Narcissistic Abuse.
How To Survive Family Court With A Narcissist.
How narcissists perform in Family Court.
Narcissists love drama. During court, they will place unreasonable demands on lawyers, and fabricate stories about the other parent and that parent's friends and family members.
Narcissists have unrealistic expectations of their rights and responsibilities and will attempt to repeatedly hold unnecessary meetings to write and rehearse scripts where they’re either victims or heroes.
How Narcissists are identified in Family Court.
1. No remorse.
Narcissists will attack the other parent, showing no remorse for their actions or empathy for their children. Any sympathy for the children is an act directed toward self-pity or chastising the victim. Narcissists lack creativity and enjoy recycling the abuse, so they will accuse the victim of everything they did themselves.
2. Instability.
Children need a stable and secure home. Narcissists are often ‘between homes’ if they hadn’t sorted one out during the discard phase. Flying monkeys will try to paint a prettier picture of the narcissist’s home life, but their instability soon comes to light when they’re under the court’s microscope.
3. Lying, blaming, manipulating, and immature gestures.
Constant contradictions, outright lies, and not taking responsibility can begin to look like delusion when repeated often enough. When narcissist’s feel they’re not getting their way, they will resort to immature non-verbal gestures such as scoffing, smirking, snatching, and sulking.
4. All talk, no walk.
Consistently making and breaking promises, failing to attend meetings or courses required, making statements then retracting, breaking orders, and not following through with requests and judgments shows a lack of respect for the law, the children, and everyone involved.
5. Behaving entitled.
Making constant and unrealistic demands on lawyers, creating work finding faults in everything and everybody but themselves, placing extra orders on the other parent and even the children, directly communicating with parents on their terms then expecting lawyers to pass on information when the other parent is ‘not cooperating.’
6. Any actions that might harm the children or other parent.
Any harmful behaviours are taken seriously in family court. Throwing false accusations, harassing lawyers and other staff, not turning up to visits, lying, blaming, and general disinterest in the children is enough to question a parent’s suitability.
Narcissistic parents treat their children like trophies and brickbats
The children will be paraded as showpieces for the narcissist's outstanding parenting skills, even if they’ve had minimal experience parenting them. Kara Summers details this beautifully in “Narcissists don’t have kids — They make babies.”
Children who achieve well will not be allowed to revel in their achievements without the parent taking credit or making it about them. Even then, the narcissistic parent will pit that child against another child, hoping they fight for the narcissistic parent's affections.
When a narcissist’s child follows the rules, they will be given gifts or money and proudly announced as the greatest.
the narcissistic parent threatens to take all those things from the child If they break or challenge the rules because they would be nothing without them, “Look how much I’ve done for you!” “How can you be so ungrateful?”
Lying and bullying will be normalized; monkey see, monkey do. The narcissist will take pleasure in shaming the child for any perceived weaknesses or failures.
Narcissists blame the scapegoat child for any family misgivings while the golden child is competition. There may also be an invisible child who doesn’t fulfil either role but is the understudy for both positions unless that child becomes the runner and chooses to leave altogether.
Studies show that a child raised with a narcissistic parent can struggle with poor self-esteem, memory, emotional regulation, hypersensitivity, depression, and anxiety. Those children may have difficulties in personal and work relationships as they manage the adult world without learning healthy love, boundaries, empathy, and responsibility earlier.
Children of narcissists can become high achievers because they can develop healthy narcissism and a heightened sense of people and their motivations, mainly if they’ve escaped the chains of their narcissistic parents.
How to protect yourself and your children through court
Narcissistic victim syndrome is debilitating and exhausting. Narcissistic, manipulative tactics and the constant back and forth will leave you confused, distrustful, depressed, anxious, and potentially suicidal, making family court and the ensuing smear campaign almost unbearable.
Please do your best and know that you are one of many people in similar situations, and family court lawyers have seen it all. They’re more aware of why and what you’re suffering from than you are.
1. Do not react.
The facts will be minimized, twisted, and even denied; therefore, proven to be true. Learn about boundaries and manipulative tactics to recognize when you’re breaking your boundaries and reacting to manipulation. You may believe the narcissist will fool the lawyers and judges as easily as you were, but they’re very attuned to narcissism, and all the usual tricks are apparent once you see them.
Narcissists love to get a reaction, so no matter what they say, you do not react, wait, and only respond if you have to, making sure you do so with the children’s best interests in mind.
Same for friends and family who have something to say, unless you’re venting to someone you know you can trust, try to stay off the topic to let yourself be in the moment and outside of court.
2. Stick to the facts.
Do not write any more than necessary, keeping all communication as brief as possible. Excess information will only make it more difficult for lawyers to establish a clear presentation of the facts.
3. Never say they’re narcissists.
It’s not your job to diagnose anyone, personality disorder or not. The only thing that matters is whether or not the parent is safe and can effectively co-parent.
4. Listen and trust your lawyer.
Your lawyer and the lawyer for your children (LFC) know what they are doing, and you will make everyone’s life easier if you trust their knowledge and skills. Give yourself time to trust the process, but be prepared to stand up for yourself and your children if you think they are making a serious mistake. Also, I would not have made half the mistakes I made in court had I found the following law firm blogs discovered while writing this.
5. Present well.
Keep a tidy appearance and show integrity. Narcissistic Victim Syndrome makes keeping up appearances challenging; you can barely think straight, and being in public is painful enough without opening up wounds in front of strangers.
Be honest and respectful, remain as calm as possible, love your children, and it will work out in the end.
It is a tough decision to choose the court, made even more complex when it includes a parent with high levels of narcissism.
However, suppose it does come to light that parents can no longer make reasonable decisions about their children, for whatever reason. In that case, the family court system will intervene, and it helps to be well-prepared for a drawn-out show when you go to court with a narcissist.
Thank you for reading.
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Glossary
Flying monkeys — Friends and family of narcissists and victims who narcissists have pulled into the drama. Flying monkeys can include professional services such as doctors, lawyers, and social workers unfamiliar or skilled in identifying personality disorders. Flying monkeys are used to abuse the victims indirectly; they support the abuser and justify the abuse.
Runner — The child of a narcissist who chooses to leave the family unit either temporarily or permanently.
Golden child — The narcissistic parent’s trophy child does no wrong and is set on a pedestal against other children within the unit.
Scapegoat — The child blamed for any family failures and used to prop up the narcissistic parent’s self-esteem.
Discard phase — When narcissists believe a person is about to abandon them, they begin the discard phase using the silent treatment and ghosting while seeking a new supply or outright leaving.
Smear campaigns — Spreading lies about a particular person to smear their reputation among friends, family, and the wider community.
Hoovering — Tactics such as mirroring and love bombing to reuse old narcissistic supply.
Narcissistic supply — People and groups that support the narcissist used to supply their needs of admiration and validation.
References
Brown, N. W. (2006). Coping with infuriating, mean, critical people — the destructive narcissistic pattern. http://www.sakkyndig.com/psykologi/artvit/brown2006.pdf
Clemente M, Padilla-Racero D, Espinosa P. Revenge among Parents Who Have Broken up Their Relationship through Family Law Courts: Its Dimensions and Measurement Proposal. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2019; 16(24):4950. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16244950
Harrington, A. (2016). Mother love and mental illness: An emotional history. History of science and the emotions, 31(1), 94–115. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/687559
Jeffries, S. (2016). In the Best Interests of the Abuser: Coercive Control, Child Custody Proceedings and the “Expert” Assessments That Guide Judicial Determinations. Laws, 5(1), 14. MDPI AG. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/laws5010014