My heart always explodes when I encounter a victim of a narcissistic mother. They are usually some of the nicest people you will ever meet, although they can be difficult to get to know. When they come to a prayer service, it is not the presence of bad memories that makes it difficult for them to heal. While bad memories are plentiful, the lack of good ones is an even bigger obstacle. While abusive parents are bad enough, a narcissistic mother is much worse in some ways.
Mothers play a crucial role in the development of the child’s inner self. A child whose mother is unable to meet his basic emotional needs is frustrated from the beginning. The narcissistic mother strips the child of agency, leaving him or her without a defined sense of self in many cases. In other words, the mother’s care and affection are sediments in the child’s developing identity. If a young child is deprived of this tenderness, he or she lacks a sense of what is “me” and what is “not me.” This leads to an adulthood that lacks joy and makes decision-making a nightmare.
So how can you tell if your mother is a narcissist? Look for these signs:
Her children are extensions of herself.
The narcissistic mother believes that her value as a mother will be judged by her children’s accomplishments. To create a supportive, chaotic mother who deserves her sense of grandeur, she becomes a tyrant at home. The narcissistic mother micromanages everything from clothes to achievements in school. The child is not a person, but rather a doll that can be manipulated to make its mother look like a star mother.
RELATED : Traits of Narcissists: 12 More According to Paul
Because their boundaries are often violated, their children often grow up to be doormats. They have no practice in making decisions and often rely on others to make them. Sometimes I think the Tiger Mother’s way of raising children strays from this arena. The goal of raising children is not to nurture achievement. The goal is to raise a person.
The narcissistic mother chooses her favorites.
The reason for choosing a favorite is not because of feeling closer to one child than the other. The actual motive is pretty diabolical. If she can cause division among her children, they cannot unite against her. A divided army cannot escape the shackles of tyranny.
A common way to foster this grudge between siblings is to show outrageous favoritism to one of them while excessively punishing the others. This ensures that one child will support him against the others. Since the narcissist’s worldview is that we are always against them, she reenacts this scenario at home over and over again.
She competes with her children.
If a narcissistic mother compliments a child, she will turn that into a compliment to herself. I remember commenting on how smart one of the students was. Her mother immediately said I know she’s bright because I’m brighter! She looked at her in amazement and tried again to notice her daughter’s achievements. She replied that she would never have done any of that without me pushing her. These accomplishments are truly mine.
I felt so thin and so sorry for that young woman. The narcissistic mother must always be in the spotlight. A real mother wants her children to shine on their own.
The narcissistic mother is incapable of empathy.
Typically, a child raised by a narcissistic parent of either gender does not feel any closeness to that parent. This is a huge void in a child’s life. What makes the lack of empathy on the part of the mother so harmful is that it is the mother’s love that the child must experience first. A mother’s love is crucial to a person’s emotional development.
The results of this lack of care leave the person unable to relate deeply and yet with a need that cannot be met by anyone. As adults, we give from the well of love we have received. If our well is dry, giving and receiving love, even just the experience of being loved, can be very difficult. This lack of good things damages our love receptors. People may love the adult child of the narcissist, but they will have difficulty recognizing and understanding him or her.
The child is responsible for everything.
The narcissistic mother’s deep-seated belief is that everything that goes wrong can be laid at her child’s door. Every bad mood or conflict is the child’s fault. She holds a grudge against her children and views any failure in their lives as an assault on her. Even her memories of family events are a series of mistakes made by everyone.
RELATED : Can Narcissists Change? The Answer is Complicated
This is not just criticism. The narcissistic mother convinces herself that something is wrong in her children’s lives and does her best to communicate this. Children of such mothers have little self-esteem and often suffer from self-destructive tendencies. They engage in self-rejection and often wish they had never been born.
The child of the narcissistic mother often acts as a mediator in her fleeting relationships.
The narcissistic mother tends to be lovable and attractive. This is so you can get to know her. Then suddenly conflicts and misunderstandings begin to arise. The girl child is often put in the position of being defended against an unjust world. Such a child should try to smooth out relations or try to compensate for the mistakes of his parents.
This often results in a highly nurturing child, one who should be the parent’s caretaker. One easy way to spot a narcissist is to constantly list how many times others have done them wrong. They don’t seem to realize that the only constant in their equation is themselves.
A narcissistic mother gaslights her children.
The narcissistic mother has a selective memory. Common phrases I never said that! This never happened. I made it! It’s just your imagination. At every turn, she revises history and turns her children’s words against them. The goal here is not necessarily self-defense. The goal is to make her children doubt themselves to the point that they will trust her word more than theirs. She is trying to separate her children from themselves to turn them into extensions of herself, her version of life.
The tragic result of this is that the children of the narcissistic mother question their feelings and thoughts. They were forced to live a life of cognitive dissonance where their minds had to block out their feelings. Divided within themselves, children of narcissists often resort to self-destructive measures to numb the pain or become dissociative. Survival depends on separating from themselves.
I remember reading C.S. Lewis saying that writing Screwtape letters was a terrible experience. Delving into the depths of the devilish strategy led him on a very dark journey. I sympathize with him. My body tenses up as I write this, and I feel so sad. I had a mother who loved me, but the pain of victims of narcissistic mothers is very real to me. I have seen Jesus heal these wounds, but it always takes a lot of time to rebuild oneself. I am so grateful that Jesus never gives up on anyone, but rather takes the time and care needed to build up the hurting soul.
