When Narcissistic Family Systems Mistake Emotional Strength for Weakness

And Why You Might Be Doing All the Heavy Lifting

I am sitting on the couch in my living room with my husband, his brother, and his brother’s wife, and we are all trying to make up with one another, figure out if we can have a relationship, and doing a terrible job of it. It’s tense, stressful and completely futile. I want them to see my perspective, but they can only see me as the problem. They want me to see their perspective, but I’m mired in anger and resentment towards them for how they have treated me. It’s Karpman’s Drama Triangle on steroids. And, I’m talking about my feelings, which they have directly told me is something that the family “does not do”, and that I have learned is viewed as weak and selfish.

When I share some of their behaviors that have bothered me over the years, my brother-in-law uses it as an opportunity to, later in the conversation, reflect back to me that I can barely handle anything. The implication is that I am fragile and weak, and claiming victimhood, which in the moment, struck me as deeply hypocritical, but I could not for the longest time put my finger on why. Recently I found this quote, and it clicked:

“The irony is being criticized for not being strong by people who avoid heavy emotional lifting in the first place.” -Patrick Teahan, LPCC

Boom.

I was being openly criticized for being “barely able to handle anything” by people who blatantly avoided any kind of emotional labor.

This situation is akin to a person who never exercises criticizing athletes for sweating. The person who never exercises’s lack of discomfort comes from their lack of effort, not from their strength. And they are misinterpreting the visible signs of hard work (sweat, temporary fatigue) as weakness rather than evidence of growth.

Emotional labor is like exercise. Those who do it may sometimes visibly struggle, but they're building emotional strength and resilience. Those who avoid it entirely may seem "unbothered" on the surface, but they're not developing crucial emotional skills and may be masking deeper issues.

When I spoke to my in-laws about their behaviors that bothered me, I was dealing with my uncomfortable feelings (and theirs), addressing conflict directly, and attempting to set healthy boundaries and explain my values, which meant being vulnerable. This is emotional labor. There is nothing weak about it. Did I do it perfectly? No. But they used it as an opportunity to criticize and diminish me instead of understand me. This is sidestepping emotional labor by avoiding accountability, blaming and deflecting. Unsurprisingly, they accused me of doing this very same thing. My inability to tolerate their past behaviors was not a sign of my weakness either, but a sign that I was taking in and processing what was happening, examining my feelings and discomfort, and recognizing boundary violations were happening and needed to be addressed.

But in narcissistic and dysfunctional family systems, avoiding emotional heavy lifting is par for the course. And so is projection, which is a psychological defense mechanism where individuals attribute their own unacceptable thoughts, feelings, or actions to someone else. That way they deflect attention from their own faults or behaviors by accusing others of the very things they themselves are guilty of. This behavior is also at the heart of scapegoating.

So what is emotional heavy lifting, exactly? How do we know if we are doing it? Emotional heavy lifting is the process of actively engaging in one’s own personal growth. This can mean taking time to self-reflect, and examine your thoughts, feelings and behaviors. It involves accountability, which means taking responsibility for your emotions and actions, and it involves being able to identify and articulate your feelings with accuracy. Emotional heavy lifting includes a willingness to sit with uncomfortable feelings instead of numbing them, or sweeping them under the rug, and it means being willing to set and maintain healthy boundaries. People who engage in emotional heavy lifting are willing to be vulnerable, and share their struggles, they have self compassion, and they address conflict directly. They are also open to feedback, able to self regulate, and seek support from others including groups, therapists or trusted friends. They make a concerted effort to change problematic behaviors.

Now, you do not need to be doing all of these things, all of the time, perfectly, in order to be considered a person who “does emotional have lifting”. It’s a process, and like most things in life, we will be stronger in some areas than in others, some days will feel easier, and other days might feel impossible. But the direction the train is going in is personal growth, and engaging in emotional labor is the fuel that gets you there.

Now let’s explore some signs that a person might be avoiding doing emotional heavy lifting:

• They may minimize or rationalize problematic behavior in themselves or someone else.

• They may avoid introspection or self-reflection.

• They may be reluctant to discuss or reflect upon difficult past experiences.

• They may have difficulty identifying or expressing their emotions.

• They may deflect serious conversations with humor, or by changing the subject.

• They may use busyness or workaholism or substances to numb and avoid feelings and to stay distracted.

Using these coping mechanisms for a short time is not necessarily problematic. It’s when they become a pattern that we are now moving into the territory of a person who is avoiding emotional heavy lifting and potentially sidestepping personal growth. Some people choose to live their lives that way, and that is their prerogative. But to criticize others for being weak in an area where you do no work is disingenuous.

In narcissistic family dynamics, avoiding emotional heavy lifting can take on specific patterns. Family members may resist any changes that could disrupt the family system, thereby maintaining the status quo. When we resist healthy change we are also sidestepping emotional labor in favor of homeostasis. Family members may also avoid the heavy lifting involved in facing family dysfunction by enabling it instead, and constantly make excuses for or cover up the narcissist's harmful actions. Avoiding emotional work can also mean focusing blame on one family member to eschew addressing systemic issues, also known as scapegoating.

Narcissistic and dysfunctional families often have an extreme aversion to any disagreements, even healthy ones, and avoid conflict which also translates into avoiding emotional heavy lifting. Emotional repression is common, and family members may have difficulty expressing or even identifying their own emotions due to the focus on the narcissist's feelings or maintaining the family image. This means members are sidestepping the emotional work of naming their needs and wants in order to keep the peace, also known as people-pleasing.

Indirect communication (triangulation) is often used to avoid direct confrontation or honest discussions and narcissistic families will cling to idealized family stories that don't match reality in order to avoid dealing with unpleasant facts, and the work that comes with addressing them. They may avoid individual or family therapy out of fear of confronting painful truths. And last, due to enmeshment or extreme detachment, family members are either overly involved in each other's lives or completely disconnected, with both states serving to avoid addressing emotional issues.

It would be an understatement to say that narcissistic family systems avoid doing heavy emotional lifting. They outright shun it. Though, it likely is not a conscious process. People who live behind rigid defenses struggle with genuine self-expression and vulnerability.

If you are someone who came from, or married into, a narcissistic or highly dysfunctional family system, and you are on the path of personal growth (aka doing some heavy emotional lifting), there is a chance that your family members or in-laws believe that your strong feelings about their dysfunctional ways of relating are a sign of weakness. They are not, and this is projection. It is also deeply hypocritical because it is likely coming from people who have never lifted an emotional dumbbell in their life, and are criticizing you for struggling with your heavy load. Specifically, they are criticizing you for struggling with the emotional labor that they are actively sidestepping in your relationship, and dumping onto you. Don’t listen to them.

Instead, recognize that the emotional heavy lifting you are doing now to support your own personal growth will help you. It will help you to overcome limiting beliefs related to your role in the family, it will deepen your empathy and understanding of others, which will allow for more meaningful connections with safe people, and it will give you a better understanding of your emotions, thoughts and behaviors, all of which will allow you to live with greater authenticity. This is a gift. Use it to see clearly where you need to improve or change your behaviors, and to help you better live in integrity with who you are and who you continue to become. And recognize that if you are dealing with a narcissistic or dysfunctional family system, when it comes to emotional heavy lifting, you are likely already an Olympic athlete.