Narcissistic Triangulation Between Siblings Another common way narcissistic parents triangulate within their families is by triangulating siblings against each other. The parent will do this to feel like they have control within their family and encourage a child to seek their approval.
Like any narcissist, the narcissistic mother engages in triangulation manufacturing triangles among her children and even their peers. She destructively compares her children to their peers, teaching them that they fall short in terms of looks, personality, obedient behavior, and accomplishments.
Narcissists often use triangulation as a tool in the workplace to manipulate their colleagues into providing what they want. By creating tension and rivalry between two people, the narcissist can maintain control over the situation and insure that their needs are met.
Narcissistic mothers tend to see their daughters both as threats and as annexed to their own egos. Through direction and criticism, they try to shape their daughter into a version of themselves or their idealized self.
Growing up with a narcissistic mother leaves lasting impacts upon a daughter, including problems in relationships, low self-esteem, perfectionism, people-pleasing, difficulty with emotions, and anxiety and depression.
Triangulation is a common tactic used by people with strong narcissistic tendencies and other dark personality traits. It is easy to pull off, it costs little, and it gets the job done. You can recognize triangulation by recognizing its forms.
There are many reasons why a narcissist uses a smear campaign, and they often vary depending on the nature of the relationship with the victim. Usually they revolve around a need for revenge, a goal to discredit the target, and the narcissist's own lack of compassion and empathy.
Triangulation is considered a form of emotional abuse that can occur in any relationship. Your covert narcissistic partner may pull in a third person into your toxic relationship to create conflicts between the two of you so they can manipulate and take advantage of you.
A narcissistic parent may use triangulation to show a child down by comparing them or their achievements to another family member or a neighbor. Narcissistic parents are typically jealous, possessive, and verbally abusive. Putting others down makes them feel superior and massages their sense of grandiosity.
Simply remove your angle from the triangle. Reach out to friends and family who support you. Even if you have no one to turn to, leave them and go solo. Most narcissist abuse survivors hold that being alone is far better than being with a narcissist.
Examples. If a parent refuses to acknowledge their children's personality and individualism, and at the same time, siblings are treated very differently and discouraged from communicating with one another except through the parent, it's triangulation.
They may also employ this tactic to establish superiority or fill their narcissistic supply. As noted above, narcissistic family triangulation can look like one family member being a narcissistic enabler, one person playing the golden child role, and a different member being labeled as the scapegoat or “problem child.”
The golden child is expected to be extraordinary at everything, not make mistakes, and essentially be “perfect.” Golden children are usually raised by narcissistic parents who are controlling and authoritarian.
A golden child's sense of self and their personal boundaries are erased, as their own sense of identity is replaced with the need to live up to their role. Their behaviors and beliefs reflect what their parent expects of them, and they may feel incapable of individuation even in adulthood.
Rejection, humiliation, and even the tiniest of defeats can shake them to their core. This leaves narcissists wholly focused on their image. They believe that how they are viewed by others, and how they view themselves, will shield them against realities of life that few of us like but most of us come to accept.
Often, a condescending remark will help them to reestablish their superior image. Condescending is a common dynamic in narcissistic relationships. This behavior can be traced back to the need desperate need narcissists feel to be above others.
Among experts in triangulation in the social sciences, there contin- ues to be a general consensus on the usefulness of the four types of triangulation originally identified by Denzin in the 1970s: (1) data triangulation; (2) investigator triangulation; (3) theory triangulation; and (4) methodological or method ...
When you use methodological triangulation, you use different methods to approach the same research question. This is the most common type of triangulation, and researchers often combine qualitative and quantitative research methods in a single study.
Impacts of Triangulation
Triangulation can feel like gaslighting because both types of emotional abuse often make you question yourself or your reality. You might feel frustrated that you trusted someone, or you may feel ashamed that you didn't intervene when you noticed something might be wrong.
The scapegoat is someone who must embody what the narcissistic parent cannot stand in themselves. By “finding” what they hate in themselves to be in the scapegoat child, the parent feels protected; this is the role of the scapegoat child.
Exaggerated victimhood is a common feature of narcissistic grandiosity. Narcissistic personalities often feel victimized because of their unrealistic expectations, hypersensitivity, and lack of empathy. Narcissists also play the victim to elicit sympathy and avoid responsibility for their abusive behavior.
The daughter of a narcissistic mother often finds herself feeling inadequate, unworthy, and unloved. She may struggle with low self-esteem and feel like she can never do anything right in her mother's eyes.