control of their emotions.
00:18:09
Speaker
so they can kind of like flatline. And a lot of those things are really valued in corporate America, right? You're used to looking like you have it all together, because that was the script that you had for your family growing up. And so when you go to work, you can deal with these really high stress careers, because it's kind of just a continuation of childhood in a lot of ways, right? Yeah, it was always high stress at home. Yeah.
00:18:40
Speaker
you had to always act like everything was fine. Because if you acted like things weren't fine, that parent or parents might up the ante in punishment, right? Right. So they become very skillful at taking care of the feelings of everyone around them. And so what you then see is,
00:19:04
Speaker
there is an over-focus externally on the moods of other people, other people's, even their physical sensations. So like, is my mom hungry? Is my mom thirsty? Is my little brother hungry? Is my little brother thirsty? And they don't even like check in to see like, am I hungry? Do I need to eat? Have I slept? Do I feel like doing this activity that like I've been invited to? Am I allowed to say no? They don't even check in
00:19:33
Speaker
with themselves about what's going on even inside their own body. They often can't even tell you what their emotions are. Yeah, for sure. I'm curious once you start working with someone and you can help them become aware of how damaging this abuse was, right?
Therapeutic Guidance and Self-compassion
00:19:54
Speaker
And help them put together, oh, maybe why they have some disorder eating patterns is related to this. Maybe why they're having difficulty in their relationships now.
00:20:03
Speaker
How do people usually respond to that when they realize so much of this is coming from childhood, if that wasn't even on their radar when they came in?
00:20:12
Speaker
I often get this. They might start to disclose a little bit once we talk about the individual relationships. They've stopped repeating the very public narrative of we're a close-knit family because they don't then describe the closeness and the dyadic relationships with their parents. They then start to
00:20:39
Speaker
kind of, you know, handle it very carefully. It's very fragile. Just on the outside, some of the experiences that they had, they'll describe, oh, that was maybe invalidating, or that wasn't helpful, and my mom or dad said that. They might start to acknowledge some things that happened that were unhelpful, but
00:20:59
Speaker
again go back to well that was then it doesn't matter I'm very much focused on the here and now like I need to figure out how I can not feel so self-conscious when I'm speaking in board meetings or you know I've already gotten over that it doesn't matter it's in the past like and just really wanting to avoid even looking at and taking all of that apart right what I see that most often so
00:21:27
Speaker
sometimes we have to deal with the here and now experiences of, okay, so let's work on managing your anxiety going into these public speaking events or let's talk about getting you set up to meet with a dietician if we're seeing disordered eating and then start to unfold the relationship with the self.
00:21:50
Speaker
A client-self relationship, then you can see going back to just the very beginning when I talked about the initial session is they can't trust themselves. They're really critical. That truly fractured relationship with their self. We have to build self-compassion skills in the beginning. Often in the beginning, I have to model some of that language.
00:22:13
Speaker
saying things like, gosh, it makes sense that you feel really nervous going into this board meeting to speak. There's a lot riding on your shoulders. A lot of people are depending on you to keep the company in a healthy state. There's a lot of families impacted by the work that you're doing, the people that work for you and under you. And that may have been the first time in their entire life they've heard someone actually speak to what it's like for them.
00:22:40
Speaker
That's just such a reminder, right? That how powerful the work that we do can be because like you said, like, yeah, sometimes this is the first time that it's even about them, right? Because I would imagine in these relationships, the narcissistic parent kind of, I mean, it's all about them, right? Like they kind of stuck with the oxygen in the room and being in the therapy is the room where
00:23:08
Speaker
You can finally keep it just about them and their experience and help them even be aware of the heaviness of what's on their shoulders, right?
Duality of Family Experience
00:23:17
Speaker
Because that probably is, again, like you're so worried about what's going on with everyone else and what their experience is. You don't really stop and take inventory of what's on your shoulders. Yeah, so you're so used to carrying the responsibility of other people's feelings. They've been training for that from birth.
00:23:35
Speaker
So, so if that's one of the first steps is really building up that trust with self and becoming more aware of what your own feelings are and be in building that awareness of what your experiences have been. How do you naturally see it shift where maybe people become more comfortable with you after they have like a relationship with you of being able to like, how do they get to the point of saying like, actually, yes, this was pretty damaging.
00:24:03
Speaker
You know, that can take a little while. It really can. Mostly because they really hold on to that, the loyalty binds there with the family. It's really hard for people to hold two truths together at the same time that seem to be opposing. So on one hand you've got, I love my parents,
00:24:29
Speaker
And they'll often have made a lot of sacrifices for their kids growing up. So, you know, I love my parents and they did the best that they could. They did provide a lot of good things for me, college education, stuff like that. And at the same time, a lot of things were hard or
00:24:52
Speaker
unhealthy or not good for me. A lot of things didn't benefit me in a way that I needed. Like they weren't there emotionally, but they provided a lot of financial support. I hear that a lot. So helping the client become comfortable with the dialect of those two, what seems like opposing beliefs, but they can be true at the same time.
00:25:21
Speaker
Hey, everyone. I just wanted to pause for a quick moment to say thank you so much for all the love and support that you're showing outside of session. If you haven't already, do me a huge favor and hit the subscribe button. Give me a five star review and share this podcast with all of your friends. Help me take this show to another level. Now back to today's episode. Yeah, I would imagine there's a lot of fear
00:25:51
Speaker
with if I don't stick to this narrative of this good family, if I rock the boat at all, that it will be this massive blow up.
Family Dynamics and Boundaries
00:26:02
Speaker
And I would imagine a lot of people are like, I don't wanna, I'm not wanting to completely cut my parent off. I'm not trying to sever that relationship. But the idea of rocking the boat at all or trying to make any kind of changes or find my voice or anything like that, that is so risky.
00:26:22
Speaker
because I imagine that at some point in childhood, maybe you tried to push back a little bit and you learned very quickly not to do that maybe. So I wonder if there's some of that, not necessarily black or white thinking, but kind of like either we stay status quo or I would have to just cut them off because there's no room for having conversations about boundaries or this hurts me or anything like that, right? Yeah, I mean, like, so you're dealing with like, not just the,
00:26:50
Speaker
first wave of grief when the, when the client recognizes, Oh, my childhood wasn't great. We weren't this close knit family. Like there's a, there were, was abuse going on that I didn't even realize at the time because it was the only normal I had. Um, so you have that first wave of grief. And then after that is, what do I do now? How do I stay in these relationships? I don't have another family. Um, and you know,
00:27:21
Speaker
Where do we go from here? What can we do moving forward? And as clinicians, we don't typically advocate for cutting off relatives. That doesn't always benefit the client. It's not always possible sometimes too. So we start to talk about what setting effective boundaries looks like.
00:27:45
Speaker
and deciding what boundaries are needed, where we can put them, what the needs are, what we need, the roles we have with these people to look like. In a parent-child relationship where there's narcissistic abuse, we often see role reversal, where the child is taking care of the parent's feelings pretty frequently.
00:28:13
Speaker
working on giving the client permission to stop doing that.
00:28:19
Speaker
like a real recent example I have is from where a client was facing a possible layoff and she shares the news with her parents and the parent starts to really emote and like, what are you gonna do? I'm sort of like, I can't believe this is happening. You need to like, so all of those shame language, you need to start applying. I can't believe that you'd let this happen.
00:28:47
Speaker
And then the person who's actually possibly going through the layoff is then compelled to take care of their parents' feelings and encourage them, oh, it's going to be OK, Mom. I've got this, this, and that. And just already taking care of their parents' feelings in that moment instead of what we really need.
00:29:08
Speaker
from our parents in times like that is, gosh, I imagine this is really shaking you up. What do you need from me? You're not alone in this. In life, I've seen this happen several times.
Emotional Immaturity in Narcissistic Behaviors
00:29:23
Speaker
You have everything you need to navigate this again on the other side. Your dad and I are standing by you. These are the things you need to hear in those situations, not more panic and a shift to take care of someone else.
00:29:39
Speaker
You know, as you're, as you're saying that, um, describing that situation, I would, I would immediately not think narcissism. I would immediately think emotional immaturity. And maybe there's, there's probably a lot of overlap. Like I would see it as emotional immaturity on the parent's part that I'm so uncomfortable with your, um, like instability, financial instability, maybe makes me so, I'm so afraid of it that I get caught up in my fear.
00:30:09
Speaker
I can't even think about what you need in the moment because I'm over here having my feelings about it and I'm projecting those onto you. How do you see that maybe overlapping or does it depend on patterns of abuse in the past that she's already accustomed to her parents maybe putting her down a lot?
00:30:34
Speaker
Yeah, I could elaborate there in that in the the exchange does come with some some foot downs. That's pretty in this particular case that is coming up quite a bit. I think the important piece to know about narcissism is, you know, from what we studied about it, it stems from, you know, like a very
00:31:01
Speaker
a very traumatic experience in childhood, early childhood, somewhere around three years old, we're guessing. And so what you see is the emotional immaturity to be stunted right around three, three to five. And so you also see there
00:31:24
Speaker
moral development is also in that range of like early childhood. So based on punishment avoidance and punishment. And so when you kind of pull those pieces together, you start to see the pattern of this is an adult and they might even be an adult of many financial resources, but they make decisions like a child, they throw tantrums, but their tantrums don't look like we see
00:31:52
Speaker
Like our two-year-old and Target throw on the floor over a toy, they throw it over their child deviating from the family line. That's really interesting. And so the immaturity is not just that they're uncomfortable with emotion.
Narcissistic Abuse in Romantic Relationships
00:32:18
Speaker
It's also they're lashing out at that point.
00:32:21
Speaker
and using that bullying behavior and really like degrading or demeaning their child. Yes. And so, you know, in a situation where the adult child is possibly going through a layoff, that's embarrassing to the parent. You know, don't tell anyone yet. You should go ahead and look for a job like so that you have something and just say that you're, you know, you left your job. Don't tell people you got laid off. Like it's, it's a lot of that managing impressions.
00:32:51
Speaker
for the outside world and also making other people's feelings about themselves. What about, I'm also thinking if you can give us an example of like a romantic relationship. So we're talking about adult child, parent-child relationships right now. What about when you're working with a potential spouse?
00:33:17
Speaker
Did you see that a lot? A real classic one that comes to mind is you have one partner that they're maybe a mother and it's Mother's Day and the other partner does not get them a Mother's Day gift or acknowledge it anyway.
00:33:41
Speaker
So the female mother partner communicates like, you didn't give me any gift, I don't feel hurt. It feels like you always ignore me. And your birthday was a couple of months ago and I really, I put a lot into your birthday and last year for Father's Day too.
Differentiating Neglect and Abuse
00:34:01
Speaker
And to avoid accountability right away, they're like,
00:34:06
Speaker
What do you mean? I didn't get you anything for Mother's Day. I told you Happy Mother's Day. Nobody told you you had to get me a big birthday gift or anything for Father's Day. It seems like you're expecting an awful lot and just really turning
00:34:24
Speaker
the tides. I can't even take on that tone. I'm struggling to take on that really, that real critical tone. It's such an insidious form of abuse that I find myself having a hard time getting into character. Yeah. I think a lot of times you leave the conversation kind of feeling like what just happened.
00:34:49
Speaker
I went in knowing how I felt and knowing that I needed to express a pain and you leave feeling like somehow that was my fault. Yeah, so in the example I just gave, right, you know, the partner that's the mother heading, you know, expressed she's heard about being forgotten for Mother's Day is left feeling like
00:35:17
Speaker
Am I expecting too much to expect flowers or a card from Mother's Day? Didn't he act like he enjoyed the birthday celebration I put together for him? He really acted like that was expected and he would be entitled to that. You have these facts you work from,
00:35:46
Speaker
and then the perception that you've been given to believe, and it's only when it benefits the partner to avoid accountability for a mistake. Okay. Because as you were saying that, I was also kind of thinking, how do you distinguish between narcissistic abuse and regular abuse, I guess? Is that a term, regular abuse, like non-narcissistic abuse?
00:36:16
Speaker
Well, like emotional abuse? Yeah. Well, so emotional abuse has got kind of two components. So there's like the real active narcissistic abuse I just described. And the second one is neglect. And neglect is really difficult to flush out clinically because it's easy for us to point to something that did happen, like or something somebody said or did, but it's really hard to point to what you didn't get.
00:36:42
Speaker
And so that one's kind of just a real difficult piece. And these are also both combined really. It's such a nuanced type of abuse. Narcissistic abuse can also include like, you know, physical, sexual, financial abuse as well. So that might look like, you know, limiting access to
00:37:08
Speaker
access to finances, shared money, shared accounts. Maybe one partner overspends an awful lot on their individual needs, and then the other partner that's in the other side of the power differential, experiencing the abuse, they can't afford to buy.
00:37:31
Speaker
you know, clothing that they do need. Nothing extravagant. I'm talking about just meeting needs with a narcissistic partner. Their needs are always met. You know, physical harm is often
00:37:48
Speaker
use, you know, there might be one or two physical outbursts that are bad enough to teach the victim what could possibly happen if they push the envelope again, just helps remind them to keep themselves in line. How do you guide people through, so before you were talking about potentially setting boundaries?
Roles, Boundaries, and Self-protection
00:38:16
Speaker
Um, so within boundaries, how do you help people decide? I don't know, like what the healthy limits are because I think you're right. Like as therapists, we want to stay engaged with someone, but that might not be the responsibility of a partner. At some point you might have to say, this is abuse and I need to leave this, right? Like, but especially when you know, someone comes from a place of their own trauma or
00:38:43
Speaker
also, there is a lot of manipulation in there, right? So they're also incredibly skilled at convincing you to stay. How do you, how do you help people navigate that when deciding what boundaries need to be a place if the relationship is going to remain or deciding that the boundary needs to be removing yourself? That's a big question.
00:39:06
Speaker
It is. And, um, I always like to talk a bit about like the interplay between roles, relationships and boundaries and how these three things work together. Um, and this usually once, once clients can understand that part, they get to, they get really clearly decide and, and where they need to set boundaries and what's acceptable. Um, and then.
00:39:30
Speaker
what they do have control over. So the roles that we have in each other's lives are
00:39:43
Speaker
guard-relded by the boundaries of those roles, right? And then the relationship that we have in that role can only stay alive if we hold the boundaries, right? If we don't have the boundaries in place where we violate them, that relationship is already in the process of dying.
00:40:11
Speaker
The key piece here being helping the client, so again, I typically work with the adult children of parents with these traits, helping the client use their own values and insight to define what they believe their role needs to be as the adult child in this relationship.
00:40:37
Speaker
As our parents age, we often need to do a little bit more caretaking of our parents. We do feel often that we have a social responsibility to look out for their well-being. If my client feels that that's one of their personal values, they'll need to do something around that to be an integrity with themselves. This is really key.
00:41:02
Speaker
I help them figure out like, okay, so one of my values is I should connect with my family for Thanksgiving. That doesn't necessarily mean going and having dinner with them or going and staying in their parents' home for a whole week to two weeks or the whole holiday season. It does not mean going in
00:41:25
Speaker
they fly in from out of town and then go to their parents' house and have to clean the house and cook the entire meal and then be criticized for it afterward. Celebrating or acknowledging the holiday with their family could be sending a card or flowers or a phone call.
00:41:42
Speaker
And so if the value is to be an attacker with myself, I need to acknowledge my parents' birthday or holidays. That doesn't mean I have to go and take care of all of their feelings, wants, and needs. That might be more of their, like if it's their mother that's the problematic relationship, that may be more of their father's responsibilities to take their mom to dinner.
Direct Communication and Boundary Setting
00:42:06
Speaker
Um, and the, but that you could send flowers, right? That might be what you feel like your role as their child is, um, and getting back to defining that role more clearly. Now you're going to have, um, you're going to have some like a dust up here, right? When you start changing things and.
00:42:27
Speaker
being able to speak from like your adult self-energy, not that position of inferiority as the child to advocate for your boundaries. That is pretty key. It's one of the hardest things to do to develop that courage and recognize that
00:42:47
Speaker
You know, they're going to be unhappy. Things are changing. You're no longer going to be meeting all of their needs, which, you know, wasn't your responsibility to start with, but it's also hard for them to pick up that responsibility for themselves. Um, and you know, sometimes people might act out a lot. Um, and that's usually what we see is, um, they amp up a little bit to try to get, um, their child back in line. And sometimes we have to be really direct and say things like,
00:43:17
Speaker
You know, I understand that this is difficult for you to hear and I can tell that you're disappointed I'm not coming for Thanksgiving.
00:43:28
Speaker
And I will definitely miss seeing you also. I also understand if you need some time where we're not communicating to process this, right? And even all the way up to, I understand if you don't feel we can be in a relationship together if you can't accept these boundaries I'm setting. Sometimes you have to go all the way and say it that clearly.
00:43:54
Speaker
Yeah. But you have to leave that decision up to the other person. We can't control them and keep them in our lives. They get to decide if they're going to accept our boundaries. That's their part on the other side of the boundary. You're also using a lot of parts language, which I love. Like being able to speak fully from your adult self.
00:44:22
Speaker
and realize that you are an adult speaking with another adult and really like soothing. I do a lot of work with helping to soothe the younger part of yourself that is really scared to have these conversations and to let your younger self know this isn't an adult talking to an adult. I had a client the other day that it's like this epiphany came to her because we were doing some of this work because she was chronically in trouble growing up. She was always in trouble. She just felt like everything she did, she got in trouble for.
00:44:52
Speaker
And she had this like aha moment the other day and she said, as an adult, I can't get in trouble anymore. I'm an adult now I cannot get in trouble. And it was just like, to her that was such a profound moment because she was able to like give herself like I could visibly see her relax because she was like,
00:45:14
Speaker
even if I get a speeding ticket or something like that, that's not necessarily getting in trouble. Even if I get written up at work, that's a consequence of something, but she was like, I will never be in trouble with an adult. That was just such a good feeling for her. Yes. It sounds like your client may have been the scapegoat in the family. Do you feel that to be true? Absolutely.
00:45:38
Speaker
Okay.
Family Roles and Sibling Dynamics
00:45:39
Speaker
There is a framework for narcissistic families, and there's different parts that the kids play. And so one of them is a scapegoat. There's usually, unfortunately,
00:45:54
Speaker
the children will be split. If there's two, there's usually a golden child and a scapegoat. If there's more than that, there's some other roles. So you might have like the forgotten child, the one that parents were just kind of disinterested in parenting, like after they'd already gotten their golden child and their scapegoat, they kind of forget about them. That child receives a lot of neglect. They might be
00:46:17
Speaker
They may not be given enough supervision. They might have a lot of accidents, a lot of injuries.
00:46:26
Speaker
just completely disengaged parents most of the time with that child. There's also one we call the mascot, which is they're the funny one. Yeah, they keep people entertained. They're kind of the life of the party a lot of ways. So it does sound like your client that you're describing was the scapegoat. So she was told over and over she was the problem and always making mistakes. And maybe she's figuring out
00:46:53
Speaker
Maybe I wasn't so bad. Absolutely. And even hearing you said that, that makes me think of another client. Because I think that when you're right, there's a lot of split between the children.
00:47:07
Speaker
Because if you are the scapegoat and you see another one being the golden child, there's so much resentment, right? And those are roles that none of them ask to be in. Like the golden child doesn't necessarily ask to be or try to be. The funny one doesn't necessarily like the role that they're playing. But I would imagine that that can grow up into a lot of straight adult sibling relationships as well, because I mean, at that point, you've got decades of resentment building and pain.
00:47:36
Speaker
Well, and actively, the parent actively working against that relationship building between the siblings by saying like, why can't you be more like your brother? I know, out, right? And then that, in that move is actually kind of clever. They're triangulating the relationship then. They're aligning more with one. And then you see that often a lot of paranoia
00:48:03
Speaker
behavior and the narcissistic parent always trying to keep their finger on the pulse, stay in that triangle. They want to be the go-between. They want people to come through them for relationship to another person so that they can control how close people can be. They can control perception.
00:48:25
Speaker
And not just on the outside of the family, but yes, within and between the family system, they also don't want the other parent to be close with the kids. And from your experience, do you think that comes from like that sphere based of if these two people get close, I'll be left out. And so it's all about, again, like thinking about how to preserve yourself.
00:48:54
Speaker
Yes. I mean, it's definitely a self, it's a self-serving. So it's a self-serving behavior. What, I mean, if I'm, if I'm thinking about it and I want to make sense of it, it looks something like, um, they truly believe that people only relate to each other in this, um, like one man down position.
00:49:21
Speaker
Like they only know how to relate to people through a narcissistic lens. They can't even conceive of the fact that their kids can be close and that doesn't threaten their relationship as their mother to them. That that's its own special role. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
00:49:43
Speaker
because they don't see roles, relationships, and boundaries that there are no boundaries. They don't understand their role is actually quite special and protected.
00:49:57
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of outside of session. Remember, while I am a licensed therapist, this podcast is not a substitute for individual therapy. The contents of this episode are for educational and entertainment purposes only. If you are having a mental health emergency, please dial 911 for immediate assistance or dial 988 for the suicide and crisis lifeline.