If you’ve tried everything over and over again to settle the tense situation you’re in, and you’re thinking of lowering the contact or even going no contact with your narcissist mother, then you might want to keep reading.
In this blog, I’m going to share with you the things that have led up to the point of no return, when I simply had to go no contact with my narcissistic mother, and how I made it in the end. Furthermore, I will explain what made me understand the whole situation I was in, and what has eventually helped me get out of it.
Disclaimer: Some of the links I use in my blogs are affiliate links. That means that when you click on them and purchase a product or service, I get paid a commission for that. I only recommend products and services that I would use myself. There are no extra costs for you. This helps me run my blog and answer to questions of my readers individually.
Before I Went No Contact with My Narcissist Mother
Since I can remember, I’ve never had a good relationship with my mother. To give you an insight into what has led up to my decision of going no contact with my narcissist mother, I’ll briefly summarize my life and certain happenings for you. Perhaps you find yourself in the same position, in some way or the other.
1. Childhood
I’m not sure why, but I can remember many things already from the earliest days of my childhood. I can clearly remember that I was already afraid of my mother as a kid – her permanent bad mood and aggressions, her voice and body language towards me, her dissatisfaction with me as her child. No matter what I said or did, it was wrong in her eyes.
Belittling
She belittled everything I said or did, but she never explained why. All I heard was stuff like “you don’t know anything”, “you’ll never make it to anything”, “that’s wrong”, “that’s bad”, or “I’ll explain this when you’re mature enough”. But when is a child “mature enough”? I grew up, waiting to be “mature enough”, but the insecurity of my own being has continued to grow throughout my life, instead of settling.
In her presence, I have always felt small, dumb, naive, and worthless. Whenever she pretended to be a caring and good mother, she only did that to present herself in a good spotlight in front of other people, but when she took off her narcissistic mask at home, all hell broke loose. But, of course, she also belittled me in front of other people. In this case, she always made it sound more funny or serious, as if the wise woman with hundreds of years of life experience, the “master”, gives her student a lesson for life.
Rules Over Rules
My narcissistic mother always spoke about rules and how to be a good part of society and so on. Of course, there are rules in society we all have to follow, that’s clear, but I’m not talking about these. I’m in fact talking about rules made up by her, without defining them. And these rules seemed to apply only to me, not to anybody else, and especially not to her.
The problem with these rules from a narcissistic mother is that you as children have no idea what she actually wants from you. No matter what you say or do, it’s all wrong. And instead of telling you what rule you broke this time, she just says stuff like “you still haven’t learned anything”, or “you will never understand that”.
My mother made up these rules according to her current mood and situation. It’s hard to explain in words, but there were actually no “rules”, as she has always said. She rather used that term to sound like a civilized and worried person who wants to lead her child in the right direction. But instead, these “rules” and “never being able to understand them” rather lead to complete confusion and insecurity in me than in actually really “learning the rules of society”. I consider this as a form of gaslighting, which is an ongoing, subtle process of making their victim go crazy and lose the sense of their own reality.
Punishments
Along with not following the made-up rules of a narcissistic mother, the punishments can be pretty harsh. I’ve experienced all kinds of punishment from my mother, both in physical and psychological form.
For example, I clearly remember the wooden spaghetti spoon (the one with these spikes on it) on my butt, when Mommie Dearest had again a bad day or was in one of her aggressive moods. Whenever she had to show me that I’m her property, i.e. I didn’t “follow the rules”, she grabbed that spoon and hunted me throughout the whole house until she caught me. I also still clearly remember that wooden thing breaking on my butt. Needless to say, this made my decision of going no contact with my narcissist mother pretty straightforward.
Another punishment of hers – probably her favorite one – was being grounded. Sometimes a week, sometimes more. For example, if she told me to be at home at 6 for dinner and I arrived home at 6:10, I was grounded for at least a week because “I had to learn discipline”. And I could consider myself lucky if I was not strictly grounded to my room. When that was the case, I was allowed to get out of it to get food, and back in. At that time, I was in a swimming club with training twice a week, and sometimes I wasn’t even allowed to go there when I was grounded.
Threats
“If you don’t do this, then…” – a very common sentence of my narcissistic mother. The usual threats were that I’d be grounded, I’d not be allowed to see my friends, not allowed to watch TV, and so on. She even threatened me that I wasn’t allowed to eat candies for 2 weeks if I didn’t do this or that. From my current point of view as an adult, I say that it’s not a bad thing not to eat candies for 2 weeks, or not to watch TV, but her point was simply to take something away from me that she knew I loved at that time.
This is basically what a narcissistic mother wants to achieve with threats and punishments – to make her child afraid of the consequences if they don’t obey – because she knows what hurts her child the most.
Another threat was that my mother would send me to a boarding school if I “didn’t start to follow the rules”. When she started threatening me with that and saw that I was very afraid of going away from home, leaving my friends, and being in some boarding school where I didn’t want to be, she put most of her focus on that one. And in the end, I did end up in a boarding school.
Withdrawal Of Mother Love
The withdrawal of a mother’s love is also a punishment – not a temporary one like being grounded, but an ongoing one. A narcissistic mother is cold, doesn’t listen, doesn’t respond, ignores you, gives you evil looks, negative body language, and so on. It’s more a covert, psychological punishment, but the consequences for the child can be severe.
Growing up with the constant feeling of not being loved by their own mother, the child of a narcissistic mother can suffer from anxiety, depression, panic attacks, feelings of worthlessness, drug or alcohol abuse, hopelessness, guilt, and many more. Furthermore, they can develop problems in relationships and at work, obesity, anorexia, sociopathy, and even suicidal thoughts or attempts. But, of course, being a child makes it impossible to go no contact with your narcissist mother, unless there’s someone to help you.
2. Teenage Years & Young Adult
As a child, you always think that this nightmare would be over once you’re grown-up, but that’s not the case. On the contrary, things can become even tenser because the older the child of a narcissistic mother gets, the more she’s afraid of losing control over them, and hence, she also keeps her different forms of mental manipulation “up to date”.
As a result, once I entered my teenage years, her preferred way of manipulation became promises instead of threats.
Boarding School
When the child of a narcissistic mother reaches a certain age, she can’t use the same forms of threats or punishments anymore that she used before. For example, she can’t really ground a 15-year-old anymore or forbid him or her to eat candies. So, her updated version of “if you don’t do this, then…” becomes “when you do this, then…”, and she simply replaces threats with promises.
When I was 15 years old, my mother made her threat come true and did send me to a boarding school in Switzerland. I made my point very clear that I didn’t want to go there, but the more I complained, the more she insisted on it. Now, to convince me to go there, she promised that I could come home on the weekends and that my parents would come to visit me with my friends because she knew that my biggest issue with boarding school was not seeing my friends. Of course, she didn’t keep any of her promises. I went home on 2 weekends during that year, and my parents came to visit me twice.
I should have stayed there for 2 years, but my father was a good man with a big heart. He understood that I was in boarding school against my will and that I was suffering because of that. So, he convinced my mother to take me out of there after 1 year. She blamed him for that until the day he passed away in 2013, 10 years later.
Uni In London
Choosing a uni was another dark chapter in my life since I actually didn’t want to study at all. But when you grow up with “if you don’t follow my footsteps and study, you’ll end up in the streets”, you don’t really have a choice. Of course, a grown-up can actually decide for himself or herself, but as the child of a narcissistic mother, it’s very hard to make up your own mind and be grown-up, especially in the early years.
When she chose my uni, it was important for her that it was an elite uni with a worldwide reputation and top standards in a renowned city. That might sound amazing to outsiders, but her real intention wasn’t my education, but her own appearance in front of others. She presented herself as the caring mother who only wanted the best for her child, but behind her mask, she didn’t care about that at all. It gave her immense satisfaction when she could tell her friends and neighbors that her son studies Economics at uni XY in London, is networking with the “highest people of society”, has “the best changes for his future”, and so on.
Self-Destruction & Realization
But in fact, my time in London ended up more in excessive drinking and self-destruction, than in these illusions of grandiosity that my mother was dreaming of. I didn’t do any “hard” drugs, but the drinking went up to a level where it was more than just a glass of beer or wine with some friends – a lot more. Not to go too deep into that for now, let’s just say at this point that I started and ended my day with alcohol, and in between, there’s a lot of time for many more drinks.
Until one day, when I realized the self-destruction I was committing. I started asking myself why I was drinking so much and finally came to the conclusion that I simply didn’t care about my health at all at that time. I had no idea yet about the term “narcissism” and that whole topic, but I had to make up my own mind, otherwise, I’m not sure what would have happened if I continued drinking like that.
Long story short, I signed out of uni, booked a flight back home, and told my parents about it a week later. My father was very happy, but my mother has just found a new source of hatred and disgust which she would always use against me and my dad. That was the time when I started realizing that something must be seriously wrong with my mother, since she tried everything to keep me away from home and my friends, and at the same time lied to the people that I was enjoying my time in London and that I was planning to follow in her footsteps.
Back in Germany, I finally found a field of studies that I was really interested in and could even combine with the Economics stuff I’d studied in London, so I enrolled at uni and got my bachelor’s degree 3 years later. All of that was against the will of my mother, and the things with her got tenser.
3. My Father’s Death
While my father was alive, he was always the buffer between me and her. And, perhaps, due to his love and devotion, I couldn’t convince myself to go no contact with my narcissist mother way earlier. But, all that was about to change.
Low Contact With My Narcissistic Mother
Throughout my studies in Germany, I was already in a low contact relationship with my mother. I lived with my ex-girlfriend in my ex’s apartment and was mainly in contact with my father. Whenever I visited home and my mother was there, it escalated in discussions and arguments.
My dad joined me and my friends many times when we went for some beers, and even to concerts, but my mother hated all of my friends. She only “liked” the ones who had rich parents, whose grandfather was a famous painter, whose mother was a famous actress, and so on. Not that I had a lot of friends like these, but I got to know some people like that through my time in boarding school and London. That should bring you a bit closer to her delusions of grandeur and her real intentions of forcing me into these schools.
She found something to blame the people for in everybody, and she actually did forbid me to see most of my friends, although I was already in my mid 20’s. My fear of her was so strong that I always lied to my parents whenever I met my friends that I’d go somewhere for uni purposes or so. However, when I was alone with my dad, I always told him the truth because I hated lying and this feeling of wrongness. But I didn’t really have a choice – she was a very successful manipulator.
The Turning Point
When one day in February 2013 my mother called me on my phone, I already felt that something was wrong because she hadn’t called me in the last few years before. She told me that my dad has had a heart attack while my parents were on a trip to Italy and that he was in hospital there. I flew to Italy the next day, hoping my dad would be fine, but unfortunately, he passed away a few days later.
At this point, I thought that I and my mother would get closer again, since I don’t have any siblings, and my father just passed away. She seemed to show some empathy and feelings for a couple of weeks, and I thought we were on the right track. I started working for her company, went on a lot of business trips, and it looked like I was finally the son she always wanted to have, and I started to feel safe with my life.
However, it didn’t take long for me to see that I was once again completely wrong in my assessment of my mother and the whole situation. Soon it turned out that she used my father’s death as my weakest point against me. Instead of promises and threats, she now used things like “Dad would have wanted that”, “in Dad’s memory”, or “your father would turn around in his grave if he knew…”.
My Mother’s Lie About Having Cancer
Everything became too much for me and I simply needed my own life. I was with her almost the whole time, on most of the business trips, at home, in the office, visiting her friends, and so on. So I started distancing myself from her and told her that I need more private life. We could still work together and even go on these trips, but that I simply needed some more distance. Back then, going no contact with my narcissist mother wasn’t even a possibility I considered.
My mother then was afraid of losing control over me, so she pulled out all her narcissistic weapons to hit me wherever she could. She started blaming me for my father’s death and for the failure of her business that was going down, completely ignored me for weeks, kicked me out of her company, hired me again, kicked me out again, threatened to change her testament, and so on and so forth.
When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I asked her to pay me out the legal part of my legacy from my father, so that we can go different ways, but she refused to do that. Instead, she said that I’d have to go work for it and that she paid for my schools already – in which she forced me – and that everything was compensated like that. She told me that I’d have to sue her if I want to get the legal part of my legacy, so I did.
But as soon as we got the official invitation to go to court, she contacted me to deal with it outside of court. She told me that she had stomach cancer and would need surgery in a specialized hospital in Switzerland soon. She said that she did some tests in certain hospitals in Munich and was just waiting for an appointment there.
Despite the fact that we were in constant arguments, that was a big shock for me because my father had just died some months before, and I was afraid of losing also my mother. Whenever I asked her about the results of the doctors and when she’s going to Switzerland, she completely avoided that topic. I got suspicious and started contacting all hospitals in Munich that are specialized in the treatment of stomach cancer, and also that one in Switzerland.
My mother has never been a patient in any of these. She simply lied to me about having cancer, shortly after my father had died, just to control me, to make me afraid, and to manipulate me, nothing else. Of course, I believed her in the beginning and withdrew my lawsuit. I never got the legal part of my legacy until today. Don’t get me wrong, it was never about the money for me, only about the freedom of my narcissistic mother.
Going No Contact With My Narcissist Mother
I have researched a lot since then, and I tried to talk to other people, but it seemed as if nobody would understand me and my situation, and I only stumbled upon stuff like “stressed out mothers” and so on, but nothing that described my situation back then. My mother was simply not stressed out, or in mourning for my late father, but an individual that experienced joy when she knew she could hurt me in my weak points.
Finally, in 2017, I came across the term “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” (NPD) for the first time in my life, and suddenly, it all started making sense to me. I started dedicating most of my time to researching narcissism and the consequences of mental abuse because it had controlled my whole life so far.
This new knowledge, or better, this new understanding was the trigger that made me go no contact with my narcissist mother. Between the day I first read about NPD and the day I completely moved out of her house and her life was exactly 2 days. There was no other option for me. I had tried for over 30 years to please my mother and to be the perfect son, and this has led to anxiety, panic attacks, high blood pressure, excessive drinking, and so on.
Back then, I couldn’t make a connection between those things, NPD, and the consequences of mental abuse yet, but the more I learned, the more I could put together all the small puzzle pieces that had never made sense to me before.
Learning How To Be Loved
After moving out of there, I stayed at a friend’s place for several weeks before I decided to drop out of the Master’s degree I was in, and then moved to North Macedonia, where I eventually found the love of my life and married her. We have been happily married for 3,5 years now, which is basically a bit shorter than the time that I went no contact with my narcissist mother.
First, I had to learn to accept the feeling of being loved by other people. Since I’d been used to being loved only in return for something, it was hard to believe that people would actually really love me for the person I am, without anything evil in their minds, without any conditions, threats, rules, and so on. Just being loved for who I am.
Although I had already gone no contact with my narcissist mother before, I knew that she would contact me somehow when she’d find out I’m getting married. She could never stand my wife (back then girlfriend) and called her several disgusting things a “lady of higher class” with over 60 years of age would really not do.
The next day after our engagement, my mother contacted me, called my wife a village sl*t, and threatened to change her testament if I marry her. Well, my guts were stronger this time, and I have finally made a life-changing decision by myself, despite her threats, and married my wife!
No Regrets
Often, people still ask me now if I’ve ever regretted these drastic and immediate decisions. But I don’t really consider them as “drastic” and “immediate”, though, because they were simply the results of everything that had happened before in my life. And to answer that question: No, I haven’t regretted any of these decisions, and also none of the ones I’ve made after!
Learning about narcissism was the main “tool” that has helped me to leave my nightmare behind and go no contact with my narcissist mother. I have started making my own decisions right away, although it did feel very difficult and hard to do. But I started listening to my guts, or to my heart. I have learned to ignore my mother’s voice in my head and all the toxic manipulation she has planted there from birth.
I got hundreds of “what if’s” in my brain – what if my mother was right, what if I really can’t make it without her, what if I’m really wrong, what if she was really just worried about me, and so on. But the more I understood about Narcissistic Personality Disorder and the consequences of mental abuse, the more I learned to ignore these questions and this feeling of guilt and focus on the beautiful things in my life instead. They have always been in front of me, I just couldn’t reach out to them because of that invisible, toxic chain of my narcissistic mother. And I could never see them because of that grey layer of fog I was in, created by her psychoterror.
Moving On
I’m not saying that I wasn’t afraid of any of the decisions I’ve made after going no contact with my narcissist mother. In fact, I was very afraid, but somehow I knew they were the right decisions. I have learned that my anxiety was only the result of what my mother has planted in my head, nothing else. Yes, there were consequences that resulted from my decisions, but not “consequences” in the way my mother always preached to me.
Since I went no contact with my narcissist mother for good, every aspect of my life has taken a positive turn. Of course, not all in one day and not all together, and life isn’t always only shiny and without any difficulties, but when I look at my life now, I’m very happy with everything I have, every circumstance, and I simply feel free.
Furthermore, I have finally found a way to share my personal story and experience through my blog, to create an awareness of the dangers of narcissistic mothers or fathers, and to give hope to the people who are trapped in the same situation as I was in.
Going No Contact with a Narcissist: Knowledge Is The Key
I really don’t know what would have happened to me if I didn’t come across the term Narcissistic Personality Disorder and further researched the whole spectrum of it. As soon as I was able to grasp my situation from the outside, I understood that I was in danger of serious health problems if I continued living my life for my mother.
The more I learned, the more I also realized how certain issues we deal with as adults are actually connected to the way we are brought up by our parents. I started considering knowledge as a weapon to defend myself against my narcissistic mother. Once you unmask them, you know their next steps and threats.
If you want to go no contact with your narcissist mother, or you want to set boundaries, or you want to deal with your anxiety or other issues you’re encountering, I can’t recommend you enough to get to know as much as possible about narcissism in all its fields. There are several practices and methods to calm down and to get closer to your true self. Understanding that you are, in fact, really a victim of mental abuse, is essential in the process of healing.
Never Forget. Do Your Thing.
Furthermore, I’ve learned to sort of “forgive” my mother – not in a way that it’s all fine what she’s done, but in a way that I simply don’t turn my energy towards her anymore. I stopped living my daily life in hatred and thoughts of revenge because like this, I only destroyed my health. Instead, I focus on my own life and dreams. In addition to that, not providing them with any more energy to feed on is the best way to keep them away.
I’ll never forget what she’s done to me, but I take my own experience as something I can learn from, and it shows me how I never want to become in my life – somebody who’ll never see their grandchildren and enjoy life together with real friends and family.
Going no contact with my narcissist mother was the first life-changing decision of my life, and many more great ones have followed – I don’t regret any of them, and in some ways, I’m even thankful for everything I’ve gone through because it simply made me the person I am today.
