Narcissistic Siblings: Their Rocks of Shame

Growing up with abusive, toxic siblings sets you up to accept vile behaviours from others in your adult life.

You are brainwashed into believing that this is the norm from an early age. You might not even realize this until years later when you crawl out from under the dark veil that has blinded you.

Walking On Eggshells

In your quest to keep safe in the toxic family, you learned to tippy toe around the house, not being noticed.

The Family Punchbag

From an early age, you were targeted. As a baby, the invisible label of family scapegoat was carefully placed on you. The golden child or other siblings' noses have been firmly put out of joint by the new baby's arrival. You became the prey. In families where the parents had no time or perhaps were themselves somewhat toxic, or ignorant of what was going on, the newly named scapegoat will live the life of an emotional and sometimes physical punch bag.

The jealous and spiteful siblings, (yes there can be more than one. They end up working together to make their lies and slander sound more believable.) will create dramas to frame the scapegoat. Whilst researching this article I spoke to an acquaintance of mine who has an early memory of this drama being created that is quite disturbing. She remembers being a baby and being in a tiny bed or cot. In the memory, all she can feel is lots of hands coming at her under the covers to make her scream for help. She was then labeled as the bad baby, who kept everyone from sleeping.

As she grew up, she was triangulated by the toxic siblings and was grateful for any small amount of positive attention she received

Now, that’s pretty awful, isn’t it?

And, you know, the game of triangulation is played over again and again in these unhealthy family systems.

What to do now?

Well, you can let yourself see the truth as it is. Also, allow yourself to be upset and mourn for a childhood you never had. But then you can start working on yourself. Firstly, you look in the mirror and tell yourself you are enough, and you are now going to re-parent yourself. As hard as this might seem to believe, you can now start addressing your lack of self-esteem. Your lack of self-love. And pass the shame left in your system back to whom it belongs.

Now I would like you to look in a mirror and say to yourself how much you, love you. How you love yourself and how you are safe now and can adopt good boundary skills. Tell yourself that you are now free from the rocks of shame passed to you by your tormentors and act out giving them back to their rightful owners. Then feel light and free and give yourself a big hug. Then, get outside for a walk and look at the trees, the raindrops, and the birds, and know that you belong to this world and are free of the past.

© Sonya Vukomanovic/Lawrence 10/10/2023

For more help, you might like to look at Alex Howard's book: It’s not your fault.

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