Well, sometimes families can be, internally, incredibly abusive while presenting a very convincing image of being loving and caring, even "perfect in every way"

Well, sometimes families can be, internally, incredibly abusive while presenting a very convincing image of being loving and caring, even "perfect in every way" to an outsider. If you go to places where survivors of narcissistic or familial abuse congregate it's not uncommon to hear stories of people saying of an abusive parent things like "all my friends used to say 'i wish my mum was like your mum'" and what not. It can be very hard to escape from such situations, sometimes people who seem to have escaped, later voluntarily return to them. Sometimes, when even heinous abuse becomes exposed, the victims will protect the abusers. Narcissistic families excel at keeping secrets. You have to realise that children have genetic wiring for survival. If their parents are neglectful or abusive, the child cannot simply go on to the free market to shop for a replacement. Rather, they are much more likely to become increasingly compliant, in order to extract as much care as possible from the defective parent. Mild forms of this can involve the child performing very well at school, or in sports, once they realise that love is contingent on performance. Children who feel invisible might act out because negative attention is perceived, perversely, as a workable substitute for love. Over time, the roles in narcissistic family systems can change around: the golden child can become invisible, or the black sheep, or vice versa. Humans are at the same time as being quite vulnerable to abusive and neglectful environments, also incredibly resilient to them - finding coping strategies which work, even if they can appear to be incredibly destructive, self-destructive, or totally inexplicable to someone lacking the full context. There is a book called "The Narcissistic Family" by Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman which describes the dynamics that can occur in these sorts of family systems.