This is a situation I knew of many years ago. And it’s a cautionary tale for anyone who has children who will be interacting with an individual who is a potentially narcissistic grandparent to their children.
This particular individual (I’ll call her Darleen) set out to ‘steal’ her first grandchild in the child’s earliest days. She started out by convincing her daughter-in-law (I’ll call her Rachel) that her milk supplies were insufficient for the baby for breastfeeding (this was never corroborated by a doctor) and that bottle-feeding formula would be the best option. Sadly, trusting in Darleen, Rachel was quickly convinced of this narrative and went along with it. Darleen saw this as a way that the child could easily be fed while alone with her, making Rachel less necessary in her mind. When the child developed an ear infection, Darleen convinced Rachel to leave the child with her until such time as they were well again, which turned into many weeks. And so it all began.
Not long after, Darleen began to launch a quiet campaign to split up her son, let’s call him Larry, and Rachel’s marriage in an effort to not only keep control of her son but to lessen her daughter-in-law’s influence and involvement in her own child’s life. This wasn’t too difficult of a task because Larry, who alternated between being abused by his mother and also acting like a narcissist himself, was already having an affair with a coworker. At the urging of Darleen, Larry ultimately set out to regularly confuse and manipulate Rachel and then told her he no longer loved her, which, not surprisingly, took her to the point that she was considering taking her own life. At that stage, he had her involuntarily taken to the psychiatric ward of the local hospital “for her own safety and the safety of the child”. While she was recovering in the hospital, he and his mother, together with their lawyer, applied for and had custody of his child given solely to him (read that as essentially Darleen brought the child to live with her because Rachel’s family lived a distance away). Upon the wife’s release, she had to hire a lawyer and enter into a battle to prove that she was stable in order to obtain joint custody of her daughter, and then eventually went through a brutal divorce that left her bankrupt due to some corrupt dealings of Larry’s that she was completely unaware of.
As this child grew up with Darleen as the center of her universe, they were very susceptible to the negative messaging that Darleen constantly conveyed to them about their parents. Darleen, as a narcissist who loves to have minions to worship them, wanted to put up walls between her grandchild and their own parents. And, sadly, she was quite successful in doing so. The child had ongoing battles with both parents (and future stepparents) that led to depression, anxiety, lack of identity, confusion, dropping out of school at 16 and never finishing her education, and so on. This child’s own grandmother, in attempting to be in control and ensure that the child idolized her, did nothing but create chaos and pain in the life of her grandchild. And, believe it or not, Darleen, wanting to keep control of her daughter-in-law as well as maintain a flow of information from her about the child, in addition to ensuring continued access to her grandchild, managed to convince her that all of the suffering with the custody battle and divorce was solely caused by her son, even speaking ill of him often to make it seem more likely. In doing so, Rachel still believed Darleen to be her friend and support system years after the divorce, and she therefore continued to allow her child to spend massive amounts of time alone with Darleen. This way, Darleen could continue to control and have access to both her grandchild and ex-daughter-in-law, all while looking like a saint. Rachel was eventually clued in to Darleen’s real persona and broke ties with her, but not before years of damage had been done.
Years later, Darleen attempted to ‘steal’ the child that her son and his second wife had together as well. Fortunately, the mother was aware of what was happening and took steps to protect the child. So then, as before, the grandmother set out to manipulate her son and, once again, hoped to cause her son’s marriage to implode so that she could continue to control him and also have an opportunity to lock in another minion with her newest grandchild. However, the daughter-in-law recognized what was happening and was able to fend off those attempts as well. Eventually, narcissistic grandma gave up and put all of her energy back into her first grandchild. Believe it or not, these are just a few of the things this woman has done over the years.
And, yes, as extreme as this all sounds, every bit of this story is factual. Narcissists will go to great lengths to manipulate people, including their own family members, in order to get their way. And they believe that the damage their actions create, even involving those they claim to love, is simply a necessary step in their overall plan (aka need to control and be worshiped to feed their fragile ego) and they feel no empathy or accountability for any of it.
So, if you have children and they will be involved with a family member that you believe may be narcissistic, consider taking steps to protect your child from the potential of being damaged by that person. In doing so, you will be sparing your child from the possibility of great harm and you will also be playing a part in ending or weakening the negative cycle of generational family narcissism and narcissistic abuse. Awareness and taking action when necessary are both key in these situations.
Until next time,
Heather ~Natural Clarity Coaching~ naturalclaritycoaching.com na********************@***il.com Natural Clarity Coaching on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter
