The word “narcissistic” is thrown around often, and very few people are clinically diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Some potential clinical diagnoses go undetected because people often do not voluntarily choose to obtain a psychiatric evaluation. Although symptoms must be severe for such a diagnosis, it is not uncommon for people to display enough narcissistic traits to cause damage. Children of mothers with narcissistic behaviors are most vulnerable to harm.
Related: Early Warning Signs That The Person You’re In Love With Is A Giant Narcissist
#Here are 10 ways to heal and move on from your narcissistic mother:
1. Admit that you have problems in your relationship because of your narcissistic mother.
It is your responsibility to heal, not your mother’s. If you remain stuck as a helpless, blameless victim, you may stunt your growth and cause anger-related pathology.
It is very easy to focus on the narcissist as the problem. But those who are willing to face the pain caused by their dysfunctional behavior, even if it arises through no fault of their own, are the ones who move beyond it.
2. Express your anger through words, writing, art, tears, or any other safe outlet.
You can share it with others if they are safe and trustworthy. Or you can keep it private. Anger is energy, and it must be mobilized and filtered to restore your health.
Support groups, art therapy, and journaling are ways you can express yourself.
3. Don’t avoid your pain with substances or anything that distracts you from feeling the truth.
When you honor your feelings rather than your fears, you can move on to the other side of them instead of staying stuck in a repetitive, dysfunctional pattern that drains more and more energy over time.
4. Commitment to regular treatment.
Psychotherapy is one of the most loving jobs you can do for yourself. A therapist who specializes in EMDR, trauma, and attachment therapy is most effective in this work.
5. Practice not reacting when you are provoked.
Mindfulness takes time and practice, but it creates one of the most powerful changes. Throughout their lives, people with attachment problems have developed repetitive reactions designed to protect them when they were young but to harm them and destroy their relationships as adults.
When things feel emotionally unbearable, do anything (healthy) to feel better, but don’t interact with the person who triggered you.
Related: Early Warning Signs That The Person You’re In Love With Is A Giant Narcissist
6. Spend 10 minutes in each journal about your mother’s childhood connection.
Then talk about how you sympathize with your loved ones more than your mother sympathizes with you. Most narcissists did not receive proper attunement from their parents, and more often than not, they were worse than you.
This exercise allows you to see that you (and your mother) are just small parts of something much larger, often something multi-generational, making you feel less alone. It also creates compassion and understanding towards your mother, which releases the anger inside you.
When you see progress and development, you feel less stuck and hopeless. Seeing how you are better than your mother from an evolutionary perspective brings satisfaction.
7. Find ways to show how you are a narcissist or how you wish you were more narcissistic, but don’t allow yourself to be.
This type of psychotherapy creates self-compassion and wholeness by defusing the inner turmoil that comes from unconsciously projecting your fears onto others.
8. Have a release party.
This is a powerful tool to celebrate the end of the old and the beginning of the new! You can use symbols of your own and/or your mother’s that you wish to spread, and even burn parts of the writings or pictures. Do it with love, as if it were a funeral.
9. Choose one practice to create a more stable and nurturing lifestyle.
Insecure attachments are characterized by a lack of care and stability, so you must learn how to build attachments yourself.
Examples include using an aromatherapy diffuser in your home, juicing once a week, buying new decor or organizing your home every couple of months, getting a facial or massage once a month, and many other self-care activities.
10. Write a new vision for yourself in healthy, safe, and loving relationships.
Spend ten minutes a day thinking about that vision or playing as if you were the new you. Everyone, from professional athletes to surgeons, uses visualization and the power of the mind to achieve desired results. Its use in relationships is equally effective.
Because people with narcissistic tendencies are unable to access deep empathy for others, they cannot attune to their children’s needs and internal emotional well-being. As a result, the child grows up and has insecure attachments in his relationships with adults.
Children of narcissists often grow up learning to love others, not themselves. But, if you can only love others, you cannot truly love.
Note that your relationship with your mother may be the slowest of all your relationships to heal. But if you can change your behavior with her, you can do it with anyone!
The most important thing to realize, to heal from your narcissistic mother, is that if you can get through your entire childhood with her, and all the ways you suffered because of her ill-equipped upbringing, and make it to adulthood despite it. Being repeatedly hurt by her behavior, and then walking away from her isn’t that hard!
You just have to focus all your energy on what you want instead of resorting to things that will cover up your pain, like blame, substances, and bad relationships.
Related: 11 Valuable Lessons I Learned About How Dating A Narcissist Changes You
