Did you grow up with the constant feeling that you’ve done everything wrong and that your mother doesn’t love you? Was your mother mostly in a bad mood, belittled you, lied to you, and made you feel insane? If the answer is “yes”, then your mother might be a narcissist. In this article, I will share with you 10 characteristics of a narcissistic mother and what signs you should be aware of. Furthermore, I will explain what has helped me personally to understand the whole situation I was in and to make it out of there.
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1. A Narcissistic Mother Lacks Empathy
A lack of empathy towards others, especially their own child, is one of the most common signs of a narcissist. If a mother can’t feel with her child and instead only belittles them and even makes fun of them, it’s very probable that we’re talking about a narcissistic mother. What her child thinks or feels doesn’t matter to her at all. Instead, the most important thing in life is herself, what she wants, and her own feelings. A narcissistic mother only uses her child as an extension of herself, so there is no way for the child to make up their own mind.
2. Lies Over Lies
Narcissists usually live in their own world and make up stories to either impress others or to pity themselves. In any case, they only want to get attention and be in the spotlight. Narcissistic mothers often come up with a whole construct of lies, starting from their own origin to who they are, where they work, and so on. However, they choose these lies very carefully because they don’t want others to find out the truth. Over time, this net of lies gets bigger and bigger, until there is no more true core to the story – if there was any at all to start with. And if somebody confronts them with the truth, they turn it all around, come up with more lies, and try to make other people feel insane and guilty.
3. Immense Grandiosity
A narcissistic mother permanently has to tell everybody how great she is, what she has achieved in her life, what a “caring” mother she is, and so on. She has the desire that other people look up to her and envy her for her “perfect” life. Furthermore, she also tends to surround herself with rich people, politicians, or people with a certain status in society because everybody else is too “low” for her. She likes to dress in extravagant clothes and presents herself as the only person that is actually working hard enough for her money. She wants others to see her as a super-human. In her eyes, others are only parasites.
4. A Narcissistic Mother Belittles Her Child
A healthy mother loves her child and takes care of them, is empathic, and listens to them. However, a narcissistic mother does not show any of these characteristics. On the contrary, whatever the child says or does is worthless to the narcissist or belittled right away.
For example, when the child of a mother with Narcissistic Personality Disorder hurts himself or herself, she belittles them by saying things like “it wasn’t that bad” or “it can’t hurt so much”. The child is not allowed to have their own feelings and opinions because they are only the extension of herself – she doesn’t see them as an individual with their own feelings. Hence, it is very hard for children growing up like this to make up their own minds and become independent individuals because they are “used to being worthless”.
5. Gaslighting
Gaslighting is a form of mental abuse where the mother makes her child believe that they are insane. It’s an ongoing process that happens over time. You can compare it to the metaphor with the frog in the pan: the heat increases slowly, so the frog doesn’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late.
For example, she denies having said something and convinces her child that they just made it up in their imagination. Or she simply diverts the focus back to you, saying that you hallucinate and are crazy.
She can lie into the child’s face without blinking an eye, and the more she uses this kind of mental manipulation, the more the child starts doubting their own senses. Being gaslighted over a long period of time can lead to low anxiety, panic attacks, depressions, a complete loss of reality, low self-esteem, and so on.
6. Manipulation
A narcissistic mother is a master in manipulating her child in a way that she gets from them exactly what she wants. She twists their mind and makes them afraid by using methods such as blackmailing, guilt trips, insulting, threatening, and many more, so that the child obeys her and does exactly what she wants.
Hence, the child is under constant emotional pressure and in danger of losing their mind one day. And as a result of that, it can be very hard for them to create their own, independent life and plan their own future.
7. She Compares Her Child To Other Children
Not only does a narcissistic mother not have any empathy for her own child, but she even shows actively that she is not happy with them at all. She does that by comparing them to other children and saying things like “why can you not be like him” or “he studied Business & Management in London, why can you not be so reasonable” or “the other children have all normal hobbies, but you play guitar, you’ll end up homeless in the streets”.
Like this, the child “learns” that they are not good enough and that they have to “earn” their mother’s love by being perfect. This can result in things like anxiety, existence fears, exaggerated perfectionism, depressions, and so on.
8. Possessiveness
A narcissistic mother is very possessive over her child and doesn’t give them any freedom to decide anything for themselves. Since she sees them as an extension of herself, she does not treat them as individuals, but as her property. That means that she is also very jealous when her child has a romantic relationship with somebody.
She will try everything possible to separate them and to keep her child very close to herself. She uses all forms of manipulation and lies, threats and self-pity, and even punishments when she doesn’t get what she wants. That is, her child to be with her non-stop and forever and only her to be the center of her child’s life – she needs to feed on their energy!
9. She Neglects Her Child
When a mother has NPD, everything else is more important to her than her own child. She literally sees it as a burden to be there for them and the consequences may be fatal for the child.
It’s not rare that a narcissistic mother ignores her sick child or even says that he or she isn’t actually sick but pretending it all only to get attention. Not seldom did children even pass away due to a lack of food or medication. And it’s also not rare that children of narcissistic mothers often end up taking drugs, drop out of school, and even get in trouble with the law. These children “learn” that their own needs are not important, but instead they have to serve others.
Please don’t get me wrong here – I’m not defending any drugs or criminals or so! I’m just saying that the reason for them being the way they are can often be the result of the mental abuse they’ve experienced from their narcissistic mother.
10. Dependency
Many narcissistic mothers expect their children to take care of them all of the time and for the rest of their lives. Usually, it is nothing bad and rather normal when grown-up children take care of their older parents. However, the narcissistic mother aims for creating a very strong dependency of their child towards them.
She manipulates them in a way that it can be very hard for the child to get a job and start their own life, to find a partner and start a family, and so on. This invisible leash between the narcissistic mother and her child can be there for the rest of the child’s life, even after the narcissist has passed away. The psychological wounds can be so deep that the child suffers from the traumas for the rest of his or her life.
Is Your Mother A Narcissist?
If you realize some of these characteristics in your mother or even all of them, then you might really be dealing with a mother with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Depending on the current situation and whether or not you have contact with her or even live with her, it’s necessary for you to know how you want to proceed with everything. I personally decided to break contact with my narcissistic mother because there was no other way out for me.
If you consider talking to her about your feelings, keep in mind her lack of empathy and her ways to manipulate you. I personally also know this feeling of hope that she might change one day. However, this change never happened.
Recommendation
The most important thing is to acquire as much knowledge as possible about the whole spectrum of narcissism, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and the consequences of mental abuse. The more you know, the better you can see your situation from the outside.
In regards to the self-protection of a narcissist, I consider knowledge as the most important “weapon” against them – because, with it, you can always be one step ahead of their attacks. You start to know what they’ll do next and why.
When I drew the lines together, I could clearly see that there is no punishment for having my own opinion and feelings. Nobody would just wait for me to make a mistake in order to judge me. The anxiety was just planted in my head by my narcissistic mother.
