I know it might not be what you're excited to read, but every family really does have one. Whether it's a habit, behavior, or belief, there's always one person in a narcissistic family who carries that toxic, demonic bloodline into another generation.
I sit with clients all the time who don't even realize they've already spotted that person. They just haven't said the name out loud yet. Have you?
This pattern of cruelty does continue, and I am sad to say causes even more fractures in families as they go on. So, who is it for you? Maybe this article will help you uncover that.
1 The "you're like a father to me" uncle
I once had a message from a woman who told me all about her uncle, who was, by all measures, a very angry, narcissistic man. She told me that he was actually seen by the rest of the family as the loving, kind and generous one in the family.
Someone even called him gentle. Then at some point along the line, her uncle's kids became old enough in his eyes for them to be shouted at for doing the smallest of things.
He started to slam doors and talk about her aunt (his wife) in the most terrible of ways.
And here's the thing that gets me. She told me her uncle used to say, "I'd never be like my dad." Famous last words, right? They always say that.
This woman said to me that it was literally like watching her uncle morph into her narcissistic grandfather. The word morph caught my attention because yes, this happens. The bloodline continues, and it has to continue with someone. For her, it was her uncle.
She saw it plain as day, and she said it felt quite triggering for her as once upon a time, she was in the company of her grandfather who would act similarly, and make her not want to be around him at all.
2 The daughter who ended up parenting the narcissist
A daughter who thinks they're breaking away from a toxic family only to later on become the very person she wanted to be away from? Yeah, that's a classic example of carrying the demonic bloodline forward.
Initially, she might have thought she was doing a good thing in stepping away from the dynamics, but before you know it, all those things she witnessed for herself are starting to now be a direct representation of her own life.
It breaks my heart because yes, intentions can be good, but environmental factors can stay with some people, and they end up being the ones who deliver the following lines regularly in their own family:
Your dad is useless. Stop bothering me.
I had a woman sit across from me sobbing because she heard her own mother's voice come out of her mouth at her six year old. She said, "I swore I'd never say that." But she did.
What I say, goes. I make the rules. While you live under my roof… After all I've done for you…
The list goes on, and it's a painful one. She doesn't know what she's doing, but she's doing all she ever knew.
That's going to hurt the children, who by default have been born to this woman who has spent her entire childhood suffering living with and being raised by a narcissist.
3 Why the dynamics only pick one sibling
A lot of people ask me, "How can siblings grow up in exactly the same house, yet have totally different experiences from their narcissistic parent?"
See also The Creepy Things Narcissists Do When They Are AloneIt's a fact that not all siblings will carry that continuation. It's strange, but that's just how it goes. You may have spent your entire life just laying low, getting by, and wanting a totally different life. Indeed then, you do get it.
I had a client tell me once, "My sister could break a vase and mum would laugh. I'd breathe wrong and get sent to my room for hours." Same house, different planet.
Your sibling however, may have been the one who was treated like a Golden Child and who did nothing wrong. They learned that accountability didn't exist in their life, and for that, they've then grown up to carry that narcissistic trait into another generation.
While you were busy unlearning everything you were taught, you have this sister or brother who picks up the characteristics of a narcissist and makes it their own. This is unfortunate, but is very much the scapegoat/golden child situation that most kids of narcissists will face.
It's also common for those two siblings to not get along, and that will be fuelled by the narcissistic parent who loves seeing a fall out.
4 The tell sign
The problem with people who carry that demonic bloodline forward is that they're blissfully unaware they're doing so. Sure, they can be aware of their bloodline up until now, and know full well there are narcissists alive and kicking in their family, but they think they've escaped it.
I never want to be like my mom. I will never treat my kids the way my dad treated me.
I had a client say to me, "Alexander, I'm the only sane one in my family." Then she described screaming at her teenage daughter for leaving a glass on the counter. Sound familiar?
Oh, look at them.
I almost feel sorry for them for thinking that just because they've provided a nice house and lots of things for their kids that they aren't abusive, but that yelling and smashing of plates against the wall, slamming doors and heavy criticism is still there, and they don't even see it.
If you ask them, they will tell you about their crazy sister or cruel brother. In fact, they will list everyone in the family and tell you they're the only normal ones. That's the very sentence that will tell you otherwise.
5 There's always one grandchild who sees it clearly
In every single family. A grandchild will clock the dynamics, and speak up about it. It might even be your own child who just sees everything so clearly that they start asking questions at a young age. Why is grandma so miserable?
One little girl I worked with, maybe seven, asked her mum, "Why does grandma make you cry every Sunday?" Out of the mouths of babes, right? They see it before we do.
Why is grandpa always shouting at everyone? What can you do? Right there, you have a choice whether or not you want to excuse that behavior, or say quite seriously, "Well, they have a hard time with their feelings and they shout, which isn't right."
If you've been in that situation, how did you deal with it? I believe an age appropriate balance is what's needed for ultimate understanding and awareness. Kids don't miss a thing, and I want you to at least acknowledge that.
6 The pattern is there, it does not need you to believe it
There is no curse on your family if this is something you can relate to. There doesn't need to be some kind of shaman to come in and rid people of their toxicity.
There is one person in each generation who is carrying that bloodline forward who doesn't look at the problem they're continuing to host. This is just how my father was. Yeah, that excuse won't cut it.
I had a client say to me, "I watched my nephew do the exact eye roll my brother used to do at me as a kid." That's the bloodline. Right there.
People should never be excused for the way they act, especially if it is harmful to others. The silence and acceptance of that next person moving forward with it is the very bloodline I'm talking about.
It travels, and it travels with the knowledge that there will then be another, and it comes from people who refuse to see that they're just like the narcissist they were raised by.
It can be quite triggering for those who are wide awake to it and have to see these children grow up and act out in the same way perhaps a sibling of theirs did.
To see that manipulation playing out in real time with someone new means the whole cycle is starting again in someone else. That's a very exhausting thing to witness for those who just want a life of peace.
7 The cousin everybody whispers about at funerals
You know the one. Every family has them. The cousin who nobody really invites but somehow always shows up, and when they do, the room shifts. Voices drop. Someone mutters, "Oh, they're here," and suddenly everyone is checking their drinks and their handbags.
At funerals, it's worse. That's when the whispering really gets going. "Did you hear what they did to their mother?" "I heard they cleaned out the bank account before she was even buried." "Apparently the will is being contested, again."
And here's the thing. The whispering has been going on for years. Decades, even. Yet nobody confronts it. Nobody sits them down. Nobody says the actual word out loud.
Why? Because the family has agreed, silently, that it's easier to whisper than to deal with it. The pattern protects itself this way. Generation after generation, the cousin remains "a bit difficult," "a character," "you know how they are."
They're not a character. They're carrying it forward. And everyone knows. They just won't say it.
8 When you realize you're the one who broke the chain
There's a moment, and you'll know it when it hits, where you sit down with a cup of something warm and you realize, "Wait. It stopped with me."
You didn't pass it on. You didn't repeat what was done to you. You didn't scream at your kids the way you were screamed at. You didn't punish people for having needs.
Do you know how huge that is?
See also 5 Creepy Things Every Narcissist Hides Somewhere in Their HouseGenerations of this stuff, this rot, all funnelling down through the bloodline, and you, somehow, stood in front of it and said no. Not on my watch.
And I'll be honest, it doesn't always feel triumphant. Sometimes it feels lonely. Sometimes you grieve the family you should have had while doing the work to be the one your own kids needed. That's a strange kind of ache.
But you did it. You really did.
The chain is heavy, and you carried it long enough to set it down. That's not a small thing. That's the whole thing.
And quietly, without anybody clapping, you changed everything that comes after you.
