Welcome to the Encyclopedia of ACON Topics, a free information resource for adult children of narcissists (ACON). ACONs are people who come from what is known as dysfunctional families. These families are described as having much in common with alcoholic families, except the parents of ACONs are not defined as alcoholics, they are narcissists. The effects of growing up in such a narcissistic family can be terribly destructive and long-lasting. Still, there are of course individual differences, and so many of the ACONs manage to lead normal lives, whereas others may have more or less serious effects on their emotional, psychological, and mental health, of various kinds. Some may of course also suffer from physical abuse, but physical abuse is not the most common problem in narcissistic families; it is various open and hidden mental, emotional and psychological abuse which first and foremost causes the suffering. To ACONs, the experiences, issues, and personal problems may feel very private. Starting out, many of them have not even acknowledged to themselves that there even is a problem. Narcissistic parents are very obsessed with portraying themselves as super normal human beings, and may have everyone in the family's surroundings fooled, and often the family members themselves will think that the parents are normal, and that they, for example the children (the ACONs), are in fact the ones that are not normal (this impression will be "helped" along by the narcissistic parents, who will let the children know, both in hidden and in open messages, that the children are not "good", normal people). The desperate struggle to reach understanding of the family background situation, and to make sense of what is going on, is often an extremely lonely journey. Children will experience difficult feelings from a very young age, caused by the narcissistic parents. Some ACONs will eventually go into psychotherapy to try and resolve the various issues that they are struggling with. There are also some good books about narcissistic families, and some helpful websites. This particular website is perhaps a little presumptuous, because here it is attempted to present information about narcissists and narcissistic families in a very public and open fashion. Many people will not feel entirely comfortable with relating to the topic of narcissism in such public and open kinds of ways. The reason for that is that, in society, the notion of narcissism has very deep and wide and very serious implications, and talking very openly about narcissism may seem like overstepping some invisible line (which, as it happens, is a feeling ACONs have grown up with, and which is not a good feeling). Human beings live in societies, and no one likes to challenge the basic fundament, beliefs, and cultural assumptions that their society and social surroundings are based on. And at the present time, our human societies do not openly acknowledge and recognize the notion of narcissism, which means that narcissists and narcissistic practices, behaviors, views and values are found throughout the very fabric of society. This may contribute to this wiki website not quite having a possibility to really function as the interactive project it was intended to be. Still, what little information is here could help some visitors who happen to come by. And, maybe it will not last too long until it becomes more possible to deal openly and publicly with the very difficult subject of narcissistic personality disorder.