Imagine a situation in a zoo where two elephants are tended to by different caretakers.
- Elephant-A seems somewhat unpredictable, challenging to control, roaming freely around the enclosure. When the keeper calls out, “Dinner’s ready!” it seems to ignore, returning to eat only when it feels hungry.
- Elephant -B, on the other hand, is well-behaved. As soon as the keeper offers food, it promptly comes over to eat and expresses gratitude.
Now, logically deducing, which caretaker is treating their elephant better?
- Elephant-A’s lack of “obedience” shows it experiences fewer constraints and is less trained
- It’s not caring about food indicates it always has enough and feels safe with its food source.
- Unlike Elephant-B, Elephant-A doesn’t seek approval from the keeper, showing there’s no clear boss-subordinate relationship.
So, it’s clear that the first caretaker does more for the elephant and asks for less in return compared to the second caretaker.
Similarly, in human family structures, when a child is more “well-behaved,” strives to please their parents, and consistently exhibits “gratitude,” “repayment,” “guilt,” and “filial piety,” it indicates that the parents have established a throne of authority and employed methods of “domestication.” This reveals a significant status gap between parents and children.
When there is a significant gap in social status between parents and children, it often leads to a poignant phenomenon — the more difficult the parents, the more the children tend to defend them and hesitate to question their actions.
Paradoxically, harsh parents may even be glorified in such situations.
Some kids, even at a young age, may openly criticize, saying, “My dad and mom are not good at this or that.” In reality, it’s a sign that the parents have provided enough security for the child, allowing them to “dare to” discover their parents’ flaws.
In families with a parent has Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), the parent endeavors to secure an absolute and dominant position at the top of the hierarchy, regarding other family members as tools, slaves, or extensions of themselves. To fulfill their self-centered desires, they relentlessly exploit, mistreat, and manipulate their children.
To survive in such a harsh environment, children must appease these parents, performing the idealized “loving” and “harmonious” family life that NPD parents often prefer to showcase externally.
Yet, how can children possess such high-level acting skills? They achieve this by self-hypnosis, rationalizing the behavior of NPD parents, and self-brainwashing all mistreatment and manipulation into a narrative of “because of love.” By constructing an imaginary version of affectionate parents in their minds, children can perform the play of “parental love and filial piety” well, thereby reducing the extent of abuse.
This’ samler to Stockholm Syndrome, as it offers a means to cope with psychological trauma from abuse, but it introduces a host of other severe mental issues. One of these challenges is that children of NPD parents find it more difficult than those from conventional households to identify problems within their own parents.
Hence, there’s a phenomenon where if you tell those children, “Your parents aren’t treating you well; they aren’t qualified parents. You’re being mistreated. Are you naive to be so filial?” They resist vehemently, fiercely defending their parents. This often leads observers to think, “It’s hopeless,” “mama’s boy/girl,” “respect, bless,and leave them alone” …
On the surface, these children may defend what appears to be harsh and clearly problematic NPD parents to the average person. However, in reality, they are defending the idealized, loving, and imaginary parents they’ve constructed in their minds.
Until they become aware of their parents’ issues, they struggle to separate their mental image of caring parents from the reality — much like a projector, NPD children project their loving mental parents onto their actual parents.
Recognizing that parents have NPD signifies that NPD children must undergo the painful process of “psychological matricide and patricide.” It’s akin to personally killing off the idealized parents who have accompanied them throughout their lives, forcing them to confront the brutal reality: everything since birth has been a lie, all the love, happiness, and joy were mirages concocted in their own minds. Their parents never truly loved them; there was only deception, manipulation, calculation, and abuse. The entire inner world undergoes a seismic shift, unleashing a lifetime of accumulated, ultimate fear that crashes over them like a relentless tidal wave. With nowhere to escape, they stand there, eyes wide open, absorbing the blows, as profound sadness repeatedly washes over their crumbling mental landscape.
Collapse, then rise again
Collapse, then rise again
Over and over again
The silver lining: with each rise, they become a version of themselves that surpasses the previous one.
Actually, every NPD’s child subconsciously understands how terrifying and heart-wrenching it is to force themselves to “psychologically matricide and patricide” and confront the harsh reality of their NPD parents. This often leads to a vicious cycle: the more they fear, the more they defend, and the more they defend, the more they get hurt.
As the slogan of the ACoNs’ Resilience Haven, which I build, aptly puts it, “The road ahead may be unclear, but truth is the only light.” No matter how harsh reality is, it must be faced, acknowledged, and accepted. NPD’s children have been deceived for far too long, manipulated mentally to the point of confusion, and left emotionally shattered. It’s truly enough!
Let’s bury those imaginary parents in minds because what’s false can never become real.
