Golden Child

[gratitude28]

OK, I am leaving this WIDE OPEN as I want an array of ideas to help me out...

What are your thoughts on the Golden Child? How are your relationships with this person????

Thanks  for anything you would like to add.

Love, Beth

[Hopalong]

Here's mine, Beth honey.
I don't remember your sibling situation so I'll ignore it.

YOU, BETH, ARE AS GOLDEN AND LOVELY A GIFT TO THIS MOTHER UNIVERSE AS COULD EVER BE IMAGINED.

You are PERFECT. You are brave and smart and flawed and funny and beautiful and vulnerable and tough and experienced and been around the block.

MOTHER UNIVERSE IS VERY VERY PROUD OF YOU.

You are a stitch. Your sense of liveliness and humor pops up everywhere (especially in your choice of dog).

MOTHER UNIVERSE FEELS SUCH DELIGHT BECAUSE YOU RESPOND SO MUCH TO THE DELIGHT IN LIFE.

You get dogs. You get other languages. You get travel.  You get the oneness and yet the complexity of cultures and peoples. You are a remarkable woman! (And Mother is so relieved you're not perfect, because plenty of her creations get that very very confused and waste a lot of precious life on it. You have Her Permission to mess up.)

MOTHER UNIVERSE SAYS, AND YOU'D BETTER BELIEVE HER BECAUSE YOU DON'T MESS WITH MOTHER UNIVERSE:

Beth, my daughter, all is well. You are exactly perfect, my beautiful daughter. You are dealing just fine with some of my more aggravating creations. I am totally totally pleased with you!

Hops

[Certain Hope]

Hi Beth,

If you'd like, could you please explain this "Golden Child" concept to me?

I'm guessing the reference is to the favored one in the family? Must the person necessarily be a sibling or could it be anyone within the immediate family unit?

Thanks! 

Hope

[finding peace]

Hi Beth,

It is odd that you bring this up.  I woke up this morning thinking that this has been one of the harder aspects in my FOO for me to get past.

My family was pretty toxic.  This is probably going to sound pretty strange, but in some ways it would have been easier for me to deal with if the toxicity had been spread out evenly over the kids.  It wasn’t.  It was reserved for me.

Watching my mother and father cater to the golden child and spoil the baby, while I got left out in the cold was very painful for me growing up.   

I have no relationship to speak of with the golden child.  He hated me from the minute I was born (which my NM took great delight in and encouraged – she was thrilled he was jealous that he had to share her), and did everything in his power to make my life h*** in that house.  It was pretty awful, both physically and mentally.  I don’t entirely blame him, he was just a kid modeling himself after my parents, but I will never trust him.  He has turned out like them in a lot of ways.

But that aside, I grew up thinking, as they intended, that there was something wrong with me, and that it was my fault that they treated me this way.  I can’t seem to get rid of this.  It is like the child inside can’t stop crying – what was so wrong with me that I was treated this way. 

I began to realize last year that it wasn’t my fault – it was theirs, but I still can’t seem to stop the pain I feel at being treated like less than nothing while everyone else was treated better. 

How do you get past the hurt?  Does it ever go away?

Did you have this situation growing up?

Peace

[Ami]

Dear Peace,
   I am so, so, so sorry. It is easy to see that it was their problem ---- with your head. It is so, so hard to see it with your heart.,
 I am  getting it in my heart now,but it is very, very slow and very, very painful  .However,today I had a "hope" that I could live life as simply me---not my mother's daughter. That was big.        Love  Ami

[JanetLG]

Dear Gratitude,

Oooh, Golden Child...terrible trigger for me, that one.  My NMum I've had counselling over, arguments with, hours and hours of reading about N's on the Internet. But my Nsister, the Golden Child...it's like she's EVEN WORSE than my NMum.  We shared a bedroom (she's 3 years younger than me), and I disliked her from the minute I saw her. My Mum, though, idolised her. Might be something to do with sibling order, too - my NMum was third in the family, so was my sister. My sister looked like my NMum, behaved like her (thick and slow), everything. Me and the sister had NOTHING in common.

When I got close to starting NC in my late twenties, it was the Golden Child sister who volunteered to 'mediate' between us...as if that would be 'objective'!!

Now that I've had NC for 13 years, I think that if my NMum knocked on my door, I'd be surprised but not terrified. With the Golden Child sister, I'd be floored. I still have nightmares about her - more than my NMum, now. I think what terrifies me the most is that she's much more vindictive (on behalf of my NMum) - it's her that still sends me anonymous stuff in the post, etc. I think that, even if my NMum dies in a few years, the sister is likely to live as long as I do, and she'll NEVER give up. She's now much more N than my NMum was, and she was bad.

I need to get to the stage of not caring about her (like I have with my NMum), but I'm not there yet. I don't know how common it is for the Golden Child to carry on the 'infection' of N-ism in the family, but I've done family history research, and I've traced it back in my NMum's family to about 1850.

Ami...with time, you can learn not to be your mother's daughter. I think I've just about reached that bit now. But to not be my sister's sister - now, that takes a bit more work!

Janet

[mountainspring]

My brother was/is the golden child.  I thought as a child that he was very lucky.  It was so obvious that when me or my sister wanted something, like to go to McDonalds or something, we'd have him ask.  I learned after I was grown that it was tough on him too.  My sister told me that one time after I left home he came with a good report card, and hers wasn't as good.  She said Mom asked her why she couldn't be more like him and he said nothing at the time. But the next report card, he brought home much lower grades, showed my sister first and smiled.  As an adult he's had very little to do with my parents.  Not any of us have relationships with each other, but we don't dislike each other either.  I see my sister maybe once every 2 or 3 years and my brother less than that.  We're not mad but we don't connect.

[finding peace]

Janet - it is interesting that you bring up birth order.  I often felt that birth order impacted my NM as well.  She had an older sister who she was extremely jealous of.  Her older sister was beautiful, extremely intelligent, and (in her words) "married into money,"...I have often thought she identified with my younger sister and equated me with her older sister as the age span was similar.  She always seemed so jealous of me and went out of her way to do whatever she could to make my life miserable, all the while spoiling my sister.  I just couldn't understand it as a kid - heck, I still don't get it.

Ami - I think you are right - it is not just seeing the pattern, it is understanding it from the heart.  Just can't seem to do that -  not sure why?

MS - your brother sounds like a sweetheart to do that for your sister! Sounds like he may have escaped developing into an N.  Maybe he had a good role model in your father? 

It is a shame they way these NMs or NFs (or both) seem to divide, conquer, and destroy everything in their wake.  (Sorry - that was negative.  I try to stay positive, but am having trouble finding the good today.)

[gratitude28]

This is just what I'd hoped for - many differing ideas and lots of help to continue the unravelling process

Hopsy, as always, you are a sweet bolster to my confidence. I always feel golden reading your kind words. I also think back to your beautiful picture every time. Thank you and thank you for reminding me that I have a goofy choice in home beasts lol.

CH, the Golden Child is generally one sibling who is singled out for loving behavior and adolation. There is a fabulous link on it somewhere here... I will see if I can find it for you. Since I am on a borrowed computer, I don't have my links... I am not sure if it would be the same with someone outside the family. Whom do you have in mind????

Peace, you know exactly how I feel. I was angry for years and didn't know why. I always thought there was something wrong with me. Now I realize that I really was treated badly and that there was always an excuse (and still is) why my sister should be treated better. I have gotten very strong, but once in a while fall back to feeling "that feeling." Also, I am not sure if it is worth having any relationship with my sister. That is one thing I am trying to determine here. I don't know exactly how N she is (a lot, but sometimes not...). Peace, read, read,read and listen to what people recommend here. I have been reading books on dealing with the N parent situation, and I can see how much I have grown just from being here and taking advice from those who have understood the dynamics for longer. I'd love to hear more about you and your N sib situation.

((((((((((((((Ami))))))))))))))) That is a  great hope - and very possible. I still have some "feeling" towards my mother, but it is leaving. I realize that a lot of the emotion I have towards her is my own doing - she just doesn't care. Once you can start to accept this, it will be easier to separate from her.

Janet, that is what I am wondering - how much my sister is exacerbating the situation. I really think she and my mother play the game together. My mother also gushed over how my sister looked just like her and even now she will say how beautiful my sister is (like her) and how different my body is (like the other part of the family). My sister thinks she is right about everything. She apologized to me once, but I am thinking it wa one of those N apologies - for something off the wall...

MS, my sister is very happy to be the golden child, I believe. She always got everything from them from love to money and it continues now. They like what she likes, they hang out. I am still the annoying one.

Again, thank you everyone for helping and sharing.

Love, Beth

[mountainspring]

(((Beth)))  you are not the annoying one.  You have parents that play stupid little mind games.  I'm sorry Beth.  It hurts and it's thier loss. 

[Certain Hope]

CH, the Golden Child is generally one sibling who is singled out for loving behavior and adolation. There is a fabulous link on it somewhere here... I will see if I can find it for you. Since I am on a borrowed computer, I don't have my links... I am not sure if it would be the same with someone outside the family. Whom do you have in mind????

Thank you, Beth... I had a hunch that's what... or who... it was! If you find the link some time later, I'd still like to read further.
For starters, I'll read through the responses already posted here.
In my family, there was a female cousin who received extra attention and loving behavior, but I don't know whether I'd call it adulation.
She was the youngest child within my extended family at the time, so it's probably just a matter of her being the "baby"... and more resources being available at that stage within family life.
Within my own immediate family, I'm sure that my son has received more - in some regards - and possibly less - in others. One - because he is the youngest... and another - because he's the only boy, with 3 older sisters. It'd be interesting, I think, to ask our own children whether they feel any one of them or their siblings is a "Golden Child". Thanks again, Beth.

Hope

[finding peace]

Well – about the Nsib situation - there isn’t one anymore.  Between bro, NM, N/PF – I was the outcast in that family.  Sis was pretty spoiled, but I wouldn’t say she was an N, just very self-centered.

I had an incident with my FOO last fall and that was the final straw – the house of cards came crashing down.  I was (and am) at the point where I will not tolerate one more second of abuse.  I got it from all of them; some more than others.  I have been NC with the lot of them since last fall – have to say that life has gotten so much more peaceful than I could ever have imagined.

I still struggle with the memories.  I used to be very dissociated, and still fall back into this a lot, so I used to get by most of the time without remembering the pain to often.  But since joining this board, and reading so many stories, a lot more is coming up for me – more than I ever realized was there.  This is a good I think – better to find a way to flush it then live with it.  I can try to pretend it isn’t there – and I am pretty good at pretending – but it never really goes away.

You wrote:

She always got everything from them from love to money and it continues now. They like what she likes, they hang out. I am still the annoying one.

Just replace the She with He, and you have my family.

Do you feel that you can trust your sister?  If your life depended on it, could you count on her to be there?  I could never count on anyone in my family, unless there was something in it for them.

Is her behavior toxic to your emotional well-being?  That was pretty much where I finally drew the line, it was just too toxic to live with.

Peace

[Ami]

This is such a wonderful thread. This may sound really dumb ,but I thought that the "golden " child would be O.K.. In my mind, the golden child was the one who could get out of the N abuse.
 I guess that this is totally wrong. It sounds like such a dumb question that I want to erase it,but 'my heart''wants to know the answer                           Love  Ami

[BonesMS]

My Nbrother was the "Golden Child" until the day he announced he was moving out, and moving in with a roommate, two weeks shy of his eighteenth birthday.  That's when Nmother went into a Narcissistic Rage and started beating him with anything and everything she could get her hands on!  Her behavior was SICK!!!!!

Bones

[JanetLG]

These responses are really interesting!

Can people say if the Golden Child in their family *tended* to turn into an N? The one in my family (sister) certainly did.

Beth - my sister looks like my NMum, and I think this idea of looking the same exacerbates (in the N's mind) the idea that they are 'the same'. When I was little, I had blond- curly hair - my sister had straight. dark hair like my NMum. They both (as soon as my sister learned to mimic it) used to say that I had 'deformed hair follicles, that made my hair curl', so I hated my hair for being 'unruly'. When I look at photos of me when I was little, now, I just look cute, while my sister looked sort of boyish, and a bit educationally sub-normal!!

I don't think my sister will ever 'emotionally' or physically separate form my NMum - she still lives 5 minutes' drive from her, in the town we were born in. Her life is completely entwined with hers.

I live 300 miles away from both of them.Yes!!!!!


Janet