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We like to think of our families as safe places to run to when the world doesn’t make sense. The reality, though, is that this isn’t the case for everyone. While some people have families that build them up and welcome them, some are products of the narcissistic family system.

These toxic parent-child relationships leave the survivors reeling for years to come, and they do it through a multi-layered system of fear and manipulation. Getting ourselves back to a place of peace (as survivors) requires that we reach a plateau of understanding and empowerment that can free us.

The six key layers of the narcissistic family system.

Unlike other toxic family structures, the narcissistic family is one that operates beneath different layers. These move between devaluation, shame, terror, and manipulation. For us to effectively build better futures, we have to see these layers where they lie and rework and rebuild them in our own lives.

Stripping away humanity

A narcissist is a person without empathy, yes — but they are also a person defined by their complete lack of self-esteem. At some point in their life, the narcissist became so insecure that they built up a delusional ego to compensate. That ego places them (undeservingly) at the top of the power pyramid in every relationship that they’re in. Including family ones.

This leads the narcissists to devalue and dehumanize every relationship that they have. They have to tear down those around them in order to maintain the idea that they’re the best (even though their secret insecurities tell them otherwise).

Narcissistic families function by being able to turn members into a possession more than a person. They devalue members regularly in order to keep them small and controllable. But these families are also marked by enmeshment, in which all privacy and individuality are stripped for members. This further reinforces the idea that they are nothing more than the possession of the narcissist(s).

Deep-water shame and guilt

There is no narcissistic family without a distinct and deeply troubling layer of shame and guilt. On one hand, there is the guilt and shame layered on family members by the narcissist. Any time a mistake is made or children fail to live up to expectations, they get labeled as failures or punished.

Covert narcissists are especially adept at delivering this layer of punishment and control. When confronted with their bad behavior, they dish out guilt and place themselves back in control by jumping into the victim role.

We have to move beyond this shame in order to find our freedom. It doesn’t matter how many hours they worked or what they think they did for you. The abuse and the manipulation have no place in a family, and no one has the right to dole it out on you.

Threat of catastrophic loss

In the narcissist family, there is always a looming threat of catastrophic loss or terror. It’s how the narcissist can keep control. Kids grow up fearing being excommunicated from the only home they’ve ever known if they don’t toe specific lines. In adulthood, you learn to keep your mouth shut unless you want to suffer the same (or worse). No overt proclamations have to be made. It’s clear. Break with the demands of your narcissist family, and you will be destroyed.

Craving for validation

So many children who grow up in narcissistic families turn into adults who crave and chase the validation of others. How could they not? There is so little true affection and appreciation for each other in these families that it creates the need to chase it through perfectionism and performance.

Children of narcissistic families are those who chase perfection. They go above and beyond to prove themselves to the world so that they can prove that they are worthy of love.

The sad truth, though, is that they were always deserving of love. No performance was necessary. Only in the narcissistic household where their value is directly tied to the narcissist who looms over them. Breaking free of these patterns requires that we learn to love ourselves more than we love them.

Eroding life connections

Because these families are so toxically enmeshed, there’s a real isolation that comes with them. Narcissists have to isolate their victims, just like any other abuser. But the way they do this is far more subtle and crafty.

Inside of the home, they keep things tense. Family members are resentful and distrustful of one another, which never allows them to form an alliance against the narcissist who is wounding them all.

Things get even more interesting outside of the home.

In order to keep their abuse secret and actionable, they have to teach family members not to trust the outside world either. Generally, this is done through teaching distrust and paranoia. Victims never run to those who can help them because they never learn to build trusting and healthy relationships with anyone…even themselves.

Destroying sense of reality

There would be no existence for the narc family without destroying reality as we know it. Narcissists exist entirely in delusion, after all. They (along with their enablers) bend reality around their delusions, which creates a warped sense of self and the world for the victims.

The narcissistic family lives in a perpetual state of delusion. You get told that your life is good and that everything outside of the home is bad. You are taught to judge what’s good and embrace what’s unhealthy in ways that never really leave you.

Victims of narcissists are taught to see themselves as the narcissist sees them — cloaked in delusion. So they spend the rest of their lives trying to figure out who they are and what they really want outside of this delusion.

Beyond that, they also get left with the task of building stable relationship skills, and coming to terms with reality and what it means to be happy, whole, and invested in life again.

Putting it all together…

There are so many layers to the narcissistic family, and they all hover around shame, manipulation, power, and control. Narcissists and their enablers spend lifetimes bending reality around their delusions, and ultimately is is their survivors who pay the price.

Seeing these layers as they lie in our lives (and childhood memories) can be empowering. When we see reality as it really is, we can remove ourselves from the shame and the guilt so that we can rebuild and find our true north.

We don’t have to settle for the pain and the hopelessness that was hoisted on us by our narcissistic families. No. This is our chance for us to become the people we were always meant to be. This is the chance to find freedom, love, and peace, which we have always been denied by those we love most.

Day, N., Bourke, M., Townsend, M., & Grenyer, B. (2020). Pathological Narcissism: A Study of Burden on Partners and Family. Journal Of Personality Disorders, 34(6), 799–813. doi: 10.1521/pedi_2019_33_413