Being raised by a narcissistic parent can be one of the hardest, most painful, and confusing upbringings. Not only that but we usually aren’t aware the dynamic in the household is unhealthy and abusive. That’s our normal. You may feel like something is off but you just brush it off as personality differences or you are the issue like you have always been told. That is a typical thing children/adult children with narcissistic moms feel.
Narcissistic moms are hard to grow up with but things look much different outside closed doors. They aren’t the typical angry looking people with a crazy mean face you’d imagine. They could be the class mom or the guidance counselor or the leader of a church group. Everything with a narcissist is how they look or how others perceive them. There is no genuine love or care, it is mainly about them. Their world revolves around a lot of control and manipulation. Doing anything to make people believe the persona they think they are.
So because of this they will do nice things like make sure your lunch is made or you have nice clothes or you are in the best classes. Things that look nice or what a healthy mom may do. But the difference between a healthy mom and a narcissistic mom is that with a narc mom there is always a hidden agenda. Your mom may have said or done things that looked like the right thing but the intention was out of selfishness.
Healthy moms do things out of love and compassion. They care about their children’s feelings. Narcissistic moms care about how they look or how something makes them feel. That is why it can be tricky to detect. One thing is for sure and that is children with healthy moms don’t have to deal with the same mistreatment or confusion at home. Here are some signs you may have been raised by a narcissistic mother.
It may have been clear as day why you couldn’t tell your mom things or you just always had this feeling you couldn’t talk to her and you couldn’t quiet put your finger on it. She may have made fun of you or made you feel guilty for your feelings or made it about herself. She may have even used your emotions as a weapon and used your insecurities against you. Or maybe you just felt worse talking to her or sharing something with her.
Because you felt like you couldn’t show your genuine emotions and be vulnerable you protected yourself by always having a poker face on. You became a brick wall when it came to your emotions and you would hide your genuine feelings. You weren’t allowed to have emotions she didn’t approve of.
A lot of times people have this idea that being an abusive person means they don’t do anything nice and they are always awful. No one can be that black and white and be awful all the time otherwise the abuser wouldn’t have victims. Narcissistic moms follow that same pattern where they do nice things for you. They probably did buy you things or maybe took you out or even had given you advice. So don’t doubt your mom wasn’t narcissistic because she did nice things.
The thing that makes her a narcissistic mom is that those nice things were usually used against you and thrown back in your face. You may have heard things like “You don’t deserve all the nice things I’ve done for you!” or ” I do so much for you and you can’t do this for me?” The things she has done for you weren’t always out of the kindness of her heart but a way to keep you around, do what she wants. She’ll do it because it makes her look good. Or even do it as a way to gain control over you and use it against you so you’ll owe her later.
If anyone does something for you, it should be out of genuinely wanting to do it. You don’t owe anyone anything if they do something. You should do something back because you want to.
It doesn’t matter what you do, you could be really nice to her or do everything for her and she’ll still let you know it’s not good enough. You are still “bad” to her. She sets these high bars for you to reach and if you do happen to reach them she’ll set the bar even higher. It doesn’t matter who you are, you could be mother Theresa and She’ll let you know she disapproves of you and your choices.
When things went wrong you or your siblings were blamed. She rarely if ever took responsibility for her actions. It could have been over the silliest things like something spilling. Or over big things like something going wrong in her life. Whatever it is, you were found to be at fault. If you ask her what she has done wrong she will find a way to turn it around or make sure she isn’t responsible.
Boundaries don’t exist to a narcissistic mom. If she ever did anything like tell people too much personal information about you or even hugged and kissed you too much to the point that it bothered you, that is still disrespecting your boundaries. It seems harmless but it actually can be very harmful. That shows you that your boundaries don’t matter and even teaches you to disrespect others boundaries.
Going through your stuff, forcing you to share information you don’t feel comfortable with or getting involved in your relationships are all crossing boundaries. You may hear things like ” I can do whatever I want.” Or ” I don’t care, you are my child.” She will make you feel like you are her property.
Guilt trips are a narcissistic moms favorite. It goes hand in hand with throwing things in your face. She wants you to always feel like you are wrong so it is easier to manipulate and control you. She will guilt trip you when it best suites her and she can get you to do what she wants.
You may have felt like if you ever did anything for yourself you were selfish or if you didn’t do what she wanted you were a bad son/daughter. You may have heard things like ” Oh you finally remembered your mother?” Or ” I gave up my life for you and you can’t even do something for me!?”
Did you ever feel like you had to take on responsibilities that a parent should be taking on? Like being your moms counselor, getting a job at a young age and paying for everything or taking care of all the physical responsibilities a mom should do? I don’t mean helping out, I mean you were responsible and you had to take it on.
This means you were parentified. You had to take on the role as the parent. Your narcissistic mom couldn’t give you the nurturing and mothering you needed. Someone had to do it so to compensate you took it on.
No one likes to be criticized but when it comes to a narcissistic mom, they take it to a whole other level. Part of being a narcissist is that they have a huge ego that protects them from past abuse. Their ego is formed by what looks like a high opinion of themselves and no one can challenge them on it. In reality, subconsciously their self esteem is rather low. That outwardly false image protects them from any emotional pain. In turn, if you ever try to bring up something wrong she has done you will feel her wrath.
It’s hard for her to joke about herself and if you bring up anything negative about her she will make you seem like the bad guy. You’ll hear things like “you are attacking me.” or ” you are always so mean to your mother.” She may even try to attack your character and turn the subject. That makes it hard to bring up issues and talk threw them.
I talk more about this in my scapegoat, lost and golden child post. You may have always felt like the dynamic between your siblings was different. One may have been treated better, one worse and one was forgotten. And it could have been multiple siblings that got similar treatment and one different. All you know is that you all were treated much differently and it may have caused turmoil between you guys.
You can never correct her. Even if you prove her wrong she will find a way to make herself still right. You will rarely hear her say she was in the wrong. And if she does say shes in the wrong its for a selfish reason to either look good or because there is a secret motive. You just know you can’t tell her she is wrong because she will never admit it.
In order to get her approval she will try to make you feel like you have to abide by her wishes or you will deal with name calling, put downs and abusive behaviors. That means maybe doing the career choice she wants, picking out the friends she chose, having the character traits she wants and saying the things she tells you to say.
Basically she wants to have control over you and make you out to be the person she imagined you to be. That includes making her make you feel like you need her. You may feel like you are her personal doll.
You never knew what mood she was going to be in. One moment she can be laughing and being nice and the next she could be screaming at you and putting you down. This confusion can really damage a persons psyche, especially you as an impressionable child. You couldn’t really relax and you could feel your body tense up when she was around.
Certain sounds may have made you jump because you knew it meant trouble. Whether it was to prevent rages, emotional or verbal abuse, you knew not to say certain things or act certain ways. You just always felt like you had to be careful.
Manipulation and gas lighting are a big tactic used by narcissists. They will do things to create reactions and then when you do react they will make you look crazy. Your mom may have told you nothing was happening when it was or lied a lot and denied it. All the turning things around on you and tearing you apart wore at your self esteem.
She may have tried to make you believe you have emotional issues or have mental disorders. This makes you as a child feel like something is wrong with you. The lack of feeling like you can trust yourself and the constant emotional abuse really locks in those feelings.
You are not crazy or have any mental disorders, she just cant see past herself and her view points so she deems you crazy. Dealing with the type of emotional abuse and then being told nothing is happening and it’s in your head would make anyone feel crazy.
Narcissists like to feel like they have back up. That is how they get their supply. So she may talk badly about you to your family, and their friends and cause them to gang up on you. Your relationships with other family or people may have been ruined because your narcissistic mom made them believe something that was not necessarily true.
But because the narcissist is so good at manipulating and playing the victim they believe her. So whenever there was a fight or something went wrong she may have called her supply and then you dealt with them as well.
Narcissists remind me of little kids stuck in their abuse. They are stuck in that stage of selfishness and inability to form empathy. Because of this, they are unable to self reflect or see others view points which causes them to be abusive.
Understanding them makes it easier to deal with them and understand it isn’t you. They have a mental defect. You didn’t deserve the emotional abuse you dealt with. They didn’t either.
Being a survivor of growing up with a narcissistic mom can be really tough. I’m truly sorry you had to go through that. Now that you are aware you can do things different now. You can learn from it and heal, be better. You were wronged but now you can live a better life and do right for yourself.
Have more to add? Did you grow up with a narcissistic mom? Leave all of that and anything I left out in the comments below!
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1 Comment
This is the best article about this subject I’ve ever read. You put into *exact* words everything I felt as a kid. ❤️