By Glynis Sherwood, MEd, Psychotherapist & Coach
Very Early Childhood Is the Bedrock for Secure Attachment
and Healthy Personality Development
Article at a Glance
- Impact of Narcissistic and Antisocial Parenting: Children in narcissistic or antisocial family environments often become scapegoats, blamed for family issues. This scapegoating creates a false, shame-based identity, often leading to complex trauma and deep loneliness.
- Early Childhood Attachment: Secure bonding in early childhood, especially with maternal figures, forms the basis of healthy self-identity and emotional regulation. Lack of such bonding can lead to insecure attachment, resulting in lifelong struggles with self-worth and relationships.
- Existential Loneliness in Scapegoats: Scapegoated individuals often experience deep loneliness, feeling disconnected from others. This profound alienation begins in early childhood and can lead to emotional numbness and difficulties in forming close relationships.
- Healing Through Self-Acceptance and Reparenting: Overcoming trauma involves self-acceptance, challenging false shame, and reparenting oneself. Building self-worth and fostering healthy relationships are essential steps toward healing from scapegoat abuse.
The need to form healthy bonds with our family of origin is as innate to humans as breathing. At its best, bonding is an antidote to loneliness and isolation. Healthy bonding makes people feel safe, visible and cared for. In essence, protected. This is particularly important in early life, when children are completely dependent on their parents to provide them with the secure foundation that’s essential to survive life physically and emotionally, both during and beyond childhood.
On an emotional level, family bonds provide a sense of connection and being witnessed or seen, that signals that our existence matters. In other words, familial alliances inform us that we are not alone in an indifferent or cold world. Healthy family connection tells us that we are invested in, because we are valuable. This is the essence of love.
Having a sense of ‘place’ is key to self identity. When we feel connected to our kin, we possess a sense of definition that the adult self is built on. Healthy family bonding experiences also prepare human beings to be constructive members of larger communities, and nations as a whole.
Healthy Family Bonding is the Key to Psychological Well Being
I would argue that this sense of belonging is the bedrock of psychological well being, and a prosocial orientation. In other words, familial membership connotes belonging, and belonging is protective of the mental health of the self, family and society. Without this solid start in life that a secure family base provides, people are vulnerable to feeling alienated – lost, isolated and like false-shame based outsiders.
This is the lot of the child raised in a narcissistic and antisocial scapegoating family system.
Unmet Early Attachment Needs Cause Insecurity, Loneliness and Isolation
Bonding Needs
Age 0 to 3 may rightly be considered the most critical age for experiencing secure attachment. Secure bonding with a maternal figure provides the base for developing healthy self identity and the ability to regulate emotionally.
The role of the mother in early childhood is of paramount importance. (Mother is usually the birth parent, but the role can also be fulfilled by other principal caregivers.) During the first two to three years of life, the infant sees her/him self and mother as the same being. Provided that this age appropriate symbiosis with mother is healthy enough, the infant begins to develop a sense of secure self identity and safety in the world.
In infancy through toddlerhood, one’s sense of self begins to take shape through three main mechanisms: Maternal 1/ positive mirroring of the infant, 2/ being a ‘shoulder’ for the child to lean on for support and during times of distress, and 3/ idealizing the mother as someone to respect and look up to. In addition to nurturing and responding optimally to infant calls for support and connection, these three key roles, if performed optimally, provide an emotionally safe environment in which the developing child’s nascent self begins to emerge.
The developmental task of the first year of life is to build a safe trust bond with ‘mother, based on the provision of consistent nurture and affection.
Children between age 1 and 3 go through a normal narcissistic stage of development, where they see themselves, and wish to be treated, like they are the center of their universe. During this self centered development stage, the child’s goal is to experiment with a combination of independent tasks, like exploring, combined with dependence on mother for nurturance. Parents who support their child’s healthy temporary narcissism enable the child to feel validated as they start to develop personal agency – a sense of control and self-determination over one’s thoughts, feelings, and actions. This prepares toddlers to begin to move into a more prosocial stage at around age 3 or 4. Not surprisingly, this age corresponds to many childrens’ first introduction to social spaces like preschool.
Developmental goals at age 3 / 4 include taking some initiative in activities, while beginning to learn about limits within the self and boundaries with others. Father becomes a much more integral part of the child’s life at about age 3, when play based learning becomes the focus for practicing how to live. 1
A young child who experiences neglect, abuse or inconsistent maternal responses between ages 0 and 3 feels increasingly unsafe and fearful. This is particularly the case in narcissistic or antisocial families where one or both parents are unable or unwilling to meet the child’s developmental and attachment needs due to severe empathy deficits and an extreme self centered orientation.
Narcissistic Personality Disordered and AntiSocial Personality Disordered parents are not attuned to the feelings, but rather the reactions of their children, and only as they relate to themselves. For example, a toddler’s tantrum would be viewed as a personal ‘insult’ to the disordered parent. The disordered parent would then be inclined to respond punitively, rather than helping the distressed child to calm down.
Narcissistic parents also take offense if their children are not focused on them, and are not invested in what their children want, as they do not see the child as an individual with their own needs, including the right to parental nurturance. As narcissistic and antisocial people tend to be retribution oriented if ‘slighted’, they may mete out punishment if the child is viewed as unsupportive or an obstruction to their bottomless hunger for narcissistic supply, or goal fulfillment, in the case of antisocial parents.
Children who are viewed as ‘troublemakers’ for having their own unique personalities and needs may become the family scapegoat. The family scapegoat is further villainized and blamed for parental and family dysfunction. The serious risk to the scapegoat child is over-identification with the false frame, or projection, which leads to the development of an false shame based identity. Either through coercion and / or an attempt to win the parental favor they desperately need, scapegoat kids may engage in role reversal, where they prioritize caretaking the parent and attending to the parent’s needs at the expense of their own, in spite of the lack of parental acceptance. Or they may act out and become a rebel, deepening the family myth that they are the problem.
Narcissistic parents tend to want their child to occupy two main roles: a public relations department charged with making them look good, and a free psychotherapist. Approval – or disapproval – of the child is conditional on their performance in either of these inappropriate roles.
Children reared in an Antisocial family system may be ignored or abused emotionally, and valued only to the extent that they can facilitate the AntiSocial Personality Disordered parent’s instrumental goals. These parents are irresponsible, reckless and may jeopardize other family members through their rule defying behavior. AntiSocial Personality Disordered parents have manipulative, self-serving relationships with their children, and may recruit them into morally or legally questionable activities such as crime or exploitation of others. As with Narcissistic Personality Disordered parents, the AntiSocial Personality Disordered have a punitive attitude towards children who challenge their authority.
Children of both Narcissistic Personality Disordered and AntiSocial Personality Disordered family systems tend to struggle with two central problems: low self worth and trusting others. Very young children in these predicaments first ‘look’ for ways to get mother’s attention / attend to mother and, in this sense, learn to put mother ahead of her or his developmental needs. As these bids for consistent, healthy nurturance are doomed to failure, very young children are thwarted from forming secure attachment bonds with mother and, later, father and other family members.
Children brought up an environment characterized by negative or intermittent reinforcement, where the parent switches between warm and cold behavior, feel insecure, anxious, unloved and come to question their personal value as human beings.2 This leads to the development of insecure attachment adaptations to others including Anxious/Dependent, Fearful or Dismissive Avoidant .
Anxious Dependent Ambivalent attachment style is distinguished by separation anxiety, abandonment fears, and reassurance seeking behaviors. It is usually attributable to inconsistent caregiving and / or abuse or trauma. Avoidant attachment comes in two variations: Fearful Disorganized, where a child longs for love, but receives confusing mixed signals from parents, thereby learning to distance from others for fear of being hurt or not getting what they need; and Dismissive Avoidant, where others are kept at arm’s length by being viewed with contempt.
Dismissive Avoidant attachment may be a symptom of narcissistic traits, and reflects the orientation of all Narcissistic Personality Disordered and AntiSocial Personality Disordered parents. Fearful Disorganized attachment may be particularly emotionally chaotic, and is characterized by alternating clinging and distancing behaviors, especially in close relationships. This attachment style usually reflects underlying and unresolved trauma, leading to fear of intimacy and fear of abandonment. Insecure attachment styles become part of the child’s core personality structure that they carry forward into adulthood.
Insecure attachment compromises a young child’s ability to complete early childhood developmental stages. This may interfere with the completion of later developmental stages, such as leaving home in early adulthood, due to detrimental effects on personality traits and self identity.
Insecure Attachment and Developmental Challenges Across the Lifespan
Insecure Attachment can lead to impairment of emotional self regulation; low self worth/false shame; complex trauma; chronic anxiety; depression; difficulty forming secure relationships, fear of abandonment or commitment; mistrust and/ or disdain for others.
Development Arrests may contribute to a lack of self confidence and independence; cause false guilt and shame; chronic feelings of inadequacy/inferiority, and identity confusion. Due to an undermined ability to form close relationships, these adult kids of narcissistic or antisocial parents may struggle to create a stable family of their own, and can experience social isolation. They may struggle with vocational underachievement or mismatches.
Existential Loneliness – The Grief of the Adult Family Scapegoat
Existential Loneliness is the feeling that one is disconnected and isolated from others and the world. At its heart, is a feeling of alienation, and may include feelings of being empty and abandoned. This deep loneliness is often the lot of the family scapegoat, and reflects the internalization of an ‘outsider’ identity. 3
Embedded within the existential loneliness of the scapegoat is the social loneliness of the absence of family connections, and the emotional loneliness that comes from the lack of healthy bonds with parents and family members. The existential loneliness of the scapegoat also embodies fear of being forgotten, through loss of family ties.
As the existential loneliness of the family scapegoat usually starts in infancy, before explicit conscious memory making occurs, the child stores this loneliness, and the fear it engenders, in the unconscious mind. A ‘Wounded Child’ identity then replaces a healthy child identity. The Wounded Child, is a rejected child, who in turn rejects themself, leading to false shame and feelings of defectiveness. The Wounded Child carries false hope, that if they can make themself into a good child, then they’ll be loved.
This fantasy narrative serves two functions: 1. It is a survival mechanism against the fear of death from parental abandonment (annihilation anxiety), and, 2. It carries the hope for ‘rehabilitation’ of the ‘bad’ child to that of the good child, thereby overcoming an unlovable and, therefore, hopeless, shame based identity.
Unfortunately this strategy is futile, as Narcissistic Personality Disordered and AntiSocial Personality Disordered parents cannot love, due to severe empathy deficits, and have no interest in redeeming their scapegoated child’s reputation. These disordered parents need the scapegoat child to carry their sins so they can maintain their grandiose and entitled identity and family status. These parents employ projection – accusing their child of their own behavior and deficient character traits – as a self protective mechanism. Wounded children experience the terror of annihilation anxiety each time their parents abuse or neglect them, eventually causing chronic despair that can cause complex trauma. Complex trauma is relationship trauma that, in children, results from being trapped with unloving, frightening care givers, with no means of redress or escape.
For healthy children, feeling loved equals being seen, valued, prioritized and protected. Children of Narcissistic Personality Disordered and AntiSocial Personality Disordered parents neither feel safe nor loved, and dwell in a state of chronic anxiety as they have to depend on adults they cannot rely on.
As children are not equipped to raise themselves, they suffer from high stress and traumatic grief. Traumatized children are not able to stand up to the abuse or leave, at least until their latter teen years. They cannot process complex grief and high anxiety, and tend to ‘retreat’ psychologically into the Freeze threat response. Freeze is a survival strategy characterized by emotional numbness, dissociation and, sometimes, comforting fantasizing. The freeze response is often the only escape route available to the abused child who can neither effectively stand up to (fight) the abusive family/parent nor leave (flight). So these trapped children tend to dwell in the anesthetic cocoon of the freeze response, unaware of, yet being controlled by constant annihilation anxiety and false shame. This frozen / buried trauma runs behind the scenes, and is reactivated when Triggered 4. As the child tends to get stuck in freeze mode, it is difficult for them to access their emotions, so they are often unaware of their own needs, boundaries or motivation. These problems can persist throughout adulthood.
If the traumatized child is to survive into adulthood with their mental health relatively intact, then they must eventually undertake the profoundly difficult task of overcoming traumatic stress, learning to love themselves, and to find safe others. Many abused kids find supportive friends or an adult along the way who can be protective, but recovery from complex trauma does not usually begin until abuse is acknowledged, and survivors have left the abusive atmosphere they were raised in.
Many adults who were traumatically abused as kids will need help from a skilled therapist or coach who has extensive experience with Complex Trauma / PTSD, to help them effectively process relationship trauma and grief.
Healing from Traumatic Loneliness from the Inside Out
Overcoming the attachment wounds, and ensuing developmental arrests that cause existential loneliness is, in essence, a reparenting process, as these injuries result in childhood disorders that can last a lifetime. Building the scaffolding of a securely attached self requires both the inner work of self development and the outer work of healthy relationship building. False shame is the opponent that needs to be defeated in order to reclaim a sense of belonging, to oneself and to the world.
Inner Work – Self Development and Personal Growth
Wounded Child Reparenting
Abused children who become injured adults acquire what I call ‘scorched earth lessons’. In truth, they’ve learned everything not to do. Wounded Child recovery work involves a do over, with the adult self standing in as the ‘good’ parent. This repeat performance will never replace a time sensitive healthy parent-child relationship. But reparenting can be ‘good enough’ to reclaim a solid sense of self worth, identity and belonging.
Transcending the Emotional Deprivation Schema
Schemas are core beliefs, or models, that define who we are, and impact our behavior towards ourselves and others. Many childhood emotional deprivation survivors are controlled by the belief that they will never be loved or understood, and are destined to be alone and lonely. This belief can lead to a void of emptiness, which mirrors unfulfilled childhood needs. The emotionally deprived child’s needs for protection, empathy and nurturance were ignored, leading to feeling invisible, insignificant and disconnected emotionally from self and others.
Emotionally deprived people may have difficulty recognizing and expressing feelings, and a tendency to feel numb or to intellectualize their emotions. They may choose emotionally unavailable partners, who reinforce the schema.
Emotional deprivation can lead to development of other negative schemas, especially Defectiveness and Shame, Approval Seeking and Self Sacrifice. 5 These schemas fuel shame based people pleasing and codependent behavior, and are based on the false narrative forged in early childhood, that you have to perform a service in order to be cared for.
Moving past the emotional deprivation schema requires 1/ Seeing it for what it is, a reflection of the past that does not have to define your present. 2/ Accessing feelings of anger towards emotionally negligent or abusive caregivers 3/ Developing compassion for the emotionally deprived child you were, and adopting a loving attitude towards yourself. 4/ Being open to the possibility that other people can be there for you. This is contingent on… 5/ Choosing emotionally available people as friends and intimate partners. 6/ Expressing reasonable needs to reliable people. 7/ Having realistic – not perfectionistic – expectations of others.
Developing Self Acceptance
Cultivating an attitude of self acceptance is central to the healing process. Self acceptance is gained through self empathy, encouragement and perspective. It may involve forgiving oneself for past mistakes that were made without prior knowledge of how to do better.
For childhood abuse survivors, self acceptance requires reclaiming the ‘lost’ self. The lost self is who you are meant to be, who you were before narcissistic or antisocial abuse hijacked your true self, replacing you with a false scapegoat identity. The scapegoat identity is a caricature of a human being, based on demonizing stereotypes. Reclaiming the narrative of who you truly are is a rehumanizing process, based in reality. You will need to hone your critical thinking skills and tap into your rational mind in order to cultivate your authentic self.
Transcending the Scapegoat Identity
Purging the scapegoat identity is the foundation of becoming the authentic human being you actually are, under the layers of cult-like programming of Narcissistic Personality Disordered and AntiSocial Personality Disordered families. In this sense, becoming your authentic self requires deprogramming, and can take many months to begin to break free from.
False shame can be overcome by challenging and shutting down the Inner Scapegoat – the internalized messages of the critical, abusive parent / family system. This is dependent on rewriting the false narrative of conscious and unconscious indoctrination, so it aligns with truth. Using an evidence based approach – akin to cognitive therapy strategies – is essential to help your beliefs come into alignment with reality.
For example, if you have been conditioned to believe you are ‘bad, worthless, a loser’ etc, you now require hard proofs of these accusations that you’ve bought into. Write down the proofs of these false beliefs, then write down who you actually know yourself to be. For example, ‘kind, empathic, patient, giving, responsible, moral’, etc. You will likely discover that the evidence for shame is lacking, and in some cases, significantly absent.
Remind yourself, these are lies you’ve been taught to believe by mentally disordered parents and family members who lack empathy, falsely villainize you and, ultimately, accuse you of their own bad behavior.
Soothing Your Hyperactive Nervous System aka the Limbic Brain
Anxiety Management
Childhood relationship trauma survivors tend to be anxious and on guard, aka hypervigilant. This is due to over arousal of the Limbic brain system – the heart of the nervous system. The Limbic system regulates emotion, behavior, motivation and memory. It contains many interactive structures that are highly sensitive to threats, and are the processing centers for anger and fear reactions, which get stored as memories in the Hippocampus.
Children who experience repeated threats from caregivers tend to develop overactive Limbic systems, and a lower threshold of arousal, known as the Kindling Effect. What this means is that fear and anger can be triggered more quickly and frequently by situations that may not be threatening. For example, feeling fearful leaving the house during daylight hours; or being ‘triggered’ by others, when no offense was intended.
Overcoming chronic anxiety and hypervigilance involves learning to reduce Threat Responses ( Freeze, Fight, Flight), especially in non threatening situations. This can be achieved through grounding, slow breathing and reality based reassurance during threat episodes, as well as treatment approaches such as Relaxation training, Hypnosis and EMDR. 6
Emotional Self Regulation Overcoming the Numbing – Flooding Binary
Emotional self regulation is the ability to control your emotional reactions to life experiences, especially stress, in ways that are beneficial to the self, and are deemed socially appropriate.
Many childhood abuse survivors experience feeling numb and / or overwhelmed emotionally. Avoidance of emotions can either be a learned response, fear based or the effect of a Freeze threat response. The good news is that emotional self management can be strengthened. Curtailing avoiding feelings involves learning to access and tolerate emotions, especially painful and frightening emotions, that you may have been stigmatized, punished or dismissed for having.
Gaining access to and staying with emotions is easier when you are aware of the benefits. Our emotions are both guides and portals to deeper needs, help us set appropriate boundaries, and the source of all motivation.
Dealing with difficult emotions, such as intense loneliness can be particularly challenging. When loneliness feels strong, ask yourself ‘what am I lonely for’? It will likely be something like support, companionship, validation, self acceptance, feeling you matter and belong. Ask yourself ‘how old do I feel’. If you feel young, you are likely reexperiencing the void of childhood emotional deprivation, a regressed Wounded Child state. Recognize intense loneliness for what it is: the unfulfilled needs and longings of early childhood, such as nurture, attention, validation, support, safety and connection.
Next identify how you can meet those needs in a healthy manner, either through self soothing the wounded child, or the companionship of supportive adults. As you reparent yourself in a healthy way, you will begin to soften the loneliness wound. Your role as the ‘good’ parent can never replace biological parenting 100%, but it can be enough.
Grieving the Lost Self and Family Relationships
For family scapegoats, loneliness and grief are interconnected. The loneliness and grief of Narcissistic Personality Disordered and AntiSocial Personality Disordered childhood abuse survivors tend to center on four main areas: Family estrangement, Loss of family you never got and will never have, Lost self potential, and Social stigma. Facing these core losses constructively requires gradual acceptance of the loss, healthy adjustment to life after loss, and self discovery, especially of core values and beliefs that fortify a sense of personal worth and purpose.
Recovery from traumatic grief requires going back and forth between voluntarily facing, or voluntarily putting away, memories of loss and processing painful beliefs and emotions, including sadness, anger, fear and hurt. Learning to titrate healthy grieving reinforces emotional self regulation. Over time, healthy grieving releases the survivor from traumatic anxiety, and protects against forming new trauma bonds.
The ultimate goal of traumatic grief recovery is to live fully in the present, free from deep loneliness, neither avoiding nor drowning in past losses, and only revisiting old grief when it serves your healing.
Outer Work – Finding Your Place with Others
Healthy Friendships and Intimate Relationships
The capacity to develop healthy friendships and intimate relationships will be strengthened by the inner work of healing the wounded self, reclaiming your true narrative, and overcoming insecure attachment and completing interrupted developmental tasks. This requires daily dedication to personal growth and healing
As false shame recedes, self acceptance and worth gain footing, setting your personal bar higher for positive relationships. A more solid sense of self worth and stronger boundaries will guide you towards people with whom you will share values, positive character traits and goals.
As you feel stronger emotionally, it becomes easier to break old dysfunctional habits like trauma bonding, neediness and codependency. It’s important to take equal time getting to know both your true self, and vetting others. Make sure that the people you invite into your life are consistently respectful, honest and caring. Consistently investing in yourself in a principled and healthy way, and looking for this compatibility in others will create the foundation for the life you want and deserve.
Need help healing from complex trauma or grief caused by scapegoat, narcissistic, or antisocial personality disorder abuse?
Check out my Family Scapegoat Counseling & Coaching page
Counseling and Therapeutic Coaching is available by encrypted Video around the world.
Glynis Sherwood – MEd Counseling Psychology, specializes in recovery from Family Scapegoating, Narcissistic Abuse, False Shame and Guilt, Traumatic Stress, Estrangement Grief and Relationship Challenges.
Photo by Warren Wong
REFERENCES
Social, Emotional, and Existential Loneliness: A Test of the Multidimensional Concept , Theo G van Tilburg, PhD. The Gerontologist, Volume 61, Issue 7, October 2021, Pages e335–e344, Published: 30 June 2020 https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnaa082
FOOTNOTES
1 Psychologist Erik Erikson (1902-1994) studied the impact of interpersonal interactions on the psychosocial development of human beings, and concluded that developmental stages occur in eight sequential stages across the lifetime of an individual.
2 Intermittent Reinforcement – is an abusive interpersonal dynamic, often employed by narcissistic parents. Emotionally, the parent runs hot and cold. One day – or moment – they are caring and accessible, the next they are cold or hostile, creating an insecure and frightening world for their child. The narcissistic parent sees their abusive behavior as ‘corrective’, but the child ends up feeling shame that can last a lifetime.
3 Existential loneliness: An attempt at an analysis of the concept and the phenomenon. Bolmsjö, I., Tengland, P. A., & Rämgård, M. (2019). Nursing Ethics, 26(5), 1310–1325.
4 A Trigger is a sensory reminder or interpersonal dynamic – that causes a conscious or unconscious memory to resurface, causing emotional distress or dysregulation.
5 18 Schemas That Change the Way You See the World, Monica Johnson, Psy.D, Psychology Today
6 EMDR (Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) is a mental health therapy that uses eye movements or other forms of bilateral stimulation to help process and release traumatic memories.