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Narcissistic Abuse in Toxic Families

Phoenix29
Community Member

I come from a toxic and narcissistic family. For years I was made the scapegoat of my family, controlled, emotionally and verbally abused, constantly being kicked out and my grandmother especially put me at risk by forbidding me to take my doctors orders when it came to my medication and weened me off my medication. (I have bipolar) I excommunicated myself from my family gradually and cut contact with my Grandmother in September of last year. Every few months she tries something, sending a text to my partner to get me to call her, showing up at our doorstep(demanding to see me) and more recently she put an envelope with a key in our letterbox saying I can get my stuff whenever I want but she wouldn’t accomodate me. My partner said that he and my Uncle could pick my stuff up but she said she would only speak to me. So we said if she doesn’t like our terms we would send back the key. Anyways it’s been months and she keeps trying to get her power over me back. She doesn’t care that she hurt me or abused me. She’s not sorry. She just wants to have complete control over me like she always has. The last thing she said to me was that she has now wiped her hands of me. I did find that hurtful and it does make me angry. But at the same time I don’t believe her. I’ve been having trouble with my abusive neighbor recently and even though I am enjoying the stability of my new home with my partner, and I’ve been living here for a year, I’m kind of hoping that we do end up moving because then my Grandmother won’t know where I live and will finally be forced to leave me alone. Do you have any advice for me? Anyone else who has experiences narcissistic abuse in their family?

12 Replies 12

Andy_G
Community Member
Scapegoat situation v complex - there are some families where the excluded outsider in triangles is rigidly in that place - it stabilizes other relationships - hence it is hard to find a way out. Is challenging to Try to get your belongings back. All one can do is to work on not fueling the reactivity through trying to change others. Not easy at all.

Wish there was a better solution than going no contact restorative justice be better as going no contact can sometimes derail mental health

Andy_G
Community Member
In Bowen Family Systems Therapy they call the family scapegoat the symptom bearer in Psychiatry they call him the Identified Patient. Has not been enough focus or creating strategies to undo the family scapegoat system considering the huge amount of mental illness and abuse it inflicts upon children the community and families.