“Are you angry with me?”, “Did I do something wrong?” or “What if I’m really not good enough?” – Questions like these are the result of anxiety that we have learned from our narcissistic mother.
For me, it was my mother who was with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, so further along the text, I will speak about narcissistic mothers. Although, I’m pretty sure the same would apply for fathers as well.
But what is it that triggers these questions and what can we do to get rid of them?
In this blog, I will explain where these oppressive feelings of anxiety in the children of narcissistic mothers come from and what has helped me to deal with them, and despite having them, to make the best 4 decisions in my life. I will explain the connection between anxiety and decision-making further ahead in this blog.
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What Is Anxiety?
Before getting to the triggers of it, we have to define where anxiety comes from and know what it is.
Anxiety is a state of emotion where people feel great inner worries about something that is often even irrational and can have serious damages to their physical and mental health over a long period of time.
It is pretty similar to fear, but the latter is a response to a perceived immediate threat, whereas anxiety is rather a subjective expectation of a future threat.
Where Does Anxiety Come From?
Besides genetics, alcohol or drug abuse, or a shifted brain chemistry, anxiety is mostly caused by some event or happening in the past that made us nervous or worrisome, which stays in our memory and leads to physical and mental stress – as a panic attack in a specific situation, or as a chronic, general anxiety.
That doesn’t necessarily have to be a traumatic event with a lot of tumult, but can also be some more covert behavior of a narcissistic mother who is, for example, constantly angry and in a bad mood, and has negative body language and voice towards her child.
How Does The Mother’s Behavior Affect The Child?
It’s not only that when you grow up and see your mother like that all the time, but also when you ask her what’s wrong, and she throws an angry face at you and yells to leave her alone or that she doesn’t have time now. You start referring everything to yourself and thinking you’ve done something wrong.
You automatically watch your own behavior, not to make any wrong step or not to say anything wrong to make Mommie Dearest angry. You’re simply afraid of her reaction and the withdrawal of her love. And mostly, children of narcissistic mothers drag this feeling of not being worthy throughout their whole life. A form of anxiety has developed – the anxiety of being rejected.
Consequences Of Anxiety For The Child
This can have huge effects on the life of a narcissistic mother’s child. They can develop things like
- excessive perfectionism
- depressions
- different forms of anxiety (i.e. separation anxiety disorder, existence fears, social anxiety, etc.)
- generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)
- post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- phobias
- panic attacks
- relationship problems
- difficulties at work
The consequences of these can be tragic and even end up in suicidal thoughts and suicidal attempts.
Knowing The Origin Of Our Anxiety
It’s important to understand where our anxiety comes from and what triggers it. In this context, knowing that we are dealing with a narcissistic mother is the first step to understanding the whole situation.
I’m not sure if it’s from meditation or from dealing a lot with my childhood or both, but I can remember things from some of the earliest moments of my life in detail, which helps me a lot now to be able to see it objectively from the outside how she has tried to shape me my whole life according to her needs.
I clearly remember telling myself already as a young boy that somehow she must be right, I must be a bad child, otherwise, she would love me like a mother is supposed to do. And I started trying harder and harder to be the son she could love, but she never did. Instead, she would always find more things to blame me for, the older I got, and the vicious circle continued – the more she despised me because I didn’t match her made-up world, the more I tried to be a good son. Do you get the point? That is exactly what a narcissistic mother intends to achieve – her child to be her servant, her source of energy, the extension of herself.
Why Does The Narcissistic Mother Do That?
A narcissistic mother uses all different kinds of manipulation to keep her child on a leash as short as possible. Her goal is total control and there is no compromise for her. When she is afraid that you might uncover her true face, she uses punishments, gaslighting, blackmailing, isolating you from people by telling lies and rumors (so that she makes sure there’s nobody around who might see her lies and turn you against her) and so on.
When a narcissistic mother uses these forms of mental abuse on her child from birth, she basically “wires” them to be her product. She wants her child to depend on her completely, forever. There is no choice. Her child starts being afraid of being nothing and nobody without her.
She plants this little seed of anxiety already into her newborn to make sure that “it” belongs to her already, and only to her. And with the child grows also the anxiety, by continuous brainwashing from a mother that just uses her child to put herself into a good spotlight.
She needs to control everything and everybody around her, and her own child is the best prey for a narcissistic mother. She uses her child’s desire of being loved for her own advantage by taking away their own personality. Like an emotional vampire, she sucks out all the energy of her child to feed herself from it.
My Personal Experience With Anxiety
Throughout my life, I have developed several different anxieties, which are basically all connected to each other. From existence fears to the anxiety of loss and certain phobias, I’ve dealt with a lot of that stuff. To give you an example of how they are connected to each other, I will briefly describe my anxiety about making decisions and my work anxiety.
My Anxiety of Making Decisions
Throughout the years, I have developed an anxiety about making any kind of decision because I always had my mother’s voice in the back of my head, telling me that I would never achieve anything in my life without her. Whenever I had to decide something, no matter what, I struggled with a creative decision-making process because I always heard her saying “that’s wrong, I know better, I have to show you everything first” in my mind.
Whenever I had to make a decision in my life, I thought that “I could hurt somebody”, or “somebody could be angry with me” – you understand what I’m getting at? If I and some friends were to choose a TV program, they might be bored with the stuff I want to watch. If I was to choose a pub to go to with people, they might be bored or annoyed there. If I don’t study what my mother tells me, she will be angry and disappointed. I could continue endlessly… And hence, I almost always gave in on my own feelings and did what others wanted to do. You can also see it as an “avoiding conflicts” thing.
Later on in my life, I worked in her company for a couple of years, and this anxiety became stronger. She brainwashed me that I could only trust her and her lawyers, and I should never sign anything else without her because she’s had over 30 years of experience and so on. Of course, I believed her, especially because of her experience. So there it was again, the “Mommie Dearest has to show you how to do things in life”. She didn’t even give it a try. All she told me was “you don’t understand anything yet” or “you still have to learn everything”.
In the end, her “experience” brought her company into bankruptcy with two handfuls of debts, leaving behind a huge battlefield throughout 4 countries…
My Work Anxiety
The way she belittled me from birth and later on in her company has resulted in work anxiety in me. Yes, that might sound funny at first, but in fact, it isn’t at all.
After I worked in my mother’s company and broke off contact with her, I worked in several other companies, too.
It isn’t that I was afraid of work, but rather the circumstances in a company with a boss and colleagues that had been there already before me. Whenever there was some slightest sign of tension, I took it all on my account, thinking that I’d done something wrong, so I tried even harder to be the perfect employee.
I started working unpaid overtime, took on several projects at the same time, was available to the boss basically 24/7, and so on. I dedicated myself completely to the companies I was working for, being afraid of losing my job if I’m not good enough, aiming to be the perfect employee to please his boss.
It was hard for me to understand that I was, in fact, working in exchange for my abilities, for a salary, for the company, rather than being on a permanent trial where everybody was just waiting for me to make a mistake. I simply couldn’t understand that my boss was not my mother. But my narcissistic mother’s voice was still always in the back of my head, somehow, so I changed jobs about 3 times a year.
It was pure torture for me. I had to throw up every morning before work, even when I worked from home. I was afraid to start my computer, was nervous, sweating all over, shaking, and I couldn’t focus on anything, also not the job.
The only thing I could think of was how to improve myself as an employee and I got panic attacks when I only saw my employer’s name. I couldn’t sleep for days in a row and if I fell asleep, I was woken up by a nightmare again.
In the end, I could just have said “no” to more projects, or set borders for being available 24/7, but “somebody could have been disappointed in me” or “I could have hurt somebody” with my decisions, so here’s the connection between one anxiety to another.
How I Handled My Anxiety
I’m honestly not saying that I’m free from any kind of anxiety and that I’m completely healed from my narcissistic mother’s abuse, but I have learned how to deal with it when I feel it’s there and how to lead it to the best result for myself.
For example, when it comes to decisions, I have learned to rather follow my heart, or my guts, than my brain. Nobody will punish me for saying what I think, also not my mother’s voice in my head – it was only in my head because she planted it there.
And in regards to my anxiety of making decisions – since I’ve learned how to follow my guts instead of my brain, I’ve made 3 life-changing ones that I will never regret or doubt:
First big decision
The first big decision was my personal step into freedom when I went no contact with my narcissistic mother about 4 years ago. There was no other way for me, after trying so many different things to get to a common understanding with my mother for many years.
Second big decision
My second big decision in life was asking my (back then) girlfriend if she wants to marry me. Luckily, she said YES and we have been happily married for over 2,5 years now!
I say “big decision” because I knew that my mother has always hated my girlfriend (now wife). Nothing less shows her message to me the next day when she found out about our engagement, in which she called my wife a “village sl*t” and threatened to change her testament if I married her… Kind of funny though, when you think of an over 60-year-old “established business lady” using these kinds of words…
Third big decision
My third big decision was to start working as a freelancer instead of an employee. That doesn’t mean that I work less or party more or anything like that, but it means that I don’t have the constant fear of losing my job and not being perfect enough. I have learned to respect my qualities and how to use them to make a living. And it simply makes me happy!
Conclusion
I can’t say that I’m completely healed from the wounds my narcissistic mother left in me, but I can definitely say that I’ve learned how to control my anxiety and everything that comes with it.
I don’t hear Mommie Dearest yelling in the back of my head anymore.
The way in which children are raised by their parents and how they grow up is the fundament of their future life. When they have a mother or father with NPD, it is not their fault that they grow up in this environment.
Fear is something natural that our ancestors already had for survival. But when a child grows up in constant fear of the withdrawal of love from their own mother if they don’t fulfill certain conditions, it can leave serious impacts on them and their future life.
Recommendation
Knowledge Is Power
If you can personally relate to my blog and you think you’re dealing with a narcissistic mother or father, I really highly recommend you to get to know as much as you can about narcissism. The more you know, the better you can protect yourself against it, live a life free from the toxic chains of your narcissistic mother or father, and develop an understanding of certain kinds of anxiety you might have, or depressions, or other problems you might encounter in your life where you’re not sure why you have them.
I literally “armed” myself with knowledge about narcissism in all its spectrums. I started reading a lot of books, articles, and studies so that I could analyze my whole situation from the outside. The more I understood, the better I felt. It was like putting together a puzzle where you can step-by-step see the whole picture.
You can see it as psychological self-defense. Your narcissistic mother must not have any points where she can attack and hurt you – and for sure, she knows all your weak points.
Find Your True Self
In addition to that, it’s very important to find your true self. The suppressed part in us is the one that we have to find – the little child that has been punished and manipulated over and over again, for years.
What has helped me the most was meditation. Before I started, I thought it’s just sitting there, staring into nothing or doing nothing, but I could finally get closer to myself than I had ever been before and figure out what I want in life. And it has shown me that the voice of Mommie Dearest in the back of my head was just in my imagination because she simply planted it there.
Of course, there is also the possibility of therapy, let’s definitely not exclude that! However, I personally haven’t had good experiences with that. It was already enough for me before I tried therapy that people kept telling me that “she’s just my mother” and stuff like that, whenever I tried to explain my situation to somebody. In the end, I heard similar stuff even from the therapist…
So, if you do consider therapy, please make sure that the person you talk to is an expert in the field of “Mothers with Narcissistic Personality Disorder”, otherwise they would probably just prescribe you some pills, hope for you to eat them, and to get paid for it. And despite all the talks you can have with people, the real healing takes place only inside of you, nowhere else.
