Grief or Sadness on Mother's Day for Estranged Scapegoat Children of Narcissistic Families

 

From all I have heard, Mother's Day and Father's Day are often the saddest days of the year for estranged scapegoats. 

This post is about Mother's Day. 

I remember reading Toxic Mothers Don't Deserve Your Time On Mother's Day by Lenora Thompson years ago for Huffington Post. Then she wrote a column for Psych Central for years about what it was like to grow up as "an only child" in her family of origin. Her column was named "When Narcissism Meets Normalcy." 

We became friends and since then there have been many changes in her life with the death of a parent and grandparent, life challenges, and some different perspectives she has had since that post long ago. She is still estranged from her family, although death can sometimes challenge the often "fixed order" of narcissistic family childhood roles into more fluid, transforming and less challenging situations. Not everyone adopts a narcissist's perspectives even if they pretend to or "play dumb", especially after the narcissist has passed away. Sometimes even before the narcissist passes, the perspectives are regretfully adopted, even if temporarily, by some members over a narcissist's Will and Estate, or some kind of help, or accolades, or gravy train. Since narcissists base most of their relationships on winning or losing "their approval", be what it may, and on rewards and punishments, once the rules for approval and rewards go away, the fixed perspectives on who to hate often go away too.

For instance: "Mom always hated my oldest sister, but Mom always hated a lot of people. She was a very difficult person to get along with and we should have all gotten a medal for not running away. But I never hated anyone, especially a sister I barely knew growing up except for what Mom said about her. But none of us really trusted her as distorting reality was the name of the game for Mom! However if I didn't pretend to hate my sister too, Mom would have made my life a living hell! Now I'm trying to get to know my sister since Mom passed. I haven't had a relationship with her since I saw her last, which is when I was 15 years old, and even then, Mom tried to separate us from each other and tried to build a hate campaign towards her using us kids first. I never really knew her. Mom wanted my sister estranged from the family in the worst way, but we never understood why. We heard a lot of fights, and then my sister was gone forever from our household, though I found out later she had moved to Canada and now has two sons. No explanation was given to us by our mother except ones that made no sense and were filled mainly with emotion and vitriol." - those kinds of changes.

And they happen enough.

There aren't necessarily the same kinds of narcissists around either to smear the original narcissist's  scapegoats. And if scapegoats leave the family, and a scapegoat is needed for another generation, the hate will be for the new scapegoat, usually a child, not for some old white haired scapegoat they barely know, and haven't seen since they were kids, and no one knows where they live, or even if they're alive. With many new members, new in-laws, and new babies, they might not even know that someone served as a bullied scapegoat member of the older generation in the first place.   

I notice in workplaces that the scapegoating dynamic can change drastically with new people, and even more by new generations that come in, where the scapegoating of one worker can go out of style in a year or two depending on the change-over, and sometimes even be gone altogether when the old guard no longer works there or dominates. Some workers don't want a gossipy heavily competitive combative negative work environment to begin with. They are not into hearing negative talk about people they haven't gotten to know yet, or they are more empathetic than the people giving the "low-down" on such-and-such a worker. They want everyone to get along. And they may not understand what was wrong in the first place with a worker that the last group found so horrible as to bully them so relentlessly.

I still notice, on the whole, that the youngest, smartest, most talented, most justice-oriented, most kind, creative thinkers are the people most likely to be scapegoated in narcissistically oriented environments, especially when surrounded by older, less talented, more insecure workers. The fact that dynamics can change so rapidly in terms of a prior scapegoat no longer serving that role is testament to the fact that it's not that the person is bad, but that the role that workers and families put these people into is bad (the bullying is bad, as well as not justified, and obviously not justified to continue it forever). 

Only toxic environments have scapegoating and bullying in them, and if the toxicity vaporizes because of different attitudes and perspectives of newly hired workers, then the scapegoating and bullying goes away too. And the workers who were doing the bullying suddenly can become "the outsiders". I've seen it myself in two work environments (very drastic changes over two years in that way). The same can happen in a narcissistic family, but at a slower rate. I've also heard of that happening to survivors who were previously estranged from their entire family getting contacted by family members again once one of the family bullies has died.  

But in the meantime, while the scapegoating is "fixed" and the continuing bullying plan is in place, you might be feeling some grief and sadness on Mother's Day if you are estranged from your Mom.

Your Mom may not even be the bully. 
* Maybe the bully is your father or stepfather, and like all bullies, they have to separate the two of you so that they can have your mother all to themselves. 
* Maybe the bully is a sibling and they want your Mom's undivided attention, all of her worldly goods, all of her affection going to them, and you're estranged from your Mom because being around your sibling is dangerous. 
* Maybe you have all of this going on, and even your Mom has been brainwashed to hate you. 
* So maybe you stepped away, and didn't know what to do other than that. Maybe you were in shock that it was happening at all since you were always welcomed by your Mom before. You didn't know she could be talked into hating you so easily. Maybe suddenly your own children and spouse needed so much attention that you put whatever was happening with your Mom on the back-burner to think about for another day. By the time "another day" came, there weren't any solutions that were palpable, or were made available to you. Were you supposed to stay estranged just for the agenda of the bullies in your mother's life, or stay estranged because your mother was going along with the stories and hate-speech of others, or did your mother assume you were going to put up with bullying and then didn't know what to do once it became clear you weren't going to put up with it? 

A lot of families go silent during times of estrangement; they are not open to any kind of discussion. So you never really know, and then estrangement becomes your way of life out of default. You might feel devastated or mad and speak out, but usually when you do that in these kinds of situations, the silence continues, and so does the confusion. 

Sometimes you get an answer like a fleeting facial expression you had was taken out of context, or because of a singular phrase that most people would have over-looked or forgotten about. Or someone might have mentioned lack of object constancy to you. 

This is way more common than people realize as to who becomes estranged.

You might find out later from a therapist or two or three that bullying families are usually toxic families and get worse, and that the bullying gets worse and worse too no matter what you do, and can become life-threatening if those bullies feel you are defenseless or vulnerable. Maybe you seek a therapist, and they read off what the traits of narcissism are, and you notice those traits sound so much like the traits of the bullies you are dealing with. Narcissists are antagonistically inclined. So then you might become reliant on the advice of a therapist and they become who you go to for comfort, explanations, solutions, a way forward ...

But before you get to wanting advice from anyone, the confusion gets worse and worse, and the cognitive dissonance becomes extremely uncomfortable especially for making decisions. In the end, you may not go to a therapist. You may go to your family's minister, or Co-Dependent's Anonymous, or a close friend who has known you most of your life, or to someone you know who also had to deal with estrangement, or a psychic or fortune teller if you are inclined to go that way. At any rate, you are more than likely to go to someone to help you with the grief and confusion. Most scapegoats deal with a brick wall of silence from their family, or an uncharacteristically inflexible, unyielding "I have to win" attitude that didn't seem to be there before. And most people avoid bullies and bullying, so you, like most people in the world, are not going to take actions to place yourself in situations that are potentially bullying.

For most of us, our actions are going to be about getting answers we can understand.

Maybe all we have to understand is that either the mother, or the people surrounding her do not have object constancy when it comes to relationships, even relationships with children, siblings and mates. Lack of object constancy is just another trait of narcissism, so it further confirms someone or everyone in the group is narcissistically inclined.  

Estrangement becomes your new way of life as well as deepening relationships you've had all along, entering new relationships, dealing with the symptoms of being estranged, possibly dealing with some financial fall-out, or hanging out with other people who have become estranged - you've entered a new life, at any rate. You hope the door that you just walked through is sunnier than the dark traumatic one you've left behind. 

Like the change of the guard at a workplace, we can find that we are suddenly not bullied at all, and actually appreciated for who we are and what we bring to the table, with nothing in sight remotely like the scapegoating we endured before.

However, as the years roll by, you may sometimes wonder about your mother. 

"Did she really deserve not having contact with me at all?" you might ask. Wouldn't it be nice to drive to her house, give her some flowers, and take her out for lunch like you used to in the old days? But you hesitate. Can't go; the bullies are still there. Or maybe she never loved you in the first place; maybe it was all an act. Maybe she's adopted bullying herself, but you didn't really know it until you were estranged. Maybe she always thought of her real family as the bullies, and you were on the side for only a little while. Maybe she's so brainwashed that her own thoughts don't exist any more. Maybe she would never appreciate the flowers anyway. Maybe the bullies give her huge expensive bouquets of flowers that fill up her entire living room, and take her on vacations to the Italian Riviera, and your little bouquet and little lunch at a modest cafe would never be appreciated. "Bah, humbug! Not enough flowers! Not enough food!" Maybe this, and maybe that ... and all of the maybes don't lead anywhere except to more maybes. Maybe the advice you have been given about narcissists, and their isolation tactics, and their divide and conquer strategies is all of the "maybe" you need to know, and when you think about the scapegoating again when you no longer are a scapegoat in any part of your life, maybe that's what's keeping you away from another Mother's Day with your Mom.

Perhaps you just try to forget Mom and Mother's Day when there is no clear path that has revealed itself for yet another year of estrangement. Maybe taking a walk in the woods or celebrating your own motherhood with your child or children is how you go about Mother's Day now. At least there is no bullying or fear of bullying. It's a sweet holiday that you should enjoy precisely because there's nothing but flowers and love, and most of all, no bullying.

You may not even want to think about Mom because thoughts of Mom conjure up too many memories of the bullying and bullies. Or the violence. Or the sexual abuse. Or the stealing. Or the threats, intimidations, and the ordering you around as if you are a slave to a thankless family. Or however you were hurt by them. So you put thinking about her on the back burner just as you did when the estrangement first started.

Anyway, while Lenora Thompson's article for The Huffington Post is certainly a legitimate reason for not celebrating Mother's Day, and a lot of survivors go through "exactly that", what I'm saying is also the way survivors think about Mother's Day. It's more about the grief, sadness and confusion starting up again, and even of not wanting to remember the past. Especially since it came with so much confusion, a change of rules, or a change of judgements, or a change in someone's attitude. For instance they may have thought that estrangements are a good thing and should be done more often.

Since it never really made much sense to begin with except, perhaps, the very human tendency we all possess to flee from bullying (and wars, danger, violence, bombs, hate speech, prejudice, threats, intimidations, slaving, maybe even physical abuse, or being shamed for things you didn't actually do, or being treated as though you are vermin, Hitler's favorite phrase, or a recalcitrant sycophant-puppet). Everything that bullying and family wars bring seem so annihilating in so many ways, whether in whole or in part, whether they want to erase your personality, or your thoughts, or feelings, or reactions to the bullying, whether through making your health worse, or effecting your mind and body in negative ways. It's all so destructive and most things in life are all better than that kind of destruction. However, that doesn't make it less sad, especially on the day that celebrates parenthood. 

I just thought that this perspective on what can happen was as necessary as Lenora's.

Thank you. And I hope you are enjoying Mother's Day. 

A Psychologist Speaks Out About People Estranged From Their Family, and Narcissistic Abuse Survivors Speak Out About Suicidal Thoughts, Scapegoating, and Losing Their Entire Family of Origin

 

(trigger warning!)

INTRODUCTION

The way I went about this post was first to share Dr. Ramani Durvasula's video (below) about the necessity of not judging or shaming people about being estranged from their family of origin. In her video, she doesn't direct her lecture towards survivors of narcissistic abuse (as she most often does), but towards others who are apt to judge, lecture, blame or shame adult children estranged from their parents or families. 

It's an important message because so many young people, especially, are experiencing this, and often it is just another victim-blaming activity, and another diatribe about shaming and silencing victims. In many cases, it is just another addition of how their families treated them for years or decades. Shaming doesn't work, especially when you do not know the survivor's story, and judging doesn't work because the judging, lecturing and blaming a survivor is assuming you know what happened to that survivor (narcissistic parents often lie about the reasons for the estrangement to protect their egos, their image, and their grandiosity). 

So often the shame you want to instill into a survivor to push them back into their family is actually victimizing them more. Do we try to send wives back to their husbands who beat their wives so badly they ended up in the hospital? Do we try to send wives back to husbands who practice false imprisonment? You'd also have to live under a rock not to know that abuse escalates, and that includes child abuse (it continues during the entire life of that parent - their child can be 50 or 60 and they are still the object of abuse). 

So her message is an absolutely necessary one, and who better to do it than a well known and brilliant psychologist who has made a lot of inroads in terms of bringing out very important topics of who commits abuse and discarding their own children (primarily narcissists, the antisocial personality disordered and alcoholic families), and why and how they do it. 

While not all estrangements across the USA are due to personality disordered parents or siblings, I would make the wild guess that about 70 percent of them are, with the rest being about alcoholism, drug addictions, criminal activities of members, and children who have either narcissistic traits or antisocial personality disorder traits, who threaten their parents to give them money for drugs, or a car, or a house, or something else. 

At any rate, it would be hard for any outsider to know which of these cases it would be. And even inside the family, members don't know what happened unless they were in the same room for a lot discourses between the family members who became estranged.

Then there are some members of families who would be afraid of a narcissistic or antisocial personality disordered parent abusing them too, and out of fear tell others that the estranged member is at fault.

Narcissistic and antisocial personality disordered parents play upon the fears of children to gain ultimate power and control over them in the family. And then, of course, they tend to be a lot more charming than victims. 

So it can all get very confusing as to who the real victim is. There are certainly signs to look out for.

In perpetrators some signs are a very obvious power differential from the victim, charm, grandiosity and flippancy, overly endearing, flattering and love-bomby, and they talk about mental illness and disabilities disparagingly, and at the same time present themselves as victims. They also tend to look for a romantic partner (or have one) before or just after a marital separation, and they tend to attend a lot of social functions, or to be with another child a lot after they have separated from another one of their children. They self aggrandize in their victim stories rather than focus on what they did wrong, or how they could have contributed to the demise of the relationship. There is not much despair in their demeanor, and they tend to engage easily in conversations with others.

Some of the signs of victimhood are isolating oneself, marked introversion, passive, lack of engagement, lack of self care, humility, poor body posture, timidity, missing out in conversations (appearing to others to be mentally "somewhere else"), often symptoms (lack of sleep, body aches, nightmares, stomach aches and stomach issues, heart pain or sudden heart disease, headaches), sometimes flinching or looking shocked when touched, long hair in women, and appearing distracted and anxious in large gatherings.

But like everything, this is not written in stone. It depends on a lot of circumstances and factors, and for the most part, most people will not know why an adult child is estranged, what the circumstances were that lead up to it, and why it cannot be resolved. 

And it can be foolish and destructive to assume. 

Anyway, I put some of the comments that were left in the doctor's video so that you can get a sense of the attitudes that survivors of abuse have about being judged over being estranged.

However, the real focus of this blog post began as a way to tell what victims go through when they lose a parent or parents in their own words. It includes what often happens afterwards: losing their entire family when the narcissist spreads smear campaigns, false narratives and challenges one family member after another to be loyal, and to adopt their perspectives of other people. 

In two entries (below), they are therapists talking, giving insights.  

When a whole family sides with the family abuser, the child or adult child experiences many emotional and physical symptoms that are the result of PTSD and/or Generalized Anxiety Disorder, as well as feelings of being broken, in chronic pain, unlovable, lonely, feeling suicidal, scared (of the parents or family). Many have nightmares for years over a parent or other family member. 

I thought that this would be a good addition to what Dr. Ramani points out, so that it becomes clear why some familial relationships just do not work out, and why a survivor would not want to return to, or make up with, family members. 

Hopefully you will see that they felt they had no real good choices in the matter either.

Granted some families will welcome a member back only to demand that the survivor has to relate to everyone in the family on their terms (can mean a highly abusive mob bullying situation, and often does mean that). They are also often chastised and lectured at about how to get along with members, as though a victim of abuse is responsible for the abuse because of some flaw in not walking on eggshells in a good enough way. It's also a sign that the family is still trying to control the member, who they can and cannot relate to, or deciding the victim is not allowed to pick and choose who they can have a relationship with, including the worst kinds of perpetrators. As long as they are trying to control the victim's relationships, it's not a good family to return to by a long shot, for obvious reasons. 

For this post, I spent a couple of years gathering comments from survivors (all written ones) from four separate groups. I tried to pick comments where I would not have to correct grammar or spelling, comments that were not redundant, comments that brought a new perspective to the issue, comments from survivors who were struggling with suicidal thoughts, or poverty, or dealing with nightmares every night, and so on. I also tried, in some cases, to focus on comments that were enlightening,  knowledgeable and helpful, and not just a stream of personal experiences. 

All comments are from real people. Two are from therapists. I usually don't contribute mine in any posts, but for this one I contributed one comment (and anyone would be hard pressed to figure out which one it was). 

I picked them from survivors who were in the process of losing their entire families (not just their parents, or a sibling). Often this happens because the parent is spreading a false narrative, or a smear campaign, or trying to get other people to side with them against the child they ostracized (or against the child who left because they could no longer withstand the abuse). 

Although the type of post that started the discussion was different, they all sort of sounded the same. This is one example: 

"Yes I'm here the thoughts come strong I'm balling until I'm shaking I slept for 2 hours woke up crying but calmer. Thank you to anyone that took their time to write anything on this post. No one in my actual life cares I'm literally just a trophy. They have no clue that I'm suffering everyday" 

This poster was on the verge of suicide, didn't sleep for days, in a lot of pain, couldn't perform at work optimally because of the profound lack of sleep and grief. The other posters where other comments came from sounded very similar to this one. 

Before I get to the post, if you are feeling suicidal, or thinking suicidal thoughts, please get help, or call a hotline, or feel free to read THIS FIRST. 

DOCTOR RAMANI'S VIDEO

After the video, I have some comments and also another section on what victims of narcissistic abuse actually go through when they are estranged from their family of origin. 

 "STOP judging people for being estranged from a narcissist"
by Dr. Ramani Durvasula
(watch here, or CLICK HERE to be directly taken to You Tube):

transcript of excerpts from the video in purple follow for those who want to study Dr. Ramani's words and advice through reading:

Hi Everyone,

I'm Dr. Ramani and welcome back to this You Tube channel on narcissism, narcissistic relationships, healing from these relationships, and just making sense of them. 

Today this is in response to a question sent into me ... and this person had said "People are so judgmental if you're estranged from your family." In this person's case they had a narcissistic family. How do you navigate this judgement? 

This is such a relevant question for this channel because this question comes up a lot from folks who are from narcissistic family systems. It's one of the most complicated spaces because the harm done by narcissistic families is quite deep. It effects your sense of self, your identity, how you go through the world, how you talk to yourself, so that's enough harm. Sadly, these patterns almost never resolve in families. So your on-going contact with the family is rarely going to be healthy. 

Now many people don't feel they can go fully "no contact". And there may be a wide array of reasons for this, from the practical, cultural, duty, obligation, or perhaps there are some families members you do like and having to endure your narcissistic parent is part of being able to interact with them. Your reasons are your reasons. But you also know that the ongoing contact with the narcissistic family system takes a toll. It's just the nature of the beast. 

It's actually quite galling when people look at people who are estranged from their families and accuse them of taking the easy way out. I actually think that the decision to cut away from a family system is one of the more difficult things a person can do. Some people do it somewhat abruptly, knowing if they were to try to explain themselves to their family that they would end up even more abused, gaslighted, and that it would only set them back, or that they would be vulnerable to the manipulations that the family was engaging in that would pull them back in. 

Some people do their "no contact" in pieces. They try their best to connect to the narcissistic parent, or the narcissistic family system, then they start going lower and lower, and lower and lower contact, and then they're "all out".

It's painful because you may be trying to only excise or cut out one family member, like just one parent, or sibling. But it does tend to end up to be an "all or nothing deal" since these are deeply enabled family systems in which even the folks you like a little may be chronically putting "the push" on you to reconcile. So some of you are going to go "no contact". And this will carry the label of you "being estranged" from your family.

There is a lot of bias against this, and I'm always struck by the bias people carry against familial estrangement. It happens! You had no choice or say in these people who were assigned to you as family. It was the roll of the dice. And anyone who plays dice will tell you they actually roll wrong more often than they roll right. So if your luck didn't hold out, and you are in a system that was rigid, harmful, manipulative, resistant to change, then distancing yourself to protect yourself, to save yourself, is a difficult, but for many people, a necessary choice. 

The bigger issue really comes up when you have to sort of take this out into the world. How do you navigate sharing this, that you're estranged from your family? How do you go about doing that with the world? It amazes me how undeveloped so many people's frontal lobes are well into adulthood, and that they feel they have the right to ask intrusive questions, get an answer, and then be judgmental, or even more intrusive about your answer. So here are some thoughts about how you navigate this issue of family estrangement if you are out in the world.  (4:33)

First of all, you've got to remember, you owe nobody the details of your life. If you have grown up in a narcissistic family, problematic boundaries came with the territory. And experiencing intrusiveness from them and then experiencing their withdrawal if you ask them for something they didn't want to be bothered with, that comes with the territory. You lose your personal sovereignty when you grow up in a narcissistic family system. So safe-guarding yourself is so important in the after-math of experiencing this! And part of that means that you may be quite protective when it comes to sharing about yourself. And all of this falls under the idea of discernment.

The details of your family or familial estrangement may still be quite painful. And even something that you have difficulty processing, so if you decide you do not want to share it, then that is your right, and your privilege. 

Somebody says to you, "Tell me about your family. Do you talk to them very often?" You can just give a vague, "Ah, no, we haven't been that in touch. I'm sure that they're fine." You can give them that vague kind of answer and change the subject. If that other person pushes you, you can then say, "I don't have much to say about it." If they push even more, step away or say, "I don't think you're hearing me. I prefer not to talk about it." And by the way, by that point, it is a "them-thing", it's definitely not a "you-thing".

And secondly if you do decide to talk about it, and you feel you can, you decide how much you want to share. You may decide to take the path of being bold. You might say, "My mother is a raging narcissist. She did enough damage and I'm not allowing her to do more," and you sit back and wait for their response. If you're lucky, then the other person will get it and let you know that they are sorry. And maybe even share a similar story. If you're not as lucky the other person may judge or criticize, or be rude. Again, this is why discernment becomes so important. You feel something coming out, or if they're coming at you ... If you feel someone coming at you with an interrogation, that may be the person not to share any of this with. If the person is asking vague questions, and not demanding answers, or you're dealing with someone who is empathic, when you've dealt with them in the past, or even during your interaction with them, maybe you tread in slowly on the topic.

And third, you may decide to take the middle ground and say, "We're no longer in contact. It's been complicated and painful, but this is my choice. I'm okay, but I'd prefer not to talk about it." The healthy person will say, "Got it. Thanks for sharing, and I'm sorry you went through that."

An intrusive, judge-y person may say any number of things like "Oh, come on! How bad could a family member be!" Or my favorite that they will tell you: "You better be careful! You may regret that some day! Be careful! Ask yourself how you will feel when they die!" as though you did not do this multiple times. 

Your estrangement, your history with your family is your business, nobody else's. And frankly, this experience and how other people receive it becomes a great litmus test. If someone hears about your experience of estrangement, and is unable to hear it with respect, empathy, and compassion, they are really not someone who you keep close. It's sort of the "Keep them on the list of the 'Need to Know Basis' kind of person". And you also do not need to be the "estrangement teacher". The judgmentalism, the intrusiveness, and the "I have the answers" arrogance of someone who critiques your difficult life and decision, that again, is a reflection on them, and their poor boundaries, and maybe even their toxicity. The hard work for any of us is to not internalize that. These judgmental encounters can feel like a recapitulation of all of the toxic stuff that happened within your narcissistic family. And you often need a second to get your legs back under you again when you're dealing with someone who is critiquing this. (10:26)

The obsession with "family at any cost" has done irreparable harm to many survivors of familial narcissistic abuse. Listen: in a casino of life, some folks just sit at a cold table, and end up in a family that does not do right by them. "Throwing good money after bad" does not work. Narcissistic family systems are about projected shame, about a parent projecting their self-shame and judgements on to their own children, so they can walk around feeling great about themselves. And their children carry that burden. 

That's enough shame for one life time. 

Navigating these situations means discernment, assessing your level of comfort, and also sniffing out whether these are people who can be respectful of your experience.

If they can't, then stick with a party line, and if someone asks you straight out "Why aren't you in touch with your family?" you can respond, "They just weren't good for me, because they weren't." 

I hope that's helpful ... 

Some of the comments below her video follow (in green). You can check these out yourself on the video page:

* What people don't understand is that a narcissistic family is not a family. It is a collection of people who are genetically related to each other. Period. Some of them are users and abusers, some of them are used and abused. It is an unfortunate situation and the victims who extricate themselves should be praised for their strength and courage.

* Wow. As a former family scapegoat and outcast, and now estranged from my whole family, I've never heard it put so well. "A narcissistic family is not a family. It is a collection of people genetically related to each other".
     I think at some point, all those who are estranged, have come to this conclusion on a subconscious level. This is what gives us that peace to cut ties. No love lost. There never was a bond.
     This is a great comment!

* If people are judgmental about someone cutting their family off, that is a red flag in itself. I don't want narcs or judgmental people (most likely narcs) in my life. A peaceful life is much more important.

* so true. My mom has to be the most judgmental person on the planet, tied with my ex. I have learned my lesson and avoid judgmental people like the plague.

* my mom misses her parents and says the same thing about wanting them back. She really tortured me as a child, and I know her parents weren't the good parents she portrays. How do we know these people had good parents or aren't narcissists themselves? My sister always says how wonderful our parents are, and for me it is gaslighting. Doesn't she remember all the times we hid in our room with the dog while our parents were fighting? I truly wondered if all the abuse was in my head until my cousin validated me by saying they knew I was abused.

* Society enables narcissists- that’s the HUGE problem

* What people find hard to understand is that someone who eventually decided to go no contact with a narcissist family member (or maybe more), is a person who has not done it "just like that". They do it because they feel they have no choice. Leaving a narcissistic family member behind for good is a grieving process. A very complicated one as said narc did not literally die. Hence survivors of narcissistic abuse are struggling, grieving people, and it takes a long long time and loads of energy for them to heal. Those people deserve nothing but compassion.

* Exactly, and what most people fail to understand and accept is that there will be some family bonds that are irretrievable and cannot be restored, and that's okay. What's not okay is that people believe in the fairytale that things will always work out in the end, and all family members will set aside differences, have a family reunion, and things will return to normal. Let's be real, depending on the nature and intensity of harm inflicted, it's best that victims go their own way and cut off contact with toxic family members for their sanity. No one asks to be born into a specific family, race, or choose their parents and doesn't owe anyone anything, or loyalty to a family or racial group for that matter. This is a trap set up by narcs to maintain control over their victims and keep them in a hostage situation. On a positive note, there's always someone in toxic families who are learning from family estrangement and attempt to do better by treating others with respect to avoid being estranged from loved ones, like other members of their family. In other words, family estrangement has a positive side, which provides the opportunity for others to learn what is appropriate and not appropriate on how family members treat and respect the boundaries of their relatives.

* There are some of us out there that pretty much celebrate going no-contact with narc family systems though...& this isn't wrong either. Whether we grieve deeply or just break out the party hats from the overwhelming relief of not dealing with it all anymore...All of it is perfectly fine.

* I am 70 years old and I had to be estranged from my entire family, due to my mother's narcissism and borderline disorders, (also alcoholic physical abuse) at the age of 18. My dad died young. While I never missed my siblings (she had strived hard to alienate us kids from each other) I longed for a loving mother to guide me along life's roads. I made a lot of mistakes trying to figure everything out by myself, but I'm still here. That longing for a mother never went away. In that way, I've had a sad life.

* I’m 28 and last year I had to cut off my entire family and any people related to them. It was the most painful decision of my life but the best one at the same time. I spent my entire life trying to earn their love and respect by accepting to be treated like a property. People may not understand but it is most loving thing to go not contact. First for them, as staying in this situation makes you an enabler even if you’re the victim. Secondly, you do not only do that for them but for all the people you will interact with not only spouse, children, I’m talking about the world by deciding to provide them with the most healthiest version of yourself. It’s not only about us, it’s about the entire society and the next generation. Narcissism is an highly contagious virus that we have been transmitting for generations. It has to stop somewhere and I’m glad it did with me.

* Until only recently, whenever hearing about an adult child/parent estrangement, I immediately assumed it was the child's fault. They're damaged. Troubled. Astonishing how many of us were conditioned that way.

* That's interesting- I've always thought, "What did the parent(s) do to their child for their child not want to be around or even talk to them."

* When someone says that you may regret your decision to distance from toxic family, you can respond by saying that your estranged family has decisions to regret as well that have led to the estrangement. A lot of folks, especially enablers, think respect is a one-way street and that putting up with disrespect is a kind of moral virtue. (Enablers egos can be nearly as inflated as the narcs.) When you don't follow suit, instead of questioning their worldview, they make a moral judgment on you.

* This is such an important topic. I went no contact with my family before the internet, and knew of NO ONE who'd done the same so mostly kept it secret (still do with strangers). I was so grateful when a friend's father kindly shared that he'd done the same with his family. We need to normalize that this is a healthy and appropriate choice for some people.

* THANK YOU for sharing this. When I went no contact with my narc mother, I had NO IDEA that my entire familial community would go with her. It didn't occur to me that she'd spent 75+ years crafting an impeccable, generous, kind, warm public persona and that I would be made to look like the "crazy" one for not speaking to her.
     Although it was absolutely the best decision for overall well-being, the pain of isolation has been severe.

WHAT LOSING YOUR WHOLE FAMILY IS REALLY LIKE
FROM A COMPILATION OF SURVIVOR'S COMMENTS

Why should you be interested in this when there are so many comments under Dr. Ramani's video? 

You may be interested because it is a different topic. There are similarities, of course, and many of them sound just like the last comment I featured above. But there are obviously other issues that come into play when a survivor is estranged and loses their family. 

MORE FAMILY BULLYING:
For one thing, many survivors who are estranged experience a lot more bullying (and sometimes even crimes) from family members than they ever had before. The reason other family members decide to bully an estranged member can be for many reasons. The reasons include:
- They are in service to the head narcissist to get the estranged member back serving as the head narcissist's whipping boy so that they don't have to take on the role themselves, so that the role will be carried by you at all times and never by them. 

- They decide that you deserve it. They may feel that family or the head narcissist "should come first" in your life, or that you should have the attitude of "family at any cost", or you were always assigned the role of family scapegoat and they don't want you to get away from that role (they may need you in that role themselves, to take off any potential blame the narcissist may throw at them)
- They have sadistic qualities and like bullying you
- They sense you are weak without many family members to back you up, and that you won't resist their bullying

- They decide you are "going back, hell or high water" and if they need to threaten, torture, endlessly lecture and shame you, criticize you, dream up erroneous lawsuits, or physically take you to the family themselves, you WILL go back to the family.
     My post on co-bullying, enabling and flying monkeys cover some of the dynamics that go into why other family members would treat an estranged member this way. 

Any level-headed person knows that this will not work in any long term way. 

SUICIDAL THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS
Many survivors have suicidal thoughts. They realize that their family members do not love them at all (that they were being used for utility only), that their family members do not care about their mental and physical health, that their family members do not care if they live or die, that it was all fake and totally dependent on how much blame they took, how much they were "willing" to be a scapegoat for the narcissist's ego propping, and it all can be internalized as "They've decided I'm worthless and maybe I am" and "I'm just this lone person out here living alone with profound loneliness, and no one in the world cares at all what I'm going through." This can be the most shocking realization.
     When a whole family acts like this, it can be devastating, as though the survivor is the only one with empathy.
     A survivor can look at their own empathy as "not common", "a burden", "not like most other humans" as so different and such a weight that they were abused and rejected because of it. In a narcissistic family, empaths can be rare, are often singled out to be used and abused, so they are not necessarily wrong to think this way. And because of the survivor's empathy, they can be a minority, or even an extreme minority figure. If they were isolated within the family, or home-schooled with abuse, or strong-armed or lectured about giving up other relationships, or told false narratives about others, they may very well feel like "a freak of the family". 
     None of this will mean they will go back to the family because the lack of empathy is truly scary to most survivors, and not an investment that most survivors are willing to make. In other words, the high majority of survivors won't think of it as a "one-off" that the narcissist is using in the survivor's present situation, but the survivor will be looking back into many situations of the past where the narcissist or entire family showed coldness of heart and a lack of empathy. 
     Because they may feel that empathy is extremely rare in the world, and not something they want to live with in the world again, they can commit suicide. 
     I would guess most of the suicides in abusive narcissistic families are for this reason. 
     And how does the head narcissist use this? They use it as a threat: "If any of you leave, you can end up killing yourself like my last child did. We did not help him, or care what he was going through, and we will not care at all about you either."
     It can mean a very toxic trauma bond with who ever is left. They may see it as a sign that it will be  harder to break from the family than ever before. The lack of empathy and the lust for power and control is going to take charge in the head narcissist every time there is a tragedy like this.

POVERTY, LACK OF RESOURCES, LACK OF SUPPORT
In narcissistic families, there is often quite a bit of financial abuse. I have covered how many scapegoated children are left out of the parent's Last Will and Testament, but there is usually a life time of financial abuse way before it gets to that point. 
Some common things that happen:
     favoritism: one favorite child gets the bulk of family resources, while the others get less, and one scapegoat, most abused, child gets very little or nothing at all. This starts early in childhood, and often unbeknownst to the child it is in response to how well the golden child is making the parent "look good", thus the rewards, and how well the scapegoat child is allowing a parent to "find them at fault for everything - how well the blame-shifting is working", thus some small efforts are rewarding scapegoats with breadcrumbing. Some of the signs of breadcrumbing behaviors by narcissistic parents are hot and cold behaviors (i.e.: I reward you now, then take away rewards; I love you now but take my love away when you don't go along with what I want or you don't keep to your role; I acknowledge you now, but I'm most often disappointed that you aren't taking your role without blow-back, so I reject and abandon you because of it).
  In other words, scapegoats get much fewer rewards and resources than the rest of their siblings, and there is usually a strong differential between what a golden child receives and what a scapegoat receives throughout the life of the scapegoat - extremely common. 
     trying to keep a child "in role", particularly a scapegoat, means trying to present them as failures without money or resources: Narcissistic parents put children in rigid roles, and the scapegoat role exists so that a parent can blame-shift their own faults and wrongs they commit on to a scapegoat. They surmise that the only way to have a scapegoat and to keep a scapegoat, is that the scapegoat be kept from getting away through providing a lack of resources and rewards to them. All narcissists believe that a scapegoat in their life is absolutely necessary in order that when they commit wrongs, or even crimes, they have someone else to take the "rap" for their wrongs. 
  It is very common for a narcissistic parent to present their scapegoat as "crazy", "difficult", inept", "a burden", "alone - because no one gets along with them" and "a child that will never amount to anything". This is also often said directly to the scapegoat too, so that if they hear it enough from their parent, they will assume that it's "the real them", their "full identity" (sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't work - it tends not to work if another family member is building up the scapegoat at the same time that the parent is trying to tear them down). 
   Most narcissistic parents are aware that their child is trying to buck the role (as any child would), that the child is angry and distressed from being put in the unfair role, that the child appears to be looking at ways to get out of the role, which sends all kinds of warning signals throughout the narcissist's system that this child may try to get out of the role by not accepting it, leaving, or telling other adults about how they are treated. 
  So when the child, even an adult child, tries to separate and go more and more their own way, and make their own decisions, a narcissist will pull back on celebrating the scapegoat's birthday, pull back on inviting the scapegoat to holiday get-togethers, pull back on including them in on anything, being willing to send them to college or give them "bread-crumb" amounts to attend college ... in other words they try to put a scapegoat either into poverty, or withdraw all help and support as they grow up and separate enough from the role that it freaks the parent out. 
  Narcissistic parents also try to convince other family members to withdraw all support too. 
  Besides narcissistic parents wanting to plunge their scapegoats into poverty for the child not accepting their role, the other thing that happens is that the parent withdraws all support, medically, emotionally, on all levels. It is common for a scapegoat, when asked to provide a family list of diseases, or doctors you went to, that the parent won't provide that list (Dr. Ramani made a holiday video about this phenomenon too, as it is a fairly common practice in narcissistic family systems).
  It is also common when a scapegoat is hospitalized for the parent not to show up. It is common to get a diagnosis for something pretty severe and life threatening and the parent ignores it, or seems blithely unconcerned. It is common for a narcissistic parent to either make a big family gathering extremely uncomfortable for the scapegoat, or to pretend that the scapegoat does not exist. It is common for a narcissistic parent to put pressure on other family members to get them dis-invited to weddings, funerals, holiday gatherings and parties, reunions, graduations, and other family events.
  In other words, the cruelty is in full force, and because it is in full force, the scapegoat won't return. The parent will have to get another one, and it can start to split a family apart because a child who has never been scapegoated before in the family, and sees another scapegoat from her family surviving and thriving, is more likely to join the scapegoat than the parent (they go through a period of grief and the guilt can often turn them towards the scapegoat and away from their narcissistic parent - and this is another reason they want the scapegoat in poverty, so that no one will want to join them, or think they have an admirable lifestyle. 
  The other thing that happens is that when the parent sees a scapegoat child being successful, having money, being happily independent, they often try to return to sabotage. They try to reward the scapegoat, or tell them they got them wrong so that the scapegoat will slip back into the family un-impeded by the usual cruelties. The rewards, or money, are often a manipulation to sabotage the scapegoat's successes. A narcissistic parent will often tell a scapegoat that they don't have to be successful (as a way to get them dependent on the narcissist), that they don't have to work so hard (as another way to get them dependent), while the parent works on sabotaging them behind their back. When the scapegoat seems to be faltering financially or is in imminent danger of losing their job, the parent yanks all support. 
  So, in other words, they have been toyed with financially, gifts, rewards, with family resources and the injustices thereof their entire lives. 
  The poverty reported by some adult and barely-adult scapegoats can also be extreme: homelessness (and their parent can be worth millions), living in abandoned buildings, living in unheated shacks, living in slum apartments, living in their car, living in group tenement buildings, living off-the-grid and so on. Again, the wealthiest parents who inherited most of their wealth can sabotage their children financially, sabotage their career, and put their own child in these situations "by design" and think it is a-okay just because the child cannot take the scapegoating any more.
  However, scapegoats have also survived horrific situations of injustice, blame and abuse for years on end, or for decades, with all kinds of parental erroneous shaming sessions, lack of respect, withdrawals, abandonments, loveless communications and in-communications, they have also learned to be resilient too. So they can and do become highly successful, even if it takes years. However, you will also hear scapegoats who have not only been abandoned, and judged by their whole family, but also hear that they are living in poverty.  

Other things you will hear include advice, a crisis line, suicide prevention phone numbers, urging the person to go to the hospital, urging them to find means to deal with loneliness. Family narcissistic abuse and discard is very painful, shocking, traumatizing, and can and does cause suicide, more than should be acceptable in this nation. Narcissistic abusers are not likely to care if their child commits suicide, but other family members may. Losing a life because the victim can't or won't fawn or submit to bullying or abuse is more than just a tragedy. Remember to call and keep checking up on anyone going through this.
     This person may also be showing signs of trauma or PTSD: profound lack of sleep, heart pain, stomach aches, headaches and startle responses, and the best thing for that is to provide peace, safety measures, a safe place, as you would provide the victim of a car crash, a rape, losing close family from death, and other tragedies. 

Following are the responses people gave for a survivor suffering from family scapegoating and abuse, suicidal thoughts, PTSD symptoms, loneliness, nightmares about their family, who either finds themselves suddenly estranged from their family or chose estrangement to get away from familial abuse. Again none of the comments are mine (except one - and not noticeable, but I felt it contributed something useful that I didn't see in other comments), and, in this case I tried to pick comments where spelling and grammar were already good. There is one comment I included from someone whose first language isn't English, so in that case I did, but I also marked it for my readers. 

As for swear words, I did clean those up to look like this (more or less): "@$$" and "Sh^t" are two examples.  

* You can survive this. We all did. Don't give them the satisfaction of taking your own life. Get help. https://www.metanoia.org/suicide/

* It’s all self projection on their part and those people tend to pick on others who appear to be weak or an easy target. You let that slide right off your back and keep moving forward! I’ve been NC with my immediate family for over 5 years. Once you find that true love for yourself, you’re no longer bothered about what others are saying or doing/not doing. It’s in there. You just have to dig deep down

* Find a partner who also came from a narcissistic family to move on with. Family is not really dependable to me any longer. I've stated that even if I received an invitation, I'd NOT SHOW UP. Leave the PAST in the past.

* Always remember that they really believe they have something to gain by treating you badly, and some other family members believe that too, especially when it comes to resources, that abusing others is their ticket to a better life. It is not, but that's how all narcissists see it. Do everything you can to pick yourself up and tell yourself that these beliefs are not yours and that they are disgusting, not fit for happy family life. 
     We can internalize this B.S. that they feed us, that we aren't good enough for them, but none of it is true. It is only being done to us for their own self serving reasons.  And to get power over us. Never forget that the #1 reason they do this is to get more power either from us or from the people that are left. 

* I could never undress around my narcissistic family members. I never understood why but I was afraid of their “gaze” all my life.

* It's a huge Catholic clan, but it's falling apart. It's pretty much the narcs on their own blowing smoke up each others' a$$es and talking sh*t about others, while hating and putting other people down, making fun of them.
* They're incredibly boring people, stirring up the most ridiculous stupid trauma. Other family members including myself got tired of them. As narcs are incredibly predictable closed-minded people- truly boring, after awhile you do heal and get almost completely indifferent toward them and going no contact frees up a lot of energy and space for yourself

* I'm glad I was the scapegoat rather than the golden child. Of course I wish I had a good, normal, kind, loving mother. But if I had to choose, I think being the scapegoat is better. My GC sister has been propped up by an evil monster all her life and she is twisted. I can't imagine how she will ever be able to become whole again, especially since she doesn't know how twisted she is. Yes, I have been damaged by being the scapegoat, I have to work on getting better every day. But at least I am standing in Truth and Light and that is healing me.

* Being alone is hard. No friends, no family I feel safe talking to. Which is all I feel like I need. A loving hug and kind words. Coming home to emptiness day after day being your own cheerleader is so hard. No one to cheer for me when I struggle getting out of bed some days. No one to cheer when the bullies get to me at work.
I feel so tired. Bills are paid and food in the fridge but I'm so unhappy.
* My question is WHY are there soo many people like this? Why do my ex sister in law and I constantly have to try and detox our teenagers after they go spend 48 hrs with these type of people?? It’s absolutely crazy trying to reel this destructive behavior in…esp when it just brings up PTSD Triggers from being with the primary Narcissist for YEARS…How/When does the craziness stop????

* So true. Narcissistic, if around you for to long, will actually cause you to have Stockholm syndrome and will take you a long time to get over. Please, stay as far away from a narcissist as you can get. Once you get the courage and strength to get them out of your life NEVER let them weasel back in, because in time (after they have used up their new victims) they will try to go back to their old victims and sneak back in through using your emotions to have pity for them. It’s a trap, never fall for it.

* what I have noticed is this..to make a long story short, if I can… our society for many years have taught people how to play a game of “pity me” to have others care for them, this is how they have learn to manipulate people and turning themselves into narcissists. they develop a “me first” attitude and through time have learned to weasel their way into people’s lives through pity and then take control once they have a good victim. They use many means to do this, society has taught them well. Now it’s our responsibility to stop it, to say “I’ve had enough, stop pitying them, stop believing their lies, turn the tables and say NO MORE. We work hard for what we have in life, we work hard to have a happy life, we need to stop compromising our lives for people that try to use us up. Having a kind heart is one thing but we need to stop letting people, narcissists, pull us down because these people will never change as long as they have victims to use.

* I am working on putting together a zoom meeting for scapegoats. I'm going to try to do a weekly online meeting so we can start to create a support system for each other. It's not right for so many of us to be going through all this alone. I'm so glad you reached out for support.
     There are healthy environments. You just have to find them. Left a healthy environment and then wound up in a toxic one (but did not have all the answers back then). When I see red flags now.......I believe them. Learn all you can about this serious mental disorder that will only get worse. Check out the you tube videos. Many good ones just put in word Narcissism. We need to find those like ourselves. You are still young. Never never give up ~ Winston Churchill.

* Are you in a position to adopt a dog? Maybe try volunteering. I found it very healing. A few hours at a dog or cat shelter - animals are the best and cheapest therapist. Or visit a resident in a retirement home - loneliness there is rife. Join a church, volunteer in a charity shop.
Get your head in a good place. Remember that you are a worthy and loving person.
Bullies are cowards. Use psychology against them. Never show any emotion towards them but stare them in the face and ask “ How are you doing. I sense your in some kind of pain”. It’s all mind games so beat them at their own game!

* That’s the design of this garbage…. To tear you down until you’re a shell. We’ve been repeatedly isolated and abandoned to have to waste years sifting through where their control derailed ... I’ve taken about 6 months, and written my story out. I chose to do it in a timeline. Most of it was out in a week, but you fill in with all the additional memories that surface. It’s very therapeutic, and afterwards, you have a product that is compartmentalized, that you could shared without recalling everything, and after a while it’s more distant than it was before. The story of how you were abused is less within yourself. It’s over in that book over there instead.

* This feeling of utter loneliness is why people go back to abusers. I know if I go back though, it'll all just start up again and I'll be back here feeling the same all over again.
Makes me think about human nature. No one at work knows I go home and silently cry to my pets and myself. They'd bully me anyway. Never know what someone is going through and if I was in worse mental health this could easily be the end. Idk.

* My family threw me to street. Then war came. My best friend, her family took me and we were refugees to go to other country. I marry her brother. Then family comes to me after nothing is left and home bombed wanting me to provide. No, I say. You threw me to street to live in abandoned building. Now your turn.
(Note: I cleaned up the spelling on this one). 

* Exactly. They terrorize us and want us to live in poverty or homelessness to get power for themselves, to turn us into traumatized slaves, whether slaves to abuse or putting up with incest from a family member, but when they fall on hard times they want us to accommodate them. The balls these people must have!
Sorry you lived through this.

* Being discarded by your family with no word or understanding anything is so traumatic, more than anything you can live through. My family tried to hoover me back after eleven months. I don't see how anyone could go back after that. It would be living through the trauma over and over again. Loneliness feels incredibly bad, it's a tear jerker day in and day out, but at least it is peaceful. Going back seems like being invited to a war zone with people who are not kind, on your side, who do the most evil things to you, and will have no trouble attacking you again. God help us all. This is the hardest thing to live through. 

* I don't know how it happens, but when I was first discarded, there were some family members who reached out to me. They were really comforting and checked up on me. Then even they backed away, some of them unfriended me or blocked me seven years after the split with my parents. I don't know what happened. I actually stopped talking to them about family one year after the break-up, so that wasn't part of why they discarded me. I let them talk about family, but I didn't engage. Mostly I talked about my kids, vacations we were taking, the store we own, house projects, and so on. I guess it was smear campaigns. But it's only a guess. I'd like to ask them why, but I think it's brainwashing, kind of the way they do it in politics. They hear one side of a story, it gets bent further into conspiracy theories, until they accept it as truth. 
     I never did feel all that comfortable around family any way. I knew the stories about my life would be shared and I wasn't comfortable with that. I knew those stories could be used against me by the members who have actually gone out of their way to hurt me my entire life. 
     Or maybe I'm just talking myself into not missing them. Mostly, I just try not to think about it. 
     I'd like to say, "If you don't want me in your life, I accept that. But just tell me why." I think I should have sent a letter like that at the moment where the split with my parents happened. It's just mean. And it's not fair to my kids either. 

* Same here. I lost my entire family eventually, but not in the first few years. I too did not know why they departed from my life. But by then I had my own life, got married, moved, spent time at community activities and causes, etc. I was trying to be accepted into my new community, not trying to be accepted by family.
     It didn't really effect me when they went silent on me. I don't know why because it should have. I was so busy and it seems like a lot of people don't have good family ties any more. I was just another implant. I just think we are in a cultural phase where family is no longer important. It's careers, your marriage, keeping your children safe, neighbors and friends. If you've grown up with bad actors and the sun is shining in your own world every day, you just stop reacting to the past. It's like a ghost that you don't want around. 
     Not that it didn't effect me early on. But for me, my life got a lot better. Learning from communities like this about narcissism, learning about the important fact that narcissists don't change, the fact that eventually you have a better life than before, it keeps you moving forward, you know?     

* I got a puppy. So much unconditional love.

* Try meetup.org? There's groups for people to meetup based off their interests. It seems like the groups are all over: https://adultchildren.org/.

* I'm glad the younger people here have learned about narcissism. All that I knew growing up is that my mother hated me and I really did try to please her. Un consciously I tried to adopt all of her tastes, her style of dress, the way she saw things, and put her much higher than myself, and my own needs.
     When I became an adult, she made it clear that she no longer wanted to have anything to do with me despite those efforts. I asked her why, but she wouldn't tell me. I went to live with a friend in a slum. Two suicide attempts later which she ignored, and a lot of stays in a recovery, mental health facility, I was better and more connected with other kinds of people so that I no longer wanted to commit suicide. But for at least 15 years I wanted to go back to my family. Still! I just could not feel whole without my family. I also thought it was my own fault even though I didn't know what that fault could be. 
     What I don't understand is why the rest of my family didn't contact me or care. Didn't they know I was suffering? This is something I don't understand about families. How you can be suffering and they don't care or show you anything. They don't even call to see how you are doing.  
     Anyway, after 21 years, I was finally welcomed back only to discover that the family was only a shell of what it used to be. There were so many family members who had not only stopped talking to each other, but they were very, very cruel to each other too. As for me, I felt like I went back to the cruelest members, not the ones I missed all those years.  
     I felt like I had wasted my life wishing for something that was an illusion. I say this because I don't want you to be going through this too. 
     I went back to therapy, and learned about narcissism then. I learned it wasn't my fault. I learned when family members treat each other this bad, they end up like my family. I learned there was nothing I could do other than to warn other people that this is what can happen and that it isn't worth killing yourself over. I learned that NPD is a mental problem that has nothing to do with you, but that is most visible when they are in power, and can develop in a number of family members and that it may be an inherited disorder. I learned not to take it personally, but to see it as something that is effecting them and their ability not to see you as you are and only what you are providing for them moment to moment. 
     You are lucky when you can learn this when you are twenty than when you are an old person like me. I hope I have saved some lives here. 

* Good point! We are the survivors. I don't know how many of us have committed suicide over someone else's narcissism, but I bet there are more than we realize. We probably all know people who killed themselves over a break up. Perhaps they broke up with a narc.
     But we are the survivors. We stood up to them and lived a better life despite all of their cruel efforts. While it is really hard, you can be proud of yourself. No narc can take that away.  

* I am a suicide survivor and I can tell you that it isn't worth it. You have to stop thinking about them and stop pleasing them. They aren't quite human and they have no empathy to prove they aren't human. They are f&cked up!

* I can see how anyone who goes through this could have suicidal feelings. It's enormously traumatic, worse than being in a traffic accident. At least in a traffic accident people are trying to help you even when your life is on the line. You have the comfort of that thought. 
     When you are discarded, and your whole family takes part in it, it leaves you with the feeling that the world is cold and cruel. 
     Think about it! They probably know we are extremely lonely, unmoored, and many of us have significant financial problems or finding a new home. Narcs do this to us when we are at our weakest, let's face it. We all know they do it when we have a major illness, or are in the hospital, or when we've lost our job, or we are financially destitute. And you learn no one cares at all about you in that kind of state? It's like being in a war and only being surrounded by your enemy with their guns pointed at you. You aren't going to be calm and feeling okay in the world after that. 
     You are going to feel desperate in so many ways. Desperately lonely. Desperately scared. Desperately grieving. Perhaps even desperately impoverished. I think we all know people who lived in the most awful desperate situations after being discarded by a parent where the rest of the family went along. People who sleeped on the street. People who lived in crime infested neighborhoods who were crying their eyes out night after night, wondering what other cruel acts their families were capable of. We also know people who lined up for food stamps only to meet with bureaucratic red tape.  People who couldn't understand why one family member didn't have enough empathy to say, "I care. I am so sorry this happened. You are a valuable member." They all disappear like brainwashed fools? Or they partake in bullying you? That's so ugly! And she's right that it isn't human. It's more like a reptile. They don't have empathy. They leave their young to fend for themselves after they hatch. They are still at that level. It's too bad they don't have alligator eyes so that we could tell the difference between them and real humans. 
     So, it's amazing to me that more do not get into that hopeless state where they take their own lives.   

* I use adultchildren.org. there are online meetings all over the world in every time zone. There are in-person meetings as well if you can find one locally. It is a safe place to share about your trauma!

* I lost my whole family when I was 16 and placed in foster care. My foster family wasn't exactly kind to me either, but they knew they'd lose their gravy train if they abused me outright. They were continually vetted and visited by social services, unlike my birth family who abused me in privacy, so they have to be on much better behavior. They are also getting paid for being parents, and that pay can go away in an instant if they are not doing the job social services wants.
Then when you turn 18 and there is no more money exchanging hands, apparently they can be cruel to you too. That's what happened to me. I was sent out into the world without a caring word or a speck of support, not even a pat on the back, or a "good luck."
It is something to lose two families, not just one, as an adult. I am living on my own, and I understand the suicidal thoughts. I really do. I have never tried to commit suicide, but to live completely alone where no one from either family cared to look into how I was doing made me lose faith in humans for a long time. I didn't trust anyone, even potential mates. 
I am eight years out now, and things do get better, but I have to tell you that life is excruciatingly painful for two years. Everything that has been said, feeling scared, lonely, alone, knowing that you have absolutely nowhere to go for support is mind boggling. And then I think of all of the women who were sacrificed and put to death in our past just to give their bodies to the gods, and I guess that is what human beings really are. Some of them like sacrificing their family members. It's shocking that they'd do that to their own child, or a sibling, or a niece, but humans really are not enviable creatures. Something is wrong with a lot of them. And that would be NPD or narcissism. They are the inhuman animals that look human amongst us, but otherwise they are an abomination to our species. 

* I lost my family and all anything anyone could say was, "You're no good! You left your parents!" When they left me! I also got all of the usual sayings like "But they are your family! Family has to stick together!" When did my parents ever want me to stick together with other members? If anything, they wanted to isolate me from them! I was constantly isolated with trumped up charges. Our siblings don't want anything to do with us because they are on an endless race to please our parents, throw us under the bus, blame us constantly for stuff we didn't do, and get our parent's resources. They don't love us or care about us and they have been trained to be that way.
They told lies about me to get other members to hate me or look upon me with suspicion. The reason why no one cares about us is that family gets brainwashed to think of us as crazy, as sub-human, and some of them believe we tried to hurt our parents deliberately when they were the ones to do that to us  starting when we were small children. They took a path of destruction with us, and ended up throwing us away. And a lot of the reason they threw us away has to do with being destroyed by them. They don't want to see their own handiwork, so they get rid of us so that they aren't reminded of it. 
They are destroyers and they get a big high from it as long as we're functional. Then when we aren't, they don't want to be reminded that they broke the thing they were toying with al of the time.
My therapist told me that they get depressed when we start breaking, and that they prefer an "out of sight, out of mind" ending to it all. I believe that. 

* We were alone and lonely in our families, and we are alone and lonely when we are kicked to the curb by them too. They have never cared about us. It becomes more obvious when they kick us to the curb that they never cared about us, but let's be honest with ourselves. They never have. I can count so many times I was abandoned even under their own roof. They didn't care what I said. They didn't care what I thought. They didn't care what I felt. They talked over me as though I didn't exist. They gave me endless silent treatments. They kept me separated from other family which is another type of abandonment so that they could control the narrative about what I was about.
And they accused me of lying all of the time when I wasn't lying. They were invested in making me out to be a bad child right from the beginning.
The difference between that and being an adult is that now they get to abandon all of who we are, something they wanted to do all of their lives but didn't dare to try in case they might be looked upon in a negative way by others.
In the end all that they care about are their images. It's part of why they get rid of us too. Our very presence reminds them that their image isn't so great. It allows them to continue with saying they are great because no one is around to remind them that they failed at parenting, and failed at caring about their children in all the ways that most parents care. 

* Almost two years NC and I feel like I am faking at happiness a lot of the time. I get up in the morning and I know I don't ever want to go back to my family. I'm not having second thoughts about that at all. But I feel really freaked out sometimes, like no one from my past can ever be there for me in case something happens like I have to go to the hospital for surgery, or some other issue. I'm racked with anxiety about that through the day. I have friends from my past, and even though they would help me, I'm afraid each one of them would call my family. None of them knew what I lived through, and even the two that did would say, "They have their own way of loving you." No they don't. There is no love in anything they do to me. 
I go to groups and I'm trying to make friends, but because I'm from another state, I am not part of the community. I'm this lone female out in a sea of other potential narcs and it scares the hell out of me. 
I know I have to be patient and give this new life a chance, but there are times I come home and sob. But there are other times I come home and feel happy for no reason at all other than that I'm free of abuse and of continually being knocked down, and I'm dancing in my kitchen. But then I tell myself I'm faking at being happy just because I don't want to go back to feeling utterly crushed. Like I have to have an excuse as to why I'm happy.
And then I remember that I wasn't allowed to be happy by my NM who liked to see me in tears all the time, and would create scenes just to see me in crying.
I'm filled with guilt for feeling so happy and free because oddly I know it would hurt my NM if she knew I was this happy. But I also feel like it's fun sticking it to her: "I'm happy and you can't control whether I am or am not anymore! Go f*ck yourself!"  
I feel most crushed when I wake up from nightmares about my family, with no one to comfort me except myself. And then in the day time I feel like I'm floating around on this cloud of joy, in control of my own life, no one to bring me down, good job, good people who, for a change, have the empathy I sought my whole entire life. And then wake up in the middle of the night with another nightmare about my NM, and another bout of feeling devastated.
It's like I'm living two lives, one forged in darkness and the other forged in the light. 
Does anyone else feel like this? I'd call it confusion, but I don't know what it is. 

* Trauma for sure. Your body and mind are adjusting!  

* I’m similar I am recently having dreams of leaving my country altogether. It's so bad I don’t want to walk the streets of my home town any more, or anywhere that I recognize. It brings all the memories to the forefront every time.

* I am living in an area where it's sunny almost every day. I think every survivor of a narcissistic parent or family member should consider a place that is sunny most of the year. It helps your mood. It's hard to feel suicidal when the sun is bringing a positive experience to your life every day. Granted the nights can get you down, but then when you go to sleep you know you will wake up to brilliant sun again. 
The dreary places like the northeast and the northwest are nowhere for someone trying to recover from trauma, depression, PTSD, GAD, and all of the other things we are saddled with, largely to deal with on our own. 
As far as other family members are concerned, realize that disordered parents make it their agenda to brainwash, convince, threaten and otherwise make other family members lives miserable if they don't comply with hating you, silencing you, and ignoring you. In a way they are all junkies, getting something in return for being loyal to the narcissist by hating you.
It's a political maneuver, kind of like what we see in broader politics today, being sycophants to dubious leaders. 

* I feel like I have some narcissistic traits myself. I was actually afraid of having children and treating them like my NM treats children. And sometimes I would be totally off my rocker and screaming at them. I hit my youngest one too many times for comfort and felt awful afterwards. 
I'd get all weepy and stop and think I don't want to hurt my babies. What am I doing? What's wrong with me? Why am I acting like NM? Why can't I unlearn this? I knew it was wrong. 
I spent their earliest years hurting them and then regretting it, over and over again. For me, that brought on more suicidal thoughts than being discarded by NM. I knew I had to get control of myself, and stop raging and it was hard. They call it dysregulation. It is an abnormality you have that you have to get therapy for and learn to temper so that you don't destroy them, your relationships and your own life. 
As I worked hard at controlling my temper, I thought that my NM would come around to working on herself too in the same way, have the same realizations I was having. But she didn't. She got worse. 
I don't know why she can't and I can. 
If I have narcissistic traits and I can temper and cure them, why can't she? All she did was blame me and tell me that how she treated me was my fault. She sneered and laughed at me when I told her about therapy and how it helped my babies and my self esteem grow. I told her that I was a much better mother for all of it. 
You know what her response was? "You'll NEVER be a good mother! You were F&CKed up since birth! NOthing is going to cure you!"
That was more devastating than anything I have been through with her, that she can't see that it is wrong, that she doesn't want to work on herself, that she's happy being a narcissist and hurting people

* I wouldn't assume you were narcissistic. That sounds more like borderline. Narcissists can't change, but borderlines can. Narcissists don't think about what they are doing is wrong. It always gets pushed out on to someone else, even when they bully, anything else other than them. Borderlines go back and forth and a lot of them seek change. 

* I never knew that.

* Find a partner who also came from a narcissistic family to move on with. Family is not really dependable to me any longer. I've stated that even if I received an invitation, I'd NOT SHOW UP. Leave the PAST in the past.

* I think a lot of family and friends of the narcs don't understand. For one, they haven't lived it, and from the outside it seems like estrangements are easy things to fix. Most of them tell you to go back and work it out. They don't know that going back is about terrorizing you. A lot of us get beat up, or pushed around, or screamed at for hours on end without being able to respond, or they try to hold us hostage to a room or in their house so that we can't leave. It's never been about "working things out" even when you are an adult with children. It's always been about terrorizing you to get their own way. 
I think it is better to think of the people who surround the narcissist as ignorant rather than that they hate you. If they hate you, they will be trying to hurt you too. But they aren't. They are asking you to work things out. The differences should be noted. 
Not that you should go along with them.
The other thing is that they are probably ignorant about your abuser. Abuse happens behind closed doors. Everyone knows that, but unless it's readily apparent to them, and they are being charmed, they tend not to believe it. Narcissists love to get away with this kind of thing, that they can act and be believed even by otherwise intelligent people, but we owe it to ourselves to think of this behavior of the narcissist's as evil, as beneath humanness. It is poison. They are liars and actors who cover up abuse. There is nothing admirable about that, and we should feel sorry for the people who swallow up this horsesh&t rather take it personally. Feeling hurt that they got brainwashed and that they are using their brainwashed states to tell us what to do, and to shame us for being estranged is not the right perspective to have on this. The right perspective is that they got poisoned by lies and an acting job from the narcissist. The analogy is that the poison that the narcissist gave them is about trying to change them into being a sycophant for the narcissist, and to go after you, to change your mind to go back to the narcissist. 
It's like a bunch of brain-altered zombies giving you advice in their brain-altered way. 
It's why most of us don't go back when the zombies come after us, right? Because we know what the real truth is. Right? Underneath we know all of this, but our mind goes towards being hurt by this manipulation by proxy because we're used to responding to things the way the narcissist has always wanted us to respond: to go around hurt and to be hurt continually by them. It makes them feel better in their sadistic way.
In order to counter being hurt by the narcissist's sycophants, I personally look at them as zombies first and foremost so that I don't feel the pain that the narcissist is trying to inflict. And besides, that's more of the truth: they ARE more of a zombie than a hurtful being. They are just as much of a slave to the narcissist and the narcissist's emotional regulation as we were. Everyone in the narcissist's circle is serving them, otherwise they'd be discarded like we were. It's always important to remember that too. 
The most important thing is that these zombies have no idea what we are going through. Even if we try to tell them, they often silence us, try to shut us up, or walk away from us. They don't want to hear what we have to say because they like being charmed and flattered by the narcissist. A lot of people are just stupid and they want to believe narcissists because generally they hold a lot of power compared to their victims. They treat victims as though they are half brained lackeys while we are in the company of these zombies, so they never really notice you. If you are a real victim, you are gong to be pretty introverted around them. As long as these sycophants are getting along with the narcissist, they often don't care what others go through. And for some family members they say things like, "I get along perfectly well with them. What's the matter with you that you can't?" They rub your nose in how easy it is get along with difficult people and that something must be wrong with you that you can't. 
And it's not a matter of getting along with them in the first place. It is a matter of what we have gone through being around them. It's a matter of our peace being shattered to bits over and over by them and their destructive emotional coping mechanisms whether it's silent treatments, overt rage, severe neglect of our emotional or physical selves, abandonments they have done to us since we were little kids. It is about how that has effected everything from our health, to our trust, what it has done to our personalities being frightened, depressed and suicidal kids. It is about what it has done to our brains in terms of having continual nightmares about them, disturbing our sleep, and in terms of all of the PTSD symptoms we are enduring.
These people don't understand that we don't want to get along with them. We don't want to go back to them. It's fine if they want to get along with them and that they think it's their great feat in life to get along with really cruel people, but most of us don't share in that. We're not going to put ourselves in a competition to prove that we can absorb what the narcissist dishes out just like they can. 
Everyone in our group knows how hard it is to endure this. Unlike our family members, or our parent's brainwashed friends, we don't call each other babies, or softies, or wimps, or insane, or stupid because we can't deal with our families any more. I don't think there has ever been a comment made between any of us like that, between all of us 1,256 members that belong to this group that has ever put anyone down, or made us seem weak or crazy because we couldn't endure any more of what our parents or siblings or family was dishing out.
We all go through the same horrific experiences when we go "no contact". We are all surprised at how far our families will go to hurt us even more when we go "no contact." We are surprised at how much they want to punish us for going in the direction many of them suggested to us when we were kids ("Just run away already!"). When they have spewed hate about us for so long and when they indulge in so many silent treatments and discards, it's shocking that when we finally do leave, they hate us for that too. They are much worse than we ever thought possible in most regards.
And many of us really, really do NOT want to go back to that. I think the zombies think we want to go back to our families, or assume we are lying when we say we don't want to go back. They don't understand that there is only abuse for us there. Most of us been through going back at least once and nothing improved. The situation got much worse for us.  
A lot of families that aren't full of abuse are warm and close and are sought out for comfort for the best days of the year, the holidays, birthday parties, weddings, family gatherings for the birth of a new baby. It's a welcoming clan. The zombies think we are giving up that sort of thing in some sort of fit of selfishness, or ingratitude, or rage.
They don't understand that most narcissistic families aren't full of rounds of happy family get-togethers like this, celebrating every holiday that comes along with a big dinner, a lot of tolerance or even love of differences between members, reveling in days of each other's company, and cheering each other on our goals. There aren't big showers for every baby that comes along, or even showing intense grieving over the loss of a family member because I bet we don't get to spend much time with that member growing up. Or that family member believes in some false gossip about us by our parent, so it creates this unnatural rift between us and them that wouldn't be there if our parent wasn't a narcissist with an agenda to hurt us and isolate us.
I'd bet that most of us in this group don't experience family warmth, or big happy family gatherings where everyone is loved and appreciated. We probably don't really know a lot of our extended family members, and even our siblings are told lies about us. Family is a lonely prickly experience for most of us. I'd bet that some of us have even been disinvited or told to stay away from family events, with the idea that the narcissist can't have a good time with us there. They probably can't because we remind them of "the unfortunate abuse" they committed, and they are paranoid that we might leak out a little of our story.
I would even venture to guess that even if there is a big party or get-together more than half the family members are probably missing. Even if they aren't treated with abuse like we are, no one really likes being around narcissists and their pushy behaviors and pushy opinions.
Some members may show up and sit quietly with one member in the corner. Or they eat a little with the family, but then take off with one or two members for the rest of the time. 
And that's why the zombies say what they have to say. Our circumstances are not even close to the way most people live, but I would bet the country is going more and more in this direction, that it is much more commonplace than it was decades ago. There is an outcry now, and many more people are talking about narcissism. 
My point was to say to you don't let these zombies lead you down into suicidal thoughts. Understand what they are about, the narcissist's minion, or someone who thinks you want to be re-instated back into your family and that you're just being difficult and expecting too much. They've been fed lies. How would you feel if you had been fed lies and actually believed them? Probably really ashamed. Think of them as people with lots of lies in their head one inch away from shame and I guarantee you'll feel better.

* I found new family inside Alanon (Alanon.org).

* Actually there was a new member who was shaming us for going no contact. They said we were hurting our families, hurting our children, etc, etc. Remember her? She was on everyone's grief post trying to get us to go back to our families. She was kicked out. 

* We all ganged up on her. She didn't get far. The last thing we need when we first separate from our families, or are discarded, is a narc telling us what to do. "Just go back to your families and get abused some more!" 

* I came from a family who thought abuse toughened you up. They thought ignoring us, and not feeding us would toughen us up too. They thought that discarding us when we were desperate would toughen us up. While some of us survived that upbringing, some of us didn't. That's the lesson with that. Two siblings dead, two siblings that had a little luck at being seen for ourselves outside our family and the gumption to know that abuse doesn't toughen you up. Empathy, going no contact, and a little luck where your hard work is appreciated is what toughens you up not to take abuse again. Such a misinformed belief!

* For me "no contact" is a safety concern. They hurt me so much and still want to hurt me. I had to move far away, and even go anonymous. I don't care if the rest of my family rejects me or not. If they are taking orders from my parents or my GC brother, I'd rather they reject me. It tells me that they are on their side, which is a clear message, and that I need to do everything I can to avoid them. So far, no family member has inquired about me, and I haven't had contact with any family member. It is fine by me. I think they'd all make me nervous any way. I think my fate is to be without the birth family. I didn't choose them and it's my choice not to keep them. 

* I was written out of the will because I was not the Golden Child. I have 2 dogs to come home to. They think I'm perfect. One loves to get on my lap as much as he can. They both act thrilled that I'm there. They follow me around the house. And I feel much safer.

* A lot of us are NC because it's about our safety. Some of us are out because it's our mental or physical health. Some of us are out because our parent discarded us and they don't want us any more. We shouldn't want to be with parents who don't want us. They are probably so ill they would want to destroy us if we begged them to want us. These are big important reasons to consider. It's best to stay away when any of these things are present. 

* To commit suicide is to give them satisfaction. Live a good life, and reach for the stars, and they will be in pain, not you. 

* When you are with narcs, you are living their life, not your own. They put high demands on you and criticize you constantly about how your personality needs to change, how your looks need to change, how your focus needs to change, how you need to be submissive to them. That's really suspect because worshipping bad people, or bad idols is written in the Bible as going down the devil's path. The devil has coins and gifts to give you too.
They are people who want to ruin what God made and put on this earth, you. These parents would turn us into another devil just to have a chance to tell us that we are evil and to discard us. Therefore, renounce the devil and devil worshipping and live the life that God meant for you, and away from false idols, even if those false idols are your parents. You are God's, not theirs. If they hurt you, they are hurting God's child, and they will have to pay for that in one way or another, more or less situations that God will make a path for them to follow. They will be too ignorant to know it is God leading them in the direction they need to go. A any rate they will go away from you because God will protect you, and they need to learn a big lesson without you present. Let God do his work. 

* Those of us who have been NC for a decade or more feel we made the right choice. Being in abuse all of time is no way to live. 
Like the poster above, the narcs are so bad and ignorant that they won't have an easy time of it, and will probably have to live a diminished life. I'm not a hard core Christian, but I see every day that what comes around, goes around, even for them. 

* I'm not into vilifying narcissists. Yes, they hurt other people a lot.
     But many of them also got to where they are because they were either abused, or neglected, or there wasn't enough mirroring or attachment to a parental figure when they were babies, or because they were expected to be a mirror for the narcissist (the golden child role). None of that is good for babies and small children. And yes they do perpetuate it for other generations because they want us to be like them or to have the same perspectives that they have.
     It's unfortunate for the rest of us, but the way I see it is that these types of people will be part of the human race for a long, long time unless we blow ourselves and the earth up.
     There's no question that narcissists should not be in power without a lot of oversight, whether that be caretaking children, at work, in politics, and as world leaders.
     They deal with others by idealizing those who are attracted to them, who give them more power, who give them constant attention, who let them get away with things, but then the threats and abuse come after if there is so much as a small rebellion. And we know they don't change.
     For this reason they make terrible parents, terrible romantic partners, terrible bosses and co-workers. 
     Right now the trend is to "go no contact", "start over" and get police involved if there is anything illegal going on like domestic violence. For children it is dependent on relatives and mandated reporters reporting which can have significant loopholes. And there is a lot of information about narcissism available to the public so that you can tell if you are dealing with narcissistic abuse, and what to do about it. 
     But I think eventually we have to move beyond that in a preventive way. While these people tend to be a danger to children and partners, where they are most dangerous is when they gain power communally and politically. You know who they are because they are authoritarian and the people around them start adopting their perspectives, becoming more and more like sycophants, and sometimes  become even more bootlicking no matter how unhinged, violent, reckless and self serving the narcissist gets. Narcissists do not hide in plain sight once they achieve power. They let you know they have to be in charge. 
     I don't know if more laws, more teaching, more home visits, more and better kinds of accountability are necessary, more therapy is needed, but I do know that there has to be other answers other than to avoid, go no contact, erect boundaries, fire them, join them or get away from them.

* I actually think it is fine to go through a period of vilifying the narcissist when you have continued to endure child abuse. It encourages them to walk away and not get stuck in cognitive dissonance. 
     In terms of what they have gone through, the narcissist is a villain, abusing them in all sorts of ways. 
     For doctors, lawyers, law-makers, psychologists and therapists, it probably does not serve the public good to see them as villains, but as people who need perimeters, more boundaries, more laws, and a lot more consequences. Narcissists are heavily invested in getting away with actions and behaviors that most of the population find damaging and unacceptable. 

* Remember that narcs have no ethics, no morality, no empathy. That's not a reason to kill yourself. That is a reason to rejoice in your own ethics, morality and empathy and to feel lucky you aren't them. 

* I think it is natural to have suicidal thoughts for all she has lived through. But not giving into it shows that you are willing to see what life has to offer after NC. Most of us have way better lives years later. Join us. Call me. DM me. I will tell you how I beat the fate of being in pain all of the time. 

* Anyone who wants to be around a narc family with all of their negative talk, their arm twisting to be loyal to evil, like the posters above me said: it is being loyal to unethical thought and actions, is not on the right path of a life that will bring you happiness, love, a loving community, good relationships and joy. Throw off the evil, stop the evil thoughts of suicide. That's their voice inside your head - remember that it's their agenda to tell you that you are not good enough, but you are probably much, much better than they are. 
You will see that the more you give up evil, the better you will feel. 

* I actually don't think it is a matter of good and evil. It is a matter of what a family wants to hear. 
I was sexually abused by my stepbrother starting when I was only 10 years old. I tried to tell my mother and stepfather and neither of them wanted to hear what I had to say. I was silenced. I think being silenced is worse than anything. I think eventually that escalates too, to being silenced about everything. I would talk and they treated me like I was invisible. My mother would sometimes give me a hug, but she always looked to him. 
My step father called me a spoiled brat because I was crying all of the time and he said I was determined to make life miserable for everyone. He would systematically trash my room and throw my things out to get me to stop crying. 
I did feel suicidal. Then I made friends with a girl in my neighborhood who said I shouldn't die because she wanted me to be her best friend. We got along great. I found every excuse to get away from my family to be with her at her house with her family. Often the only time I saw my family was at bed time. Her mother knew something was wrong because I would sometimes have long cries at her house. Every night I begged to sleep over. Her mother kept asking me why, and I told her I didn't feel safe at my house, and she kept saying that she couldn't help me unless I told her what was wrong. I was scared of what my stepbrother and stepfather would do so I didn't tell anyone. 
When she moved away when I was 13, I ran away. I was eventually picked up by the police and lived in a group home and then eventually with a foster family.
The only person I missed was my mother. I would sometimes call her, and she would cry on the phone, and tell me that she couldn't see me. I could sometimes hear my stepfather yelling, "You are not to see her! She has to apologize to me on her hands and knees!"
She's not an evil person. She goes to church every Sunday and makes meals and keeps the house clean. She's not out drinking or having affairs. She's spent her life being a responsible home maker. She's not trying to hurt anyone. And she's meek for the most part. She's not exactly a picture of grandiosity and narcissism. Far from it. My stepfather is the narcissist and tells her what to believe and what to do, and she goes along with it. I think it is out of fear. Someone suggested that putting him before the safety of her own daughter was evil on her part. I don't know. But I think it's more of a Christian tenet that a man be in charge of a woman in marriage. Since I'm not his daughter and he probably wants to protect his son's reputation, I cannot go back (without apologizing). 
I'm not going to apologize for being victimized by incest and rape. 
I think this is the true nature of why a lot of us hurt over family. We reach in to have a relationship with one family member, and the family makes it clear that in order to have a relationship with one of them, we have to have a relationship with all of them. 
She is also ignorant as to how much damage my stepbrother did. They don't even believe it happened. Or maybe they know by now, but cannot face it due to their reputation. 
The discovery that I can't say anything at all, even if it is positive like "I love you Mom" is what can be devastating in these situations. I can't look at her as a zombie. I look at her as a small humble woman who is over-powered and tied to Christian beliefs that men come first, even narcissistic evil men who let evil perpetuate through their offspring.
All she has in her household now is men. That's not something most women want. 
And it is a fact that the years go on and on, and I can't see her or talk to her. I've been silenced out of existence. 
I suppose at some point I will not think about her any more. But even that makes me sad. 

* I can relate to this. My family is very clannish and they all stick together. Some of them have committed crimes and they bail them out of jail. I have never committed a crime, have never been a party animal, never particularly rebelled, never had babies out of wedlock, but a bunch of my family members have, and yet I'm on the outside. 
WHY ?????

* I think some of them actually are quite angry that people like us are ethical, that we strive to be better versions of ourselves, that we are compassionate, and for the most part, clean of debased motives. They want us to be like them, drug addicted, committing crimes, in jail, lying all of the time, and so on. They think our goodness makes them look bad. 
Remember that narcissists have to feel that they look better than anyone else in the clan. They can't with us around, so out we go. 

* All narcissists care about is that we are grateful to them - for being abused, for being discarded, for enduring rages, for being used, for being neglected, for coming in last place behind the golden child, for being bullied by other members, for being excluded from all kinds of events, for being forced to give into them our entire lives. 
True. If you listen to them, they are fixated on how everyone is ungrateful to them. Beyond delusional and just another display of self serving nonsense.   

*  This has me chuckling, but my story isn't exactly funny. 
I was the scapegoat, discarded at age 15 by NM and stepfather. Went to live with my aunt. Lost contact over the years. 
Sister became the next scapegoat, discarded at age 17, went to live with our father. 
Youngest sister became NM's last scapegoat. Little sister tried to hang on and became our mother's secretary and main source of narc supply. for NM's biz. She was, despite all efforts, discarded at age 20. Suffered more than we did. Felt suicidal because she tried so hard.  
I started to have children seven years after discard. Ten years after discard, I thought I should take my mother out for lunch and show her some pictures of her grandchildren. Note that this lunch was also the first time I saw her in ten years.
She looked at the pictures of my kids very briefly and put them face down on a table that was wet and said, "I don't know them." And then went into a diatribe about how all three of us were ungrateful. It was all she would talk about. She didn't acknowledge the pain she caused any of us, or that she missed us. When you want some acknowledgement, to be hugged, or missed,  or apologized to for the abandonments of you and your siblings and others she abandoned, or for the new generations that are being born, and all you are given is "You are all ungrateful!" it's just more cuts in the old wound. 
I wouldn't sit there and be blamed for her thoughtless discards and putting my children's beautiful faces face down in on a wet table, so I left. 
None of us care how ungrateful she thinks we are. So true that it is self serving and not about how her discards effected us. I doubt she even thought about that, or about anything other people feel. Such a one-sided view of relationships. And the world too.
We should pity her, as the real family now are 3 sisters all doing better than her financially, and all of these children between us. She is alone with her enabling ailing second husband, spending lots of money on home care because none of us feel comfortable around her.  

* I admit I went back more times than I can count. I won't lie about it even though I feel so ashamed. It's true that my parents will insist that everything has to go their own way and that it is my job is to serve them. 
I don't know why I keep doing it. My internal reasoning is that I'm a helpful guy, and self effacing, and I just can't seem to say no when they need me for something. 
Things actually are fine until they expect me to do something I can't do. Sometimes it's dangerous work. Sometimes they want me to intervene in a situation with another sibling they are trying to teach a lesson to and every fiber of my being is saying I can't do that. It's not my place, and it is wrong. Or they want me to promote them, put in a good word for them in a social situation where they are either not being accepted, or where they think they deserve to get in. I take off pretty rapidly when it gets to that point. Sometimes I leave with my head down and I look ashamed and they have no problem pointing that out. 
On some level I feel shame, but the shame I feel is not because I'm refusing. It has more to do with feeling ashamed of them, of going back to them and getting caught in another scheme. It's clear they think I'm ashamed of myself rather than them, and I don't correct them because it would start a circus of them raging. They think they are always right and that's what matters to them. 
I get discarded for months at a time, and once for a year and five months. But they always call ack when they need something and don't want to pay someone to do their work. And like an eager little boy, I'm back at their door again. I feel shame about that because I know I will be yelled at and shamed again. 
Sometimes I feel like two separate people, one wo is eager to try to please them, and one who is angry that they only call when they want something. It's clear they don't value me and all the free work I give them. I feel like one face is facing them saying, "Sure, I'll do everything I can to please you again. I love you. You're my parents!" while another face behind my back is saying, "Here I am again! Their wipping boy! I must be a patsy! I must think I'm not worth anything at all! I hate these people!"
This is where I think I need some serious mental health. I ended up here with you all when I was no contact and suffering most of the time, but I'm no more in contact than out of contact. I'm the imposter of no contact. 
I don't know who I am. I feel compartmentalized. Am I the guy who runs to please or the guy who is being taken advantage of and has had enough? Or am I just scared? Or do I just feel obligated because I'm a kind guy and I care about others? Or am I just confused?
In the meantime, I am not doing much of anything significant with my life. I am just a patsy. And when I do try to do something I am interested in, I tell myself that I won't be happy because I won't have a family.
I think women are much stronger than men. I can see that you all decide not to give into fear or pressures, and you are not out to prove you are a people pleaser.
I wish I could say no without shaking in my boots every time I say no. 
And that bothers me too. I know it will sound sexist, but I think guys need some power or they just feel broken, useless, worthless. We derive some of our identity from power, our professions, being paid for what we do, and being seen in a positive light for what we can do. 
Being in this situation is about utter powerlessness, as though we are a girl and not a real man. That brings me shame too.
Lately my thoughts have been to leave without a word, and go where I can't be found. I've started to prepare for that life. I think that's a guy's way. We've never been oriented to the thinking that says we can talk things out, or trying to reason through a situation. They have power or I have power. We know when we've been beat as far as power is concerned, and we know that we have to let go of parents who want us to be their powerless little boy forever. 
It is bad for them to want so much power over me, and bad for me that I have to leave them behind forever without a word. I don't know why they do this other than narcissism. On a reasoning level, it makes no sense, so it is something that has to be wrong with their brains perhaps. 

* Splitting yourself into parts (strong vs. weak) is very natural in situations where you are powerless, where your inner peace is constantly being meddled with, where you are being used and abused. And it's outrageous they want you to be triangulating with other family members for their benefit. 

* I'm estranged from parents because of my violent volititive brother who is narcissistic and an alcoholic. He was the GC my whole life, but not over board the way most people describe their narcissistic family. But any complaint he had about me would be taken at face value. I could no longer be around him which they could not accept, although for two years they met with me and my husband for a couple of years at their favorite diner.  
He talked them into something because they will no longer talk to me, not in the diner, not even on the phone. I offer to take them out and they don't respond. I used to think they were good parents if a little brainwashed and followers of bad leaders, but I don't think so any more. Brainwashing is evil, and being brainwashed is about being willing to let evil live in your self full time, giving loyal credence to it, so since I know that about them, I will not go back

* It wasn't so bad for me to go NC. Granted I understand how someone could be suicidal because these families are just cruel and they seriously go out of their way to bring you the most devastating results. I saw that growing up happening to my scapegoat sister. My GC brother seemed to be reveling in my sister's tragedy and that did not sit well with me.  
     The decision came for me when I realized in my own silent way when I was with them that they were toxic during a time when my husband and I were having children. I was seriously squirming when my parents and brother were picking up my babies when they'd be crawling around or playing, and hugging them. It felt exceptionally creepy, knowing what they did to my sister. 
     I have heard that most family members usually take the perspective of the parent becoming less and less empathetic with the scapegoat's fate. That we would be more submissive to our parent because of what happened to the scapegoat. This did not happen to me. It made me feel really uneasy at how awful they were towards her, and as far as I was concerned, it wasn't deserved and was downright evil.
     I ended up going NC slowly, moved, stopped sharing much of anything, then went NC completely when my first child turned 12. I am happy that I did. I did it for my children. I didn't want my children to be poisoned by them.
     My parents are so negative on other people and their punishments are off the wall. I didn't want that for my children. As a parent I felt obligated to give them the healthiest upbringing I could, and this is not it. 
     Sometimes I have doubts that I did the right thing, but when I talk to my scapegoat sister, I stop having them. She is doing okay now, but obviously damaged by the situation. I was not going to see her homeless, so I took her in for awhile without our parent's knowledge until she could get back on her feet. I will always love my sister and my parents cannot change that. It takes courage to stand up to these kinds of parents, but you also feel a lot better about yourself when you do. 

* What you have to realize in a big way is that narcissists are disordered. The stand out characteristics are that they don't have empathy and can be really cruel because of it, plus they can't stand any blame sticking to them and will shake it off of them as soon as they feel it, plus they are entitled jerks. You could be any good kid and they would discard you and try to get the family to do it too. Their disorder has nothing to do with you.
All narcs are the same and most of them discard one child at the very least. 
And they all feel okay in doing so. 
Their common disorder is the driving force, not you. They try to make it have everything to do with you because they tell themselves that nothing is their fault. 
They aren't going to change this way of thinking, and they aren't going to change discarding people. 
Instead of committing suicide over their lack of empathy which won't change even with every child committing suicide and every lover and spouse they seduce committing suicide, realize that this is your opportunity to get out of their control and to take control of your own life going forward. I can assure you that narcs are unaffected by the death of other people. I have had a few narcs in my life and they look at deaths and funerals as eye rolling inconveniences and they have no idea why people cry at them. 
For me it was my stepfather who got my entire family to put me out to pasture. These were people he wasn't related to. If people can go along with a non-relative, they can go along with any one. A lots of people are sheep and let them take control because they are afraid of narcissists and because they believe they are powerless, that something precious will be taken away from them, so they let narcs make their decisions for them and run all over them.
He took control of my mother eventually and all of her correspondences. Now he is working on getting my brother out of the family so that the family is mostly made up of his relatives and none of my mother's. His reason for discarding me was that he felt I owed him. He paid for a few things in my childhood like a costume for a school play and flute lessons and has made it clear that my mother pushed him into it and has resented it ever since. He thought I should give up my entire life with my husband and child over it.
This didn't seem normal to me at the time in terms of losing my entire family, but it made sense only when a therapist said "narcissism".  
His narcissistic reactions aren't my fault. And what you are going through isn't your fault either. 
When you are with narcs, life and bad things happen to you, and when you are without narcissists, your life is yours to do with as you please, finally. 
If your family is acting like a bunch of sheep by being strong armed by the narc, they are either going to remain sheep or realize that being a sheep is weakening them further and further, and giving up what they believe and their heart in the process. You have no control over that. Let nature run its course, and some sheep will leave the fold over the narc going too far, while others will stay.
If you are committed to the fact that this narc is not your leader, more people are likely to defect. It takes one to empower others. 

* When you are dealing with narcissistic abuse, part of recovery is how you are going to handle right and wrong. 
     It is very wrong to scapegoat a child. When you have the choice, you have to stand up to that and be firm in the fact that it is wrong, that you will protect yourself or anyone else who is scapegoated. If you don't, or just try half measures, or buckling under, then to some degree you are accepting that wrong into your mind and heart. I know for myself that I feel a lot better when I am challenging what is wrong. It takes an unselfish mind to think this way, and you have decide which one you are, because you too could lose the family. But for me, a much better life opens up. It's hard to see it at first. But in choosing "the right way", "right situations" start happening to you instead of the wrong ones you lived through. 
     The worst thing a narcissist could ever wish for are you going in the right direction, and healing from them. They "think" they feel good when you feel bad, but when you recover from them, I bet they don't feel so good. That's why they come back, and why they choose destruction over and over again, then spend the rest of their lives trying to hide from their destructions. 
     It is wrong to turn their entire family against their child and make that child suffer more, especially if they are telling lies about the child, and you know it. Very, very sadistic. If you try to ignore it, or make excuses for it, or go along with it without being repelled by it, you have accepted it as part of you too. You become like them, even a little. 
     When they try to get back in your life to create more suffering for you, they haven't changed even if they say they have, and all you have to do is check these and other forums to see that they never change. They always have the same amount of evil within them, even if they try to hide it for awhile, even if it is hidden for years. You will come across their evil again when you have been diagnosed with a terminal illness, or when you have a terrible accident, or when someone important in your life has died, or when you are down on your luck. Any one of us could tell you how the evil starts reasserting itself through giving you sabotaging advice, through disapprovals, through trying to take control of what you do and who you are, through the subtle back stabbings they do when they talk to others. As long as they start asserting themselves in these ways, their evil has not diminished. They are just hiding it and trying to find an opportune moment to pounce. Narcissists are predators. 
     Therefore you have to make a commitment that you will live, that you will heal and that you will not be seduced by evil. You have to make a commitment to do what is right, and suicide is not right. It is perpetuating the idea that you deserve to be hurt, damaged, voiceless, disappeared like narcs do. You have to crawl out of that the best you can and be devoted to happiness and not despair. Part of that is getting in touch with people like us who have lived this and gone past it, and know the road is hard, but that it is worth it to be on the right path. We can show you that this is not only survivable, but that a better life is possible too.  

* Yers sounds like my life. You can do this without giving in. 

* Feeling so powerless, defeated, erased out is the hardest part of this. As long as you can build good boundaries against their attacks, be committed to doing your own life on your own terms, the better you will feel. It's an eventual process. It takes years. 
The only alternative you have with this is going back and going through this again. 
It's why most of us go no contact. Going through it over and over is the equivalent of being stuck in a war.

* My NM assigned GC and SG alternating roles for both my sister and me. When I was the SG and ignored and thrown out, she was the GC. When NM wanted me back, she treated me as the GC and my sister as the dreadful SG. 
The last time we went through this, which was really damaging to both our lives and psych, I started to read about narcissism. It all made sense in that context, the silent treatment, the idealizations followed by discards, the GC & SG roles, everything written was about our lives and what we were living through. I was so angry that I was being manipulated this way and went to a counselor on what to do. I turned my sister on to what I discovered when NM discarded her and wanted me back.
Neither one of us went back.
We are no longer in competition or resentful of one another realizing our mother was running the puppet strings and this destructive game since we were little children.

* Here we go... getting to know a man who connected with me online, from a singles group on FB. A family man. The sort of man I'm looking for! And yet, we're discussing our family and it's awkward, to say the least! He is from a large very close family, they travel together and you see all the photos together. How do I explain that I'm a family woman who has no family?? In fact, I'm a family woman who has basically gone NC with most of my family. Any thoughts? May the force be with me.

* Just tell him the truth. It takes a strong person to go No contact and to lose their whole family. Explain that you were left with no choice because your mental health comes first and you want healthy relationships.

* Thank you. You brought me to tears. I didn't even consider that I may look strong instead of looking like a red flag!

* It’s not your fault. You’re a cycle breaker. That flag is not red or beige, friend. It’s as green as springtime.
     Not every person from a healthy, happy family is going to understand that at first. He may need time to listen, trusting in your word and good intentions, and learn to understand and support. If he can’t do that, please believe — he’s not for you and you don’t want him!

* I feel seriously damaged from the scapegoating and having to make it totally on my own without a family.
In my case, they threw me and my sister out of the family and kept our two brothers. 
My sister and I were close for awhile and even lived together, but she started comparing herself to me in terms of resiliency. She always thought she was the model of resiliency, able to pop out of despair,  while I was still the hurt and depressed basket case. She'd say things like "Get off your but!" and "Do something about it!" 
This did not help with my healing. We had a few fights and then she left. I felt like I was rejected again by the only person left who had any kind of understanding of what I was going through, of what being estranged felt like. We were on the same page for such a long time, but her scapegoating me over my depression made me feel even more suicidal, alone, and unable to snap out of despair. I actually became homeless afterwards for awhile. My father's great wish finally came true, but I literally could not function. 
Eventually I realized that comparing herself to me was just part of belonging to a narcissistic family. I was done with the comparisons of who was ahead in our parents favor, and in my case, realized it was my father's favorite passtime to compare us all of the time, while for me it was an event I wanted to escape. It drove home how little our needs mattered to him, only how his needs were met, even when I was a small child.
I survived, but I still feel like I'm in pieces. I can't reconcile the pieces into one whole. I might not have survived under my father's roof. It was probably worse. But the fact remains that either way, I was going to go through hell. 
Isn't that sad? Like I can barely survive being kicked out, but I probably would have fared much worse being around him. There are no good answers to this. 
I think when you are mentally, physically and emotionally abused, and laughed at you when you cry or show pain, they are going to be the ones to kick you out. It is better to leave, I think, before it gets to that point, to make it your own choice. 
I work for a library and it's a job I can survive in because it is quiet. When I'm not functioning at my job perfectly, I get yelled at, but it doesn't happen very often. And the yelling is my boss whispering to me. It's a lot easier to deal with yelling when it is quiet, and to actually understand what is being said, and do what they are expecting. It doesn't trigger me like loud yelling does.
Part of my surviving is that books have become my social life. 
But I always wonder who I would have been had I not grown up with an intolerant misogynistic father. How much of what he put me through contributed to my depression? All of it or some of it? Like if I had actually been loved and valued would I have been footloose and fancy free or clinging to quiet and safety in every situation?   

* I've been fully estranged for 11 years and counting (and before then too - I was one of those who "went back" and it was so much worse, incredibly damaging to my psyche and well being). Where you are right now is the hardest stage. It's intense grieving, loneliness, often smear campaigns, and worst of all, realizing that your family wants you in that state.
Then I started to go to Alanon. I realized there were a lot of estranged scapegoats there. And in my experience, the scapegoats were the kindest people I'd ever met. My husband is a scapegoat from his original family of origin too. To keep from getting derailed by trauma, the intrusive memories, having a shot self esteem, I went to ACOA and CoDA meetings too and group therapy for ACONs.
Then I did deep dives into reading about PTSD, narcissists and sociopaths and the lack of empathy, false arrogant self and lust for power that drives their destructive cruelty towards others.
And that knowledge all got intellectualized rather than feeling it on any kind of emotional level. Granted I had continual nightmares about those people for at least 4 years (the worst ones were the first year and a half), but would awake in my nice safe, cozy warm bedroom with good locks on the door of my house and an alarm system.
And then I started having nightmares about an inconsolable little girl pleading with her Mommy to stop hurting her. Someone here suggested that it was my wounded inner child.
I feel I have emerged into a better life than I have ever had. Scapegoating will always keep you down, like a wounded soul who can no longer do anything the narcissist wants - even keep yourself alive for them. I never think about suicide, ever, any more. It rained all of the time in my past, and like the poster above, now it shines most days.
I also learn to listen to my body. Narcissists give me headaches. I don't have narcs in my life any more because the headache tells me all I need to know.

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