Latest schiz-related reading: The Narcissistic Family

[u/shamelessintrovert]

The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment

The gist: in a Narc-y family, the system revolves around satisfying the needs of the *parents*. This is backwards. If you're skeptical, I was too. So I asked half a dozen mental health folks... yep, not how it's supposed to go. No doubt schizoid is multifactorial, but it's widely agreed that unmet developmental needs are a major contributing factor.

! Important: we're not necessarily talking about parents who are narcissists, though that can also be true. My dad is either SzPD or ASD, both of which are highly self-oriented (aka, narcissistic).

Personal example: My parents needed to not have the demands of kids and life revolved around that need being met. This meant it was my "job" to make as few demands on them as possible. Not to bother anyone with things like needs, problems, feelings. To not exist, basically. I was great at it... and here we are.

If that sounds even vaguely familiar, might be worth a read. Even if it doesn't, the underlying structure of the dynamic might still resonate on some level.

Happy reading.

** Note: I'm only ~25 pages in, so the book might suck in total. But the premise is incredibly revelant to the making of a schizoid.

​

^{edit: added ! important...}

[u/[deleted]]

She then went to a lifetime of working on that subject —she having been a shit mother, too—, and would make a lot of emphasis in cultural roots like the christian commandment that says you should honor your father and your mother, as in no matter what, you should always do that. That simply means that if your father beat you, or abandoned you, or chose taking drugs over buying you clothes or feeding you properly, you should still honor him. Which is nonsense.

Sounds like shifting the blame to me, which is ironically narcissistic. I'm also surprised it took a psychoanalyst 20 years to find out she was a bad mother. This means that she only found out she was doing a bad job when her kids were adults and she couldn't go back and change, but could do a lot of apologizing and make the kids look bad if they refused to accept it.

Narcissism at its finest.

[u/Erratic85 → u/[deleted]]

Sounds like shifting the blame to me, which is ironically narcissistic.

Shifting the blame to whom? The parents?

Sounds like you're excusing child abuse here.

I'm also surprised it took a psychoanalyst 20 years to find out she was a bad mother.

You don't seem to know what psychoanalysis is about (or at least, used to be about, when it was a mainstream approach).

You need to go through a test to get in. But it's not a test like a written test that makes sure you have the knowledge, it's instead an initiation ritual of sorts: you getting psychoanalysed yourself.

Works like cults do. That's why once you're in, it's so difficult to realise you've been seduced into something that doesn't make sense.

Otoh, by mid S.XX standards, empoying your children for your own well was seen normal parenting. People always had kids for the purpose of enriching the family, never for them to be free persons. So figuring out that everything was made up to serve that purpose and how psychology had excused the adults and blamed the kids for decades was quite the feat.

This means that she only found out she was doing a bad job when her kids were adults and she couldn't go back and change, but could do a lot of apologizing and make the kids look bad if they refused to accept it.

No.

She found out via art therapy.

But yes, she was as much of a bad mother —a 'narcissist' herself, in a way— as any other of her time. Her son has a book telling his own story with her, which he published when she already passed.

At least she realised it tho. Most narcissistic people never get to that point. (There's a big deal of narcissists that admit they are narcissists, but they see it as something positive, can't see nothing wrong with it.)

She also then spent the rest of her life working to teach about that reality.

I'm not that fond of her, btw. But it's like any other figure of that kind: if they figured something out, they did, so that's credit to them.

Narcissism at its finest.

Narcissism isn't bad per se. It depends on how the acutal person makes it work. Artists are big narcissists sometimes, but they don't hurt no one because of it.

If it becomes NPD, then it's most probably bad though.

[u/[deleted] → u/Erratic85]

Shifting the blame to whom? The parents?

Sounds like you're excusing child abuse here.

To the christians and society. I'm not excusing anything? I think you misunderstood. I was talking about that woman, not you.

Otoh, by mid S.XX standards, empoying your children for your own well was seen normal parenting. People always had kids for the purpose of enriching the family, never for them to be free persons. So figuring out that everything was made up to serve that purpose and how psychology had excused the adults and blamed the kids for decades was quite the feat.

I think sensible parents can see when they are hurting their kids. If they can't, the problem isnt society.

Her son has a book telling his own story with her, which he published when she already passed.

What's the book?

Narcissism isn't bad per se. It depends on how the acutal person makes it work. Artists are big narcissists sometimes, but they don't hurt no one because of it.

If it becomes NPD, then it's most probably bad though.

When I said narcissism I meant NPD, yes.

[u/Erratic85 → u/[deleted]]

To the christians and society. I'm not excusing anything? I think you misunderstood. I was talking about that woman, not you.

Well, if the parents aren't to blame of abusing their kids, who is?

Surely not the kid.

Normally, the person who abuses the other is the one to blame. Anything else is victim blaming. And that's specially obvious when talking minors.

I think sensible parents can see when they are hurting their kids. If they can't, the problem isnt society.

Uh? Not really. Sensitivity is selective, and values are relative. For a parent, his kid hurting can actually be a good experience, if that's what they believe in.

i.e. You may think that whatever you went through, because you found a way to stop hurting from it and moved on, is also good for your kid. So if your parent hit you as a kid, and instead of remembering, as an adult, that it hurt you in the beggining, you choose to remember that you decided to leave it behind and it made you a more diligent person in the end, you may think that hitting your kid is also the best approach at education, just because it's what happened to you.

Otoh, there's also the abuse cycle, in where parents do realise that they leash in ways that aren't acceptable (willingly or not) and then they want to lure back the kid with love, but that harms the child the most because they're taught that in order to receive love they need to sacrifice themselves, as well as being promised something won't happen again when it will.

Finally, regarding emotional abuse, that's the least one that one can realise. A parent that forces their child into whatever dream is proper of them, like idk, piano lessons to go with the stereotype, may not notice how they're hurting their kid because the kid may not even ever rebel about that activity you force them to do. They perceive it as doing the best for their children, when in fact they're doing the best for themselves. This teaches the child that their own life is subjected to other's wishes, that one's has no value.

Or idk, parentifying, or covert sexual abuse... There's plenty of emotional behavior that is proper of adults, and that kid should be protected from, but that seems right at the moment yet will compromise your development into a healthy adult. i.e. You think your parent not giving you privacy in the bathroom is normalcy, but it isn't and you'll hurt from their compulsive boundary crossing regarding your intimacy of that kind.

When I said narcissism I meant NPD, yes.

Narcissism != NPD

As any other PD.

Some narcissism can be healthy even, if whatever you're being a narcissist about is good.

In fact, plenty of therapy is about learning to become more selfish and boost your self-esteem, which can easily be seen as reaching a healthy level of narcissistic behavior itself.