The Price of Admission: You Will Never Be ‘Good Enough’ for the Narcissistic Family —
So stop the Cinderella Act and walk away …
This piece is not about fairytales — it is about narcissistic families. It is about the painful fact that, as an outsider, you will never belong. There is no acceptable price of admission. You will never learn the unspoken rules that the narcissistic family utilizes to mask its pain. You will remain forever invisible — and nothing you can do will change their behavior. I say this after attempting to survive within one for thirty years.
As a rule, narcissists are incapable of empathy. They run patterns throughout family structures that prevent or punish any attempts at empathy as ‘weak.’ Simultaneously, the ‘family image’ is elevated and celebrated. According to Anoushka Marcin (1), author of “Narcissistic Family Structures, the message is clear, “We are bigger, better, have no problems, and must put on the face of perfection.” There’s nothing to see here, folks. Move along. Above all, it’s essential to protect the family’s façade that “everything is fine — better than fine.” And this prevents the kind of real dialogue in which family members can openly disclose their needs, with the expectation that they might be met by other loving family members.
