the main points
The exhibitionistic narcissistic mother craves attention and will always be able to make things about her. She can do it with grace or with humor.
The exhibitionist narcissistic mother may have cognitive empathy, but not emotional empathy.
Exhibitionist narcissistic mothers pressure their children to be perfect because they cannot separate their self-image from that of their children.
When I listen to some of my clients talk about how their mothers treated them, I sometimes hear an almost textbook description of the classic exhibitionist narcissist. Typically, my clients have no idea that many of their terrible childhood memories and low self-esteem may be due to their mother having Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
What is narcissistic personality disorder?
One can think of narcissistic personality disorder as an adaptation to a childhood condition that left the person with unstable self-esteem and low empathy. These children grow up to be adults and lack what psychologists call “whole object relationships.” This means that they are unable to see themselves and others in an integrated and stable way as simultaneously possessing a mixture of good and bad qualities and likeable and disliked qualities. Instead, they alternate between love and hate or idealization and devaluation.
As parents, when a child makes them feel good about themselves, they will only have positive feelings toward the child. When a child teases them in any way, they will have nothing but negative feelings towards the child. As their feelings change, their view of their child changes as well. Narcissistic parents also see themselves in this limited and binary way: either they are special, unique, and perfect or they are flawed, worthless trash.
Child abuse and fixation of things
Narcissistic parents also lack “consistency on the subject.” This means that when they feel disappointed, hurt or angry towards their child, they immediately lose all positive feelings towards the child and now see the child as very bad and deserving of punishment.
Much of the child abuse we read about is due to a lack of “object stability.” If parents have a “steadiness in dealing with things,” this helps them manage their angry and punitive impulses. They can remember, when they are angry or frustrated with their child, that they still love the child and do not want to cause harm.
The effect of parental narcissism on children’s self-image
If you were raised by narcissistic parents, you are unlikely to be able to develop a stable, integrated, and realistic self-image. This is because we are biologically programmed to develop a great deal of our self-image through the way our caregivers treat us. This is similar to the way we learn to speak whatever language the people around us speak.
The narcissistic parent can only reflect back to the child distorted and biased views of how the child is viewed – and these views of the child can quickly change as the parent’s mood changes. This effect can be mitigated if there are loving and stable adults around who see the child in a realistic and positive way. This could be a non-narcissistic parent, loving grandparents, aunts and uncles, or even close family friends.
7 signs of an exhibitionistic narcissistic mother
After listening to hundreds of my clients talk to me about their mothers, I realized that those raised by exhibitionist narcissistic mothers were describing the same seven types of issues over and over again.
If you can relate to the following examples, and these seven issues played a large role in your childhood, this may be a sign that you too were raised by an exhibitionist, narcissistic mother. I hope you don’t recognize many of them.
- You must be the center of attention
Like all exhibitionist narcissists, the exhibitionist narcissistic mother craves attention. Somehow, no matter who’s talking or what’s going on, you’ll always be able to find a way to talk about it. She can do this gracefully through humor and a funny story or by suddenly interrupting the ongoing conversation and changing the subject.
Example: A mother like this visited her daughter in the hospital. Her daughter was recovering from major surgery. Instead of focusing on her daughter, she began flirting with doctors and talking to people visiting the patient in the next bed. She was shocked when her daughter later told her how hurt she felt about being abandoned. The mother was so focused on the good time she was having, it never occurred to her that her daughter might feel differently.
- She is low in emotional empathy
One interesting characteristic of narcissistic personality disorder (or “adaptation” as I prefer to call it) is that the narcissistic person does not usually “feel” what others feel. A narcissistic mother may have “cognitive empathy” (that is, she may be able to intellectually understand that some of her behaviors may be causing pain to her child), but without “affective empathy,” she has little incentive to care. Her perception of emotional pain only goes in one direction. If you accidentally cause her even the slightest amount of emotional pain, she will likely react in a greatly exaggerated way, while completely ignoring the pain she is causing you.
Example: When John’s mother, Carol, celebrated her birthday, she expected everyone around her to make a fuss: give her thoughtful birthday cards, buy her gifts, take her to dinner at her favorite restaurant, and generally make her entire day extra special. When John turned 10, he woke up very excited, wondering what special surprise his mother had planned: Will he get the bike he’s been asking for? Will there be ice cream cake? Unfortunately, Carol was so busy all week that she completely forgot about John’s upcoming birthday and didn’t even get a gift or card. When John acted disappointed, his mother took offense and instead of apologizing, snapped at him and said, “Stop acting like a child! You’re too old now to get special gifts anyway.”
John’s father, David (who has “emotional empathy”), assumed that his wife was making Christmas plans. When he saw how hurt and disappointed John felt, he quickly intervened to try to save the situation for John. He took John and his sister to a local amusement park and out for ice cream, while his wife stayed home sulking. That night, after the kids went to bed, Carol scolded her husband for making her look bad.
- She dominates the house and uses devaluation to get her way
The entire family tends to revolve around the narcissistic mother’s exhibitionistic desires. Everything should be the way she wants it because she feels she deserves it. People do what she wants because when they don’t, she gets angry, devalues them, and generally makes life miserable for everyone until they give up. She will constantly belittle anyone who challenges her, and when she does, she hits below the belt. It is not uncommon for a child who does not satisfy this type of mother to be told: “A man will never marry you because you are too fat.” Or “You’ll never get anywhere because you’re a stupid, worthless idiot!”
Because the exhibitionist narcissistic mother sees her surroundings as a reflection of her station in life, it may be extremely important to her that the house be decorated the way she wants and cleaned and maintained as perfectly as possible. Conversely, if she is the type of woman who does not particularly care if her surroundings are clean and orderly, she will be indifferent to her family’s pleas to pay more attention to the home. Usually she has been able to marry a man who will allow her to manage the house and children as she wants.
