The Hero Child - Roles in Narcissistic / Dysfunctional Families
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- Опубліковано 16 вер 2024
- The Hero Child is often the child who grows up in a dysfunctional family and learns to adapt to the neglect, the abuse, the lie that the family are all living. families where there are narcissistic parents, metal illness or addiction. They often become what they believe the family needs them to be, sacrificing their childhood to bring a sense of honour and normality. In this video Darren Magee outlines some of the common characteristics of the Hero Child and how they may differ in different kinds of family.
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#herochild #narcissisticfamily #narcissism
The content I produce is requested by you the viewers. Please feel free to suggest any mental health related topics you might like me to cover in future videos.
Have you considered doing a vid on Functional Disorders? (Somatoform, Conversion etc?)
@@KingdomPlans thank you for your suggestion
Could you produce a video on the fear and dread adult children of narcissists feel when they escape narcissistic environment and try to talk (or publish) regarding what they went through. I am trying to write and keep dreading the anger my narc family will express when they read what I have to say (even if I plan to write without naming them). They have an image (of the perfect family) to maintain, and I dread their anger once I expose it for what it actually is. BTW, I am not financially or socially dependent on them so I am not sure why I am bothered so much by how they will react.
That’s a good topic thank you for your suggestion
You might want to explore my family and it's cast of narcissistic characters.. a picture perfect dysfunctional representation of the ideal family projecting success. My eldest sister is somewhere between Betty Broadrick and Martha Stewart and DOMINANT! You'd probably need a fleet of backhoes to unearth all the bs. Thank god I'm normal. 😉
This dude turned on his camera, described my childhood, then left.
My thoughts exactly
Same
ive never ever felt more seen in my life
I definitely am the hero child. I am the oldest. Felt like the whole world was on my shoulders growing up. I was always called the, "repsonsible one. " It was my job to take good care of my siblings. Unfortunately, anxiety is still part of my life, especially in social situations. Thanks for your videos. 😊
I hear you loud and clear. Also suffer from really debilitating panic attacks. My love and understanding to you ❤️
Same here. I actually now have pain in neck and shoulders which I believe might be due to being spiritually leaned on for so many years.
I’ve never been able to put into words the way you just did for me. Wow! My mind is blown. I’m the oldest. And after years of therapy and self discovery. I realized I was almost operating on auto pilot. No one had to really tell me what to do or how to act. I just picked it up. I learned quickly to go along with the picture that was painted for outsiders. I kept everyone in line. Took on the parenting role for everyone including my parents at times. It’s liberating to know that I wasn’t going crazy. The things I noticed and the things Ive felt are real.
im 21 and been in therapy for a year. ive never ever ever had someone put in words what ive experienced. i maintained the lie, in my defensive, very well. thank you for your comment.
He said "you are my hero", and I knew there was my problem.
Thank you very much for this video Darren. I’m the oldest child and this video very much describes my role in the family. Unfortunately the healthier I’ve gotten after therapy and the support of the Al-Anon program the more my family has come to Scapegoat me. Siding with my addict ex husband was the first awareness I had. I am now working on becoming an escaped goat and mourning the loss of my Narc Dad and siblings. I understand now that they want to remain in denial and dysfunction. I will no longer be the punching bag of this family.
Escaped goat. Thanks for this comment as it's helpful for me and my situation. Peace unto you
I’m right there with you. This video really helped me make sense of my life right now.
@@hananiyahdejudah5643 I can’t take credit for this phrase but happy to share it!
@@dnk4559 😀🙌🤩
Omg! I can relate to everything you said.😞
This was my life until age 50. Now, finally I have started living for me.
Thanks for making everything so clear. I never understood why I ended up in 2 marriages with narcissists, why I was unable to recognize it until later. It was the one thing puzzling me.
Now I live on my own, living my best life. You are right about the resentment towards family, but I suppose it will get easier later on. I heal by surrounding myself with genuine friends, doing the things I love, and distance myself from my relatives. My life is getting better every day, and your videos are making my journey a lot easier.
Thanks for helping me put the last pieces together in understanding why things happened to me. Your channel makes a difference.
@J this channel is so helpful isn't it? I've gained so much clarity here that I never got from channels that do much longer videos. I'm so sorry for what you've been through. I'm 65. Still trying to be the Me that I was born to be and break loose from the childhood programming. After all these years. It's a lot of damage to overcome but we can do this ❤️
You have eloquently described my role in my family. It's helpful to hear it elucidated so clearly. This was my first visit to your site - referred here by a former client and friend who knows me well. Thank you for the service you're offering others. Namaste
I see They "user"-ed you too. Best of luck, fellow thought criminal!
My brother is the Golden Child, or Baby Jesus as my sister and I refer to him. I don't know what goes on in his mind, because according to him, he had a wonderful childhood, while my sister and I seem to have been raised by entirely different parents. I don't think he has the capability of self-reflection. He is the oldest, and my parents should have stopped having children at him. It's maddening he won't acknowledge what our life was like, but I don't have a relationship with him either. Your videos are bringing a lot of things to light for me. Thank you.
My husband is the hero child I think. But he is only like this with his mother. He’s not the typical type that wants to fix things for everyone else- only the ones he will look like a hero to. Won’t for me even though I give him everything. Our marriage takes the hit. He won’t ever try to fix our marriage or find solutions. He won’t ever say his mother is wrong. Attacks me instead, stonewalls for weeks and creates so much distance between us. Sleeps in the spare room and we live separate lives under the same roof- the same roof we live in with his mother. I feel so alone and abandoned. I’m thinking of leaving him. So worn out and alone. He wants to always be the hero to his family but never steps and does his part for our marriage. I believe he is creating distance so I have no choice but to end our marriage and he can look like the hero.
Not sure that's a hero child.. sounds more like a malignant sadistic narcissist..
Many malignant male narcissist's have an unusual/unhealthy bonding with their mother and it ends up causing the husband to become a misogynist..it's a love hate relationship with his mother.. so he actually ends up hating women..
Btw.. the mother knows this is happening to you..you are her competition
at least that's what I've been learning.
@@mimimckenna7286 Whatever the label, it was highly toxic and heart breaking. We are now divorced. HE (yes, not me) filed last year after putting all of that distance in and telling me to leave after an argument. So I did. Didn’t want to be open to anymore abuse from him or his mother (and, yes, she knows this was happening as she did see me as competition to his emotional love).
I am happier now albeit scared at 35 and in this horrendous dating pool game! Still, although I didn’t want to divorce, there was no solution as he didn’t want to move out and I couldn’t move back into that hell hole. I am glad now that it is over and he divorced me as I held on out of fear rather than feeling loved. A lonely marriage is a lot worse than being alone!
Tell him he's your hero. Search him change
*watch him change
It's so strange. All 3 of us siblings could be deemed as "hero" children.....although in different ways. My teen years in that house were the most difficult of my life.
This describes my older sister, to a great extent - why I added that last statement I'll explain later on. My narc mother paraded my sister around like a dodo in a cage to anyone who would listen and/or pay attention (whether it be at my parish church or at the shops) when my sister decided to join a particularly well known religious order of nuns. There was a lot of reflected glory there and, as I was a teenager at the time, my own needs and my own identity were being neglected; I was constantly being compared to her and I was even asked if I had a vocation to the religious life myself. All the while, though, I was happy for her that she had the chance to escape the medically dysfunctional family we were in.
My sister suffered a nervous breakdown just a year short of her first vows and had to leave. My narc mother lied about the reasons for her departure and when my sister was told about this, she was very angry and went to great pains to set the record straight with those who told her what my mother said.
A few years down the line, she became a mature student at two Universities that held much prestige - yet again, my mother basked in the reflected glory once more and disregarded the fact that my sister struggled to cope, had operations to remove tumours from her tongue (and didn't tell any of us until she eventually told me because she trusted me to keep it a secret) and was on the verge of being kicked off her course! She eventually graduated with a low-score degree.
Instead of staying at one of the university cities where she studied to make good use of her degree, she came back home. She became a carer for my sick dad, elderly grandmother and now my mum.
In more recent times, I would ask her how she felt about being a caged dodo (I actually used the expression monkey in a cage) and she went on to say she hated every minute of it! When she was at the nuns in Rome, our mother would telephone her to not ask how she was but to berate her for leaving home, tell her that dad was sick and kicking off (he was mentally ill - no surprises there) etc. etc. etc. and all kinds of other manipulative lies and falsehoods. My sister told me that the reason for her breakdown was because the religious sisters were very kind and good to her - and she couldn't cope with it!
Also, it was one of my parish priests who saw through my mother's narcissistic shenanigans like lead crystal and supported us as best he could.
To sum up, if there is an opportunity for the narc to bask in reflected glory on their children's career choice or education etc. they'll grab it with talons and claws but only if there is something in it for them - particularly prestige! It doesn't matter if the child is achieving through their own sweat and efforts - that is, without their overbearing, narc parent.
PS: My achievements weren't worth anything to my narc mother ... thank God!
Wow, I hear and believe all of that. My mother took the credit for every one of my achievements, I bet yours did of your sister's as well. My love and understanding to you ❤️
Check, check, check……that’s me. It took me until I was 40 until I finally refused to participate in my mother’s narcissistic delusions and did not want her poison to spread to my own family. Once she knew I wouldn’t lie for her, she went to great lengths to discredit me to anyone who would listen, even my children and husband. Thankfully my husband and children saw her tactics for what they were end manipulation aimed at getting people on her “team“. It has been 10 years since I stood up to and walked away from my mother and I have come to realize that she will never want to make peace with me because she can no longer control me. She knows I will not propagate her lies so I am dangerous to her. Once you see the dysfunction for what it is, the behavior of people like my mother becomes so predictable. Good riddance
That's fantastic that you left your problem behind, and that your family of choice can see the truth. I'm wishing that I'd left my mother behind long ago, but she's 86 now and we live really close by. I guess I'm going to see it through now, but some days take a lot of strength and teeth grinding.
This is exactly my life. I left home at 50 and it's taken me 3 more years to learn how to help myself, despite the world believing that I was strong and reliable. It was my secret shame that my own mother rejected me and i can still do nothing to please her. Iwas her surrogate husband after my father died though i don't think she really cared for him either. Thank you for this video.
I'm sure you're right that your mother didn't care for your father. They only ever care about themselves after all. I'm so happy to hear that you have gained your freedom. Enjoy it after it's been so hard earned!
Yeah. This is me and still doing it at the age of 60. Narcissist father died two years ago. Heard all of the enabling comments from my mother (Now 95). Dealing with my own cancer and loads of other things, it's a relief to hear this video. Ma keeps telling me that 'We never had fights' and that's because she caved at every opportunity. He was a violent bully.
This is so me.... I have alot of work to do but praise be the Lord Jesus who loves me and shows me mercy and I have faith I will leave the dysfunction of my family behind.
I am the youngest of four siblings, but this was me. However, I'm also the only girl and there was huge difference in how we were raised.
Spot on. I'm the eldest of 5 with a narcissist mother that was an addict and until recently I was in a relationship with a narcissist that was also an addict.
I'm a rescuer and a people pleaser.
I'm ready to heal now if I can work out where to start.
Thankyou for your insight 🙏
I have found a lot of healing working the Al-Anon program along with some therapy. I’m so thankful to have a new “healthy family” of recovery friends. And watching videos like these have been invaluable! Blessings to you on your healing journey!
Thankyou for reminding me of Al Anon 🙏 I dipped my toe in a few years ago, followed pages on social media (which I was also isolated from eventually) but I was so focused on the narc that I didn't have the energy for myself.
Today is the day I pursue MY recovery for life 🙏
Thrive and strive ❤
@@dnk4559 videos like these are helping me to be stronger every day
@@Tammy-hm9zr I’m happy for you that you are now focusing on your recovery! It’s hard work but also so much easier in the long run. I’ve had an Al-Anon sponsor for over ten years. My sponsor along with therapy and showing up at meetings regularly has been so helpful. It was hard at first to keep at it but after 13 years I am so thankful I did not give up. I can’t imagine where I would be today if I hadn’t chosen a different path than my family of origin and my ex husband.
@@dnk4559 wow I love that you have found your path with the Al Anon fellowship and therapy (I don't know where to go for that)
I've seen how much good can come from going to meetings as my ex went to CA and it helped but like you say, you have to stick at it.
I rang yesterday but couldn't get through. I will keep trying 🙏 it's time to do the work
Hero child here. Middle child; older sibling became a drug addict. You ger sibling mentally unstable. Lots of suicide in extended family. WAY too much dumped on me emotionally when I was young because of it. And-when I couldn’t cope with it, I escaped into books. Now I escape into my phone. I think many people do the same-running away from problems that are too big or unsolvable.
I'd never heard this term before but I certainly recognised the description. I totally parented my mother, and was a victim of emotional incest at her hands as well. I did have some moments of childhood freedom, but only when my father was around. Even though he has always been an empty shell with no emotions, he was a reasonable father now I see the truth of it. I grew up believing my mother that he was the root of all evil. He wasn't. It was her! (I've seen my father smile twice in my entire life.)
I did this with my kids being the hero self-sacrificing
Yeah, I tell younger mothers not to be a “martyr mom”. Thankfully I started getting therapy while the kids were still under my roof but it’s so hard to break those patterns of behavior.
OMG I have been. Working to change things up
I really appreciate what you do, sir. You soothe me very often.
Emotionally "absent" would have been AWESOME compared to "emotionally abusive" though I know this is not a misery contest and neglect comes with its own "features" that are SUPER FUN to cope with for your whole life if and when you escape.
I still prefer SCAPEGOAT for many reasons.
To absolutely any other Children Of The Other Secret that see this: Be well, have fun and never let them stop you
Your descriptions reach my heart every time. Cathartic. Thank you.
So true. Introduced to new term Emotional Incest recently and believe my older sibling went thru this with narcissist mother treating them as they would a partner and unloading on them emotionally, surrogate parent when my mother out so much
Great Vid.
Thank You!
Great video Darren. Is it possible that a narcissist parent will alocate different roles to the same child over time as the family dynamic changes? I feel like I was the golden child first then became the scapegoat / hero child when my sister (the long awaited daughter) was born.
Good question and yes
I know a woman who takes over every conversation and makes tall stories up and embellishes and exaggerates. She can never just say something normal happened. Her parents had younger children when she was about 8 or 9.
@@SusanaXpeace2u Interesting Susan, I have often seen the same kind of thing.
Yes definitely this was me. It was whoever benefited my mum the most at the time adopted different roles
I am both the hero child and black sheep.
My god! This is spot on, thank you 🙏🏼
That was me. My whole childhood until I blew up my life as a young adult. Failure has been my most painful; and most valuable; teacher.
Wow! You just described me.
Thank you for naming the oldest child.
Good job. You only missed it by about 65 percent. And I say good job because most miss it by 90 or more percent. You are on the right track.
Thank you!
Thank You, quite informative. I think we are not in hurry, You can slow down a little bit. Make some space between thoughts, so it would be easier for us to process information. Thanks.
Excellent information
Thanks for sharing 🌼🌼🌼
One hero, one scapegoat, one lost, one golden, one mascot ...
And me, a scapegoat father who gets blamed for literally everything by the covert narcissist I married ...
What a mess ...
Lord have mercy ...
I am the youngest yet i was the one who always stayed up late at night giving therapy to my sister, mum and dad, for their fighting.
Point on, again. Thank you
My sick parents swapped us about, both me and my brother have been both. I’m currently the hero. I’ve left, I’m out. They have so much to hide and tried to drag that on me.
My poor brother
Meet my ‘older’ brother (first born, I came thereafter; mommy’s always right, always has been right, and if she ever questions whether or or not she is right, bro will convince her. And of course coerces and demands that I bow as he does. No gracias.
Good video. I am the hero child, and 2nd eldest. The golden child is the eldest.
My husband has to call his mom twice a day... she literally lives for his calls and calls him her rock. Drives me crazy.
This is me you are talking about.
What about the hero child who aligns with the narcissistic parent against another family member? In my case it was against the mother (my daughter) who tragically died and now it is me the grandmother.
❤
im the hero/scapegoat (parentified child)
Was I or was I not the hero child firstborn same sex child of my Narcissist mother and my weak, compliant and COMPLICIT to please her every desire father? Had to reflect on this for a day before posting. I learned that stepping forward as much as possible not for "atta-girls" as I only received a few in my life. Doing so lessened the level of her abuse of me verbally, psychologically and physically. It wasn't nearly as extreme the more I learned how to behave like a slave to her ever changing desires and needs. With my codependantly enmeshed grandparents just more of the same. Her father a Narcissist, paedophile and her mother behaved just like my Dad yet not related to him. Basic human survival turned me into what I was. Golden younger brother a mirror image of Mom. I was a different kind of hero.
great work. God bless You.
Are the mascot child and hero child one and the same? If not could you do a video on the mascot child? Good video.
Hi there the mascot can look different in different roles, and I'll be making a video on one of them but in the meantime I made a video on the caretaker/mascot if you'd find that helpful?
👏🏻💕
This is me
Could you please make a video on why some people can't feel love towards their romantic partner even if they change their partner and even if their partner loves them cares for them.
One person can not change another. This sounds concerning. Stay safe.
Thank you for your suggestion.
Anti-hero. Same coin, on the flip side.