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In many families, relationships are not only shaped by love and care, but also by patterns that quietly organize how everyone behaves and how each person is treated.

Sometimes these patterns form around a parent whose needs, emotions, and image become the center of the family’s universe. When this happens, the entire family can begin to revolve around protecting that person’s feelings, reputation, or authority.

I am not a psychologist, and I cannot diagnose anyone. But looking back on my childhood and the years that followed, I gradually began to recognize dynamics that are often described in psychology as narcissistic family structures.

In these families, roles tend to develop among the children. One child may become the favourite: the one who reflects well on the parent. Another may learn to stay quiet and invisible. And sometimes, one child becomes the one who carries the blame.

In my family, my mother’s personality and emotional needs shaped much of the atmosphere in our home. My father, in many ways, seemed to align himself with her, often accepting her version of events without question. When conflicts happened, the outcome was almost always the same: I was the one who was punished.

Over time, these repeated moments created a powerful message within the family: that I was the problem.

This section of the blog is my attempt to understand those patterns, not to assign labels with certainty, but to describe the roles that gradually formed and how they affected each of us.

1. The Narcissistic Center

My mean mother
The emotional center of the system. The family organizes around her feelings, needs, and reactions. One word is enough to describe her: “me”.

If we were to add another word, “money” would be it.

2. The Enabler

My father
The person who protects or supports the narcissistic parent, often by:

• believing their version of events
• punishing the scapegoat
• maintaining the family narrative

And in many ways he was also a narcissist himself, maybe a more “covert” one, someone who still had the core traits of narcissism, like entitlement, lack of empathy, and need for validation.

3. The Golden Child

My older sister – S1
The child who reflects well on the parent and is rewarded for aligning with them. Golden children often:

• support the parent’s narrative
• distance themselves from the scapegoat
• gain approval by loyalty

She aligned with the parents to stay protected. Children instinctively align with power. So instead of empathizing with me, she learned to mirror the parent’s stance, even if that meant extra abuse toward me.

Lack of empathy gets trained into this role.

If a child is rewarded for being “the good one,” they may:

• disconnect from their own empathy
• see the scapegoat as deserving it
• or at least not question it
• forbid the scapegoat from ever speaking up

She only shows up when there’s something in it for her. Otherwise, she keeps her distance.

Because questioning it = risk losing their position.

4. The Protected/Late Child

My younger sister – S3
Characteristics often include:

• arriving later when the parents are older or more stable
• being shielded from earlier chaos
• not witnessing much of what happened
• defending the parents because their experience was different

It’s very common for the youngest child in these systems to go the extra mile to prove the scapegoat’s narrative wrong, not necessarily because they’re malicious, but because their reality was genuinely different.

And when someone’s identity is tied to believing the family was normal, hearing another sibling say otherwise can feel threatening to them, to the point that she eventually aligned herself with them and turned against me,
even though I had done absolutely nothing to her but care for her like a little mother, at least from my own memory.

Because the scapegoating needs to be maintained … If the scapegoat is no longer “the problem,” then the family has to face the real issues.

If S3 accepts S2’s version, it shakes everything:

• “My parents weren’t safe”
• “My childhood wasn’t what I thought”
• “Someone I love hurt someone I love”

And I guess that’s a huge psychological threat. So it’s easier to protect the belief: “We were a normal family”, than it is to empathize with the scapegoat.

5. The Scapegoat

Me – S2
Probably one of the most classical narcissistic family roles. The child who carries blame for the family’s tension and problems, for basically everything that’s wrong in the family, whether it’s actually their fault or not.

They become the emotional dumping ground.

The scapegoat is often placed at the bottom of the structure, because all tension and blame flows downward.

What that looks like in real life

• If a parent is angry, stressed, or unhappy, it somehow becomes scapegoat’s fault
• They get labeled things like: “difficult,” “too sensitive,” “the problem”
• If they ever try to speak up, to make others understand what really happened, they get told they’re “playing victims”
• Other siblings may:
  • distance themselves
  • or even side with the parents to avoid becoming the target while they’re young, and then later on just because they weren’t the family scapegoat, and would prefer going on about life thinking we’re the perfect family.

The scapegoat is very often the person who later:

• questions the system
• seeks therapy or understanding
• notices what others ignore
• writes or speaks about what happened
• is able to see reality clearly; sees through denial
• tries to break the family narrative
• has deep empathy: doesn’t want others to go through what they did

Why families do this (maybe without always realizing it)

Because it protects the system.

Instead of facing:

• the parents’ issues
• the dysfunction
• the emotional immaturity

The family unconsciously says: “No, we’re not the problem.” Because it’s easier…

So everything gets projected onto one person.