I have just discovered this paper which includes the following passage. It reflects what I lived and it is written by someone I have never heard of. Her objective mess gives it such value to me. Plus it explains what I have been trying to say
http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/5623865/Adult_Children_of_Narcissistic_Parents.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ56TQJRTWSMTNPEA&Expires=1461261629&Signature=npgYmiVXG0mudqyq8ZWMk%2FtbENk%3D&response-content-disposition=attachment%3B%20filename%3DAdult_Children_of_Narcissistic_Parents_T.pdfThe echo child learns, the hard way, to keep their feelings, problems, mistakes, questions, and opinions to themselves, or face severe disapproval, rejection and punishment from their narcissistic parent. If they do share their true selves in a moment of unguarded honesty, they may find those intimacies thrown back in their face at a later date. The communication style of the disapproving narcissist is indirect because they fear clear, and honest confrontation. Instead of “Mary, will you please take out the garbage?” One hears: “It would be nice if someone besides me took the garbage out once in awhile, do I have to do everything around here? Mary, I thought you said you were going to do this, you let it get too full and the dog got into it! I suppose you‟re on the phone with that girl who you said was skipping school. Well, go ahead, if you hang out with losers long enough you‟ll end up one too.” The simple request to take out the garbage is not about the garbage at all—it is a loaded gun of communication. Indirectly, the narcissist has used the garbage to: (1) elevate themselves as the only one who cares and actually does „everything‟—insinuating that nobody else does anything; (2) singles out someone to blame for the dog making a mess; and (3) brings up a previous confidence shared by Mary about her friend skipping school, and equates Mary, the friend, and the full garbage can to Mary ending up a loser. In this scenario, Mary may have just gotten home from school, or been helping the neighbor lady find her cat, but that is of no concern to the narcissistic parent. Mary‟s feelings are of no concern to this parent either, and to express them, or try explaining why she did not have time to take the garbage out, is pointless.
A child that finds themselves in a similar situation to Mary‟s will respond to the parent in one of two ways: fight or flight. To fight back is perceived as rebellious, selfish and disrespectful. To choose the flight option will be mistakenly seen by the parent as compliant obedience. Either way, the narcissist believes they are right, and the children was wrong—end of story. The garbage is not just the garbage; this whole situation is another opportunity for the narcissist to reassure themselves that they are not a failure as a parent; they are, in fact, a good parent by pointing out how irresponsible Mary was. On the surface, that sounds like a reasonable explanation that few would see as „child abuse‟, but it is. To cloak shame under the guise of caring is precisely what causes such psychological damage to the Echo—they do not understand why, if they are so loved, do they feel so worthless and unlovable? They conclude that what mom or dad said about them must be true, that they really are ungrateful and lazy.
Another ineffective communication technique used in narcissistic families is triangulation. The narcissistic parent uses a third party to talk through—a dog, a child, or even the other parent, to create a buffer against intimacy, and to not accept responsibility for what they say or how they say it. A more common and destructive form of triangulation is to use one person against another to form an “alliance” with the narcissist. This is sort of a “divide and conquer” technique where the narcissist positions themselves so other family members cannot form relationships with each other. The narcissist needs to be the center of attention, and sees close relationships within the family much like a jealous child would: “If they love each other then they do not love me.” The parent will gossip about one child to another, share intimacies about their spouse, betray confidences or even make up lies in order to remain “in the loop”. The concept of intimacy being established because “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is the way a narcissist tries to feel in control. In other words, they believe: “If they do not like each other, then they will have to love me”.
A narcissistic parent is essentially an emotional child who relates to their own child as a “peer”— another adult who is trying to compete with them, or deliberately wants to make them look bad. To a narcissist there is no “us”, there is only “them or me”. They live in a world that is right or wrong, black or white, good or bad; if someone else is right then they must be wrong, if someone else is loved then they are unloved, if someone disagrees with them, that means they are trying to make them look stupid, and so on. Every feeling or experience of another is somehow a reflection of the narcissist‟s worth and value—whether it has anything to do with them or not. For example, if their child gets in trouble at school because they forgot their homework and feels bad about it, the narcissistic parent‟s first thought will be embarrassment— now the teacher will think they are a bad parent—they should have made sure the homework was done. Instead of being empathetic, or using this as a teaching moment, they are angry. The child is not permitted to express regret. The parent has already grabbed the situation, twisted it around, pulled it to close to them, will manipulate the child into feeling guilty for making angry. The narcissist has taken the focus off of the child‟s needs and placed it on themselves. The discouraged child is now expected to comfort the parent so they don‟t feel bad anymore. When this form of emotional co-opting occurs repeatedly, year after year, a child not only
stops telling the parent anything that may upset them, they stop being consciously aware of their true feelings at all. To feel is to be disappointed, so the protective walls go up, creating emotional safety from the narcissist and from feeling hopeful. Why desire intimacy and closeness if it means being rejected? Why bother just to be humiliated and emotionally abandoned? Trust leads to pain; therefore, trust becomes synonymous with pain.
The process of building a protective wall around the heart is not a conscious one; it is the magnificent brain‟s clever rewiring that helps the child survive a narcissistic system of emotional abuse and neglect. Unaware that this rewiring has occurred, the adult child of a narcissist has trouble figuring out why they have trouble with intimacy; why they lie when the truth would be easier to tell, have anxiety attacks, or find themselves in abusive work situations over, and over again.
Although the process of healing is difficult, it is possible for the Echo to find their voice and live a healthy life. If their therapist or counselor is familiar with the narcissistic family system, it is not difficult to spot an Echo client who displays ACOA symptoms, but whose childhood seemed “fine”. What prevents someone who was raised in a narcissistic family from becoming one? It is the presence of an adult in their life: a teacher, parent, aunt or neighbor, who, knowingly or unknowingly, loved, and accepted them. If there was one person who did not get mad if they made a mistake, or did not expect anything in return if they did the child a favor, then through this healthy “mirror”, they could see themselves reflected as valuable, unique and loveable. They could experience being “good enough”, just as they are. It is this same positive parent-child model that will help heal the adult child of a narcissist. Not tough love, not behavior modification or psychoanalysis, but a healthy, truthful mirror of the client‟s inherent beauty that is not based on what they do, but who they are. The beauty is flawed, imperfect, and prone to all sorts of mistakes, and miss-steps; but these are to be accepted, and learned from, not feared. That is the truth that will finally set the Echo child free.
