Why aren’t siblings in a narcissistic family unit able to get along?

A narcissistic family unit keeps the children in a state of fight or flight. There is a lot of anxiety and conflict in this type of family and that makes bonding a difficult thing to do.

Each one of these siblings needs to fulfill a specific role assigned by the narcissist early on. Moreover, these siblings also need to follow the unwritten rules of the narcissistic family unit-we’ll talk about these rules later on.

However, the biggest reason why siblings in narcissistic family can’t get along is due to the lack of unconditional love, nurture, support and discipline. None of these children are guided by their parents into adulthood. Their lives are made to feel muddy and murky, as if no matter what they do, they won’t make it. That’s because, the narcissistic mother or father sends a subliminal message to their children that they’re not good enough.(the message is repeated to them daily through hurtful words, confusing acts and unhealthy behaviour)

Children of narcissistic parents are not helped and guided to navigate life. They’re pitted against each other, made to feel small and used as sources of narcissistic supply over and over.

Thus, having to cope with so much inner turmoil, these children don’t have time to develop a relationship with their siblings. There’s too much going on in their relationship with their caretakers, too much suffering and there’s too many unsatisfied needs to look outside their own self. It is psychologically impossible to develop a nurturing relationship with another human being when your inner world is suffering to such degree.

THE ROLES OF SIBLINGS IN THE NARCISSISTIC FAMILY

As weird as it sounds, siblings in a narcissistic family need to fulfill some specific roles that they don’t know anything about.

These roles are : functioning as a source of narcissistic supply for the narcissistic parent, keeping the narcissistic parent’s image intact, attending to the needs of the parents, blaming the scapegoat for everything that goes wrong in the family and keeping all the family secrets safe. (There might be other roles but these are the ones I learned in my own family)

In a narcissistic family unit, the children are not equal, there are all given different values. The golden child is the better child here, the one who can do no wrong (even if this child ends up robbing a bank, he’ll be much better than the one who kept a low profile and did everything right). The scapegoat child is the unfortunate one. This one gets all the blame for whatever wrong thing that happens in the family. Therapists say that, due to the harsh treatment that this child receives, he/she is more likely to get help and separate from the family of origin.

Then there is the lost child. This child suffers the most of all. That’s because his mere existence is an inconvenience to the narcissistic mother. He/she grows up not knowing who he/she is, lost in a world with no identifiable boundaries thinking that perhaps he/she is everything to everyone or nothing to no one.

I believe that the lost child suffers the most damage due to the cruel emotional abandonment he/she endured as a child. It is one thing to be criticized and ridiculed, but to be ignored every single day for your entire childhood must be traumatizing.

SHOULD I TRY TO HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH MY SIBLING?

I have two brothers and we are not in touch. I believe my role in the family was that of the golden child. When I left home to study abroad, I may have slipped into the scapegoat role (the roles of siblings in a narcissistic family are interchangeable).

Now that I cut ties with my narcissistic mother, I am the bad one, the one who went against the family. As if, once you grow up, you need to take a secret oath: ‘Thou shall never abandon your (narcissistic) mother no matter how badly she treats you. Thou shall always keep her happy because that is thine job.’

Fortunately, I managed to form a deep emotional bond with one of my brothers as a result of him living in the same country with me many moons ago. However, after he decided to go back to live with his parents, the bond that we had, was destroyed and we have been in and out of contact ever since.

This doesn’t mean that all siblings in a narcissistic family are unable to create emotional bonds and maintain them over the years. These cases might be rare but I’m sure they exist.

What matters most is how you feel about your sibling. Have you attempted to form a bond and managed to do so successfully? Do you feel good in their presence or are you blamed and ridiculed for the choice you took to live your own life, free from the family drama? Are you allowed to be yourself in the presence of this sibling?

However, a most important question to ask yourself is this: has your sibling awaken to the reality of being raised by a narcissistic mother (father) and has he/she gone through the pain of this realization?

Because if he/she is in denial about having a narcissistic parent and suffering as a result of emotional and mental abuse, you will not be able to even carry a normal conversation with them. They will tell yo how important it is for you to be close to your parents and how in the wrong you are about how you feel.

They will invalidate your feelings, thoughts and opinions because they are unable to tolerate their own unconscious pain. If your sibling is in denial of the abuse that has transpired in your family, it means he/she is not ready to face the truth and will do anything in their power to shut you up.

All in all, growing up in a narcissistic family unit is no cake walk. Here, children are not allowed to exist. They are however allowed to exercise their roles as golden children, scapegoats or lost children. Having a healthy relationship with your sibling is a challenge and I advise to go at it with the help of a professional with experience in narcissistic abuse.

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