Labeling/Diagnosing Our Parents
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Originally Posted by Kialua 
My Mom lived till 97 and never apologized for all the chaos she created all her life. I don't hold out much hope for these types of mothers to have an epiphany.
I can imagine saying to her: You caused a lot of damage to my ability to have good relationships with other people by spending 40 years and more telling them I'm a liar, and 'stubborn,' and 'imagine things.'
I can see her as if she's right here in front of me, shaking her head, looking at me sadly, like I'm a sad, deranged mental case whom she pities and tried so hard to help, and saying, "But you are."
She simply does not live in the same world I do and me expecting an apology would be further proof to her that I'm all kinds of bad. She's tried sooo hard to help me!
I was thinking about these things today, the issues in this thread, in the links, and wondered: are we who were raised by such mothers doomed to spend our whole lives searching for answer as to why they behaved this way, treated us this way, told us we were bad, wanted to hurt our relationships with others...or does there finally come a time of peace for some of us, understanding, no longer searching for answers.
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I just shake my head and wonder, but not really care, why they were that way. I just don't care because there was never any reasoning with them. It was like talking to a person from another planet in a language they didn't understand. Never happened. Eve when my died she thanked each one of us for our different kindnesses to her. But never mentioned her wrongs. Never.
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I can see her as if she's right here in front of me, shaking her head, looking at me sadly, like I'm a sad, deranged mental case whom she pities and tried so hard to help, and saying, "But you are."
You just described my Mother! One of her favorite lines after she would insult me, accuse me, berate me .....or was confronted by me for talking bad about me to others was....."Can't you see I'm trying to help you?"
For me the first step was coming here and reading these threads and the other links. Learning about NPD....it's symptoms....and relating them to my mother's. It brought me out of denial.
That's an excellent question. One that I cannot answer.
This is kind of new to me so I would like to read the responses of others who have been at this awhile. That's an excellent question....It's my hope we can heal.
You just described my Mother! One of her favorite lines after she would insult me, accuse me, berate me .....or was confronted by me for talking bad about me to others was....."Can't you see I'm trying to help you?"
For me the first step was coming here and reading these threads and the other links. Learning about NPD....it's symptoms....and relating them to my mother's. It brought me out of denial.
That's an excellent question. One that I cannot answer.
This is kind of new to me so I would like to read the responses of others who have been at this awhile. That's an excellent question....It's my hope we can heal.
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Originally Posted by EveningRose
... are we who were raised by such mothers doomed to spend our whole lives searching for answer as to why they behaved this way, treated us this way, told us we were bad, wanted to hurt our relationships with others...or does there finally come a time of peace for some of us, understanding, no longer searching for answers.
What I discovered in my own search for those answers is that I had developed an "addiction" of my own. My biological parents were alcoholics, they spent their lives searching for the next "high", the next shot of "relief" from whatever emotional pain they suffered from. My addiction was the fantasy that if I found the answers to my questions I would be free of the pain I carried in my heart. If I could somehow get "them" to acknowledge the harm they did, if I could get them to show just one moment of love towards me, I would somehow be _free_ of all that "baggage" I had been carrying around.
I had become addicted to the fantasy that I could somehow create a small piece of a happy childhood.
It was when I had the Awareness that even if my parents magically became the most fabulous people in the world, there is no way to change the past. I had to overcome my denial and Accept that I was emotionally living in a past that never existed. Once I truly owned that I was able to take Action and create for myself the future I _could_ make for myself. In spite of my past.
A couple of good therapists, doing the 12 steps in meetings, jumping into the deep end of recovery, and in only a few years allmost all of that baggage was gone. A few small, tiny pieces of garbage have come to the surface over the last 30 years. Having developed good recovery skills I got those pieces taken care of in no time at all. Perhaps in the future I will bump against some more "flotsam", but if I do I know it won't be a big deal.
For me there has certainly come a time of peace. Deep, comforting peace. In my meets people comment on how "un-ACoA" I look, because I am so laid back, so relaxed. That's not what I looked like before recovery, it's the _result_ of recovery.
The best "summary" I have heard of all the wisdom in ACoA is the orignal ACoA version of the serenity prayer.
HP, grant me the serenity
To accept the past I cannot change
The courage to change the future I can
And the wisdom to start today.
Mike
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Originally Posted by cleaninLI
For me the first step was coming here and reading these threads and the other links. Learning about NPD....it's symptoms....and relating them to my mother's. It brought me out of denial.
.
This is the process I'm going through in my therapy:
1. First was coming out of denial and accepting it. Who my mother is, who she will always be. What she did and what it was and that I'm not crazy no matter how much she tries to convince me I am. I grieved that I did not have the mother I wanted in order to be able to let it go...a process.
This was about recognizing the problem and the emotional burden we carry as ACON (specifically daughters of NPD mothers). There were actually 33 questions on that list...written by a therapist and I went through them with my therapist as well. Recognizing the problem helped me see how it shaped me and my behaviors and emotional burden, not doing that would have kept me from being able to eventually let it go (I'm in that process now).
This part also was/is about understanding and identifying the problems a child learns to deal with when she has a narcissistic mother.
One thing having a narcissistic mother does is it makes self individuation very difficult..so I get to do that NOW as an adult when most people do it as a child. Another big lesson here was how I was taught that image is of the most importance - "how it looks is more important than how it feels"...this is that whole "fake life" feeling I talked about.
2. Second...and this is the tough step where I am now.....it's about seeing how the problems above followed me into adulthood. The coping techniques that I had to develop as that child of a narcissistic mother that worked then but no longer work now and are holding me back. This is the most difficult part so far and I'm working through it with a therapist - part of it is going back and feeling I didn't allow myself to feel and recognizing those feelings were ok (you have to self parent through it)...hard to explain actually.
3. Step 3, is about accepting the past, allowing myself to feel the grief and reprogramming negative messages that I've internalized, reframing my beliefs and changing my life. This one I'm really looking forward to and have started a bit....although it's been emphasized in my treatment/recovery that doing step 2 is really important before step 3 to fully recover.
That's just the process...it's outlined in that book I linked to - for me personally I looked at several paths with my therapist and we decided on this one and so far I really feel it's working for me. I just needed that psychological reframing, things for me that aren't possible on a self help board or in a group...those things for me are sort of support to the main treatment rather than the solutions themselves.
Just my process if it helps anyone else.
PS - to whomever asked yes ACON is Adult Child of a Narcissist.
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Originally Posted by EveningRose
I was thinking about these things today, the issues in this thread, in the links, and wondered: are we who were raised by such mothers doomed to spend our whole lives searching for answer as to why they behaved this way, treated us this way, told us we were bad, wanted to hurt our relationships with others...or does there finally come a time of peace for some of us, understanding, no longer searching for answers.
So it's not at all about searching for answers on HER, it's about searching for answers on ME and how her behavior shaped me and how I can reframe that.
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This is a really thought-provoking thread for me. My parents were both alcoholics and my mother exhibited pretty much all of the DSM-IV characteristics of NPD. After reading some of the links here and all of your comments, I feel like I am coming to a new awareness of what that meant for me.
When I was a teenager, my mother became gravely ill because of health problems that were almost certainly caused by her drinking, and she was an invalid for the rest of her life. I think that made it especially difficult for me to get real about how abusive she was to me when I was a kid, partly because I blamed myself for her illness, feeling like I had caused it by stressing her out by not being a good enough daughter, and also partly because the illness affected her brain and she behaved differently afterward than she had when I was a child. She lived for another 20 years, and I sometimes struggle to remember what my pre-illness Mom was really like. But reading some of these links and your comments has made me examine some of my memories more closely.
I have always been very into school, and I guess I wanted to believe that she was very proud of me on that front. I even credited her with my success, I believed that I owed it to her for pushing me so hard. But looking back, I realize that she pushed me very hard to do well at school, but also that my successes were never good enough. I'm realizing that in some ways I think she was actually jealous of my success. She always wanted to do something great intellectually, but she abandoned her education to raise children and was very bitter about it. She pushed me so hard, but I don't remember her ever praising me when I got straight A's. I do remember her going ballistic when I had a kind of nervous breakdown in high school and started skipping school, and as a result lost a fellowship that I had lined up. I also remember that she would tell me sometimes not to talk about my academic successes around our family because it would make my siblings jealous. Looking back, I wonder if it was at least partly her own ego she was protecting?
I think that I have been in denial for a long time about how difficult my mother was when I was a child. I've long remembered that she sometimes lost her temper and hit me, but I have tended to push those memories aside and focus on the moments when she told me how smart I was and pushed me to work harder in school. I wanted to believe she was proud of me, and maybe she was, but it was a very toxic, self-serving kind of pride.
Anyway, this is hard to realize, but also kind of a relief. I feel like I understand a little better why I am always feeling not good enough. Thanks to all of you for sharing!
When I was a teenager, my mother became gravely ill because of health problems that were almost certainly caused by her drinking, and she was an invalid for the rest of her life. I think that made it especially difficult for me to get real about how abusive she was to me when I was a kid, partly because I blamed myself for her illness, feeling like I had caused it by stressing her out by not being a good enough daughter, and also partly because the illness affected her brain and she behaved differently afterward than she had when I was a child. She lived for another 20 years, and I sometimes struggle to remember what my pre-illness Mom was really like. But reading some of these links and your comments has made me examine some of my memories more closely.
I have always been very into school, and I guess I wanted to believe that she was very proud of me on that front. I even credited her with my success, I believed that I owed it to her for pushing me so hard. But looking back, I realize that she pushed me very hard to do well at school, but also that my successes were never good enough. I'm realizing that in some ways I think she was actually jealous of my success. She always wanted to do something great intellectually, but she abandoned her education to raise children and was very bitter about it. She pushed me so hard, but I don't remember her ever praising me when I got straight A's. I do remember her going ballistic when I had a kind of nervous breakdown in high school and started skipping school, and as a result lost a fellowship that I had lined up. I also remember that she would tell me sometimes not to talk about my academic successes around our family because it would make my siblings jealous. Looking back, I wonder if it was at least partly her own ego she was protecting?
I think that I have been in denial for a long time about how difficult my mother was when I was a child. I've long remembered that she sometimes lost her temper and hit me, but I have tended to push those memories aside and focus on the moments when she told me how smart I was and pushed me to work harder in school. I wanted to believe she was proud of me, and maybe she was, but it was a very toxic, self-serving kind of pride.
Anyway, this is hard to realize, but also kind of a relief. I feel like I understand a little better why I am always feeling not good enough. Thanks to all of you for sharing!
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Originally Posted by Aeryn
Oh I don't think it's that at all - I'm not seeking answers about WHY my mother was that way to understand or fix HER at all. It's all in my post above but I learned about her disease to HELP ME - not her, she is whatever she is and that has nothing to do with me. HOWEVER, what I can do is learn how the NPD disease affected me, forced me to learn childhood coping behaviors that may have been necessary then for survival but no longer work now in adulthood (that followed me into adulthood), and how to reframe negative thoughts, re-parent (myself) and learn to move forward and let go.
So it's not at all about searching for answers on HER, it's about searching for answers on ME and how her behavior shaped me and how I can reframe that.
So it's not at all about searching for answers on HER, it's about searching for answers on ME and how her behavior shaped me and how I can reframe that.
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I continue to think about the 'traits' discussed in the article.
One thing I've pondered on is the issue of the Narcissistic Mother constantly telling the kids to do this, that, or the other. This is one thing my mother didn't do. She did everything. My sister and I were normal kids, not too eager to do the dishes, and she almost immediately gave up being the parent and making us, and explaining that this is part of life and we all work together. Instead, she forfeited her role as a parent, did everything herself, and was resentful about it. I can remember her slamming the vacuum into a couch I was sitting on, nearly hitting my feet. I can remember being resentful when I'd have friends over and she'd want me to do something.
As a parent, I'll have my kids take out trash or whatever even when a friend is here. I do ask them to do chores throughout the day. But on the other hand, I do feel my mother was wrong to never make us help. And I think in retrospect, I was obviously wrong to be resentful about being asked to do any little thing, and yet she herself created that situation by NOT having expectations of us, and teaching us that a family pitches in.
So my question is: is the 'narcissistic' element of that section that these women sit around eating bon-bons while the kids run for them? Because I'm routinely working 14 to 16 hours a day, between errands, jobs, kids' needs, etc., while my kids get plenty of TV and computer time and talking and playing with friends.
I've also been thinking about the fact that we're discussing Narcissistic mothers in a forum for children of alcoholics. I'm glad we are, and it seems it's eye-opening and beneficial for many of us. It seems many of us recognize this woman quite well! So I'm curious--is there some natural overlap? Do alcoholics tend to also be narcissists? Do narcissists tend to marry alcoholics? What is the connection?
In my mother's case (she was the codie, not the alcoholic), I'd say those traits of hers came from an unhappy marriage, and yet, when she told stories of her childhood, I think that she was born with something twisted and bitter and self-absorbed as her natural tendency.
One thing I've pondered on is the issue of the Narcissistic Mother constantly telling the kids to do this, that, or the other. This is one thing my mother didn't do. She did everything. My sister and I were normal kids, not too eager to do the dishes, and she almost immediately gave up being the parent and making us, and explaining that this is part of life and we all work together. Instead, she forfeited her role as a parent, did everything herself, and was resentful about it. I can remember her slamming the vacuum into a couch I was sitting on, nearly hitting my feet. I can remember being resentful when I'd have friends over and she'd want me to do something.
As a parent, I'll have my kids take out trash or whatever even when a friend is here. I do ask them to do chores throughout the day. But on the other hand, I do feel my mother was wrong to never make us help. And I think in retrospect, I was obviously wrong to be resentful about being asked to do any little thing, and yet she herself created that situation by NOT having expectations of us, and teaching us that a family pitches in.
So my question is: is the 'narcissistic' element of that section that these women sit around eating bon-bons while the kids run for them? Because I'm routinely working 14 to 16 hours a day, between errands, jobs, kids' needs, etc., while my kids get plenty of TV and computer time and talking and playing with friends.
I've also been thinking about the fact that we're discussing Narcissistic mothers in a forum for children of alcoholics. I'm glad we are, and it seems it's eye-opening and beneficial for many of us. It seems many of us recognize this woman quite well! So I'm curious--is there some natural overlap? Do alcoholics tend to also be narcissists? Do narcissists tend to marry alcoholics? What is the connection?
In my mother's case (she was the codie, not the alcoholic), I'd say those traits of hers came from an unhappy marriage, and yet, when she told stories of her childhood, I think that she was born with something twisted and bitter and self-absorbed as her natural tendency.
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Wow! I just stumbled on this post and read the link "harpys" with the 26 traits of NPD mothers, and I think someone spied on my entire childhood and wrote about it.
I went to very limited contact with her many many years ago, and to no contact at all after she hid from me the imminent death of my dear aunt. When I found out and at my aunt's invitation, flew out to spend her last few days with her, my mother arranged for my brother to arrive first and at midnight bar me from my dying aunt's home, telling me that the police were primed to arrest me if I tried to come in and "disrupt the hospice situation that he had total legal control over".
My mother lived this way her whole life, captured my alcoholic brother in it, and, having died this past fall at 96, evidently has made a huge vicious mess of all of the estate and financial stuff that has to be dealt with by family after someone's death.
I've had to engage an attorney to deal with my brother who captured control of a large estate, just to handle the required legal responses since I am named in multiple legal documents. I have to decide whether to contest what my mother and brother engineered against me, or to again just say it isn't worth it and walk away. Would be easier to do if I weren't 63, recently divorced from an abusive alcoholic husband who gambled on the stock market, leaving retirement funds depleted.
The strangest thing of all - or perhaps the healthiest thing of all - is that having spend lots of time and energy on extracting myself from toxic people, I am free, and I believe in myself no matter what anyone else does, in real life, or as my mother has done, from the grave.
I don't need them. I don't want them. I don't regret or feel guilty about feeling this way. This is a business deal to me. They did what they did, they were/are who they are, and they are not me and I am not them. What they wanted, what they schemed and manipulated to achieve to diminish and hurt me just doesn't matter.
I am free. This New Year is the first time in my life in which I have no dysfunctional relationships.
Maybe that sense of freedom and detachment will waver; I don't know, but I don't think so. Sometimes what's done is done. End of story.
I'll re-read the link tomorrow, and give this some more real thought and come back and post more.
Thanks for an incredibly insightful thread and discussion.
ShootingStar1
I went to very limited contact with her many many years ago, and to no contact at all after she hid from me the imminent death of my dear aunt. When I found out and at my aunt's invitation, flew out to spend her last few days with her, my mother arranged for my brother to arrive first and at midnight bar me from my dying aunt's home, telling me that the police were primed to arrest me if I tried to come in and "disrupt the hospice situation that he had total legal control over".
My mother lived this way her whole life, captured my alcoholic brother in it, and, having died this past fall at 96, evidently has made a huge vicious mess of all of the estate and financial stuff that has to be dealt with by family after someone's death.
I've had to engage an attorney to deal with my brother who captured control of a large estate, just to handle the required legal responses since I am named in multiple legal documents. I have to decide whether to contest what my mother and brother engineered against me, or to again just say it isn't worth it and walk away. Would be easier to do if I weren't 63, recently divorced from an abusive alcoholic husband who gambled on the stock market, leaving retirement funds depleted.
The strangest thing of all - or perhaps the healthiest thing of all - is that having spend lots of time and energy on extracting myself from toxic people, I am free, and I believe in myself no matter what anyone else does, in real life, or as my mother has done, from the grave.
I don't need them. I don't want them. I don't regret or feel guilty about feeling this way. This is a business deal to me. They did what they did, they were/are who they are, and they are not me and I am not them. What they wanted, what they schemed and manipulated to achieve to diminish and hurt me just doesn't matter.
I am free. This New Year is the first time in my life in which I have no dysfunctional relationships.
Maybe that sense of freedom and detachment will waver; I don't know, but I don't think so. Sometimes what's done is done. End of story.
I'll re-read the link tomorrow, and give this some more real thought and come back and post more.
Thanks for an incredibly insightful thread and discussion.
ShootingStar1
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I thought I'd summarize this here, as it's an awfully long read. Credit to: https://sites.google.com/site/harpyschild/ The author lists himself (herself?) only as Chris, as far as I know.
I went back to it curious just how many of these fit my mother. At first read, I thought maybe half. Some of them aren't in the obvious or first ways he describes. But on more careful reading, I realized my mother meets at least 25 out of the 26, and mostly in pretty obvious ways.
I'm still curious why the huge difference between this list, which is exactly like my mother, and the DSM list, according to which I wouldn't classify her as a narcissist at all. Of course, maybe I'm hung up on labels. Or maybe I'm just curious. :-)
I've added some of my examples in blue.
oh my gosh yes! See above. It was her ultimate control weapon. Nobody could stand the mopey self pity parties and pathetic sobbing and self-criticism and I wonder how much she's gotten out of life by people being simply afraid to set her off.
I went back to it curious just how many of these fit my mother. At first read, I thought maybe half. Some of them aren't in the obvious or first ways he describes. But on more careful reading, I realized my mother meets at least 25 out of the 26, and mostly in pretty obvious ways.
I'm still curious why the huge difference between this list, which is exactly like my mother, and the DSM list, according to which I wouldn't classify her as a narcissist at all. Of course, maybe I'm hung up on labels. Or maybe I'm just curious. :-)
I've added some of my examples in blue.
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. ....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.
2. She violates your boundaries.....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
I got the haircuts she decided I'd get, the style she chose, I wore the clothes she allowed me, and I noticed as an adult that although she had a bathroom full of lotions and skin creams and such, she never made any normal motherly attempt to talk with me about skin care or hairstyles or get excited about going out with me to buy nylons. My older sister had to point out to her that she needed to take me out for certain things. At my confirmation in 11th grade, she was insistent that I would wear a dress from 8th grade that was far too young for me.
3. She favoritizes. Narcissistic mothers commonly choose one (sometimes more) child to be the golden child and one (sometimes more) to be the scapegoat. THIS ONE IS HUGE IN MY FAMILY!!!
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. I'm told by others she sometimes brags about my accomplishments, and yet I also hear that for all my academic achievements, she ignores those and tells people this ridiculous story from when I was in 3rd grade and supposedly 'refusing to learn.'
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 minimizes, discounts or ignores your opinions and experiences.
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) .... 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.
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..... It dawned on me only as an adult that although her sisters and sisters in law called her 'the laundry queen,' every nice piece of clothing I got mysteriously shrunk in the first wash.
8. She’s a liar in too many ways to count. ..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. Yes! She always puts the worst spins on anything I did or said. As per the example above, 'refusing to learn.' The TRUTH is that I was 8 years old, went to four schools in the space of 12 months, and the last school was wayyyyy ahead in math. It was almost impossible for an 8 year old to catch up, and I was expected to do it instantaneously, with no help from her.
9. She has to be the center of attention all the time. YES YES YES YES!!!! Oh my gosh, she talks NONSTOP!!! I seriously feel like I'm going into PTSD even now, when I'm with people who talk a lot. And even now, today, I feel I can't push to be part of an actual conversation. I feel like I have no choice but to smile and nod, because I knew darn well that's all I was allowed to do. Sit and listen and listen and listen. This fits with one of the other categories, too, about how the child's opinion is unimportant. I don't think she has any clue how I feel about anything, because she's allowed me to say approximately 15 words of my own to her in the last 45 years.
10. She manipulates your emotions in order to feed on your pain. ....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. .
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.
Some of this doesn't sound much like her, yet I WOULD call her an emotional vampire, as per some of her other behaviors described on this list, the pity parties, and having to be the star performer.
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, Yes. She had crystal, china, beautiful homes, while I was expected to go to school in whatever hideous out of fashion clothing she picked up in the dollar bin.
12. She’s self-absorbed. oh my gosh yes!!!!!
13. She is insanely defensive and is extremely sensitive to any criticism. oh my gosh yes!!!!!
14. She is rejecting. She doesn't love you, she doesn't care about you and she doesn't want you around. Took me a long time to realize this.
15. She terrorized. All abusers use fear to control their victims, 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....
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.
Yes, her golden child pulled a lot of the abusive stuff. No matter what she did, no matter how she pushed, I was informed, "She's just a little girl. Why do you let it bother you? in this sad, pitying tone.
And yes, I was wary of her wrath even though nobody could possibly call her abusive. It wasn't physical abuse so much as that we knew if she got upset at anything, she'd have major meltdowns, hissy fits, swearing, crying, self pity. I DREADED those.
16. 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. oh my gosh yes!!!!! This is why I live in the house I do. She would not allow XH to go look at houses on his own. She would pout and act like he'd caused some personal insult and really hurt her if he didn't agree with her opinion on a house. He finally bought her favorite house because he couldn't stand the guilt trips and just wanted her off his back. So I live in an exact duplicate of her favorite house that we lived in in 1977-79.
17. She “parentifies.” Not necessarily in all the ways listed in the original article, yet emotionally, yes, it was always OUR job to worry about HER feelings and how hurt she was, and who hurt her. As per one of the other things on this list, when someone hurt me, I was told it was my fault. She would have gone into major meltdown guilt trip had I ever said it back to her.
18. She’s exploitative. She will manipulate to get work, money, or objects she envies out of other people for nothing. .....Sometimes the narcissist will exploit a child to absorb punishment that would have been hers from an abusive partner. ...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. This is the only thing on the list I'm not sure about. And yet, although I do not believe I was ever molested, I DO believe my father took me to a soft porn movie when I was 3 or 4. I have very clear, vivid memories of a particular scene, and when I described it to a friend, he named the movie in a heartbeat, did some research and found it would have been in our location in exactly that time frame. I believe I told my mother and this is why she has ever since called me a liar..
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. oh my gosh yes!!!!!
20. She is never wrong about anything. oh my gosh yes!!!!!
21. Sometimes she seems to have no awareness that other people even have feelings, and other times she is brilliantly sensitive to other people’s emotions. oh my gosh yes!!!!! The examples above highlight her total inability to grasp that her daughters had any feelings, as do other examples with other people.
22. She manufactures “no-win” situations. In the classic “no-win” scenario, the narcissist’s child is 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. As always, the payoff for your mother is the elicitation of painful emotions. Whether you subject yourself to her degradation or you fight back and end up subjected to shaming, threats and blaming by the narcissist, you will experience a sense of helplessness and fear, and those emotions are very satisfying to the narcissist. The examples here don't ring any bells, and yet I always did feel I was in a no-win situation with her. Recent example, her facebook friend request.
23. She’s 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. She won’t take no for an answer, pressuring and arm-twisting and manipulating to get you to give in. oh my gosh yes!!!!! See above about the house.
24. She blames. EVERY bad thing in her life is everybody else's fault.
25. She destroys your relationships. THIS ONE IS HUGE! Yes, I long ago noticed the pattern, that virtually anyone who has an issue with me has spent time with her--and then I started hearing the crazy things she's saying about me.
26. 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.
2. She violates your boundaries.....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
I got the haircuts she decided I'd get, the style she chose, I wore the clothes she allowed me, and I noticed as an adult that although she had a bathroom full of lotions and skin creams and such, she never made any normal motherly attempt to talk with me about skin care or hairstyles or get excited about going out with me to buy nylons. My older sister had to point out to her that she needed to take me out for certain things. At my confirmation in 11th grade, she was insistent that I would wear a dress from 8th grade that was far too young for me.
3. She favoritizes. Narcissistic mothers commonly choose one (sometimes more) child to be the golden child and one (sometimes more) to be the scapegoat. THIS ONE IS HUGE IN MY FAMILY!!!
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. I'm told by others she sometimes brags about my accomplishments, and yet I also hear that for all my academic achievements, she ignores those and tells people this ridiculous story from when I was in 3rd grade and supposedly 'refusing to learn.'
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 minimizes, discounts or ignores your opinions and experiences.
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) .... 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.
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..... It dawned on me only as an adult that although her sisters and sisters in law called her 'the laundry queen,' every nice piece of clothing I got mysteriously shrunk in the first wash.
8. She’s a liar in too many ways to count. ..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. Yes! She always puts the worst spins on anything I did or said. As per the example above, 'refusing to learn.' The TRUTH is that I was 8 years old, went to four schools in the space of 12 months, and the last school was wayyyyy ahead in math. It was almost impossible for an 8 year old to catch up, and I was expected to do it instantaneously, with no help from her.
9. She has to be the center of attention all the time. YES YES YES YES!!!! Oh my gosh, she talks NONSTOP!!! I seriously feel like I'm going into PTSD even now, when I'm with people who talk a lot. And even now, today, I feel I can't push to be part of an actual conversation. I feel like I have no choice but to smile and nod, because I knew darn well that's all I was allowed to do. Sit and listen and listen and listen. This fits with one of the other categories, too, about how the child's opinion is unimportant. I don't think she has any clue how I feel about anything, because she's allowed me to say approximately 15 words of my own to her in the last 45 years.
10. She manipulates your emotions in order to feed on your pain. ....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. .
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.
Some of this doesn't sound much like her, yet I WOULD call her an emotional vampire, as per some of her other behaviors described on this list, the pity parties, and having to be the star performer.
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, Yes. She had crystal, china, beautiful homes, while I was expected to go to school in whatever hideous out of fashion clothing she picked up in the dollar bin.
12. She’s self-absorbed. oh my gosh yes!!!!!
13. She is insanely defensive and is extremely sensitive to any criticism. oh my gosh yes!!!!!
14. She is rejecting. She doesn't love you, she doesn't care about you and she doesn't want you around. Took me a long time to realize this.
15. She terrorized. All abusers use fear to control their victims, 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....
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.
Yes, her golden child pulled a lot of the abusive stuff. No matter what she did, no matter how she pushed, I was informed, "She's just a little girl. Why do you let it bother you? in this sad, pitying tone.
And yes, I was wary of her wrath even though nobody could possibly call her abusive. It wasn't physical abuse so much as that we knew if she got upset at anything, she'd have major meltdowns, hissy fits, swearing, crying, self pity. I DREADED those.
16. 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. oh my gosh yes!!!!! This is why I live in the house I do. She would not allow XH to go look at houses on his own. She would pout and act like he'd caused some personal insult and really hurt her if he didn't agree with her opinion on a house. He finally bought her favorite house because he couldn't stand the guilt trips and just wanted her off his back. So I live in an exact duplicate of her favorite house that we lived in in 1977-79.
17. She “parentifies.” Not necessarily in all the ways listed in the original article, yet emotionally, yes, it was always OUR job to worry about HER feelings and how hurt she was, and who hurt her. As per one of the other things on this list, when someone hurt me, I was told it was my fault. She would have gone into major meltdown guilt trip had I ever said it back to her.
18. She’s exploitative. She will manipulate to get work, money, or objects she envies out of other people for nothing. .....Sometimes the narcissist will exploit a child to absorb punishment that would have been hers from an abusive partner. ...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. This is the only thing on the list I'm not sure about. And yet, although I do not believe I was ever molested, I DO believe my father took me to a soft porn movie when I was 3 or 4. I have very clear, vivid memories of a particular scene, and when I described it to a friend, he named the movie in a heartbeat, did some research and found it would have been in our location in exactly that time frame. I believe I told my mother and this is why she has ever since called me a liar..
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. oh my gosh yes!!!!!
20. She is never wrong about anything. oh my gosh yes!!!!!
21. Sometimes she seems to have no awareness that other people even have feelings, and other times she is brilliantly sensitive to other people’s emotions. oh my gosh yes!!!!! The examples above highlight her total inability to grasp that her daughters had any feelings, as do other examples with other people.
22. She manufactures “no-win” situations. In the classic “no-win” scenario, the narcissist’s child is 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. As always, the payoff for your mother is the elicitation of painful emotions. Whether you subject yourself to her degradation or you fight back and end up subjected to shaming, threats and blaming by the narcissist, you will experience a sense of helplessness and fear, and those emotions are very satisfying to the narcissist. The examples here don't ring any bells, and yet I always did feel I was in a no-win situation with her. Recent example, her facebook friend request.
23. She’s 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. She won’t take no for an answer, pressuring and arm-twisting and manipulating to get you to give in. oh my gosh yes!!!!! See above about the house.
24. She blames. EVERY bad thing in her life is everybody else's fault.
25. She destroys your relationships. THIS ONE IS HUGE! Yes, I long ago noticed the pattern, that virtually anyone who has an issue with me has spent time with her--and then I started hearing the crazy things she's saying about me.
26. 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.
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Originally Posted by EveningRose
...I'm still curious why the huge difference between this list, which is exactly like my mother, and the DSM list ...
The DSM has _nothing_ to do with treatment. Think of it as the parts catalog a mechanic uses to order a part for a car that is making strange noises
Mike
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Originally Posted by DesertEyes
The DSM is a guide for professionals in the field of mental health for the purpose of matching observable and measurable behavior against the ICD codes of the insurance company. Without a match, there is no payment for services.
The DSM has _nothing_ to do with treatment. Think of it as the parts catalog a mechanic uses to order a part for a car that is making strange noises
Mike
Moderator, SR
The DSM has _nothing_ to do with treatment. Think of it as the parts catalog a mechanic uses to order a part for a car that is making strange noises
Mike
Moderator, SR
So do they consider narcissism a trait people are born with, something that can be changed with effort, or what?
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Originally Posted by EveningRose
.... So do they consider narcissism a trait people are born with, something that can be changed with effort, or what?
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ml#post4384236
Mike
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Originally Posted by DesertEyes
The DSM has _nothing_ to do with treatment. Think of it as the parts catalog a mechanic uses to order a part for a car that is making strange noises
Does anyone else have a parent who acts like you're still 8, and insists on repeating stupid stories about some dumb thing you did as a small child, even though you're 40?
I'd be thinking, "Ya, Dad, that was dumb, and it's something a little kid who doesn't know any better would do. But I was 5 f890ing years old at the time! You're 82 -- what's your excuse for still thinking it's so f890ing funny?"
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T
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Originally Posted by tromboneliness
Does anyone else have a parent who acts like you're still 8, and insists on repeating stupid stories about some dumb thing you did as a small child, even though you're 40?
Yes to the stupid stories, too. See above in blue. I have a bachelor's, a master's, and a teaching certificate, and I ought to have another honorary for my writing and research in another subject on top of it, and all she can talk about is some twisted version of my difficulty learning multiplication tables in third grade! I rest my case. I'm sure I could think of plenty more examples if I felt like dredging them up.
And I wonder how we as ACOAs ended up thinking we're never good enough....
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