“I’m sorry.” These are two of the hardest words for most people to say honestly.

When we sincerely apologize, we have to admit that we’ve hurt someone, and that also means that we take responsibility for the pain we’ve caused.

A narcissist never apologizes because he or she sees himself or herself as perfect. He or she can’t be wrong. He or she sees himself or herself as superior to everyone else, and therefore always right.

How did he or she get this way?

From an early age, the narcissist has been raised to believe that he or she is special and is likely to be treated this way even as a young child.

A narcissist develops a pathological sense of self-entitlement very early on.

Truth is a foreign concept to the narcissist. His or her personality is built on a “false self,” believing that he or she is a superior, perfect being with no flaws.

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As a child, he or she was never held accountable for his or her mistakes, lies, or cruelty.

His or her parents never gave him or her a sense of boundaries or respect for other human beings. He learned from childhood to exploit and manipulate other people – to win at any cost.

Harm to another person’s life was merely collateral damage and necessary to his immediate goals.

This “golden child” learned very early on that he had free rein with others. If someone got in his way, he would push them aside or throw them to the ground.

The parents defended their child’s inconsiderate and cruel behavior; they believed that their exceptional child should not follow the common social rules that applied only to others – not to their child.

What does he do when he makes a mistake?

The narcissist is never wrong, and he likes to provide “proof” that he is right.

The narcissist cannot take responsibility for making a mistake, and is an expert at shifting blame onto others – (“It’s not my fault.

I lost that promotion because my team let me down,” “You were being so stupid – you made me hit on you,” “If you weren’t so cold, I wouldn’t have gotten into that relationship.”).

The narcissist will never admit to his or her terrible mistakes, and when confronted, he or she will evade, delay, and lie even more. He or she believes that he or she is invincible and perfect.

When we look deeply at ourselves and recognize that we have made mistakes, we are able to say, “I make mistakes.”

We apologize to the injured party and continue to have a healthy, stable sense of ourselves as positive human beings.

The narcissist is unable to do this because it requires admitting that he or she is not perfect.

How does this affect children?

Narcissistic mothers can be particularly damaging to a child.

Not only is this “crazy,” it can be devastating to a young child’s ability to learn to think critically and make accurate assessments of the world around them.

Having a mother who constantly tells a child that they are wrong in order to correct themselves distorts the child’s perceptions and creates “cognitive dissonance” in the child.

Cognitive dissonance makes people feel uncomfortable, even children, and so the child has to find a way to resolve this uncomfortable conflict.

Her options are limited; she can either adhere to her own perception or adopt her parent’s perception.

When this perception comes from the person you depend on for food, shelter, and protection, the young child often accepts the parent’s “reality” over her own.

The child begins to doubt her own perceptions and over time loses confidence in her ability to make decisions or perceive what is going on around her accurately.

She becomes accustomed to adopting her narcissistic mother’s beliefs, perceptions, and opinions as truth.

Whenever dissonance arises, she automatically resolves it by ignoring anything that conflicts with her narcissistic mother’s reality.

Some children just don’t give up. They either outwardly argue the difference in perceptions or pretend to accept their narcissistic mother’s views while silently holding on to their own.

In both cases, they don’t learn that their mothers are rational, trustworthy people, and they don’t model rational observation and thinking.

No matter what she does, she will never apologize for anything sincerely.

Instead, any time she feels compelled to apologize, she will whine and get angry, issue a humiliating apology, or negate the apology she just made with justifications, qualifications, or self-pity: “I’m sorry you felt I humiliated you.” “I’m sorry if I made you feel bad.”

“If I did it, it was a mistake.” “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about it.” “I’m sorry, but it was just a joke.

You’re so sensitive.” “I’m sorry I made you feel so clumsy, stupid, and disgusting.”

Some daughters of narcissistic mothers have described this as a “fake apology.” And that’s exactly what it is: a false apology.

One of my daughters wrote a great blog post summarizing the classic narcissist’s thinking and behavior in terms of never making a mistake:

“My narcissistic mother went to her death having convinced herself that her lies, from small lies to life-changing lies, were true.

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By justifying her lies and outrageous actions, she was able to believe that she was right and justified in everything she did, even going so far as to backtrack and remain right both in her original action and in her undoing of it—a neat trick, if you ask me.

For example, she married my father and then later divorced him… but she never said that marrying my father was a mistake because she was always right—she made no mistakes.

Her justification was that marrying him was the only way she could escape her oppressive father from the old world, and so it was the right thing to do.

It didn’t matter to her that she was 16 and that her father was no more oppressive than the fathers of other 16-year-old girls at that time: she wanted to run her own life and marrying my father was an immediate and surefire way to do that.

So, even though she later divorced him, she didn’t consider marrying my father a mistake: it was just a means to an end, it served its purpose and then she got rid of him.

Without regret, without remorse, without any thought for the feelings of the people who might be hurt by her actions.

And she had no idea what an apology was because you only apologize when you’re wrong, and of course she never was!”