Growing up with an emotionally abusive mother with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a nightmare for every child. But what is it that happens behind closed doors when the narcissistic mother takes off her mask? What is an emotionally abusive mother? And what consequences can this have for the future life of her child?
In this blog, I will share with you what is not visible to others – I will give an insight into what it’s like growing up with an emotionally abusive mother, and what effects this can have on the rest of the child’s life.
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What Is Emotional Abuse?
So, what happens behind closed doors to the child of an emotionally abusive mother? In order to better understand that, we have to know first what emotional abuse is.
Emotional abuse is a method to manipulate another person by making them feel inferior, worthless, small, dumb, guilty, delusional, and so on. And in order to do that, emotionally abusive mothers use both verbal and non-verbal forms of abuse.
Verbal Emotional Abuse
The more “visible” form of emotional abuse is the verbal one. Usually, an emotionally abusive mother uses the following ways to manipulate her child:
Insults
You hear typical words such as “idiot”, “asshole”, “moron”, “scum”, “jerk”, etc. Whatever fits her best in a situation, she throws at her child. The age of her child doesn’t seem to matter at all for an emotionally abusive mother, though.
Threats
“If you don’t do this, then…” – does it sound familiar to you? An emotionally abusive mother uses threats and blackmail to make you afraid of losing something you like, or at least what she thinks you like. She just wants to cut your freedom to keep control, long story short.
Belittling
An emotionally abusive mother usually belittles everything her child says and does. If you win a swimming competition, it was “only a small one”. Or, if you get good grades in school, then “school isn’t everything, the whole character is important”. If you find a good job that suits you, then it’s “not intellectual enough”, and so on. Nothing seems to be good enough for her.
Blaming
Whatever happens, an emotionally abusive mother blames it on her child. She gets a pimple on her face, then “it’s the devil coming out because of you”. She crashes her car into another one, then “she was looking for your candies in her purse”. Or, in my case, she fails to run her company, and then it’s your fault because “you still haven’t learned anything yet”.
Criticizing
An emotionally abusive mother tends to criticize almost every step her child takes. “Your hair is too long”, “your hair is too short”, “your outfit sucks”, “you don’t understand anything yet”, “you will never learn”, “think more”, “no”, “what is that”, “you’re so dumb”, “you can’t even…” etc. Don’t get me wrong, appropriate criticism is something we usually grow upon, but growing up with non-stop, unjustified criticism is a completely different thing.
Comparing to other children
Her own child never seems to be good enough for an emotionally abusive mother, and she tends to compare them to other children. “Why can you not dress like them”, “why can you not behave like them”, “they obey their parents but you are undisciplined and know nothing”, “he studied Management in London, but you just want to hang around with scum and be idiots the whole day”, and so on. But it can also be a bit more subtle such as “did you know that XY has finally married to the right one”, or “I heard that XY has finally entered his parents’ company”.
Shame
Children of an emotionally abusive mother usually grow up with the feeling of shame. It feels like you’ve done something completely wrong, and now you’re waiting for your punishment. The problem is that you don’t know what you did wrong because the emotionally abusive mother doesn’t specify anything. She basically just deliberately tries to turn the whole world against you by saying things like: “XY is very disappointed in you”, “the way you are, you’ll never make it to anything”, or “at least somebody here has to work”.
Lies
An emotionally abusive mother is not afraid to lie straight to her child’s face. Today, she tells you one story but tomorrow, she tells the same story completely differently. And she usually always puts herself as the hero or as the victim in her stories. Children of emotionally abusive mothers usually grow up in a web of lies where it’s hard to see what’s true and what’s not true.
Non-Verbal Emotional Abuse
If you want, you can compare the more subtle ways of manipulation an emotionally abusive mother uses to ongoing psychoterror. Also here, her intention is to keep control of her child as an extension of herself, and their child to lose their own perception of reality.
Gaslighting
Gaslighting is a form of mental manipulation where the abuser makes his or her victim lose their own sanity. An emotionally abusive mother lies, twists around things, pretends to have never said something, etc. You start wondering if there’s something wrong with you. Things seem to become surreal.
Unrealistic Expectations
Unrealistic and unspoken expectations that her child could never meet but keeps trying, followed by disappointment and punishment – as her child, you don’t know what she wants, so you try to be perfect and expect the next “disciplining lesson” soon. She creates constant pressure, talks about “still not following the rules”, and withdraws any kind of empathy and warmth.
Ignoring
When not meeting her expectations that she’s never even defined or mentioned before, she’d ignore you and pretend that you don’t exist in her life at all. Not ignoring for an hour, or a day – I’m talking about days, weeks, months, and yes, years.
What Are The Consequences Of An Emotionally Abusive Mother?
Since the forms of emotional abuse mentioned above are an ongoing process from birth, let’s now look at what this can do to the grown-ups later on.
Short-Term Consequences
The permanent manipulation an emotionally abusive mother practices on her child can lead to the following short-term effects:
- guilt
- shame
- fear
- anxiety
- questioning their own sanity
- aggression
- confusion
- hopelessness
- racing heartbeat
- difficulties concentrating
- moodiness
- nightmares
- muscle tension
Long-Term Consequences
Emotional abuse causes stress for the victim, which is a physical reaction, not a psychological one. When somebody experiences chronic stress, the body produces more cortisol than it can release. This can disrupt the regulation of synapses, and lead to problems in the development of the brain.
Therefore, grown-ups that have experienced a life-long journey of emotional abuse by their narcissistic mother or father can encounter several different consequences. These can either appear individually, or they are interrelated to each other and include:
- high blood pressure
- alcohol and drugs abuse
- heart problems
- depression
- chronic anxiety
- diabetes
- lung diseases
- bowel diseases
- arthritis
- brain damage
- malnutrition
- vision problems
- chronic fatigue syndrome
- social anxiety
- loss of libido
- insomnia
Of course, these things can also occur without an emotionally abusive mother, but I want to point out that in more cases than we think, it is, in fact, the reason.
Healing From An Emotionally Abusive Mother
We had a small glimpse now into what children of narcissistic parents grow up with, and what can be the possible consequences for the later grown-ups. Now we wonder if it’s possible to actually heal from an emotionally abusive mother, and the answer is, straight up, yes.
Healing Is A Process
You can’t expect to be completely healed and in a shiny world again after only a day – it needs time. But every single step on this journey of healing is a crucial one!
I’ve divided the stages of healing into 4 phases:
1. Awareness
To be aware of your situation and to understand that you have an emotionally abusive mother is the first important step.
2. Understanding
Once you really understand that, you can look at your situation more from a distance – not through your own feelings and memories, but objectively, i.e. without fear.
3. Estimation
When you finally see your situation from the outside without any feelings of guilt, or shame, or fear attached, you can make more rational decisions than when you’re angry or afraid.
4. Action
This enables us to make decisions that come from our guts, or our heart, instead of our mind which is completely manipulated and therefore, blocks us from an honest decision-making process.
Recommendation
After I’ve personally gone through several of the above-mentioned consequences of mental abuse by my mother, all I wanted was revenge. However, this was regulated by the feelings that I had due to my manipulated way of thinking. In other words, even that was a reaction triggered by my mother.
But the more I learned about narcissistic personality disorder and its whole spectrum, the more I felt the invisible tension go away. In the end, I managed to go completely no contact with my mother, and I’ve finally achieved what I’ve always strived for – freedom.
Knowledge Is The Tool
The more I understood, the better I felt. Furthermore, I was finally able to draw the lines between things that had never made any sense to me before. Now, I can see the whole net of lies, threats, punishments, and insults from a completely different point of view.
The understanding that I was basically the extension of my emotionally abusive mother, and that I can have my own feelings and wishes, was the key to really finding my true self.
What To Do
I can’t recommend you enough to get to know as much as possible about the whole topic of NPD. Check out videos, TED talks, books, search engines, statistics – everything that can bring it closer to you. Go to forums, talk to people with the same problems, and never stop learning.
The more you understand, the more you can also identify other narcissistic people because their traits are all very similar, if not even the same. Some more, some less, but you’ll be able to recognize them.
If you consider therapy, it’s completely fine, and up to you, of course. However, please make sure that the therapist is an expert in the field of narcissistic personality disorder. Otherwise, they might just try to prescribe you some pills, and in the end, they might even tell you that “she’s still just your mother”.
I can’t say that I’m completely healed from everything and that there’s no struggle in my life anymore, but I feel free – what I’ve always wanted. This gives me the possibility to make my own decisions and follow my heart. I finally did find myself, and this is how I got revenge on my emotionally abusive mother – I’m free, and she’s lost control over me.
