How I Stopped Worrying About My Narcissistic Family

I’m at a place in my life I never thought I’d be. This year, I spent the holidays at home with my husband and dog, and didn’t worry at all about what the rest of my family was doing. I sat in the living room and looked around at my 25 pound Corgi-Pomeranian adoptee, a Disney-Christmas themed tree, a book of Taylor Swift inspired poetry sent from a best friend (a chosen family member), and a glittery journal I’d just started filling with new song lyrics. Peanuts Christmas music was playing, a balsam fir scented candle was flickering, and my husband brought out the tarot cards to predict my 2025. I wasn’t worried about anything else, especially my narcissistic family. When I first began the journey of emotionally detaching from my family, I didn’t even think this was possible. I thought, “They’re my family, so I’m stuck with them, aren’t I?

Even as I begin to write this I feel insecure about a few things that allowed me to get here. First, being white means I don’t have the pressures of more collectivist cultures. For example, the above statement about being stuck with family is just true for many BIPOC people. White culture being steeped in individualism means that I am much more likely to consider cutting off my family as an option in the first place. I write this not to challenge the hope any BIPOC readers may feel, but as a means of recognizing my privilege in this circumstance. The second privilege I’ve had is money. Many people are tied financially to their narcissistic family members and I was lucky enough to become financially independent quite early in my adulthood.

I think the other stuff that helped me get here is important as well because it has allowed me to feel free in a way that I hope to help others feel. My childhood was filled with traumatic experiences and I started EMDR therapy while I was in college to get help. EMDR helped me process through painful memories in a way that allowed me to let go of their hold over me. It also helped me to see my present situation more clearly. As a child, there was a scapegoat in my family who was framed to me as the reason things went wrong. All the way to college, I believed that if this one family member could change, all the problems would go away. After EMDR, I was able to have a better understanding of what was really going on. That made me hungry for more information and to help others who had also been through trauma. I began my Master’s in Mental Health Counseling at Boston University. Before I left for school, I was warned by a narcissistic family member, “never psychoanalyze me once you become a therapist.”

I started seeing a new therapist in Boston. I knew my perspective of my family was distorted but I was too codependent to really see the issues from a bird’s eye view. Through many discussions and agonizing over these circumstances, I figured out that the scapegoat had actually been framed by the narcissists in my family. If my young eyes were always directed at this scapegoat, they would never be directed at the true source of the familial issues. This was a real turning point for me. I realized that the narcissists in my family had manipulated me and so many other family members to believe that they were victims. That they were being victimized by this one particular person. It was such a sinister, deep-seeded belief embedded in me from childhood. Even the scapegoat himself had revealed to me on several occasions his fear that he really was the problem.

Then began the process of building boundaries. I first tried having discussions with the narcissists in my family. I tried explaining to them that their behaviors hurt me. I tried having vulnerable conversations about what changes I needed in order to feel better in these relationships. I even tried telling the other codependent family members that they were also dealing with abuse and needed to educate themselves and go to therapy. (Everyone tries out these different ways of repairing when they begin to understand narcissism.) It took me hearing from my partner, my friends, and several experts on narcissistic abuse to understand that narcissists cannot be reasoned with - that repair would not be possible with a narcissistic person in the same way it was possible with someone else. This is when I had to start making choices around detaching.

Some people call this detachment process “internal boundaries” because they don’t involve communication with another person. Instead, I was just aware of the limitations that my family members had shown me and acted from this knowing. I sent letters (many) to different members of my family. Long letters that I re-read, edited, and pored over in order to write from a place of compassion, integrity, and firm boundaries. These letters were the ends of those relationships. They were the explanations of why the relationships were ending. They included my sadness about those relationships ending and my even greater sadness at the idea of continuing to put myself in abusive circumstances. I expected the responses I received. Deflective, careless, angry. One was a long diatribe full of “I’m sorry you feel this ways”, another completely ignored my letter and invited me to visit soon (I think this family member was dissociating), and even another assured me that my beliefs about my family weren’t true (more gaslighting). These responses only proved to me that my new understanding of my family was accurate and it was time to follow through on the boundaries I was setting.

The 2024 holidays were my first without anyone from the family I was born into. I did not feel lonely. I felt loved. I felt free in a way I couldn’t have imagined as a child. Every holiday before this has involved anxiety about what kind of chaos will happen at the Christmas party. What kind of passive aggressive comments will I have to swallow at Thanksgiving? Not anymore. This Thanksgiving was spent with my chosen family - with friends who were at my wedding and have shown me the kind of love, loyalty, and emotional support I never received from my blood family. Christmas was quiet, calm, and peacefully spent lounging on the couch, baking in the kitchen, or going for hikes in our favorite spots.

The journey to get here has been long. It’s been 12 years since I began unpacking this with my therapist as an undergraduate. Even now, I know I’m not “fixed” but now I get to work in my own therapy on the even more meaningful stuff that I want to explore. I’m a therapist who specializes in narcissistic abuse because I get it on a personal and professional level. This shit is hard. Facing the potential, ambiguous loss of some of the closest people in your life is hard. But I believe, more than anything, that feeling broken and losing yourself to years spent not facing this is even harder. The thing I want for my clients is to feel like they wasted as little time as possible because they didn’t avoid this stuff. I am 31 years old. I don’t have to worry about my family at the holidays for the rest of my life. Now, the only thing I’m focusing on is what I want to do with my “one wild and precious life”.

I want this feeling for everyone. I want you to have peaceful, worry-free days and holidays. If my story resonated with you or you need more support, I am ready to help you start healing! I offer trauma therapy including EMDR and IFS to clients in Massachusetts. I also offer group therapy to help clients connect with other people who have been through this. Narcissistic abuse is so isolating and this group is for anyone who wants to deepen their understanding of narcissism and meet other people who get it. Get started with a free intro call to learn more!

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