Everyone is automatically assigned a role by a narcissist. If you don’t participate, the narcissist will employ several cast members to smear, isolate, and abuse you in one way or another. Often, this abuse is covert and hidden from the other cast members.
Parents, in-laws, grandparents, children, distant relatives, friends, business partners, cousins, spouses, and more are asked to participate. A narcissist’s children have roles similar to supporting actors, extras, and stunt-double. Their job is to help the narcissist look and feel specific ways (powerful, perfect, worthy, etc.).
Everyone in a narcissistic family system is a victim of abuse. A relationship with a narcissist is destructive for everyone involved. Sadly, some of their children may become narcissists themselves. At the same time, their children who develop high levels of empathy might become unwitting enablers of many narcissists for years to come.
A victim trying to leave the toxicity and heal from narcissistic abuse quickly figures out the tentacles of narcissism reach far and wide.
Healing and getting free from a narcissistic family system is possible, but it requires highly specialized support.
If garden-variety interventions for families in crisis are used, they almost always backfire. The abuse will likely escalate, and the impacts will cause unimaginable pain and suffering.