Article: When your mother's a narcissist

[CZBZ]

When your mother’s a narcissist


Recovery, says this psychotherapist, is not about changing mom: that’s a lost cause

JULIE MCKINNELL | October 22, 2008 |

“If I called my mother and told her I was feeling fat, she’d go, ‘Oh my God, talk about feeling fat!’ ” confides 44-year-old Chantal, a Toronto artist and single mother of a teenage son. Chantal says it’s pointless trying to have a heart-to-heart with her self-absorbed mother. “She can’t hear you. With a narcissistic parent, everything is about them. If I said I’m on a diet, she’d say ‘I’m on a diet,’ then go on and on about how fat she is. She’ll tell you how she’s eliminated sugar almost, but not hear anything I was saying.”

When psychotherapist Dr. Karyl McBride counsels the daughters of narcissistic mothers, she starts by giving them a questionnaire. Questions No. 1 and No. 2: “When you discuss your life issues with your mother, does she divert the conversation to talk about herself?” “When you discuss your feelings with your mother, does she try to top the feelings with her own?”

Maternal narcissism is a far more widespread, devastating disorder than most people realize, says McBride, who confesses that she, too, felt “unmothered” growing up and looked but could never find a book that dealt with mothers who are not maternal, or a daughter’s feelings of frustration, even hatred.

“It’s very rare for a woman to come into therapy and say, ‘Hello, I’m the daughter of a narcissist.’ Usually, they come in with depression or low self-esteem or [are] exhausted from trying to achieve, achieve, achieve,” says McBride. “Good girls aren’t supposed to hate their mothers so they don’t talk about their feelings.” Still, after 17 years of specializing in treating daughters of narcissists, McBride easily spots the symptoms: “over-sensitivity, self-consciousness, indecisiveness, inability to succeed in relationships.”

In her new self-help book, Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers: Will I Ever Be Good Enough?, McBride stresses that “recovery is not about changing mom. It’s about your own internal work.” Chantal’s Toronto therapist warned her not to confront or accuse her mother of being a narcissist. “I was told she wouldn’t get it. No, I’ve never tried to talk to her about it.” McBride agrees: “If mother is a full-blown narcissist, it’s not going to do any good to confront her.”

Accepting that your mother isn’t going to change is the first and most difficult step, she says. She gives the example of her 32-year-old client, Sandy, who said: “I always wanted a normal mom. One who doesn’t dress like a hooker, who doesn’t flirt with your boyfriends, who doesn’t compete with me and isn’t threatened by me and is proud of my achievements. Do I have to give up on all this?” Yes, says McBride. “Accepting that mom may not have the full capacity for empathy and love is the hardest thing for daughters. They keep going back and hoping and wishing for it to be different.”

Some daughters try to drag their moms into therapy with them, but “the more traits your mother has that fit the disorder, the less likely she is a candidate for successful treatment. This means you can’t fix her and shouldn’t be attempting to,” writes McBride. “Since she’s not going to change, you may then ask whether or not you should continue to have contact with her.” In many situations, says McBride, “daughters have to make the choice to disconnect completely from their mothers.” Part two of recovery is grieving and crying over the mother you never had, writes McBride. Find a quiet room and cry until you “can’t stand yourself anymore,” she suggests. During the grief process, it may be helpful “if the therapist is a mother or grandmother. The kind of transference where the daughter can feel like the therapist is a nurturing mother can be very helpful for this process.”

Another part of a daughter’s healing is “treating her own narcissistic traits and refusing to pass on the legacy to your own children,” says McBride. “You definitely inherit narcissistic tendencies,” says Chantal. When her 14-year-old son gets upset with her, he says, “Mom, what about me? You don’t pay enough attention to me and you never have. You never played with me when I was little. You just took me to the park and you’d read a book and leave me on my own.”

“Well, I’m honest with him about it,” says Chantal. “I say, ‘I didn’t get any attention . . . and I’m really sorry I’m repeating that.’ I tell him, ‘Make sure if you have something to tell me that I’m paying attention.’ I tell him, ‘It’s not you. It’s my problem. It’s my shortcoming and I will try harder.’ ”

[RB22]

CZBZ,

Thank you,  I hear this from my kids... I will take the advice and USE IT. 

Thanks again.

RB

[CZBZ]

You are welcome, RB. I had hoped to post a long list of characteristics for narcissistic mothers. It was published online a couple of years ago (?) and the author was a member of WoN. I followed the link but her site is no longer there.

Lucky me, though. I'm a 'keeper' which means the article was filed in our archives. It just took awhile to find it but here it is:

The Narcissistic Mother

by Chris

"It's about secret things. The Destructive Narcissistic Parent creates a child that only exists to be an extension of her self. It's about body language. It's about disapproving glances. It's about vocal tone. It's very intimate. And it's very powerful. It's part of who the child is." ~Chris

Characteristics of Narcissistic Mothers

1. Everything she does is deniable. There is always a facile excuse or an explanation. Cruelties are couched in loving terms. Aggressive and hostile acts are paraded as thoughtfulness. Selfish manipulations are presented as gifts. Criticism and slander is slyly disguised as concern. She only wants what is best for you. She only wants to help you.

She rarely says right out that she thinks you’re inadequate. Instead, any time that you tell her you’ve done something good, she counters with something your sibling did that was better or she simply ignores you or she hears you out without saying anything, then in a short time does something cruel to you so you understand not to get above yourself. She will carefully separate cause (your joy in your accomplishment) from effect (refusing to let you borrow the car to go to the awards ceremony) by enough time that someone who didn’t live through her abuse would never believe the connection.

Many of her putdowns are simply by comparison. She’ll talk about how wonderful someone else is or what a wonderful job they did on something you’ve also done or how highly she thinks of them. The contrast is left up to you. She has let you know that you’re no good without saying a word. She’ll spoil your pleasure in something by simply congratulating you for it in an angry, envious voice that conveys how unhappy she is, again, completely deniably. It is impossible to confront someone over their tone of voice, their demeanor or they way they look at you, but once your narcissistic mother has you trained, she can promise terrible punishment without a word. As a result, you’re always afraid, always in the wrong, and can never exactly put your finger on why.

Because her abusiveness is part of a lifelong campaign of control and because she is careful to rationalize her abuse, it is extremely difficult to explain to other people what is so bad about her. She’s also careful about when and how she engages in her abuses. She’s very secretive, a characteristic of almost all abusers (“Don’t wash our dirty laundry in public!”) and will punish you for telling anyone else what she’s done. The times and locations of her worst abuses are carefully chosen so that no one who might intervene will hear or see her bad behavior, and she will seem like a completely different person in public. She’ll slam you to other people, but will always embed her devaluing nuggets of snide gossip in protestations of concern, love and understanding (“I feel so sorry for poor Cynthia. She always seems to have such a hard time, but I just don’t know what I can do for her!”) As a consequence the children of narcissists universally report that no one believes them (“I have to tell you that she always talks about YOU in the most caring way!). Unfortunately therapists, given the deniable actions of the narcissist and eager to defend a fellow parent, will often jump to the narcissist’s defense as well, reinforcing your sense of isolation and helplessness (“I’m sure she didn’t mean it like that!”)

2. She violates your boundaries. You feel like an extension of her. Your property is given away without your consent, sometimes in front of you. Your food is eaten off your plate or given to others off your plate. Your property may be repossessed and no reason given other than that it was never yours. Your time is committed without consulting you, and opinions purported to be yours are expressed for you. (She LOVES going to the fair! He would never want anything like that. She wouldn’t like kumquats.) You are discussed in your presence as though you are not there. She keeps tabs on your bodily functions and humiliates you by divulging the information she gleans, especially when it can be used to demonstrate her devotion and highlight her martyrdom to your needs (“Mike had that problem with frequent urination too, only his was much worse. I was so worried about him!”) You have never known what it is like to have privacy in the bathroom or in your bedroom, and she goes through your things regularly. She asks nosy questions, snoops into your email/letters/diary/conversations. She will want to dig into your feelings, particularly painful ones and is always looking for negative information on you which can be used against you. She does things against your expressed wishes frequently. All of this is done without seeming embarrassment or thought.

Any attempt at autonomy on your part is strongly resisted. Normal rites of passage (learning to shave, wearing makeup, dating) are grudgingly allowed only if you insist, and you’re punished for your insistence (“Since you’re old enough to date, I think you’re old enough to pay for your own clothes!”) If you demand age-appropriate clothing, grooming, control over your own life, or rights, you are difficult and she ridicules your “independence.”  

3. She favoritizes. Narcissistic mothers commonly choose one (sometimes more) child to be the golden child and one (sometimes more) to be the scapegoat. The narcissist identifies with the golden child and provides privileges to him or her as long as the golden child does just as she wants. The golden child has to be cared for assiduously by everyone in the family. The scapegoat has no needs and instead gets to do the caring. The golden child can do nothing wrong. The scapegoat is always at fault. This creates divisions between the children, one of whom has a large investment in the mother being wise and wonderful, and the other(s) who hate her. That division will be fostered by the narcissist with lies and with blatantly unfair and favoritizing behavior. The golden child will defend the mother and indirectly perpetuate the abuse by finding reasons to blame the scapegoat for the mother’s actions. The golden child may also directly take on the narcissistic mother’s tasks by physically abusing the scapegoat so the narcissistic mother doesn’t have to do that herself.

4. She undermines.  Your accomplishments are acknowledged only to the extent that she can take credit for them. Any success or accomplishment for which she cannot take credit is ignored or diminished. Any time you are to be center stage and there is no opportunity for her to be the center of attention, she will try to prevent the occasion altogether, or she doesn’t come, or she leaves early, or she acts like it’s no big deal, or she steals the spotlight or she slips in little wounding comments about how much better someone else did or how what you did wasn’t as much as you could have done or as you think it is.  She undermines you by picking fights with you or being especially unpleasant just before you have to make a major effort. She acts put out if she has to do anything to support your opportunities or will outright refuse to do even small things in support of you. She will be nasty to you about things that are peripherally connected with your successes so that you find your joy in what you’ve done is tarnished, without her ever saying anything directly about it. No matter what your success, she has to take you down a peg about it.

5. She demeans, criticizes and denigrates. She lets you know in all sorts of little ways that she thinks less of you than she does of your siblings or of other people in general. If you complain about mistreatment by someone else, she will take that person’s side even if she doesn’t know them at all. She doesn’t care about those people or the justice of your complaints. She just wants to let you know that you’re never right.

She will deliver generalized barbs that are almost impossible to rebut (always in a loving, caring tone): “You were always difficult” “You can be very difficult to love” “You never seemed to be able to finish anything” “You were very hard to live with” “You’re always causing trouble” “No one could put up with the things you do.” She will deliver slams in a sidelong way - for example she’ll complain about how “no one” loves her, does anything for her, or cares about her, or she’ll complain that “everyone” is so selfish, when you’re the only person in the room. As always, this combines criticism with deniability.

She will slip little comments into conversation that she really enjoyed something she did with someone else - something she did with you too, but didn’t like as much. She’ll let you know that her relationship with some other person you both know is wonderful in a way your relationship with her isn’t - the carefully unspoken message being that you don’t matter much to her.

She minimizes, discounts or ignores your opinions and experiences. Your insights are met with condescension, denials and accusations (“I think you read too much!”) and she will brush off your information even on subjects on which you are an acknowledged expert. Whatever you say is met with smirks and amused sounding or exaggerated exclamations (“Uh hunh!” “You don’t say!” “Really!”). She’ll then make it clear that she didn’t listen to a word you said.

6. She makes you look crazy. If you try to confront her about something she’s done, she’ll tell you that you have “a very vivid imagination” (this is a phrase commonly used by abusers of all sorts to invalidate your experience of their abuse) that you don’t know what you’re talking about, or that she has no idea what you’re talking about. She will claim not to remember even very memorable events, flatly denying they ever happened, nor will she ever acknowledge any possibility that she might have forgotten. This is an extremely aggressive and exceptionally infuriating tactic called “gaslighting,” common to abusers of all kinds. Your perceptions of reality are continually undermined so that you end up without any confidence in your intuition, your memory or your powers of reasoning. This makes you a much better victim for the abuser.

Narcissists gaslight routinely. The narcissist will either insinuate or will tell you outright that you’re unstable, otherwise you wouldn’t believe such ridiculous things or be so uncooperative. You’re oversensitive. You’re imagining things. You’re hysterical. You’re completely unreasonable. You’re over-reacting, like you always do. She’ll talk to you when you’ve calmed down and aren’t so irrational. She may even characterize you as being neurotic or psychotic.

Once she’s constructed these fantasies of your emotional pathologies, she’ll tell others about them, as always, presenting her smears as expressions of concern and declaring her own helpless victimhood. She didn’t do anything. She has no idea why you’re so irrationally angry with her. You’ve hurt her terribly. She thinks you may need psychotherapy. She loves you very much and would do anything to make you happy, but she just doesn’t know what to do. You keep pushing her away when all she wants to do is help you.

She has simultaneously absolved herself of any responsibility for your obvious antipathy towards her, implied that it’s something fundamentally wrong with you that makes you angry with her, and undermined your credibility with her listeners. She plays the role of the doting mother so perfectly that no one will believe you.

7. She’s envious.  Any time you get something nice she’s angry and envious and her envy will be apparent when she admires whatever it is. She’ll try to get it from you, spoil it for you, or get the same or better for herself. She’s always working on ways to get what other people have. The envy of narcissistic mothers often includes competing sexually with their daughters or daughters-in-law. They’ll attempt to forbid their daughters to wear makeup, to groom themselves in an age-appropriate way or to date. They will criticize the appearance of their daughters and daughters-in-law. This envy extends to relationships. Narcissistic mothers infamously attempt to damage their children’s marriages and interfere in the upbringing of their grandchildren.

8. She’s a liar in too many ways to count. Any time she talks about something that has emotional significance for her, it’s a fair bet that she’s lying. Lying is one way that she creates conflict in the relationships and lives of those around her - she’ll lie to them about what other people have said, what they’ve done, or how they feel. She’ll lie about her relationship with them, about your behavior or about your situation in order to inflate herself and to undermine your credibility.

The narcissist is very careful about how she lies. To outsiders she’ll lie thoughtfully and deliberately, always in a way that can be covered up if she’s confronted with her lie. She spins what you said rather than makes something up wholesale. She puts dishonest interpretations on things you actually did. If she’s recently done something particularly egregious she may engage in preventative lying: she lies in advance to discount what you might say before you even say it. Then when you talk about what she did you’ll be cut off with “I already know all about it…your mother told me... (self-justifications and lies).” Because she is so careful about her deniability, it may be very hard to catch her in her lies and the more gullible of her friends may never realize how dishonest she is.

To you, she’ll lie blatantly. She will claim to be unable to remember bad things she has done, even if she did one of them recently and even if it was something very memorable. Of course, if you try to jog her memory by recounting the circumstances “You have a very vivid imagination” or “That was so long ago. Why do you have to dredge up your old grudges?” Your conversations with her are full of casual brush-offs and diversionary lies and she doesn’t respect you enough to bother making it sound good. For example she’ll start with a self-serving lie: “If I don’t take you as a dependent on my taxes I’ll lose three thousand dollars!” You refute her lie with an obvious truth: “No, three thousand dollars is the amount of the dependent exemption. You’ll only lose about eight hundred dollars.” Her response: “Isn’t that what I said?” You are now in a game with only one rule: You can’t win.

On the rare occasions she is forced to acknowledge some bad behavior, she will couch the admission deniably. She “guesses” that “maybe” she “might have” done something wrong. The wrongdoing is always heavily spun and trimmed to make it sound better. The words “I guess,”  “maybe,” and  “might have” are in and of themselves lies because she knows exactly what she did - no guessing, no might haves, no maybes.

9. She has to be the center of attention all the time. This need is a defining trait of narcissists and particularly of narcissistic mothers for whom their children exist to be sources of attention and adoration.  Narcissistic mothers love to be waited on and often pepper their children with little requests. “While you’re up…” or its equivalent is one of their favorite phrases. You couldn’t just be assigned a chore at the beginning of the week or of the day, instead, you had to do it on demand, preferably at a time that was inconvenient for you, or you had to “help” her do it, fetching and carrying for her while she made up to herself for the menial work she had to do as your mother by glorying in your attentions.

A narcissistic mother may create odd occasions at which she can be the center of attention, such as memorials for someone close to her who died long ago, or major celebrations of small personal milestones. She may love to entertain so she can be the life of her own party. She will try to steal the spotlight or will try to spoil any occasion where someone else is the center of attention, particularly the child she has cast as the scapegoat.  She often invites herself along where she isn’t welcome. If she visits you or you visit her, you are required to spend all your time with her. Entertaining herself is unthinkable. She has always pouted, manipulated or raged if you tried to do anything without her, didn’t want to entertain her, refused to wait on her, stymied her plans for a drama or otherwise deprived her of attention.

Older narcissistic mothers often use the natural limitations of aging to manipulate dramas, often by neglecting their health or by doing things they know will make them ill. This gives them the opportunity to cash in on the investment they made when they trained you to wait on them as a child. Then they call you (or better still, get the neighbor or the nursing home administrator to call you) demanding your immediate attendance. You are to rush to her side, pat her hand, weep over her pain and listen sympathetically to her unending complaints about how hard and awful it is. (“Never get old!”) It’s almost never the case that you can actually do anything useful, and the causes of her disability may have been completely avoidable, but you’ve been put in an extremely difficult position. If you don’t provide the audience and attention she’s manipulating to get, you look extremely bad to everyone else and may even have legal culpability. (Narcissistic behaviors commonly accompany Alzheimer’s disease, so this behavior may also occur in perfectly normal mothers as they age.)

10. She manipulates your emotions in order to feed on your pain. This exceptionally sick and bizarre behavior is so common among narcissistic mothers that their children often call them “emotional vampires.” Some of this emotional feeding comes in the form of pure sadism. She does and says things just to be wounding or she engages in tormenting teasing or she needles you about things you’re sensitive about, all the while a smile plays over her lips. She may have taken you to scary movies or told you horrifying stories, then mocked you for being a baby when you cried, She will slip a wounding comment into conversation and smile delightedly into your hurt face. You can hear the laughter in her voice as she pressures you or says distressing things to you. Later she’ll gloat over how much she upset you, gaily telling other people that you’re so much fun to tease, and recruiting others to share in her amusement. . She enjoys her cruelties and makes no effort to disguise that. She wants you to know that your pain entertains her.  She may bring up subjects that are painful for you and probe you about them, all the while watching you carefully. This is emotional vampirism in its purest form. She’s feeding emotionally off your pain.

A peculiar form of this emotional vampirism combines attention-seeking behavior with a demand that the audience suffer. Since narcissistic mothers often play the martyr this may take the form of wrenching, self-pitying dramas which she carefully produces, and in which she is the star performer. She sobs and wails that no one loves her and everyone is so selfish, and she doesn’t want to live, she wants to die! She wants to die! She will not seem to care how much the manipulation of their emotions and the self-pity repels other people. One weird behavior that is very common to narcissists: her dramas may also center around the tragedies of other people, often relating how much she suffered by association and trying to distress her listeners, as she cries over the horrible murder of someone she wouldn’t recognize if they had passed her on the street.

11. She’s selfish and willful. She always makes sure she has the best of everything. She insists on having her own way all the time and she will ruthlessly, manipulatively pursue it, even if what she wants isn’t worth all the effort she’s putting into it and even if that effort goes far beyond normal behavior. She will make a huge effort to get something you denied her, even if it was entirely your right to do so and even if her demand was selfish and unreasonable. If you tell her she cannot bring her friends to your party she will show up with them anyway, and she will have told them that they were invited so that you either have to give in, or be the bad guy to these poor dupes on your doorstep. If you tell her she can’t come over to your house tonight she’ll call your spouse and try get him or her to agree that she can, and to not say anything to you about it because it’s a “surprise.”  She has to show you that you can’t tell her “no.”  

One near-universal characteristic of narcissists: because they are so selfish and self-centered, they are very bad gift givers. They’ll give you hand-me-downs or market things for themselves as gifts for you (“I thought I’d give you my old bicycle and buy myself a new one!” “I know how much you love Italian food, so I’m going to take you to my favorite restaurant for your birthday!”) New gifts are often obviously cheap and are usually things that don’t suit you or that you can’t use or are a quid pro quo: if you buy her the gift she wants, she will buy you an item of your choice. She’ll make it clear that it pains her to give you anything. She may buy you a gift and get the identical item for herself, or take you shopping for a gift and get herself something nice at the same time to make herself feel better.

12. She’s self-absorbed. Her feelings, needs and wants are very important; yours are insignificant to the point that her least whim takes precedence over your most basic needs. Her problems deserve your immediate and full attention; yours are brushed aside. Her wishes always take precedence; if she does something for you, she reminds you constantly of her munificence in doing so and will often try to extract some sort of payment. She will complain constantly, even though your situation may be much worse than hers. If you point that out, she will effortlessly, thoughtlessly brush it aside as of no importance (It’s easy for you…/It’s different for you…).

13. She is insanely defensive and is extremely sensitive to any criticism. If you criticize her or defy her she will explode with fury, threaten, storm, rage, destroy and may become violent, beating, confining, putting her child outdoors in bad weather or otherwise engaging in classic physical abuse.

14. She terrorized. For all abusers, fear is a powerful means of control of the victim, and your narcissistic mother used it ruthlessly to train you. Narcissists teach you to beware their wrath even when they aren’t present. The only alternative is constant placation. If you give her everything she wants all the time, you might be spared. If you don’t, the punishments will come. Even adult children of narcissists still feel that carefully inculcated fear. Your narcissistic mother can turn it on with a silence or a look that tells the child in you she’s thinking about how she’s going to get even.

Not all narcissists abuse physically, but most do, often in subtle, deniable ways.  It allows them to vent their rage at your failure to be the solution to their internal havoc and simultaneously to teach you to fear them. You may not have been beaten, but you were almost certainly left to endure physical pain when a normal mother would have made an effort to relieve your misery. This deniable form of battery allows her to store up her rage and dole out the punishment at a later time when she’s worked out an airtight rationale for her abuse, so she never risks exposure. You were left hungry because “you eat too much.”  (Someone asked her if she was pregnant. She isn’t). You always went to school with stomach flu because “you don’t have a fever. You’re just trying to get out of school.” (She resents having to take care of you. You have a lot of nerve getting sick and adding to her burdens.) She refuses to look at your bloody heels and instead the shoes that wore those blisters on your heels are put back on your feet and you’re sent to the store in them because “You wanted those shoes. Now you can wear them.”  (You said the ones she wanted to get you were ugly. She liked them because they were just like what she wore 30 years ago). The dentist was told not to give you Novocaine when he drilled your tooth because “he has to learn to take better care of his teeth.” (She has to pay for a filling and she’s furious at having to spend money on you.)

Narcissistic mothers also abuse by loosing others on you or by failing to protect you when a normal mother would have. Sometimes the narcissist’s golden child will be encouraged to abuse the scapegoat. Narcissists also abuse by exposing you to violence. If one of your siblings got beaten, she made sure you saw. She effortlessly put the fear of Mom into you, without raising a hand.

15. She’s infantile and petty. Narcissistic mothers are often simply childish. If you refuse to let her manipulate you into doing something, she will cry that you don’t love her because if you loved her you would do as she wanted. If you hurt her feelings she will aggressively whine to you that you’ll be sorry when she’s dead that you didn’t treat her better. These babyish complaints and responses may sound laughable, but the narcissist is dead serious about them. When you were a child, if you ask her to stop some bad behavior, she would justify it by pointing out something that you did that she feels is comparable, as though the childish behavior of a child is justification for the childish behavior of an adult. “Getting even” is a large part of her dealings with you. Anytime you fail to give her the deference, attention or service she feels she deserves, or you thwart her wishes, she has to show you.

[CZBZ]

Continued from prior message

16. She’s aggressive and shameless. She doesn’t ask. She demands. She makes outrageous requests and she’ll take anything she wants if she thinks she can get away with it. Her demands of her children are posed in a very aggressive way, as are her criticisms. She won’t take no for an answer, pushing and arm-twisting and manipulating to get you to give in.

17. She “parentifies.” She shed her responsibilities to you as soon as she was able, leaving you to take care of yourself as best you could. She denied you medical care, adequate clothing, necessary transportation or basic comforts that she would never have considered giving up herself. She never gave you a birthday party or let you have sleepovers. Your friends were never welcome in her house. She didn’t like to drive you anywhere, so you turned down invitations because you had no way to get there. She wouldn’t buy your school pictures even if she could easily have afforded it. You had a niggardly clothing allowance or she bought you the cheapest clothing she could without embarrassing herself. As soon as you got a job, every request for school supplies, clothing or toiletries was met with “Now that you’re making money, why don’t you pay for that yourself?”

She also gave you tasks that were rightfully hers and should not have been placed on a child. You may have been a primary caregiver for young siblings or an incapacitated parent. You may have had responsibility for excessive household tasks. Above all, you were always her emotional caregiver which is one reason any defection from that role caused such enormous eruptions of rage. You were never allowed to be needy or have bad feelings or problems. Those experiences were only for her, and you were responsible for making it right for her. From the time you were very young she would randomly lash out at you any time she was stressed or angry with your father or felt that life was unfair to her, because it made her feel better to hurt you. You were often punished out of the blue, for manufactured offenses. As you got older she directly placed responsibility for her welfare and her emotions on you, weeping on your shoulder and unloading on you any time something went awry for her.

18.  She’s exploitative. She will manipulate to get work, money, or objects she envies out of other people for nothing. This includes her children, of course. If she set up a bank account for you, she was trustee on the account with the right to withdraw money. As you put money into it, she took it out. She may have stolen your identity. She took you as a dependent on her income taxes so you couldn’t file independently without exposing her to criminal penalties. If she made an agreement with you, it was violated the minute it no longer served her needs. If you brought it up demanding she adhere to the agreement, she brushed you off and later punished you so you would know not to defy her again.

Sometimes the narcissist will exploit a child to absorb punishment that would have been hers from an abusive partner. The husband comes home in a drunken rage, and the mother immediately complains about the child’s bad behavior so the rage is vented on to the child. Sometimes the narcissistic mother simply uses the child to keep a sick marriage intact because the alternative is being divorced or having to go to work. The child is sexually molested but the mother never notices, or worse, calls the child a liar when she tells the mother about the molestation.

19. She projects. This sounds a little like psycho-babble, but it is something that narcissists all do. Projection means that she will put her own bad behavior, character and traits on you so she can deny them in herself and punish you. This can be very difficult to see if you have traits that she can project on to. An eating-disordered woman who obsesses over her daughter’s weight is projecting. The daughter may not realize it because she has probably internalized an absurdly thin vision of women’s weight and so accepts her mother’s projection. When the narcissist tells the daughter that she eats too much, needs to exercise more, or has to wear extra-large size clothes, the daughter believes it, even if it isn’t true. However, she will sometimes project even though it makes no sense at all. This happens when she feels shamed and needs to put it on her scapegoat child and the projection therefore comes across as being an attack out of the blue.  For example: She makes an outrageous request, and you casually refuse to let her have her way. She’s enraged by your refusal and snarls at you that you’ll talk about it when you’ve calmed down and are no longer hysterical.

You aren’t hysterical at all; she is, but your refusal has made her feel the shame that should have stopped her from making shameless demands in the first place. That’s intolerable. She can transfer that shame to you and rationalize away your response: you only refused her because you’re so unreasonable. Having done that she can reassert her shamelessness and indulge her childish willfulness by turning an unequivocal refusal into a subject for further discussion. You’ll talk about it again “later” – probably when she’s worn you down with histrionics, pouting and the silent treatment so you’re more inclined to do what she wants.

20. She is never wrong about anything. No matter what she’s done, she won’t ever genuinely apologize for anything. Instead, any time she feels she is being made to apologize she will sulk and pout, issue an insulting apology or negate the apology she has just made with justifications, qualifications or self pity: “I’m sorry you felt that I humiliated you” “I’m sorry if I made you feel bad” “If I did that it was wrong” “I’m sorry, but I there’s nothing I can do about it” “I’m sorry I made you feel clumsy, stupid and disgusting” “I’m sorry but it was just a joke. You’re so over-sensitive” “I’m sorry that my own child feels she has to upset me and make me feel bad.” The last insulting apology is also an example of projection.

21. Sometimes she seems to have no awareness that other people even have feelings, and yet she is brilliantly sensitive to other people’s emotions. Every child of a narcissist recognizes this contradiction because narcissistic mothers do possess the ability to exercise empathy, and in abundance. Sometimes this ability also leads them to identify emotionally with people who are suffering and to express caring for them. When caring about another’s suffering interferes with something the narcissist wants, though, the caring vanishes. When a narcissistic mother wants validation, when she feels like eliciting some emotional pain, when something she wants hurts someone else, the empathy is turned off as though it never existed.

From the perspective of ability, narcissists are extremely empathetic; indeed they have a gift of telling what other people are feeling and thinking. Their skill at discerning and guiding the emotions of other people is the basis of many characteristically narcissistic interactions. Narcissists are very socially adept which is why no one ever believes their children when they complain of their mothers. They know just how to make everyone think that they’re delightful. Narcissistic mothers are exceptional manipulators, and manipulators must be extremely aware, on a moment-by-moment basis, of the emotions of their targets.  If you don’t know what people are feeling, you can’t push their buttons. Their exceptional sensitivity to the feelings of others is also the wellspring of their pleasure in inflicting emotional pain through dramas and no-win scenarios. Narcissistic mothers enjoy inflicting emotional pain and they do it very well because they know just what their target children are feeling. That exquisite sensitivity is the reason they don’t need to batter. They can inflict agony without lifting a finger, so why risk exposure and waste effort with beatings when they can elicit the same emotions with words alone?

What narcissistic mothers lack is concern for the consequences of their actions, a behavior that seems rooted in profound selfishness, rather than in the absence of empathy. Mothers with NPD are certainly capable of feeling for others: they’re always feeling for the people with whom their scapegoat has conflicts. They feel for their fellow narcissists. They feel for people who have validated and praised them. They even feel for their child when it doesn’t cost them anything to do so. They just don’t feel for their child when they’re abusing him. They don’t feel anything that interferes with their absorption in their own wants and needs. Because they scour their environment for validation of their own abusiveness, they defend their fellow abusers, so they don’t have any empathy for the victims of those abusers, as the following story shows:

A four-year-old had come to school with a hand print on her face, which had been inflicted as the result of a slap by her mother’s live-in boyfriend. As a mandated reporter my mother had called the authorities, but she told me that she could understand why the boyfriend had hit the child: she was so annoying. Then she said in a dramatic tone dripping with sympathy “You should have seen the parents. They were so ashamed!” In outrage I said “What difference does that make to the child?” Her mouth dropped open and I realized she not only didn’t care at all about that poor little girl…it would never have occurred to her to care. ~Sarah

This story shows the misplaced empathy of the abuser for other abusers. There was no empathy in Chris’s mother for the actual victim. Instead it was reserved for the woman who let her boyfriend batter her child. Chris’s mother identified with the abuser, a mother like herself, afflicted with a child who didn’t meet her needs. Her empathy actually attributed virtues to her fellow abuser and faults to the victim that weren’t merited in reality. Someone who hits a small child hard enough to leave a handprint, then sends them to school, isn’t ashamed, and the personality of a four-year-old is not the fault of the child!

The selfish empathy demonstrated by narcissistic mothers contrasts with the genuine empathy shown by normal people. Sometimes a normal person will give up something they really want for themselves because they come to recognize that it will hurt another person. A narcissistic mother will relentlessly go after something she wants even if it isn’t worth the pain she has to inflict to get it.

22. She engineers “no-win” situations that leave you violated and angry and not sure why you feel that way. In the classic “no-win” scenario, the narcissist’s child is subtly manipulated into a corner and then presented with a demand that the child do something degrading, humiliating or painful in order to please the narcissist. Any response other than compliance triggers retaliation.

These sadistic scenes are a defining characteristic of the narcissist. As so often with narcissistic behavior, the payoff for your mother is the elicitation of painful emotions. Whether you subject yourself to her degradation or you fight back and provoke punishment from the narcissist, you will experience a sense of entrapment and fear, and those emotions are very satisfying to her. Her pleasure is augmented by the pain she elicits by undermining, insulting and demeaning you and, as the scene winds down, by blaming you for the entire event.

These scenes are set up very stealthily; so much so that the children of narcissists rarely realize that a trap has been laid before it’s sprung. As always, the narcissist maintains deniability, but the consistencies between scenes betray their deliberate nature.  Although the narcissist plays the scene as though it was spontaneous, it never is. It is scripted and premeditated and the stage is set well in advance. If a scene plays out away from home, you can be sure that the mother is in charge of transportation so that the child doesn’t have the option of walking away. If the scene is staged at home, it’s almost always in the mother’s home, not the child’s home, and engineered so that once again, it’s extremely difficult for the child to walk away.  The narcissist commonly arranges things so she is alone with her victim, but she may also use the presence of a young child or complicit spouse to ensure that her target doesn’t react angrily.

Often the worst part of these scenes for the child is the awareness of how much his mother enjoys his distress; the children of narcissistic mothers often describe their mother’s “little smile” and air of pleasure as she plays out the no-win scenario. When confronted, some narcissistic mothers will even defend their behavior by saying they were “just having fun.” There is no betrayal more wounding than knowing your own mother is reveling in the pain she purposely caused, nor any emotion more delicious to your narcissistic mother than your sense of shock and misery at your knowledge that she is hurting you deliberately and for fun.

In the following story, an adult daughter is manipulated into a no-win situation. If she does not want to provoke retaliation from her narcissistic mother, she must accept and express gratitude for a gift that was clearly meant as an insult:

A few days before Christmas, my mother walked into the room where I was sitting carrying a pair of old, worn tennis shoes – the kind with the rubber soles and canvas uppers. She said “I know you asked for a pair of running shoes for Christmas. I thought I could give you these and get myself a new pair instead.” My mother was a clothes horse, and always had many pairs of new running shoes in her closet. What’s more, her feet are bigger and narrower than mine, so there’s no way her shoes would have fit me, but I was too shocked and angry to think of that. I said “I don’t want your cast-offs!” and she looked very satisfied and pleased and said “Fine” and walked away. That year I got no gift for Christmas, even though I had bought her something from her wish list, and even though my brother and sister got gifts from her.

I did get a letter after I got home that started “I’m sorry you felt that I offered you “cast-offs” and went on to describe how good her intentions were, how she thought I would be happy to let her do something nice for herself, and how hard she had it as the mother of an “unappreciative” child like me. This wasn’t the first time either. The preceding year she had tried to give me an old, rusty bicycle for Christmas with the stipulation that she would then get herself a new one.

This story illustrates an absolutely classic no-win scenario. Although Chris did not realize it at the time, her mother had manipulated her into a corner. Chris had traveled to her mother’s house for Christmas and it was late at night. As a graduate student, Chris was perpetually short on funds, and going to a hotel, even if she could find one at that hour, was out of the question. None of the rest of the family was there yet, so Chris and her mother were alone in the house. There had been no argument or tension, and the attack by her mother came out of the blue.

Chris’s mother proposed something very insulting: she would give Chris her own worn shoes, which didn’t fit Chris and, for which gift Chris was to be “appreciative.”  You would have to be very aware and self-possessed to respond calmly to such a demeaning suggestion, and Chris, tired, shocked, and angry, blurted out the first thing that came to mind. Chris’s mother got exactly what she wanted: a good feed on Chris’s hurt and anger, and an excuse to punish Chris with exclusion and withholding and later with a letter filled with guilt-inducing remonstrations.

In reality Chris’s mother never planned on giving Chris a Christmas gift. She was angry that Chris had made herself unavailable for abuse by going to graduate school in another state, and she wanted to punish Chris for her defection. So she manipulated a no-win scenario in which she could simultaneously insult Chris and turn Chris’s predictably angry response into an opportunity for punishment and narcissistic venting. In her letter, she projected her own hostility and selfishness on to Chris, blamed Chris for her own bad behavior, and depicted herself as a martyr, all the while maintaining complete deniability about the deliberate nature of the original interaction.

23. She blames. She’ll blame you for everything that isn’t right in her life or for what other people do or for whatever has happened. Always, she’ll blame you for her abuse. You made her do it. If only you weren’t so difficult. You upset her so much that she can’t think straight. Things were hard for her and your backtalk pushed her over the brink. This blaming is often so subtle that all you know is that you thought you were wronged and now you feel guilty. Your brother beats you and her response is to bemoan how uncivilized children are. Your boyfriend dumped you, but she can understand – after all, she herself has seen how difficult you are to love. She’ll do something egregiously exploitative to you, and when confronted will screech at you that she can’t believe you were so selfish as to upset her over such a trivial thing. She’ll also blame you for your reaction to her selfish, cruel and exploitative behavior. She can’t believe you are so petty, so small, and so childish as to object to her giving your favorite dress to her friend. She thought you would be happy to let her do something nice for someone else.

Narcissists are masters of multitasking as this example shows. Simultaneously your narcissistic mother is 1) Lying. She knows what she did was wrong and she knows your reaction is reasonable. 2) Manipulating. She’s making you look like the bad guy for objecting to her cruelties. 3) Being selfish. She doesn’t mind making you feel horrible as long as she gets her own way. 4) Blaming. She did something wrong, but it’s all your fault. 5) Projecting. Her petty, small and childish behavior has become yours. 6) Putting on a self-pitying drama. She’s a martyr who believed the best of you, and you’ve let her down. 7) Parentifying. You’re responsible for her feelings, she has no responsibility for yours.

24. She destroys your relationships. Narcissistic mothers are like tornadoes: wherever they touch down families are torn apart and wounds are inflicted. Unless the father has control over the narcissist and holds the family together, adult siblings in families with narcissistic mothers characteristically have painful relationships. Typically all communication between siblings is superficial and driven by duty, or they may never talk to each other at all. In part, these women foster dissension between their children because they enjoy the control it gives them. If those children don’t communicate except through the mother, she can decide what everyone hears. Narcissists also love the excitement and drama they create by interfering in their children’s lives. Watching people’s lives explode is better than soap operas, especially when you don’t have any empathy for their misery.

The narcissist nurtures anger, contempt and envy – the most corrosive emotions – to drive her children apart. While her children are still living at home, any child who stands up to the narcissist guarantees punishment for the rest. In her zest for revenge, the narcissist purposefully turns the siblings’ anger on the dissenter by including everyone in her retaliation. (“I can see that nobody here loves me! Well I’ll just take these Christmas presents back to the store. None of you would want anything I got you anyway!”) The other children, long trained by the narcissist to give in, are furious with the troublemaking child, instead of with the narcissist who actually deserves their anger.

The narcissist also uses favoritism and gossip to poison her childrens’ relationships. The scapegoat sees the mother as a creature of caprice and cruelty. As is typical of the privileged, the other children don’t see her unfairness and they excuse her abuses. Indeed, they are often recruited by the narcissist to adopt her contemptuous and entitled attitude towards the scapegoat and with her tacit or explicit permission, will inflict further abuse. The scapegoat predictably responds with fury and equal contempt.  After her children move on with adult lives, the narcissist makes sure to keep each apprised of the doings of the others, passing on the most discreditable and juicy gossip (as always, disguised as “concern”) about the other children, again, in a way that engenders contempt rather than compassion.

Having been raised by a narcissist, her children are predisposed to be envious, and she takes full advantage of the opportunity that presents. She may never praise you to your face, but she will likely crow about your victories to the very sibling who is not doing well.  She’ll tell you about the generosity she displayed towards that child, leaving you wondering why you got left out and irrationally angry at the favored child rather than at the narcissist who told you about it.

The end result is a family in which almost all communication is triangular. The narcissist, the spider in the middle of the family web, sensitively monitors all the children for information she can use to retain her unchallenged control over the family. She then passes that on to the others, creating the resentments that prevent them from communicating directly and freely with each other. The result is that the only communication between the children is through the narcissist, exactly the way she wants it.

25. As a last resort she goes pathetic. When she’s confronted with unavoidable consequences for her own bad behavior, including your anger, she will melt into a soggy puddle of weepy helplessness. It’s all her fault. She can’t do anything right. She feels so bad. What she doesn’t do: own the responsibility for her bad conduct and make it right. Instead, as always, it’s all about her, and her helpless self-pitying weepiness dumps the responsibility for her consequences AND for her unhappiness about it on you. As so often with narcissists, it is also a manipulative behavior. If you fail to excuse her bad behavior and make her feel better, YOU are the bad person for being cold, heartless and unfeeling when your poor mother feels so awful.

[May]

 Yep,  this describes my nm to a T. About the comparing thing,when my sil came into the mix, nm started to compare me with her. Sil parented better than me and did everything better than me. Even my ndad started to compare me with sil. Nparents even compared sil kids to mine. Nparents talked like I was a stranger to them instead of a daughter and acted like my sil was the daughter. It was like they were getting pleasure out of doing this to me. The funny thing about this is that my sil thinks that my np really like her. When in reality they are just using her. But in many ways she`s just like them. Sil talked behind my back and talked trash about my kid to my nm to make her kids look like angels.

Sil would go back home from visiting us and tell my nparents things about us(While she was pretending to be my friend). At one point, I guess you could say that we were friends but then the real person started to come out, she was no different than the nparents and siblings. My nparents have given her family heirlooms and pictures. My nm pulled this crap right in front of me and gave her a family heirloom.I could go on but this is just some of what nm has done(and dad).

[eyes_up]

Dang this is a strange as well as an ironic read after visiting my mother. When I read material about N mothers I read mostly similarities although my mother did not completely lack nurturing.

Really glad that I can accept what she could not do, no longer searching for her to finally bring it on as well as appreciate what she was able to do.

Above statement includes accepting the parent as is with out looking for change. This is especially important. Seeing the parent through they eyes of an adult and not the child is another way to go. i do not allow the child with in to be involved with my mother. I speak to her as an adult absent the unmet needs. I take care of those myself by myself and with people who are equipped to do the the job.

AND I NEVER LOOK TO MY MOTHER FOR VALIDATION. It is never about validating me and my experience ... it is always how it turns into her experience. Just used to it and do not ask for anything else. It is much like I imagine visiting some one in a mental institution would be like. I find a lot of compassion when I see it like this.

BUT, Hey, this is after 5 years of therapy. It didn't just drop out of the sky and i certainly didn't fix my head alone. I needed and deserved professional help.

eyes

[RB22]

CZBZ,

Do you know my mother? 

Is this gender specific, cause, I would swear my X has just as many, If not more, traits than my mother.  Shoot, I married my mother!!! That sounds way to weird.

RB

[eyes_up]

Yes, RB, you married your mother and I had an unmarried relationship with my mother more than once. All kinds of things to understand about the mechanics of being human.

Abuse is a spiritual impairment.

eyes

[May]

  I had friendships with others who were just like my mother.

[CZBZ]

It's a good list and yea, it's applicable to any gender. I say 'any' because my daughter insists I quit dividing the world into polar opposites like male and female. She tells me there's lots of ways to 'do your gender' and more than two ways to define your sex. We have interesting discussions, my daughter and I.  

What strikes me as important about this article Chris has written is that she is writing about her mother and not her Dad. Ever since Pandora opened the box on Father Abuse and Patriarchy, it's been okay to talk about your Dad and all his crappy selfishness, or sadly: abusive control. I remember way back in...about the late 70's as I recall, when the public allowed victims of abusive fathers to speak up. Like on Phil Donahue. Victims were given space to reclaim themselves by ending the silence. Speaking up does that, it ends the silence and breaks the spell that keeps you trapped in never never land or as LettingGo puts it, the Kingdom of Narcissism.

So we've had a couple of decades to examine abusive fathering and how a male-dominated system has not only perpetrated harm on women and children, but has also limited the male's fully human development of values like compassion, empathy, connectivity, etc. When someone tells me today that they hate their father, it does NOT shock me the way it did in 1970 because talking smack about Dad was very very taboo back then! Those of you who are older might remember the secrecy and denial about the Father who did NOT know best.

And now, 2010, we are opening Pandora's box once again only this time, we are breaking the silence about the most TABOO subject of all: narcissistic mothers. People resist criticizing our mothers and might try to silence anyone who dares broach this taboo topic; however, we had the same resistance to learning about narcissistic fathers.

As a personal opinion, though, I feel that the narcissistic mother is especially dangerous for a child's emotional and psychological development because, in general, she is the one who spends the most time with the child. (Private time behind closed doors). Because of what I've witnessed with my own sister and her son, if a mother lacks communal support, or is being abused by her husband, or has any emotional problems at all and does not have an extensive support network to help her raise her child, the child is the one that suffers and so does the rest of society.

This problem, the lack of communal support for raising our children, is not an either/or problem. It's not Mom's great and Dad's terrible, or vice versa. People often leap to the conclusion that it's either-or, black-or-white, if Mom's wicked, Dad isn't. Or if Dad's wicked, Mom's an angel. You can't split reality so easily. So we have tenaciously been chipping away at the untouchable patriarch's sacrosanct persona and now it is time to do the same with the 'idealized' mother. This will be hard work. It will frighten people, anger people,  it will make you feel like a pariah for daring to say your mother was abusive or that she was/is a narcissist. It takes a lot of courage to be the first people to talk about the negative impact their mother had on them as children (and continues to impact them as adults). The first thing people do when they are afraid to examine their own childhood is to Silence Others, to shush the people who knock on the door of denial and trigger forbidden feelings they'd rather not know existed.

I believe that while it is frightening to take a cold, hard look at lousy mothering, it is the ONLY way to improve OUR mothering. You can't keep a lid on secrets without making everyone 'sick'---it's like opening the door and letting in fresh air so old wounds can heal and we can STOP infecting each other.

When someone writes about their mother, the narcissist, it triggers people's resistance and usually (at least in my experience) the ones who resist our truth the most are the one's who resist their OWN truth.

I believe that examining the Narcissistic Mother is essential. Just like it was for those of us who flung wide the door to Patriarchy.


Hugs,
CZ

[Jacintae]

Hello all

It's been a while since I posted and I am trying to catch up on all the posts. Each thread is so relevant to me that I would like to post on all of them - but when I came to this one and started to read the article on N Mothers, I felt such a sense of desolation and despair that I just felt like throwing myself under a bus.

I had been doing so well for such a long time. Then five or six weeks ago my Mother got 'ill' in Ireland and my sister phoned me from Ireland and asked me if I could go home there and help out taking care of her. I have two sisters in Ireland and one brother there and two brothers here in the UK. My Mother is 83 and lives alone. She had been sleeping on a couch downstairs in her house for a while and had stopping going to her bed at night. She told me on the phone that the reason for this was that she had become incontinent at night and her bed was soiled and she was not able to sort it out. She did not tell either of my sisters. I went home to Ireland and that same day she was admitted to hospital. She was correct about the incontinence problem - every room in the house needed cleaning, scrubbing and disenfecting.

That sounds like an extremely sad story and indeed it is. But there is the 'Mother' factor. My two sisters ( one is a doctor and one is a nurse) are two fairly assertive women and are great at giving advice as to what needed to be done. But neither of them had 'time' to actually help me do anything so I rolled up my sleeves and got on with it. I constantly felt weary and tired - all the beds had to be scrubbed, the bathrooms were filthy - everything needed cleaning. And Mother is the most awful N that I think I have ever met in my life.

It's true she was ill. She is addicted to painkillers and sleeping pills. One of the pills that she takes has a side effect of causing constipation so Mother then takes gallons of laxatives and hence the incontinence. She was rude in the hospital to the nurses and a nurse took me aside and told me that Mother's behaviour would not be tolerated. She had every test, scan and Xray under the sun and got a complete clean bill of health. I began to believe that she was taking the laxatives as a method of getting attention. Anyway - the hospital discharged her as soon as possible and she came home and I stayed with her. She was ill and weak as a result of losing so much nutrients from her body (laxatives) and insisted on taking laxatives again as soon as she got home. It was a nightmare from beginning to end. I was constantly cleaning and changing her - 24/7 for a whole week. I barely got any sleep. She did not give one damn about the whole thing - I just kept cleaning and washing. The first time I had to put her in the bathtub I could not physically do it - she just lay on the floor and refused to even help me to help her. I was so desperate I told her I was going to phone my sister for help and although she ordered me not to, by the time I had got off the phone and ran back up the stairs she had got herself into the bath. SHe asked me to help her make her will and I did. She is leaving me nothing - it's all going to my older sister. THere is a small amount in a bank in London that she and I share, even that she asked me to give to my brother. It's not the money - I have more than enough - it's just that she did not even leave me a token. I was so sad. I stayed with her for a over a month - she really treats me like a servant - 'run for this', 'run for that' - 'where are my tablets, specs, glasses of water and tea?' - 24 hours a day. She never, ever says thanks. One of my brothers was supposed to come to see her for a few weeks next Monday. But I have moved the bed in his room downstairs for my Mother. She basically told me two days ago that it was best now if I left because he would like the house to himself and her. She is now better and back on her feet and she has no futher use for me. I was so very, very upset. I had not had a drink for over seven months - but that evening I went to a bar and got drunk. That of course gave the rest of my family the opportunity to jump all over me and tell me that I have a drink problem. Anyway now I am back in London. My brother changed his mind and now she is left alone. This morning she begged me to come back and I agreed. But tonight she rudely told me that she liked the 'peace and quiet' without me and to stay away for a week.

I know that I sound like a pathetic, needy, whinger. And I know that I am responsible for myself. And I will start over again and center myself and get back on my feet. And I will. But an N mother is such a heartbreak. She never once asked me if I was tired or how things were for me. She does 'favouritise'. One morning she slopped her breakfast all over her bed and I just sat down and cried. I asked her why none of my sisters would come to help and she said 'they are busy people - they have their own lives to get on with'. I asked her if she thought I had no life and she said 'but I need you here because I am sick'. That was the only thought that she had - her neediness. And I felt so sad - because I knew that it was my own neediness that was keeping me chained there.

I read the thread on 'fear of abandonment'. THat is me through and through. All my life I have longed for her to like me, to respect me as much as my sisters but she never did. She has always hinted that she thought my morals were loose - and has called me a w***e often. This is so completely untrue - I never slept with a man until I was in my thirties and live a celibate life mostly. So yes, my pattern was there to fall easily into a romantic relationship with a using, horrible N who only ever wanted my resourses.

Thanks for listening to me. I feel better for writing all this.

Love to all

Jacintae xx

[SusyP14]

((((Jacintae)))))

It has been a long time since we have heard from you.  I have missed your gentle presence here on the board.  I am sorry you are having a hard time.

From reading your post it seems like it is more then your mother that is a Narc, you have an entire family of dysfunction going around and no body seems to mind you flying in and doing all of the dirty work.  Can you imagine what they would have had to pay someone to deal with that mess?  The would probably need to call in a special cleaning crew with haz mat suits.  And that is not a joke.  What you did out of kindness and love would probably have cost thousands of dollars.

While you are looking around at the posts, I would encourage you to pay special attention to one of our relatively new members:  LettingGo.

She also comes from a highly dysfunctional family and has been doing a lot of impressive postings on breaking free from unhealthy family dynamics.  It sounds like the awful n that broke your heart (the counterfit prince as LG likes to call them) was simply a continuation of a highly chaotic childhood where you were obviously selected as the official Cinderella.

I bet there is a good subconscious reason that ended up living in another country, but alas not even distance can keep us from our destiny which is to break away from people who do not have our highest and greatest good in mind.

Here is one of her posts to get you going:

http://www.webofnarcissism.com/forums/index.php/topic,7029.0.html

I am sending love and peace from my heart to yours

[Jacintae]

Dear Suzy

Thank you so very much for your post. I appreciate it more than you will ever know.

Yes - my family is a very dysfunctional family. And yes, I knew it was better for me to live away from them. But as is often the case we are all very emeshed and know very little about personal boundaries. I think it's because I had got some recovery from this board that I am finding it more difficult to deal with as I, myself, begin to get more healthy.

Thank you so much for the link - I will follow up Letting Go's posts. And I heard your radio interview with Melanie Tonia Evans and I thought you were simply fantastic.

Lots of love
Jac xx

[LettingGo]

  Jancintae when I read your post  
You are at the Proverbial Crossroads, you can either return to the KON (Kingdom of Narcissism) where you are clearly not valued and constantly abused, abuse in your past, in your present, and if you look down this road there is more abuse waiting for you, OR you can choose another path.

Before you decide, I would like you to walk away for a minute, get something to snack and drink and step outside (literally leave the computer right now and step outside your home) and imagine that your best friend has told you on the phone that she has just sent you a letter. Seriously go outside right now and take a break. Go ahead and do it. We are not going anywhere and we will wait for you...............................Go ahead and get some fresh air!...



When you come back, I want you re-read your post as if your best friend has just written you this letter. I know this sounds silly, but please try. Who is your very best friend in this world? Imagine that he or she has written you this letter and now read it.

After reading her letter ask yourself. . .

Does her family truly value, appreciate and love her? Yes or No? Where is the evidence?

What advice would you give your best friend who you cherish & have her best interest at heart?

What is your heart screaming to tell her?

Sometimes we need to step away from the KON and gain proper perspective so we can be objective about the choices we have available to us that we don't even consider when we are deeply in the KON.

For example,

"they are busy people - they have their own lives to get on with'"

This is a N message that says, I value them and NOT you. You have no life, you have no value.

Fact: your sibs did not want to deal w/the NVampM's sh*t nither litterally nor figuratively -- so why did you think you had to? Did any of you consider paying someone else (hired help) to clean up the mess the NVampM left? You did not have to do it yourself. Surely if you did something that others would not and find utterly disgusting, you would be appreciated, valued, accepted, but once again that did not work! If you fulfilled your NVampM's need you would be valuable in her eyes, that has not worked in the past, it did not work now, and it will not work in the future. Why? What is your intention to continually return to the KON? That Well is not only empty it is full of toxic sh*t that will destroy you. Please know that I am saying the following thing from my heart and do not wish to offend or hurt you, and I am not passing judgement in any way, I am really worried for you by remaining in this abusive KON, you are in   of losing your self. The NVampM should be singing your praises for all you have done instead of cutting you out of her Will. My dear you have clearly lost your self -- I know because I have been there myself. By being here at WoN you are fighting for your self. I call WoN the Lost n Found, I lost N and now I found my self. When we are in the moment of being abused we have lost our self, but I know you know that the abuse is wrong and you are finding yourself here. I don't believe that you are lost, but are looking for direction. You are fighting for a life that was stolen from you. I know what it is like to do things that others will not and then not be valued for it and in fact be attacked for helping. It is truly Crazy Cr@p we are dealing with. Oh lady do I know what you are going through! I am so sorry for speaking so strongly. You are such an AMAZING person to do everything you did for the NVampM and for her to do what she did  

You describe the NVamp cutting you out of her Will as making you feel sad. . . perhaps there are some more feelings there?

Fill out the statement below, grab a sheet of paper and a pen, seriously go ahead and complete these sentences.  Rewrite them as much as you need to and complete another thought. please take your time with them and come back to add more info when you think of something else to add. complete the following

My mother is . . . . . . .
(any thing that comes to mind write it down, keep filling it out until you have nothing else left)
My mother thinks . . . . . . .
My mother's behavior tells me . . . . . . .
My mother . . . . . . .

[LettingGo]

Susy, thank you so much for your kind words. Dysfunctional Family is putting it very kindly. When I read Jancintae's post the link you gave her came to mind.

This part of recovering the Lost Self is by accurately identifying things as they are and not as we want them to be. We talked about this on another thread about labeling. I hesitate so much calling other members N moms NVamps, but hey if the fangs fit!

J, the good news about your post is that there are some very clear messages. One of them I talked about in my first post about your life not having any importance compared to your siblings. Here is another one,

SHe asked me to help her make her will and I did. She is leaving me nothing - it's all going to my older sister. THere is a small amount in a bank in London that she and I share, even that she asked me to give to my brother. It's not the money - I have more than enough - it's just that she did not even leave me a token. I was so sad.

J, did you realize that you just described a NVampM who finds pleasure in your pain? After all you have done for her, cleaning up her sh*t, she picks you to fill out her Will when she knows very well what she is going to do next, leave you completely out of it, as you said not even a token of appreciation for all you have sacrificed for her. Now what choices did she have, (1) The Loving Choice - to appreciate and value what you have done for her (2) Hurtful & Deceptive Choice that stabs you in the back - have someone else help her fill out the Will and spare you this painful truth, until the NVampM has died, and until the reading of her Will that in her wicked mind, you deserve NOTHING Because to her you are worth. . . . . . . ! She left you exactly what she thinks & feels about you. . . . . . . . ! (3) The Evil Choice   She has you fill out the Will so that she can stab her own D deep in the heart, twist the knife and watch you suffer when you discover you get exactly what she feels about you .................!
She purposely choose the most Evil Choice. Why because she really does find pleasure in your pain!
This is what I refer to as a Matrix Moment! This is definitely a Truth Too Painful To Ignore!
http://www.webofnarcissism.com/forums/index.php/topic,7042.0.html

No wonder you found a Counterfeit Prince, you had a Counterfeit Mother! You were attracted to the familiarity.

So my question to you Red Pill or Blue Pill?

[Litha]

Jacintae, it is so good to hear from you again  

You need to move out of your mothers house and never go back. It is inexcusable that your sisters have put you in that position, and that your mother treats you as she does. Tell them to hire a nurse for your mother, or put her in a nursing home.

Or you could tell them that YOUR doctor told you to get back to England. Make up some condition that is aggravated by the Irish climate, allergies maybe. Tell them you very sorry but you really have no choice. Doctor's orders.

Before you leave, take whatever you would like for an inheritance. You've earned it.

Get yourself back to your own home and take a nice long bubble bath. Then get a massage and a pedicure, and buy yourself some new clothes. And listen to Eva Cassidy music. And eat ice cream with caramel sauce.

And post here more often, I've missed you!

[LettingGo]

J, please forgive me for speaking so strongly. I have been at the Proverbial Cross Roads and this is still very new for me. I just hate seeing kind loving amazingly generous people such as yourself be hurt by evil NVamps.

[Litha]

CZBZ, I started out quoting the article you posted but gave up. Every line could generate a story of abuse from my past with NM. I may need to print it out and bring it with to my therapy sessions, I could easily fill hour upon hour responding to the scenarios described.

One that stands out is telling the dentist not to use novacaine. I remember as a child feeling sick with terror every time I had to see the dentist. Finally one time I passed out in the chair, he started giving me novacaine after that.

I would not have connected that to her narcissism.


 
Litha

[LettingGo]

One that stands out is telling the dentist not to use novacaine. I remember as a child feeling sick with terror every time I had to see the dentist. Finally one time I passed out in the chair, he started giving me novacaine after that.~Litha

The NVampMs are truly evil. They really do secretly find pleasure in our pain. Can you imagine a little girl passing out w/fear & pain? A true Mother wants to protect her child from such terrible things, but not a Counterfeit!

Every line could generate a story of abuse from my past with NM. I may need to print it out and bring it with to my therapy sessions, I could easily fill hour upon hour responding to the scenarios described.

Seriously, that would be a great idea Litha. Processing such painful stuff is easier to do w/you have something tangible with you.

[Litha]

thanks LettingGo

One memory that has really haunted me is not from childhood. My sister died of cancer when I was about 40. Soon after she was diagnosed, she asked if she could put my name on her living will so I could make healthcare decisions for her when she became unable. I agreed, and she also made me executor of her will.

About a month before she died, she mentioned her decision to my mother, who went to visit my sister daily to "help out." Well, you can imagine how an NM would react to that.

My sister never had children, but she had had 2 cats for over 15 years and they were her babies. NM immediately decided that my sister's cats had become a nuisance and took them to a vet to have them euthanized. When NM returned to my sister's house without the cats, my sister was in a coma (gee, I wonder what caused that? overwhelming grief maybe?). NM took her to the hospital but it was clear that my sister was not going to live much longer.

In those final weeks my sister was in terrible pain, but whenever it was NMs "shift" she would withold morphine. I know this because NM herself told me, and also said she didn't know why she did that.

After my sister died, NM also hired a lawyer to take back control of my sister's estate. I didn't fight her for it, my sister was not wealthy so the whole idea of fighting over her estate was absurd. A couple of months later NM made a point of telling me that she had designated my brother as executor of her own estate.

What kind of mother is so twisted that she has to take revenge on her dying daughter for daring to give someone ELSE more power that NM?

[Jacintae]

Hi Letting Go, Litha, and everyone

Thank you so much for all of this. It is just early morning in London and when I awoke it was so great to see the responses. There is a lot of stuff for me to process. (and no, Letting, I appreciate very much every single word you wrote - I know was all from the loving kindness of your heart) I am going to print out the whole thread and go through it line by line - particularly the questions you set for me, Letting Go.

I followed your thread, Letting Go ( the one that Suzy posted for me) and watched the videos. I understand them completely. Carl Jung said that what is disowned by the  parent is expressed by the child. I have been thinking about that for a while and considering each of my sibs to see if I think this is applicable to my family.

I am going back to follow your thread and your matrix.

I wish I had realised all this years ago. It seems difficult now that Mother is so old and frail. One morning two weeks ago I thought Mother was literally dying. I dashed around and tidied up around her bed and called my sister to come. She agreed with me that Mam was really dying this time. I went into the garden to compose myself but I felt calm. I knew my first call would be to the undertaker that afternoon. She would then be embalmed and come home to her house for the Irish 'wake'. The following morning would be the funeral and that evening I would get a flight back to London and I felt I would never, ever go back again. So somewhere in my psyche I DO realise the truth and I realise that it is coming to an end.

I did stop posting in this forum for a while. I did find some posts very triggering for me. I would have good days but then have really bad days. I began to think that using this forum was actually prolonging my self view as being 'a victim of a Narc'. So I stopped coming here. But the truth, as I can now see, is that my problem was that I had never really come to the heart of my situation. My problem was never, ever so much the N relationship I got into with that man - it was really a life lived with an N mother that was the real root of my unhappiness. It was much, much deeper than I had realised.

So once again - thank you WoN. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate all you guys being there for me in this time.

Lots of love

Jac xx

[CZBZ]

Dear Jacintae,


What a hellishly impossible place we're in when our narcissistic parents are passing away! It's the proverbial Rock and a Hard Place decision. Neither choice is comfortable. We want to do the 'right thing' and maintain our good feelings about ourselves and the way we behaved prior to a parent's death. We want to do the right thing, to empathize and be compassionate towards other people, which usually means taking care of other people, especially our parents. It's how we maintain our self-esteem and self-worth by following our conscience and even if our nurturing is unappreciated, at least we have remained True to who we believe ourselves to be.

Treating people with kindness even when they are unkind and unappreciative in return, maintains our integrity. Treating people unkindly or ignoring them feels uncomfortable, what psychologists label ego-dystonic. It makes us feel out-of-sorts, as though we are not being true to who we are.

If you have subscribed to the ideal of 'honoring your parents', it might be impossible to act in ways that threaten your OWN moral code. This is what compassionate, empathic and moral people are up against with narcissistic parents who not only have a history of abuse towards a child, but continue abusing that child even after she's an adult.

Why does she do that? Why does she punish the most tender-hearted of her children and threaten to cut her out of her will?

The kinder your are, the more gentle you are, and the more compassionate you are, the more your mother will NEED to punish you.

Narcissists detest dependency (true dependency) and punish anyone who makes them feel as though they are incapable of taking care of themselves. There's self-reliance and then there's pathological self-reliance based on grandiosity. Your mother's grandiosity is manifest in her inability to admit her dependence and be grateful for other people's services to her.

Narcissists detest vulnerability. It's one reason they are so punishing and rejecting of little children. Narcissists 'split off' the vulnerable parts of themselves which means they attack and destroy anyone manifesting aspects of themselves that they cannot tolerate or claim.

The more vulnerable, merciful, and tender you are, the more narcissists seek ways to destroy you and in that way, eliminate split-off aspects of themselves. Your vulnerability and compassion, in other words, triggers your mother's pathological defenses. At the same time, your vulnerability and compassion is how you maintain your integrity even when it's unwarranted. Or especially when it's unwarranted! If it's hard to be kind to someone who spitefully abuses you, in a strange way it reinforces our good feelings about ourselves. At the same time, we are uncomfortable aligning with the Martyr archetype.

I don't know your family but my guess is that YOU are the kind one with the tender heart, the sensitive child who wants to do right by her parents. You might be 'targeted' by your mother simply because you ARE kind and sensitive. Narcissists do not RESPECT nor appreciate anyone who takes 'care' of them and it seems counterintuitive since narcissists demand they be the center of other people's lives. If they need you and you respond to their need, they will punish you for making them feel 'dependent'.

OLD narcissists are some of the nastiest people you could never hope to meet in your lifetime. They are demanding, punishing, critical, bitter, resentful, SADISTIC, hateful, envious, envious and even more envious. IF you, as a child, have achieved success of any kind, the old narcissistic mother will demean you any way that she can. If that means cutting you out of her will as a 'cover' for saying she does not love you, then she will do exactly that!

The kinder you are to her, the less she respects you. Narcissists respect POWER, not love.

Most older people have difficulty accepting their dependency. The distinction between a defensive older person pretending to be self-reliant and the bitter old narcissist is the lack of gratitude and the need to maintain superiority over others. They 'put down' the person who does something they could NEVER EVER do themselves (like showing compassion) so they can feel superior.

If they have five pennies in their will, they will use those five cents like a weapon to divide-and-conquer siblings even after their death. It's fun for old narcissists to lure a child into their web so they can watch her work like a servant only to receive an insult or punishment as her reward. They enjoy humiliating a child, especially the one that has attributes they will never have (envy rears her ugly head with narcissistic mothers and tender-hearted daughters).

As long as you are able to SEE what she is doing without being confused by her contradictory behavior and as long as you are AWARE of why you are helping her when she doesn't deserve your help, you can make better decisions about what you will and will not do. Being aware gives us power over our behaviors and even if we continue doing the same things we would have done anyway, at least we understand ourselves, our motives and our reasons for doing what we're doing. Just knowing that you are making a choice because it resonates with your sense of self makes it easier to tolerate the narcissist's resentment, lack of appreciation, and ridiculous punishments.

At this point, while your mother is near death, you have to ask yourself what YOU can live with. You may decide to support her and care for her anyway but you do NOT have to identify with her projections. That's the tricky part and the only way I've found to keep a healthy boundary in place is being aware, being informed, talking about and writing about my feelings. The more conscious I am of my feelings and motives, the less vulnerable I am to the narcissist's manipulations and yes, projections.

also, be aware of your expectations. You may be hoping, even unconsciously, that your caretaking will change your relationship with your mother. Our expectations hold us hostage so ask yourself what you expect from your caretaking. We can never serve a narcissist enough to be appreciated. Never. In fact, the more kindness we extend and the more service we provide, the more they detest the very sight of us. That's the honest truth about the narcissistic disorder.




Love,
CZ

[LettingGo]

What kind of mother is so twisted that she has to take revenge on her dying daughter for daring to give someone ELSE more power that NM?~Litha

What answer did you come up with Litha?

CZ placed a great post w/ lots of fantastic info on Patterns of Abuse. It is important that we recognize that we all have choices and the options we choose reveal our intent especially when you create a list which discloses a pattern of abuse from an abuser. Identifying the Big Picture is important. Would failing to see the Big Picture mean that we are not seeing the forest through the trees? -- that saying always challenged me a bit!

http://www.webofnarcissism.com/forums/index.php/topic,6435.0/topicseen.html

Litha the NM had different choices in regards to your dying Sis and you
(1) The Loving Choice - to honor and fulfill her dying D wishes and keep You in charge of the Will, estate, cats 
(2) Hurtful & Deceptive Choice that stabs you in the back - take care of the cats until your Sis stepped into eternity. Then find a loving home for the cats.
(3) The Evil Choice - NM dishonors her dying D last wishes, causes chaos manipulates & trianglulates, playing one person against the other, takes control & power to hurt not one both both of her children, kills the cats while your Sis is alive and will suffer from her horrible act, and denies you Sis to have her last days less painful and makes sure she is in severe pain as she leaves this world.

I know this because NM herself told me, and also said she didn't know why she did that.

Do you believe her? Do you know why she did that horrible those horrible things to your Sis

She purposely choose the most Evil Choices. Why?

[LettingGo]

The kinder your are, the more gentle you are, and the more compassionate you are, the more your mother will NEED to punish you. ~ CZ

Why? Why does this happen?

We can never serve a narcissist enough to be appreciated. Never. In fact, the more kindness we extend and the more service we provide, the more they detest the very sight of us. That's the honest truth about the narcissistic disorder.~CZ

Why? Why does this happen?

These questions are not just to CZ, but to all of us who have or had Ns in our lives?
Fill in the blank below.

They Nparents/spouses/friends do the above because they . . . . . . . . us.

Anyone care to share what you came up with?

[Legs]

They Nparents/spouses/friends do the above because they . . . . . . .

secretly hate us?
are jealous of us?
are always miserable themselves, and at first they think since we are happy that maybe we can make them happy, but then it never happens because they can NEVER be happy for more than a second, they resent us because they finally realize that we can't really make them happy


I don't even think they think about us other than filling a role they need/want/end up with...

they are not human therefore we are not either

honestly, I think they are so self-focused that see us as nothing much more than a sofa..a sofa that walks and talks.


Legs, who finally gave up trying to figure them out. They are damaged in some way. Whether from nature or nurture or a combination both, but they don't have as much feeling as a cat. Some people think cats are self-focused and they are, but if you sad or grieving, a cat will come to you and try and comfort you..the N just gets irritated, or jealous or angry