Have you ever wondered if your mom might be a narcissist? If so, you're not alone. Narcissistic mothers can be very difficult to spot, especially if we're close to them. But there are some red flags that can help you identify a narcissistic mother.
In this episode, we'll explore 5 red flags that might indicate your mom is a narcissist. We'll also discuss the particular struggles that you might be experiencing now as a result of your upbringing.
If you're struggling with low self-esteem, difficulty setting boundaries, or a fear of failure, it's possible that you were raised by a narcissistic mother. If so, this episode is for you. Learn what narcissism (narcissistic personality disorder or NPD for short) is and what it isn't. Learn more about the impact a narcissistic mother can have on your self-esteem. Learn about the signs you see in adulthood if you were raised by a narcissistic mother. And finally, learn what you can do to start to heal from narcissistic abuse.
Join me for this episode as we explore the complex and often painful topic of narcissistic mothers, narcissistic fathers, and the fall out from being raised by a narcissistic parent. By the end of the episode, you'll have a better understanding of whether or not your mom is a narcissist, and you'll have some tools to help you heal from the effects of your upbringing.
Listen to my best-selling book The Worthy Project for FREE on Audible.
CHAPTERS
0:00 Is your mom a narcissist?
1:04 What is a narcissist? What does narcissism mean?
1:20 The origination of narcissism-Greek Myth: Narcissus and Echo
2:04 Symptoms and traits of narcissism
2:20 Types of narcissism - grandiose narcissist
2:41 Types of narcissism - vulnerable or covert narcissist
3:00 Narcissistic parenting
3:16 Narcissistic fathers
3:31 Narcissistic mothers
3:42 Daughter of narcissistic mother
4:06 Son of narcissistic mother
4:32 Sign #1 You believe you are responsible for the happiness of others
5:36 Sign #2 You feel like you can’t trust yourself and doubt your reality
6:10 Sign #3 You struggle with low self-worth
8:08 Sign #4 You believe you’re a burden to others
9:09 Sign #5 You have a difficult time with boundaries
Transcript
How Do You Know if Your Mom Is a Narcissist?
Have you ever wondered if your mom might be a narcissist? It's a tough question and one that can be difficult to answer. Narcissism isn't always as obvious as we might think, and it can be even harder to spot when we're looking at someone we love. I've spent the majority of my professional life developing tools to build self-worth, what I've found is that there is a strong correlation between struggling with low self-esteem and having been raised by a narcissist, especially a narcissistic mother.
Low self-worth isn't something that just happens to you. Often, it's something that you were trained into, something you were taught or a coping skill that worked for you.
The impact of your upbringing doesn't just go away no matter how old you are. It leaves an imprint on you. If you were raised by a narcissistic mother, there will be undeniable signs. And in this video we're going to explore five red flags that might indicate that your mom is a narcissist and particular struggles that you might be experiencing now. Let's dive in.
Hey there, I'm Meadow DeVor. On this channel, we explore tools to build self-worth and master life. To start with. It's important to understand what narcissism is and isn't.
What Does Narcissism Mean?
The term narcissist is sometimes used to label someone who's vain or arrogant or grandiose. If that were the extent of it, I don't think they'd cause that much harm, but narcissism is far more dangerous. The term narcissism comes from the Greek myth of Narcissus. Narcissus falls in love, not with himself, but with his reflection. Echo, the mountain nymph, fell in love with Narcissus, but could only echo back exactly what he said.
So no matter how much she loved Narcissus, he only cared about his reflection. She could only mirror back what he said. And this is exactly how narcissism works. They don't love themselves. They are enamored with an image that doesn't exist. They are unable to love those around them, but need an echo to mirror themselves back.
This is what it feels like to be raised by a narcissist. Your job is to be the echo that is never loved while they spend their lives worshiping an image, they'll never actually become.
What Are the Traits of a Narcissist?
Narcissism or narcissistic personality disorder, or NPD for short is described as exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, a delusional sense of status. A lack of empathy and the willingness to exploit others for their own gain. This typically shows up in two different ways, the grandiose pattern and the vulnerable pattern.
The grandiose narcissist always needs to be the center of attention, and they expect their children to be part of the audience that adores them, helps fuel their status, and serves their unending need for attention and admiration. Think about the evil queen in Snow White or Emma Thompson's character, the Baroness in Cruella.
The vulnerable narcissist or covert narcissist is harder to spot yet. Just as toxic. This is the parent that is fragile, depressed, anxious, and needy. They feign weakness to garner pity and use faux humility to elicit attention. Think mother Gothel in Tangled.
For both types of narcissists, the roles of parent and child are flipped. As the child, you are required to meet the needs of your parent rather than the other way around. But if you have your own needs, which means you stop playing the role of Echo, you are punished, ignored, and dismissed. Today I am focusing on narcissistic mothers, but I wanna touch a bit on narcissistic fathers.
The Difference Between Narcissistic Mothers and Narcissistic Fathers
Narcissistic fathers have a more hot and cold approach to their kids, rather than seeing them as an extension of themselves, they see their kids as useful when needed, and irrelevant when not useful.
Narcissistic mothers, on the other hand, tend to see their kids as an extension of their own reflection. They see their children as part of their adoring audience, and demand that admiration from them. They put pressure on their children to be special and perfect.
The Difference Between Daughters and Sons of a Narcissist Mother
If you're a daughter of a narcissistic mother, your job is to elevate her status without becoming too much of a threat. Be beautiful and thin. Don't be too beautiful. Be elegant and charming, but don't step on her toes. She often wants you to feel inadequate and uses that to inflate her own ego. Your job is simply to make her feel good about herself.
It's to echo whatever reflection she's fallen in love with. If you're the son of a narcissistic mother, your job is similar, but rather than seeing you as a direct threat, your job is to be her substitute husband. You are to love and adore her and to make her look good, but to remain in an Oedipal relationship with her, your job is to see her as the fairest of them all, to never fall in love with a stronger or better woman. She wants you to sacrifice your own life in order to serve her.
5 Signs That You Were Raised by a Narcissistic Mother
So now let's look at some of the signs that you might find in your own life if you were raised by a narcissistic mother.
#1. you believe that you are responsible for the happiness of others.
You often default to apologizer caretaker or people pleaser mode. When your mother is a narcissist, you are trained from a young age to see love as transactional and to perpetually apologize for anything that inconvenienced her.
You were taught that love was earned by either doing something for her or by achieving something for her. Because of this, you internalize the idea that love is conditional and therefore believe that you need to please others or serve others or earn your place in a relationship or a community.
Even today, you might find yourself saying, I'm sorry for things that are clearly not your fault or responsibility. Because we've been trained into this, we are susceptible to recreating the dynamic we befriend narcissists, date narcissists, and even marry narcissists because we have been taught to be the perfect counterpart.
We are the echo. And we apologize when their reflection isn't perfect. And then we people please and care take to reflect back the image they adore.
#2. You feel like you can't trust yourself and you often doubt yourself and your reality.
When you've been raised by a narcissistic mother, you've been raised to believe that the mythological reflection in the water is more important, more real, more desirable than anything else. Her inflated image, her need for attention, her need to win, her need to use you
it's more important than anything you experience. When you're raised like this, you're brainwashed into believing her and not yourself, and as an adult, this leaves you riddled with self-doubt and also makes you an easy target for narcissists and predators.
#3. You believe that you're not enough. You struggle with self-worth. You think you should always hide your inadequacies.
Think about what happens when you're raised by someone who has no capacity to love you, and instead is completely absorbed in their own reflection.
What happens when your only purpose is to echo admiration back to someone who will never be satisfied, who can never be satisfied?
You literally learn that you are not enough and that you will never measure up. You are only worth the constant stream of attention and adoration that you can supply to her, that will never be enough for the bottomless pit of a narcissist.
To have self-worth, you must have a self, and a narcissistic mother lacks the ability to see you as a separate self, nor the generosity to allow you to be a separate self. As her child, you experience intermittent rewards that make no sense.
On one hand, she's critical and abusive when you're not doing your job, making her look good, or when you do something that threatens her fragile ego. And then on the other hand, she's adoring you and lavishes attention on you when you become the source of validation for her.
This means that anything good about you is co-opted, co-owned, and because of her and anything bad about you is a failure on your part because you're not living up to who she wanted you to be. She valued the reflection rather than the real and taught you to do the same.
As an adult, you find yourself always comparing yourself to the ideal image, a better, faster, smarter, prettier version of yourself. This tendency can be found in almost all humans. What you see in children of narcissists is that the image, the reflection, the ideal. The fantasy is more real, more vivid, and even more painful.
We believe our inadequacies make us incapable of being loved, and that failure to live up to the ideal fantasy means that we cannot and will not be loved. Therefore, we do everything we can to keep our flaws hidden.
If you want to know more about building self-worth, my bestselling book The Worthy Project is available for free on Audible. I linked it in the description.
#4. You believe that you are a burden to others. You feel guilty for having needs. You believe that your feelings aren't even important.
Because narcissism revolves around a self-entitled need for constant admiration. A narcissistic mother has a hard time seeing her child as having needs or emotions that deserve attention. You've been groomed to believe that your needs and your emotions caused your narcissist parent pain, inconvenience, and emotional distress.
A narcissistic mother cannot be bothered by something that takes her attention away from the object of her own infatuation herself. If you were upset or hurt, sick, cold, or hungry, she did whatever she had to do to shut you up and make you behave. So that she could give back to pursuing her own needs.
She taught you that you are a liability, a burden, and difficult to endure. You learned that your needs and your feelings were unimportant, and as an adult you feel that anyone else's feelings and anyone else's needs supersede your own.
#5. You have a difficult time with boundaries and feel guilty or rude when you don't have the capacity to perform for others.
A narcissistic mother believes she deserves special treatment and privileges considering herself above you and anyone else. She expects you to bend to her will and becomes frustrated or even angry if her desires aren't immediately fulfilled. Her sense of entitlement knows no bounds, which is why she ignores, crosses and destroys any boundaries that you might try to put into place if you think about the myth, Narcissus couldn't see anything beyond his own reflection.
And no matter how much Echo loved Narcissus she was never her own entity. What would happen if Echo stopped echoing if she said something else, or if she kicked the water and refused to admire the reflection.
That's basically how it goes. When you try to set a boundary with a narcissist, they cannot and will not allow you to have boundaries.
To a narcissistic mother. You are a tool to be used if you set limits or make yourself unavailable for use. She will resent you, punish you, and do whatever it takes to devastate you into complying with her. She'll use your own compassion and empathy against you making you feel guilty or rude when you don't do what she wants.
If your mother is a narcissist, it’s highly likely that you have attracted more female narcissists into your life. To learn more about how to spot a female narcissist––watch this video next: Covert Signs of a Female Narcissist.
