After being raised by a narcissistic mother or father, you might have some weird behaviors you don’t understand. There’s a very good reason for this and a way to fix it, so it stops happening.
If you’re still in contact and being manipulated by them, you feel like a frayed ball of nerves. The problem is when you’re always under constant attack, you never have a chance to heal in between blows.
A narcissistic mother likes to keep you on your toes. You’re always second-guessing yourself, and you don’t have a chance to calm your mind or make your own decisions. It’s draining and frustrating to deal with this kind of parent. The fighting and conflict never ends. They’re always there to steal your joy or cause problems where there are none.
Now I don’t talk much about the narcissistic father because it is its own brand of batshit crazy. However, there are many similarities since ALL narcissists have the same patterns and they both cause incredible damage to a child’s mind.
Once you put some distance between you and them, something very painful happens.
You start to heal. It’s like being asleep your whole life, and suddenly you’re awake. As an adult, you start to see things from a different perspective.
Healing from narcissistic abuse is not pleasant; it’s brutal. You notice things you don’t want to notice. You come face to face with a reality that changes everything you thought you knew about your life.
When you’ve been abused this way for decades, it’s already left its mark on your life. You’ve always felt lonely or unsupported until you realize the person you loved and trusted the most is actively trying to sabotage your life and your happiness.
After going no contact with a narcissistic family, it becomes pretty clear that you were always alone; you just didn’t know it.
After being raised by a narcissist, your struggle is with self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-worth.
When you’re raised by a soul-sucking, self-serving vampire, you’re told every aspect and angle of you is bad, wrong, and shameful. There is no emotional support, and when you’re young, there’s no escape. It’s daily repetitive insults and attacks that threaten to corrupt your very core.
A narcissistic mother expects her children to be like her. It’s as if they think their children are born flawed, and it’s their job to make their child into a better human being. They don’t understand that babies are born with no emotional flaws, and yet somehow, they think they need to add in their twisted ideas.
More than that, they demand you be agreeable, compliant, and subservient, so you’re never taught how to love and accept yourself. You’re taught to hate yourself for being a normal, imperfect, flawed human being. When you’re the child of a narcissist, you question every decision you make because you’ve been taught you can’t trust yourself or your gut instincts.
That’s a problem.
The only way to stop the insanity is to replace what you’ve been taught about yourself with the truth.
When you realize you didn’t have a normal childhood.
After being raised by a narcissist and fully understanding what that means, it turns your world upside down. It changes everything you thought you knew about your life.
You go through phases of trying to disprove your mother or father is a narcissist because if it was something else, anything else, there might be some hope. You hold on to this hope there might be some chance you’ll get them to see how they’ve hurt you, and then they’ll change their behavior.
This will never happen.
Their behavior will never change… ever.
You can’t change a narcissistic parent.
If they were going to change, don’t you think they’d have done it already?
How this healing process works is you change and evolve, and they don’t. They stay exactly the same, so when they continue to do the same things they’ve always done, stop being surprised because this shit never ends until you decide to put a stop to it.
Most people are well into their thirties, forties, fifties, and sixties before they find any answers because it takes years of wisdom to finally see the whole picture.
It’s not your fault you didn’t know what was going on. It’s not your responsibility to fix your parents, either. Just because you were born into a family doesn’t mean you were meant to spend the rest of your life with them.
Most children raised by a narcissistic parent are good people. Not all of them, but most are good and kind because they know what it feels like to be mistreated. They know what it does to a person, and they would never want to do that to another human being.
Many of them are fiercely loyal, compassionate, and some of them are the strongest people I’ve ever met. For the most part, they are completely self-made. We don’t have someone in our corner cheering us on, giving us accolades or moral support, so whatever we do accomplish has been done under severe oppression.
We’re isolated from everyone, and the person who raised us is a vindictive, self-serving nut job that doesn’t care about our wellbeing or our future. It doesn’t stop there either. I’m sure you’ve heard the term “flying monkeys.” A narcissistic mother will recruit other adults to support them as they try to destroy their own children.
Misdiagnosed by a narcissistic parent.
Most of us have been unfairly judged and misdiagnosed by doctors because of what our mentally ill parent tells them. I was speculated about and intensely analyzed as a child by doctors because my mother was convinced something was wrong with me.
I spent most of my life wondering what was wrong with me and why no doctor was ever able to help. You try to get better and be better and work on yourself, but it’s never enough. No matter what I did, I couldn’t find relief or any answers.
The madness never stopped because it wasn’t coming from me:
- I was put on medications I didn’t need for depression since my mother had recently been diagnosed with depression, so I had to be on them too. This automatically disqualified me from joining the military.
- I was put in a psych ward at the beginning of my freshman year of high school for some dark poems I wrote after my mother went rifling through my room (no boundaries allowed).
- I was placed in a home for adolescents with behavior issues for four months after my father died, which is where I learned how to lie to get my way. I was treated fairly there, I wasn’t used to that, and it was better than being at home trapped with her.
The further away I got from my mother, the better off I was. People don’t understand why we’re so desperate to get out of the house. We’d rather be dead than spend one more minute in that hell.
Everything is backward and upside down. You grow up with no understanding of the real world or healthy relationships.
Every time you try to get ahead, you keep getting stuck in the past.
As an adult, you start reliving the past, and sometimes it feels like you’re right back there, trapped and defenseless. These flashbacks can happen at any time, and usually, they happen at the most inconvenient times possible. Sometimes they happen for no reason at all, and then your mind is stuck there.
You can’t just snap out of it. Sometimes it can last for days, months, or years. I’ve been through it all, so I understand. It comes from decades of conditioning and programming. I felt like my mind was not my own, and it was never just me in my head. It was this nasty inner critic that was constantly and consistently tearing me to shreds.
I didn’t know any better. I didn’t know that successful people don’t talk to themselves like that. I was taught to annihilate myself for even the smallest mistake, and then your mind wonders why this isn’t working.
It seems so simple on the other side of narcissistic abuse, but when you’re in it, and you’ve been there for decades, it’s a never-ending circle of madness.
A narcissistic parent conditions you to believe you’re too fragile, broken, and damaged to ever amount to anything.
When you’ve been raised by a narcissist, you’ve already survived decades of daily emotional, psychological, and many times physical abuse.
When you put a stop to the abuse, it gives you the space to heal. Healing from narcissistic abuse is exhausting, and the first year is always the hardest. A narcissistic parent will harass you and start doing even more crazy weird things to stop you from breaking away because their biggest fear is losing control.
They’re afraid you might see them for who they really are. They don’t want you to heal, and they don’t want you to get better. In the beginning, when you stop seeking their approval and stop asking for permission, that’s when their behaviors will really start to escalate.
Narcissistic abuse leaves a stronghold of control that remains even after going no contact.
It takes time to untangle yourself from the crazy and to detach yourself from it emotionally. It’s almost like you don’t where they start, and you begin. It’s called enmeshment from being isolated under their complete control for so long.
At first, when you break away from a narcissistic parent, it’s very unfamiliar, and you deal with all the negative, dark, sometimes paralyzing memories.
That’s the hard part, and it took me close to three years to process a lifetime of abuse. I’m on the other side of that now, and I can tell you this is where you want to be, so please don’t give up. Don’t stop, it will get better, but you do have to go through it because there’s no other way to get to the other side.
What’s the worst thing you can do to a narcissist?
Get to know yourself, take care of yourself, and live a better life without them. Don’t worry; karma forgets no one, and they will continue to be miserable whether they admit it or not. But, you don’t have to live that life.
Deep down, narcissists know this too, and that’s why they work so hard and put in an extremely abnormal amount of effort to maintain control of their children and spouses.
If you need proof, start taking away the narcissist’s control and see how violently they react. No one can throw a bigger temper tantrum than a narcissist who’s losing control of someone they’ve grown so accustomed to and comfortable with abusing.
Here’s what you don’t need in your life:
- Judgment
- Blame
- Shame
- To be insulted
- To be ignored
- To be rejected
- To be ashamed
- Toxic relationships
- Abusive relationships
- More pain
We need to stop the abuse, so we have time to recover.
I was sick all the time as a kid, much more often than my siblings, because my mother’s toxic behavior affects my immune system. Can you believe it’s going on three years with no contact, and I haven’t been sick once?
Not once.
When you’re raised by a narcissist, you’re told your instincts are wrong, and what you’re feeling isn’t real.
They do everything they can to make you feel inferior and less than. Anytime you show the real you, it was shamed, scolded, or frowned upon.
This kind of trauma is deep in the subconscious, and the subconscious controls everything. This abuse keeps happening over and over again in childhood. It convinces the mind this is how life is, and a part of you believes it will always be this way. We didn’t get our emotional needs met when we were young, and as adults, we don’t think our needs can be met.
We think it’s not available because we’re different. We think we’re not lovable because our own mother rejected us. We never feel like we’re enough because we were never good enough for her.
Then I found Marisa Peer, and she proved to me that these emotional issues can be resolved.
And I’m not trying to sell you anything. This is real therapy that works the first time.
(RTT) Rapid Transformational Therapy is the only thing I’ve found that works. This is the most groundbreaking information on how to heal from narcissistic abuse, and you can find out more on my homepage. Hey, I didn’t believe it would work. If you’re like me, then by the time I got this point, I was pretty skeptical (not to mention cynical), and I was shocked by the results. I think every person on the planet should have one of these sessions, so I got licensed and certified, and it’s all I do now.
These sessions are powerful, so if you’re not ready to take a giant leap forward in your healing, then don’t do it. You have to be open to healing and open to facing your emotional issues head-on. You’ll know you’re ready when you feel the nervousness and fear about taking this step, and you do it anyway.
You’ve got nothing to lose except all those weird behaviors added in by an unstable and narcissistic parent. Those behaviors are not you, and once you understand it with your own mind, you start to heal faster than you ever thought possible. Here is another post for more information about the pricing and cost of using RTT to recover from narcissistic abuse.
Need support?
It’s tough trying to recover from this and straighten it out on your own. That’s the hard way. If you’d like to know more about the RTT hypnotherapy sessions, you can read more here or visit my homepage.
Another at-home option many people like connects you with a professional psychologist or licensed therapist online. Consider Online-Therapy (20% off affiliate link). You don’t have to be face-to-face. They’re available and on-call for you Monday-Friday, so you don’t have to wait for an appointment. It’s affordable, and you pay much less than seeing a therapist in person.
Post like this and narcissistic support groups are no substitute for therapy.
I’m sure you can identify with much of what I’ve been through, my late mother was a vicious malignant narcissist and my father a spineless enabler. My mother fought her entire life to “demonstrate” that I had no talent or ambition and saw to it that I also had no privacy, resources or friends, and as the central gossip for the neighborhood she turned ALL the female neighbors into flying monkeys, each more willing than the other to “read me the party line” propaganda about how my mother was doing everything I could ever want, the problem for HER was her son didn’t appreciate it!! And there was NO WAY OUT of this quandary, I subsequently moved THOUSANDS of miles to the West Coast and her “response” was simply to follow me the entire way and continue to make my life miserable. I finally invited her over to the house I had bought with MY MONEY, and her knee-jerk response was to demand that I sell it the very next day (among an ENTIRE STACK of demands no reasonable person could possibly put up with)! So I finally “had enough” and went NC, and wouldn’t you know it, in a few weeks she drank herself to death, but not until AFTER she had turned my reputation into that of a drug-dealing ax murderer in the minds of all the relatives (and to this day I STILL can’t make contact with any blood relatives)! Now I never really recovered from being raised like this, my body seems to be in a perpetually “frozen” state (and from what I can tell stuck in dorsal vagal state) so therapy modalities like EMDR don’t do anything (NFB did work), I do have a trauma therapist that I like but there’s not all that much she can do for me. I’m considering probably the only reasonable “way out” might be alternative therapy like ketamine injections or maybe MDMA because I believe I’ve tried everything else. I believe my situation is pretty extreme, I went NC at 37 and now I’m in my early 70’s, do you know of anything else that might work? I don’t have access to all that much in the way of resources besides Medicare.
Hi Rose,
I’m so sorry to hear about your husband, and my thoughts are with you. You’ve been through hell, and I hope this means you’re out for good and on the mend. It sounds like you didn’t have any time to process your husband’s death, and now all this is coming to the surface too. I understand the trauma response symptoms you’re having, and I spent about two years going through the memories and nightmares, and I’m sure you’re having other symptoms as well. Those memories are the truth, and they serve an important purpose. It helped me completely change my life.
I think you should absolutely tell your story on social media. We need to expose them every single time for the cowards they are. And the shock you saw when you fought back? That was fear. She knew she was losing control. Also, I’m all for everyone getting an RTT session, but it’s important to talk about it and be heard, so don’t underestimate the power of sharing your story with the world. (When you’re ready and only if you feel led too.) If you don’t like to write, TikTok is huge, and you could build your following very quickly. It’s daily emotional support to help you keep going. And since you’re name is Rose, I had to add this quote, “when a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.” And that’s exactly what you’re doing now. One step at a time, sometimes one minute at a time. Thank you for sharing this.
I’m 51 years old and finally had to come to full terms with my mother having NPD and that I’ve spent a lifetime as her scapegoat.
For financial reasons, my late husband and I lived with my mother for several years. It was hell and it became even more hellish when she got married to a man who might be an even more malignant narcissist than she is. Once we moved into their house, in a tiny room in the back that we paid $350 rent for a month (but were related to as though we were living free of charge) the threat of violence from her husband was ever present; the day we moved in he promised there would be “blood on the walls” and I knew he had a gun.
In retrospect, I wish I had found another way, any other way, but my husband was very sick and needed me to be his fulltime caretaker. He had tremendous anxiety over money and I feared that if we were unable to get by it would only make him sicker, that’s why I stayed.
In September, my husband died of Covid after a four month hospitalization where he caught sepsis, pneumonia and finally the Covid that killed him in the hospital. It was a traumatic death and the entire ordeal was deeply traumatic to me.
The day of his death my mother and her spouse took off to a street festival. My mother strongly encouraged me to go with them but of course I was in no place emotionally to go for a night on the town. I was in some ways relieved they left so that I could finally sob as loudly as I needed to, screaming his name over and over again as I wept on the floor.
In the coming days I noticed my mother’s tone towards me moving away from its usual condescension and going into the tone one speaks to a toddler. I was two weeks away from my 51st birthday and had just become widowed. I hadn’t expected kindness from her, but there was something incredibly creepy about this. Then she told me of her intention of selling my car, which I would find out that as a co-signer she actually had the right to do, even though we had paid for that car for over 7 years with our own money. To her shock I fought back and told her I thought I had some legal claim to the car (as I said, I was wrong about that) she went into a full narcissistic rage with me, screaming “STUPID LITTLE GIRL!” at me over and over again. My husband had been dead only 4 days, it was more than I could take. I told her I was getting out and taking my life back and that the only reason I had accepted her abuse for so many years was as a sacrifice I made for my husband. Enough was enough.
The next day she and her spouse started openly threatening me with violence. Pounding on my door screaming about “stomping the sh*t” out of me and making me bleed. I took out my phone and recorded this and put the recording on social media. I was fearing for my life and I knew that in my state of mind people might believe I had committed suicide. I needed some proof out there of what was happening.
Of course I had now done everything that narcs can’t allow to go unpunished — first I declared my intention to get away and then I exposed them publicly. The next month as I scrambled to get out was a living hell. They would stand at my door screaming at me, sometimes from morning until the middle of the night — I was ugly, stupid, and brought her nothing but shame and they wished I were dead. I woke up the morning of my 51st birthday to them loudly going on about how sad it was that I was ever born. To go through this ordeal as I was also grieving for my husband of 25 years was a nightmare come true.
I couldn’t make the move well. I lived practically trapped in the room n(I started calling it the “prison room”), leaving only to get take out food (I obviously couldn’t use the kitchen as that was a common area) and sometimes just to get out of there. Had it not been for my cat, who I needed to keep with me, I might have left for a women’s shelter immediately. In my final days I went to an Airbnb that took cats. I couldn’t take another day there. I had to leave behind so much that was meaningful to me, but in the end, the most important thing I could do was escape.
Everything you say about this experience rings true to me. I’m trying to process what my life really was for so many years. My memories have become my enemy. I’m having near constant nightmares. And then sometimes I have dreams where we’re making up — somehow those are even worse.
I’m grateful to people like you who have helped make some sense of this horror. I was in denial for so many years. I realized I was dealing with NPD when I started looking into her explosive rages. Those rages could be towards the smallest thing, like a remote control malfunctioning or being unable to do something simple on a computer. But the most vicious ones were always saved for me. Even as a child. I finally realized that these were Narcissistic Rages and finally came to terms with the fact that she never loved me. How could she? She wasn’t able to.
At this time I simply can afford the price of the therapy you offer. I wish I could. Should I ever find myself in a position to do it, I certainly will.
I was raised by a Narcissistic mother. I cut ties early 40s, now 50. My son is dating a girl that is so much like her it’s not funny. My husband and I try to warn him but he doesn’t see it or doesn’t want to see it.
We refuse to let her come to our home because we don’t like seeing him being abused in front of us.
I’ve gotten to the point that I don’t believe anyone’s words anymore, I look at their actions. Sadly, he takes everyone at their word. We pray for him multiple times daily.
I’m also still learning who I am and my husband is helping me navigate through life with all the lies I was told growing up. It took me a long time to realize also that my dad wasn’t any better than her. I had him on a pedestal most of my lift until I realized that it’s hard to mess up when your never around. I can’t remember 1 time he told me he loved me. He knew how my mom treated me and never did anything to help.
I’m also finding out how badly they treated my children when I wasn’t around. It hurts to my core. They are all grown but still. My husband wanted to do the ancestry DNA thing.
I told him thank you but none of that would tell me who I am. I don’t feel related to any of my relatives at this point. Thank you for listening.
Great article, thank you. I read so many stories and couldn’t help but relate to most and also understand there are worse stories than mine.
I have a narc mother and a narc/sociopathic sister. I’ve read that personality disorders come in twos. Not sure what else my mother may suffer from.
I married a military man right out of high school. I never knew how verbally abused I was until I moved away at 19. I spent the next 20 years moving around the world and enjoying my life. I had decent long distance relationships with these two women. At one point, I thought my sister was my best friend and I began finding myself really connected with my mom.
My sister convinced me we were best friends and she wanted me to move to where she lived when my husband retired. She wanted to raise our kids together and grow old together, she said. My sister wasn’t always a sick person, actually she was the golden child, although she won’t admit that. She had some odd ticks but my mom used to tell my sister she needed to see a doctor, be on meds, go talk to a therapists, etc.
My mom used to try to tell me these things too but I refused. I was only 10/11 when my mom said she thought I needed to go talk yo someone and I replied “only if you do too” and she got so angry with me “, yelling at me that she didn’t need to talk to anyone. My sister on the other hand, was very obedient and submissive.
Anyway, After some serious thought, my husband and I were on board to retiring where my sister and her family lived. I was very excited. I had three daughters and my sister had a daughter and six sons. My sister showed many obsessive qualities at this point I knew something was off with her but I didn’t think it was associated with personality disorders.
Fast forward, we moved close to my sister. I noticed she wanted me to take on as lot of projects and sign up for everything. From amusements park summer passes to volunteering for VBS. She told me to run this group and lead that ministry. Before I knew it I was up to my neck in my sisters responsibilities that I didn’t have room to say yes to things in my own life. Meanwhile, my husband and I are trying to transition into the civilian world and three teenage daughters who are trying to grieve the loss of their friends at the last duty station and also transitioning. My sister didn’t want to even try to understand where I was coming from if I said no to her.
I always wanted to have a foreign exchange student and now was the time. We lived in Germany for half of my husbands career. There was a girl from Germany that moved in the following year. I worked in teen youth ministry. My sister started to do weird things with me. Not only was she trying to hand me tasks off her plate but she was trying to take on who I was. She didn’t tell me but she was going to resign from her elementary position because she wanted to work with teens. She convinced my boss to hire her for this teen trip (which was originally intended for me). Whenever we would have to fundraise, she would tell me “oh, I already sent out letters to all of our family and friends asking for money” and then she’d suggests a name or two out of our past acquaintances (you could ask so and so?)
My daughter won a medical award which invited her to Boston to see a live surgery. We went. It was a wonderful thing for my daughter. A few weeks later, my sister sends me this picture with a text that said “hey, just wanted to let you know that I submitted my sons name for this same award and, see, he also got invited to Boston. He’s not going to
go, I just wanted to say that this isn’t going to help her get into any college.”
We move in this foreign girl and my sister begins to correct her grammar at every chance. I told my sister to stop it and she was all “you don’t want her to sound stupid.” She doesn’t sound stupid.
My sister adored her sons 16 yr old best friend after learning he was being severely abused. So, now I am in teen ministry and my sister is switching to teen ministry. I moved in a foreign exchange student and my sister adopted a kid.
My mom lives in another state. When she comes for a visit, she always stays with my sister. My sister says it’s because she gets treated like a queen in her house. Lol. I my sister acts so different when my mom is around. She is nice and she also keeps to herself about issues and doesn’t stick up fit herself.
One time at dinner between us three women, out of nowhere my mom says to me “you are so beautiful” then says to my sister “I mean, you are pretty but your sister is absolutely beautiful.” My sister just had this fake smirk on her face and a blank stare trying to agree. I said to my mom “why would you say that like that? Beth is also absolutely beautiful.” And my mom quickly tried to correct herself like she wasn’t meaning anything by it.
Not really sure what that means but I can speculate it was a tactic my mom used to keep my sister in check to her mind games.
My sister ended up having an intimate relationship with this 16 yr old. At 43, She is now a convicted pedophile. She destroyed our entire family. My mom decided to take sides and cling to my sister. I didn’t take sides and my mom saw that as betrayal on my part. I was only trying to be a healthy person in her kids lives I told my mo that I was angry with my sister and she immediately said “so what you’re really saying is that you want your sister to go to hell.”
My husband used to tell me my mom and sister were abusive in this way but I didn’t want to believe him. I didn’t deny it but I thought I was safe because I lived far away and because I didn’t know my sister was that bad. My mom seemed more innocent because of how bad my sister got. When we all found out she was sleeping with a teenager, and when I finally came to this realization that my sister and mon were both sick in the head, I used to beat myself up with thoughts of worry. “Who am I?” “Am I a narcissist?” How does one know if they are one. I stayed so silent and I took refuge in my home for over a year because I didn’t know if my motives were actually normal …”why am I buying these flowers for so and so? Am I doing this because my motives aren’t right? It an I doing it because I am only trying to be nice?” Oh my gosh, questioning my motives left and right had me left alone in my home. Not answering phone calls
to not responding to anyone other than my own family obligations and that’s it.
Right before we found out about my sisters affair, she did some priming on me then… but that’s a large story too.
I got sick. For three months. I was diagnosed with three diseases, internal shingles, mono, the flu, which put me in the hospital. Now I can see why I was so sick.
My mom said when I was little, one morning I decided that I didn’t want to walk. I crawled with my hands and slid with my butt. I didn’t use my legs for three days. She took me to the doctor and then I decided I could walk. I don’t remember this but I’m curious what this was about. Why would a child do that?
Anyway, there is so much… thanks for listening!
About a year ago I proceeded to set firmer boundaries with my narc mom. She has been quite nasty since then, verbally attacking me every time I talk with her. So I stopped calling her. I just learned that she has stage IV cancer and very little time left to live. This is a nightmare. I’m trying to get set up with a therapist and a support group. I have never felt such rage and sorrow. I still love her. I think children are hard-wired to love their parents, no matter how abusive those parents are. I know I need to stay away from her because she won’t stop being nasty to me, but I am haunted by the thought of her dying alone. Interspersed with the rage are memories of good times that I have had with her. My confusion and sorrow are incrediby intense. It is not our fault that our parents are sick. They cannot , truly cannot, do better by us. We cannot save them, but we must save ourselves. No one else can, and if our parents were healthy, they would want for us to be healthy. I can only hope that my mother will find peace once she passes on. I have come to the conclusion that I must protect myself, limit contact with her, and allow her to pass on as she is, a horribly sick, deeply disturbed human being. I surrender her to God.
Hi Meagan,
When I read this, I see an incredibly powerful mind. What you’ve been able to pull yourself out of is nothing short of amazing. And the difference in our parenting is we can apologize for our mistakes, change our behavior, and do better the next time. My children are young adults now, and they know I’m only human too. I encourage them to question everything and to trust their own intuition. I see my children as people with feelings and emotions, needs and wants of their own, and I want them to have and do and be whatever they want to in this world. I love the people I made, and I want them to be free. If it comes from love, it cannot fail even if it’s not perfect. There’s no such thing as a perfect mother. but there is such a thing as a loving mother who isn’t perfect.
Our situation was not the same. There was an absence of love, and that’s the difference. I have no idea what made my mother the way she is, and I don’t think she has enough cognitive ability to be self-aware. I do know your story is what breaking a generational curse looks like, and it is always painful and messy. And that’s what you pulled yourself out of. You’re a badass, and you are powerful. You’ve already survived the hardest years of your life; look how far you’ve come. Now you live life your own way because it’s pretty obvious the people that raised us had no idea what they were doing. Thank you for sharing this. It definitely got me going, I see massive healing in your story.
Raging Female, before I comment, I’d like to have it on record that I do not feel Narcissists are justified in any way, nor do I intend for my comment to defend those ruthless abusers. That being said, when you said, “ nobody wakes up one day and thinks I going to be a horrible narcissistic mother to my children”, I’ve often wondered what exactly do narcissistic people endure in life that their belief systems are warped in such a harmful way for their loved ones and if we are being objective, their lives too. I was clueless growing up. I knew Ithings were not good, but at the same time it was the only family I knew and experienced, so the abuse I suffered daily was normal.I was very jealous of my brother because he was raised by a completely different person than I was although she was only one woman. How he was loved, and supported and respected and how vastly different from the treatment I received. Daily fights with no end, no physical affection, laughed at for one boob being larger than the other ( and yes I found out in my 20s I was actually perfectly normal) . I craved what my brother had so badly. I over exerted my actions for her approval and love. When my feelings would be hurt, I was told to stop feeling sorry for myself instead of being held and loved by my mom. Her ex husband touched me inappropriately and when she found out, and actually still to this day, accuses me of enjoying it and purposely stealing her man.
The life I never hoped possible found me in a most unusual way. I was injured in my early 20s in a horrible wreck and needed opiates for nearly 3 years. Typical story, I ended up being an injecting heroin junkie. Years passed, I’d had enough to that lifestyle and I was approved for the maintenance medication program and through the intensive out-patient therapy, having my withdrawals and desires managed, and moving 2300 miles away from mother…began having my eyes opened. By working the twelve steps and CBT therapy, I learned my childhood wasn’t normal. I met my kids dad and between the love and support his family gave me and all the self help being thrown my way, I was in a safe place to go through the stages of growing up again, in a loving supportive family. That was 15 years ago. I’ve since left the kids dad as he didn’t want recovery like I did and I was done fighting him. I moved back home and continued therapy to work on coping skills, boundaries, and other addictive thought patterns. I love my mother because she’s my mother but I do not have a close relationship with her. My brother passed in 06, and she’s admitted her life ended with him, and how she knew she wouldn’t have been lost if I’d passed instead. Going back to my comment at the beginning, I know the abuse she endured growing up. I trust she thinks she did better by us than her abusive father…but it can’t erase the pain I grew up with and the misery. At night to relax myself enough to fall asleep, I’d fantasize about different ways I’d die. This calmed me and was like a bed time story, and I’d done it for as long as I could remember. I carried no shame and was deeply shocked later to learn I was having Suicidal Ideation. That ended the day I found out I was pregnant and to end this post, tying the theme back around…I am doing better by my kids that I had done to me. But I wonder , as I’m only human and a product of abuse from a narcissist…what will be my children’s points of view about my actions towards them.
Hi Lulu,
Same here. I’m convinced mine is psychological from literally being suffocated my whole childhood. I think I’m dependent on the albuterol at this point.
At the age of 6 I developed anxiety and told my mom I couldn’t breath. I would often be gasping for breath truly believing that I had a physical problem. My covert narc mother (who invented playing dumb) told me I must have “asthma” and brushed it off. This went on for YEARS. AND YEARS. Even into my early 20s. By then I knew it was mental but it was so hard to stop at that point. Muscle memory.
That psycho bitch TRULY TRIED to destroy me.
Hello I am scared and for the first time in my life I’ve lost something so simple to say and even spell something so small and it is called HOPE!
I am absolutely mind blown and floored after reading this article in the comments the following I am speechless that it took me overnight to even do what I’m doing this very moment in writing this. I am still standing in the lake of my own tears from the connection and sadness follow up with a little relief after reading this article. I am beautifully broken. I am fearless I am fiercely breave and Loyal. And I am relentless and surviving and becoming someone. Hello my name is Judy and I am 43 I have already lost my mind but currently losing Soul. I feel that I finally have a title to put for my mom and that is a narcissist. Here’s my story In short and it might be too late to save me but I hope that is not from my son.
I have been abused every possible way you can think of. if your mind can’t even fathom the terminology and thought process it is happened to me my mother was not sexually abused to me but I was pimped out in competition with all her boyfriends that age 5 i lost my dad I am my my mother was investigated form. I have lived out of a bag and suitcase my whole life because she’s so unpredictable nothing I do made her happy no matter the success and I’m helpless feel sitting here in this very moment,feeling sorry to know that I still try to get her to look at me . mom look at me. look at me look at me now mom look at me! I understood it a very early age at the river I was going down it’s nothing but rapid it was chaotic cold rapid fast changing brutal with sharp edge rocks and I was so little but I knew I had no choice so I became I rescue swimmer when I grow up! Like I said I was relentless you will not ever See me give give up. My mother is materialistic it is so sad to watch her live through everyone else and she has no clue who she is I have no clue who she is. At eight years old was almost the last time I was ever going to be touched well I thought that’s when I came forward about one of the abusers because my uncle and my mother knew about but finding a boyfriend and a dick excuse my French was more important then well being of her children I was forced to shelter my brother from everything i witnessed in endured. I’ve seen my mom raped and beaten by the bikers but he didn’t he heard it never got to see it we’re I still just in bathrooms and Only have the wall dryer to keep us warm that would only work with you hit the button this is my new normal life called hell! At eight I told God if you allow me to survive this moment one more time that I would dedicate my life to save and others and well let’s just say we both kept our end up. I became a fire fighter and medic a wildland fire fighter and a soldier of the United States. After25 years I have 42 certifications and more. The age of 37 I lost my husband I was also the medic that could not save him. not even that broke me and having my five-year-old son who’s with me. It took me two hours to get him off the scene but I was able to protect him and he never knew what was happening. he got to sit in the back of the cop car and play with lights while I went into our home. Before I walked out, I grab a hold of my door handle before I walked outside to meet him, and said God I have no idea what is ab to happened to me but please don’t let Me go.I then took a deep breath pulled myself together and I wrked the Spence like a professional. My mom and stepdad lived lived in Florida and when my momheard the news she wanted to be the hero and rush to my rescue where I thought she was going to be just that but what I found within three days it was more abuse at a competition on who tragedy was worse my mom lost with my dad and me at five and 2 kids on her hip and a 8 bedroom plantation house or for me losing my husband after very short marriage. I stated these words I’m sorry mother that I didn’t have to kids with him I’m sorry I didn’t live in an eight bedroom plantation house and I’m sorry I wasn’t married for nine years but I was married I have children and I loved him deeply. At least you didn’t spend two weeks washing your husband off of you. Ok. A year and a half desperation of death I just wanted, to, one day hit me like atone of bricks and I changed everything I want everything I was to grow into. I was so upset with God because I woke up the next morning and so on this particular morning I woke up and realized how miserable I was also realized at the end of the day I have a child to take care of and then whether I liked it or not the sunset was going to sit the day was going to End. whether I liked it or not so it became clear to me…. …. I had only two choices I can wake up and live another miserable day or I can be happy. As always I took on the challenge at that point it was simple to me I could not change the hand of cards that were dealt to me they were going to be dealt regardless it was not going to change so what needed to be done was how I handled it have a saw those cards as I held them. I knew what I had to do- I had to fall in love with myself…
It was by far the most brutal hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my entire life ever ever had to do.
But if I did not take this challenging journey then I wasn’t going to survive. It was almost as if I was hypnotize by my own self, so I took the challenge. I had to realize the common denominator in all the karmic crap in life WAS ME! And I threw up. But.. then…
I got butt ass naked I took a huge wall mirror down and I sit Indian style in front of it and I said to myself I’m about to get REAL, AND GET RAW, and I’m gonna do it sober. I’ve never felt so vulnerable in my entire life which I even post for playboy for four years to pay for my college because I took my college money and bought an insulin pump for my mother even in doing that I’ve never been so vulnerable in my life so after getting real and getting raw, I got naked. I called it
– GET REAL GET RAW GET NAKED.. FOR MY TRUTH-
This was one hell of a roller coaster ride and sometimes a shot of whiskey wasn’t enough there was times I even bought the moonshine out in order to taste some of those demons. But I also thought that in a years time I’ll be done and a new me. but I didn’t realize is it this is going to be a lifelong journey that it is my responsibility to wake up every day and to be the best mom in the best person that I can be even more than just the day before. I’m still on that journey.
As fast forward to now. I am a nurse and I work the front lines of this VIRUS, I only had 10 minutes to make a goodbye video for both my children before walking into my first infected room and I did this fiercely without fear. Since then I have been quarantined multiple multiple times we had to have two negative test to go back on the front lines and tight sometimes I’m out for five weeks waiting on those results I found unemployment am I employer the owner of the company filed an appeal against unemployment that he was finally filing on my behalf. I was the number 1 employee of this company I’ve been with them for seven years I have just won the heroes award and I just won a heroes award a second time in November. That is such a huge award but what is success and happiness with no one to share it with that’s what my mothers stole from me. So I went nine months without a paycheck still working every day taking care of those people getting them back home safe and well in their life because of me meanwhile I’m at home and our powers been cut off we have no groceries I have a 10-year-old still at home we spent three days in a car because my mom wouldn’t help me or take me in for a few days I had to wait the weekend to get my power cut on wrking Care jobs in between when I can living in an out hotel rooms when the power was cut off I am used to that because that’s my entire childhood and not from my child not for My son. Now a year and a half later I finally lost our home one month ago I had to move into this home that I helped buy from my mom years ago this big huge home I got $45,000 because she’s on disability end it recently in the middle of a divorce my stepdad she should be familiar with it since it has been number eight. Bylosing him has rock her to her core I’ve never seen my mother sent to shuffled is so lost in empty I close my eyes A picture her just a spear floating in the air a ball of yarn with all these holes and crazy strains that absolutely lead nowhere for circles just floating in a world of lost in loneliness.
Yep you heard that right even after all that I’m doing for her, I still cared for her. it was black-and-white to me at the end of the day she was my mother and I had to care for her just as I always have. So here I am ,I’m n having to move in here and all of my trauma is that my ego wounded, and I have lost everything and to top it off they make things worse my son now as a witness to the abuse. how humiliating and what a shame. As I still file the unemployment and I’m still working as well just very little hours because of the retaliation with my boss I vowed to my son then I will never say another life. And I am now in breach of contract that I’ve made with God. How do you live with that. But little bit that we did move into my moms is now packed up and fit in the back of my truck we go outside and pick her clothes out for the day because we were kicked out multiple times a day, mom that we have nowhere to go my son won’t go to his dads he’s too loyal and doesn’t wanna leave his mother until we are set.
We are in fear we are locked in a room and only allowed to come out to use the restroom we are allowed to leave in the morning to take him to school and to work if at all that day when we’re home allowed here in the bedroom.
I would like to take on this rapid trauma healing thing unfortunately I can’t rub two corners together much less pay for ice cream for my son although I feel that not only do I have the courage but I’ve earned it. because for 3 years I’ve been on this hill of a journey, learning to love myself again and it’s the greatest gift I could’ve ever given myself.
I have lost hope, which is completely the most scariest thing I’ve ever had happen to me in my life even more so then running into a burning building or in the infected room. truly losing hope scariest thing a human can Indore.
because I am a woman of faith I am here, and Im in tears from reading all of this article realizing the shit that I’m stuck in and my son witnesses and all the brutal abuse that I go through daily at43 years old by the hands of my own mother! what are we to do, how are we to survive and why in the hell did I even want to?
If I only had the money I wld take this journey of RTT. What a blessing!
I have no fear in walking bk into my trauma because I’m so obsessed to learn everything. Bc is my responsibility to heal.
I have every reason in the world to be curled up in bed and hooked on drugs and alcohol and playing Victim card, I choose not to. I fight like hell to be the woman I am today. But..,
ACCOUNTABILITY is the True depth of ones HAPPINESS!!!! That is all that I can offer to the next person that follows me in reading this article.
I have no idea why I shared a piece of my raw story. But it was nice to say it out loud. I am wounded and weak lost and now beaten dwn daily. But I am BEAUTIFULLY BROKEN IN MANY WAYS.
I have lost my career now. It is principle to me. But what my boss did has ROCKED ME TO MY VERY CORE. it changed my whole outlook on everything. I spent my whole life on building a foundation of integrity, and I never Waver in my mural or values. But look where that has gotten me. So, I just feel stuck. Being such a strong person my whole life gave me sense to know what to do, but my body and mind are just paralyzed. So I guess really the only help someone cld give now, is how to unfreeze and pull my act together. ?? I literally can’t move.
Thank u for every word spoken hear. I will be bk to read more for I have a lot of healing to learn to do on my in, until I can afford the true depth of healing I understand needed for a cray-cray like this. It’s on me do what I can till…- so for now ILL PUT BANDAID OVER THE BULLET HOLES .
Thanks. From a HATED DAUGHTER
Hi Real Fact,
Oh yes, Dr. Ramani suggests it’s close to 50% now and is calling it an absolute epidemic. Thank you for commenting.
Wow.
“I was the scapegoat and my brother was the golden child.”
Reading that was like reading a book about my childhood. I grew up with narcissistic parents. My dad is a lot more subdued than my mom so I didn’t realize it until about a month ago. I knew my parents were mentally abusive but I didn’t really know what to call it until very recently. I was trying to research how to deal with a teen who’s very disrespectful. I then came across an article about narcissistic children. My eyes were opened and the behavior had a name. I’m likely to blame for my son becoming a narcissist. Some of these negative traits I see in myself. I’m beginning to realize it’s because you fall back on what you know when anxiety takes over. I don’t want to parent my kids with any form of narcissism. They’re in their teens so I’m hoping it’s not too late to help them turn their lives around for the better. I found this article while searching for a way to help teach my son how to stop gaslighting me as a parent. Still looking for something but this article I find empowering so thank you for writing it and sharing.
Speaking of Narcissists, most of them nowadays are women. And they’re very dangerous too.
My dearly departed sibling (whom I believed died from complications from heavy duty exposure and no support / perceived way out during physical and financial recovery in mid life.) Pardon me for just blurting this out. Been holding in deep grief over that some time now. Anyway I believe that the exposure to the narcissist was truely to blame for her early demise. In other words, its very probable she felt that there was no way around the effects our severely pernicious narcissist mother.) Incidentally she died while ‘recovering’ in narcs home, (and believe me- I tried my best to prevent that- dont even let me go there..I do not even want to begin commenting on that factoid…However, I believe she really passed as a result of exposure, and I do NOT mean the weather. Anyway, fast forward some years. I contacted a nationally renowned author and expert in narc abuse mothers, in a state of being terrified to have another birthday. Since Im the daughter of one, and she crippled so many of them, not just my own either.. siblings’ too..I was so scared because I believed I was 1.) unable to reach another year older and also 2.) somehow unallowed to experience another year ahead. Sounds bizarre, but these are the kinds of warped mindcontrol abuses a mother will do who is very depraved. . I’ve heard others use a word with “mind” in it it seems a sort of nouveau made up work but it has a cuss in it. the rage/anger I have felt from this covert abuse will no longer be the impetus for degrading myself by resorting to such language any longer. I used to use those words, but I am trying to tap into the old me that didnt know what was going on and didn;t feel the need to use this language. I digress.. As far as the narc when it comes to birthdays. In my particular case, its a topic almost all of its own. Example to follow. How did your NM respond to your LC version of acknowledging her 90th birthday? Or did you not? Just curious. Here is my example: NM once got so enraged a few years ago when I sent a cake-o-gram and a text message- as well as a regular card in the mail (I now reside about 1500 miles away!) to make sure she knew she was acknowledged on her own b-day without having to expose myself with her – in any in-person format. This was so as to make it a comfortable low contact way for me to do self care, while showing daughterly love at the same time. Ah but – naturally NMs do not like that lack of control right? She literally raged and screamed at me for my effort. Saying the treat I sent were a terrible idea. (Yup!) also she asked “why would I have sent a yellow..?” (or was it a blue heart in my emoji in the well wishing text. She actually asked me that. Mind you I have a hard time seeing them in the first place as I am in need of midlife reading glasses and havent gotten round to visiting the eye doctor..! Anyway, thats right NM raged at the gift giver, and on top pf all that, NEVER acknowledged the hand picked card (!) It was surreal. But no it didnt end there. She then went further, & promised that for my birthday, she would be certain that it would be very much ruined and would go poorly for me. That she herself would make certain of it. Made me think I should have gone full NC instead of the “she is getting elderly, I ought to be decent and go with LC” plan. Because once again, I cried bitterly on my own ‘big day’ despite being surrounded by a small kindly tribe of my own, who (as most normal people) do & did try and provide acknowledgment, and even make it special. I literally wound up excusing my self from the table to cry alone and get it out of my system in another room. I had to wait until the day itself was over in order to spend peaceful time with my own loved ones. The pain and grief was so deep I literally could not contain it. Im truly convinced these people are some variety of covert psychopaths, really. Anyway bless you who have been through something like this, and similar..I hope you celebrate many many more, especially ones in peace. Could anyone else relate to covert NM birthdays?
Well done dear DONM sister! you did make it past middle age! It sounds SO simple, and so basic. Hoping truly the best is yet to come. To a DONM, such a small detail can provide hope to a fellow victim. You made it to nearly 70, and that is a feat! Please continue to be kind to yourself, I wish you the best & continued recovery.
Hi Nicole,
Thank you for sharing this, you’re so right.
The hardest part of this reality is trying to heal from it while simultaneously trying to understand it. You can’t understand it. It isn’t understandable. The person (or persons) who gave birth to/”raised” you are very sick people. They are deeply warped. They will never change. Are they evil? It doesn’t matter. Their actions are evil. That is the reality that you must deal with. Do whatever you need to do to protect and nurture yourself. They did not, and do not, have the right to hurt you in any way. Go ahead and enjoy any positive interactions that you have had with them, but never, never, never let your guard down.
These people are not in control of themselves. They will still throw you under the bus, without warning, whenever they feel an impulse to do so. I am now 68 years old, and I am still working my way through this. My mother is 92. She lives in another state, and I no longer call her. I got tired of being a punching bag. I will talk to her on the few occasions that she calls me, and I will travel to assist her should the need arise. I am not willing to have regular contact with her, though. She lost the right to have support from me many years ago. This is not a good situation. It never has been, and it never will be. I leave the door open a small crack in order to be the compassionate human being that I am. It is not easy for anyone to be 92 years old; it is even harder for a narcissist. She is responsible for the mess that she has made of her life. I am only responsible for who I am and what I do with my life.
It is horrible that my mother became a narcissist, and it is horrible that I spent my entire life dealing with the results of that. I am proud of who I am, though, and that, in part, is because of all the hideous experiences that I endured. I wish that things had been different, but they weren’t. What I have now is me. And I like who I am.
As I was reading your story, the resemblance between yours and mine is uncanny. It gave me chills honestly.
My father is a narcissist, my grandma would enable him to throw me across the backyard by my neck.. either that or he’d be in his room zonked out on pills for days at a time. He found out of I was doing coke and told me he didn’t give a shit what I did, even if I did heroin or got AIDS he won’t care as long as I’m eighteen and no longer in “his house.”
At age thirteen I was so lonely and had this DVD of The Cure that I’d watch over and over again in the dark, crying and cutting myself. Robert Smith and Ian Curtis were my heroes and their music was something I could finally relate to. I wasn’t getting the satisfaction from cutting so I started trying drugs, smoking weed, drinking and eventually every drug under the sun (even ketamine) just to FEEL something and hide the pain I had been harboring ever since a small girl. Meth by fifteen and then heroin was the one that finally got a hold on me.
I had an older boyfriend and ran away with him. We couch surfed for a while and eventually ended up squatting in different abandoned homes.
I was injecting heroin by sixteen years old. I was going to an Art High School and my mom refused to drive me there, or teach me to drive so I had to take the city bus 45 minutes to school each morning. I had basically no parental oversight or guidance. By the time Junior year came around I had missed so many days that it would’ve taken an additional year and summer school you have enough credits to graduate. My biggest regret though was dropping out Junior year.
At eighteen my mom had put me through two detoxes, one 30 day program and then sent me to Texas halfway house for teenage girls.
As soon as I was old enough to leave I moved back to AZ to be with my boyfriend since we were both clean from heroin (young and in love).
Well I ended up getting pregnant almost immediately after moving back home and was really conflicted because I grew up Catholic and thought abortion wasn’t an option. My boyfriends mom pulled me aside and said “You should have an abortion” after I was thinking about keeping it. My boyfriends mom had six kids (including my bf) and she was extremely depressed as they were all addicts and had been in jail at one point or another. I went and got the abortion.
After that I was so messed up and our relationship was over. I moved into my friends house (which was really one big opium den) and did so much heroin/Benzo’s to the point where I was just numb. I didn’t care if I lived or died. The abortion also showed me how little my ex cared about me or my mental state.
The best thing my mom ever did was buy me a one way ticket to the Pacific Northwest. I moved in with my uncle. Things were great at first, I was able to stop using heroin for a year but I needed a job. It was hard finding a job that paid enough, especially since I was a dropout.
I walked by a strip club, auditioned and to my surprise got the job.
I’ll never forget the feeling of walking out with like 20 dollars in ones from my two song set. I went back to work a full shift the next day and things went on that way for many years and the drugs flowed in too. I worked my way up to better clubs with higher end clientele. It was a dream, being paid to party and do drugs, show up whenever you want pretty much.
When the party died down though and my addiction got much worse I started using crack and heroin. I didn’t want to leave my house for my shift and bills were stacking up.
One day I got a surprise knock from my mom and her boyfriend at the time.
She showed up at my door with all their stuff packed in their car.
I asked what she was doing and she said they moved up to the Pacific NW to be with me. I had a one bedroom apartment and it was littered with these magazines I’d collect from different strip clubs that I had worked out, or sometimes girls I knew would be on the front cover.
Her boyfriend starts thumbing through it, I grabbed them and put them in my room. He said “your mom says you work at these clubs?” I shot my mother this death stare. How dare she show up unannounced, with this creep of a bf, planning on staying in my one bedroom apartment. They stayed for a week before finding their own place.
Christmas rolls around and they had heat in their one bedroom apartment (I couldn’t afford to turn my heat on at that point) so I stayed for the week at their place and slept on the couch.
This guy proposed to my mom the same week, I didn’t like him but didn’t think much of it.
One night my mom went to bed early and her bf was sitting on the couch (my then bed) and offered to pour me some whiskey. As an addict I wasn’t going to say no, not to mention my mom didn’t like me drinking. I was sitting on the ground, he was on the couch. He then patted the seat next to him and told me to sit on the couch he could talk to me.
I didn’t think much of it, so I sat on the far end. He proceeds to scoot close to me and then put PORN on. He started asking my questions about my job. Then I notice his hand is on my thigh. I froze. I was humiliated, scared, confused and only 22 years old. My mom came out to use the bathroom and said “What’s going on here??” To which he replied “Nothing”
So I got up quickly and went to my mom’s room. We’re laying on her bed and whispering as she asked what happened. I told her she she seemed to believe me. After all, why would a twenty two year old go after an old man and not just any old man but your mom’s fiancé?!? I figured the next day she would kick him out and be done with him.
I was wrong. The most hurtful thing she probably ever did was abandon me, believing whatever weird story he convinced her to. They stayed together an additional 4 years after that and I couldn’t see my family for birthdays, thanksgiving, christmas. I had to build a new family, which were my friends who became like family. It’s hard growing up with no direction and feeling like you aren’t worth the effort, your ideas don’t matter or any decision you make will fail.
It’s like that voice is always there in the back of your mind.
I found out I have BPD probably triggered from the abandonment I’ve felt throughout my life.
Please hang in there. You aren’t worthless, your life has meaning and you are doing the right thing by seeking out help or even just others that have had similar experiences.
I don’t mind being a sounding board or what tips, things that have helped.
My email is alexareamer@gmail.com
You’ve got this 🙂
What a great reply!
Love your article and all the comments. There are so much of us and so many, who have not found help yet. I thought, I would be alone and weird all my life. Now I met another woman with a similar history. It is so strange, that or thoughts are so equal. I thought I would be hypersensible first. To find this out took me almost a lifetime, then I recognized, it is just a skill, that I had to develop to survive a life with a narcisstic mother. She was ill and used her heartdisease to make me follow her rules almost my life. Even suicide threats were daily routine. I was just an obeying zombie. Her death was a relief and I followed her wishes up to this moment. I´m really happy, the chains are gone now, I still delete negative thoughts by logosynthese. We all have needed a friend or an angel, who had told us in your youth, that this treatment was not normal and bad.
I am in a very similar situation. I am in separation with my husband and needed a place to stay temporarily with my two kids. My brother who lives with my parents was supportive enough to suggest that I leave and stay in his spare bedroom while I think through the divorce. Apparently, my parents, especially my narcissistic mother was not happy with me staying here. She doesn’t pay rent although she claims she was the one who mortgaged the house for 20 years. Anyway, she is exerting a lot of toxic behaviours toward me recently that I can no longer tolerate. She is very manipulative and pathetic. Anyway, I drew the line with her. My kids don’t want a strained relationship with their grandparents, auntie and uncle and cousins who live there. So my older child tries to make amends for my counter attack behaviours. However, my toxic mom didn’t paid much heed to it and my son is now disappointed. But according to my calculations, that is fine. I want to withdrew my kids from her control and influence.
During holidays and birthdays, it would be tough because I don’t want my kids to have to spend these days by ourselves. I took really good care of my younger siblings under her (mother) order when I was a kid. But as I moved away since college, she has manipulated them to distance from me. Also, my parents never celebrated my birthday, even as a kid, but would make me plan birthday parties for my younger siblings. The point is I deserve to have my siblings and their families for holidays and special occasions but I am not getting it because they are so loyal to her for some reason.
During my separation with my narcissistic husband, I wanted to rely on friends for emotional support but realized I didn’t have any close friends, except for this friend who claims to be my best friend since college. But after she heard I am no longer doing well in my marriage, I feel she has distanced herself with me by picking unnecessary fights.
Anyway, I feel like an island to myself with my kids. To remove myself from toxicity is best but it comes at a cost — loneliness and isolation. But I am ready to make the change, as I believe things will change for the better, and I will be surrounded by caring and fun people again.
Brittney,
Please! I know it’s hard but do not let her win any longer! I am 42 years old with the same exact situation and it’s hard but I have taken control back from her! She will not pollute my children and I have set boundaries. If she cannot behave according to my healthy standards then she will not be around them. Be careful of her using them for supply and picking the favorite, I was of course the scapegoat and my brother the golden child. Shut her out! Do not be in despair over her any more. Take your power back. One thing that helps me is knowing she relishes in any sort of pain or anguish that I’m going through. Do not let her see it. I always wanted that healthy relationship with her and that mother to turn to, but she will not be it and will only take delight in me confiding in her. The no contact is hard when it’s a parent, but uphold those healthy boundaries for you and your kids. YOU are in control now, not her. And believe me, it doesn’t heal the past but it’s completely EMPOWERING!!!!
Hi Angie,
This is very interesting to me. I used to work with Alzheimer’s patients. I used to imagine my mother as a small little girl trapped underneath all the bitterness and rage. Sometimes I could feel her, but I could never reach her. It’s very sad. Maybe seeing that side of your mother will help you heal. Nobody wakes up one day and thinks I’m going to be a horrible narcissistic mother to my children. If you can forgive the little girl inside your mother for not being strong enough, that’s a good thing, and it’s worth its weight in gold.
You describe my mother. I am an only daughter. When she was diagnosed with dementia, I brought her to live with me. To say this was complicated for me emotionally is an understatement. I could never figure out who she was. Her personality changed drastically and she became the mother I always wanted. Or rather, I mothered her as I wish she had mothered me. And then she forgot who I was. When she died, I couldn’t (and still can’t) figure out who I was supposed to mourn. There are times I am so angry with her when I think of my childhood. There are times I miss how nice she was to me when her personality changed in her disease. I don’t think I will ever really know who she was. I don’t know who I am in relation to her.
I’m going through the same. My mother introduced me to diet pills at a young age and uses that to make me look horrible to my kids and my father. My siblings and I are all addicts who have been in relationships with other narcissists. Our mother uses our children as pawns. All I can do is educate my children on narcissistic behavior.
“If I would have had a sane mother, I wouldn’t be putting up with you.” That would be my comeback, if you care to respond at all.
I’m 57yrs old. After my husband of 30yrs passed away I went no-contact with my N mother. That was 5yrs ago. Last month I received a friend request from my mother and after some thought I chose to except it after adjusting some privacy settings. It’s only been a month but I have un-friended her already. I noticed that when I posted cute cat pics,etc. she always gave a thumbs up or a heart icon. But whenever I posted a selfie or a post that had my picture she never made any comments or as much as a thumbs up. I posted quite a few as an experiment. NOTHING. I had made positive comments on one or two of hers. She didnt post alot of things. How foolish I was. God forbid she ever pay me a compliment or the like. I wont be letting her guilt me into anymore of her attempts to guilt me into her life again. I’m sure she has made up a BIG story about unfriending her to the golden one.
Hi Brittany,
Don’t give up. You can’t help your children if you’re not there, and as they get older, they will see how things really are. Addiction comes from deep emotional issues created by abuse and neglect. You were trying to cope with an absolute nightmare. My mother introduced me to alcohol at fourteen and let’s just say it was a long road back. Also, if you’re interested, I’d like to offer you a free RTT session and you can contact me directly at ragingfemalejournal@gmail.com.
I’m going thru all of this issues Ive read in having a narcissist mother and I’m so desperate to get away at this point that suicide seems my only option I’m 36 yrs old and feel like I simply cannot do another day everyday and to watch her play her fucked up her fucked up mind games on my boys and flip the script how I’m just a peice of shit mom who don’t love them because I’m an addict which she first introduced my addiction to me at the age of 12 but I’m this fucked up outcast I truly believe she wants me died and is trying to drive me to do so by my own hands what do I do and how do I save my children???
I am 60 and just realized what was going on with my mother after she spent all the money my stepdad left her and she moved in with me. Tried to take my boyfriend away from me like she did my first husband. After 2 years of her sabotaging my house and life I moved her stuff to storage and sent her the key to it. She then told all her family that my sister and I stole her blind.
Hi, you sound too much like me. The 42 year old daughter of a BPD and Narcisisstic Mother… Still traumatized because I still have contact. Fortunately, I live far away now but still shake when I have to see her due to constant verbal gut punches…
Good for you for breaking free. I went through the same as you and I am proud of myself for finally liberating myself from my toxic mother these last 5 years of having no contact. What hurts most is seeing how the family system and others have been brainwashed by her and how they give her their loyalty. It’s hard to get through birthdays and holidays alone these last several years. In being alone during such times, I realized some friends I embraced in college were also narcissistic and had to break free from them recently 25 years later, especially due to lack of support from them when I asked for a divorce my covert narc ex husband a few years ago. Birthdays and special moments meant to be with family are hard, as it is often alone and genuine people are so difficult to find.
Hi Kristin,
Your story resonates with me.
Similar family dynamics but I went the opposite direction I tried to be the super child my brother went your direction of drugs.
My Parents always let me know that I was a burden and never good enough so I was honor role, youth church leader, beautiful, popular , lead in every musical and chosen to train by the Olympic Committee in my favorite sport….
I was still my family scapegoat over my older brother who was spoiled, in trouble at school a D student and sold pot for fun to his red neck crowd.
My brother saw them for frauds and hypocrites they were early on and reveled. I didn’t, I had my parents on a magical unobtainable pedestal.
I realize now I was held to an impossible bar that could never be meet. So even though I had high successes I was never allowed to enjoy them or feel good about myself. My Narc Mom continued to minimize me and my potential.
First time I ever wrote this ….
Wow, how messed up . I was the one that was constantly gaslighted . Both parents were malignant narcs and my brother became a narc level 5.
I broke contact with my parents in my early 30s moved across the country and became very financially successful, made a few great friends and married a great husband.
Here is my cautionary warning to my other narc adult survivors.
Within 15 years of very hard work I had the American dream. Great life, husband, career, financially comfortable everything except unresolved relationship with my Parents who were in their 80s.
Against my sweet husbands recommendations I bought a house with the understanding they would pay rent to cover the mortgage so they could be close to us as they aged. They signed a lease and everything was great for about six months.
They had tricked me into believing they had changed. But they were the same bad people hidden inside and it only took time to reappear.
As Adult Narc survivors we can have everything money can but we will never had the experience of loving parents like in other families. It was a hard and expensive lesson I had to learn.
My parents stopped paying rent and started unsuccessfully attempted to gaslight me that it was my obligation to pay for them till they died. It was at this time we discovered they had also stolen our identities are were running up bills!
They both signed affidavits with an unethical attorney to blackmail us into financially providing for them that would have cost us 75% of our combined take home pay or be publically humiliated by them as they brought false elder abuse charges against us. They claimed elder abuse over a memory my Narc Dad said of a verbal promise at 16 that he is only one that heard that I promised to support my Parents financially till I died. That is not elder abuse that is dementia and narc Parents lying to manipulate for financial gain.
It was insane the lengths they went to force me into financial slavery. Thank God the law was on my side and I am a adult with the money to fight their crazy.
They had no empathy or remorse. Dementia and Malignant Narc don’t mix well.
Took six months to evict them from my home and I lost over $50k and almost my marriage.
My Narc Mom was so jealous that she wanted to take my good life from me for herself and leave me single so that I would “be their financial wiping child”. While they continued to say that it wasn’t enough.
I of course went no contact again. It’s been three years and my Dad died and I wasn’t contacted by My Mom or brother. I heard from a family friend that he had died weeks later and after the funeral.
My narc Mom didn’t even write my narc Dad a obituary after 52 years of marriage she didn’t even want to be associated. Extended family didn’t know he had died till months later.
Keeping my distance is the only way to live a happy life. Realizing I am more than enough. The only expectations that I need meet are the ones I set for myself that are slighted with my values.
Hope all that read this learn from my mistakes and not break no contact you are not missing out by keeping safe boundaries.
I just wanted to say this website is incredible I am totally broken and in midst of fog Worst discard of many ..I have no idea how I find you but I think you may have just saved my life and I am not exaggerating i will be reading every article thank you from bottom of my heart and to all the comment section these people are pure evil trust me they will only get worse if they are covert like mine I promise you they will go to any lengths to ” win ” pure poison run away as fast as you can
You are very strong . You did what kids whit health raising find hard to do. And as you can see we have no outside input on things just what they taught us in many formms words actions inaction. The damage and scars you can’t begin to understand at the young age and the place you at 18 years old will needto learn to face and to heal or the generation will just keep the damaged areas . Of course as all people were a truly formed bye out parents / caregiver period asin that is our role in such. The point is not our broken or unformed or wrong teaching . Nbut in placing it where it belongs and educate on true healing and growth. . Its done to you its not you. Our inter voice in our head is that who raised you. So firstly who are you then counting on as this next part of the life you know can have the one thats them i? Not again you have to stop them voice period. Educate on the topic learen whats a the damageby a narcissists parent what is CPTSD. ? WHAT’S HAS IT DONE TO our LITERAL BRIAN ? DEVELOPMENT but mostly our emotional arrest. Were numb except can feel hurt ,pain etc. Its alot and you are so abovementioned at your age the next is most important I did great at repressing not keeping me in there life or worked so all things opposite them ( her). Not good trama not trapped inside never heals its a cancer eats from inside to you break and have no choice but face deal with that done to you. Good luck and you belive the voice inside its in you but never the you you are so just here her saying from your nside head. know her and know it shes wrong and dont let it brake your whole life. !! You can stop it and live happy and have pease not in hela passing it on to yours. 9ne day.. Promise educate no intentions dont help only ltruth.
So much grief. I knew for a long time my mum wasn’t normal. But it was only recently I realised she is a narcissist. I am 58 this year and I still have nightmares about my childhood and early years of my marriage; and migraines if I have to see her. Luckily that’s not very often as we live on opposite sides of the country now. She has always shamed me, “you’ve put weight on” , “are you sure you want to wear that”. She never stopped my older sister bully my. I was 13, my sister 16. My sister launched into a tirade against me that as a redhead with freckles no one would ever want to marry me. I was sobbing at the table, not allowed to leave, and mum did not intervene. This pattern repeated my whole life. Fortunately we spent weekdays with our dad and step-mum. My sister and I got married in the same year. 4 months apart. Her wedding was fine. No problem with the family photos. The night before my wedding, my husband to Ben’s family is meeting my family for the first time. Distance was involved. Mum decided to get drunk and announce that our step- mum couldn’t be in the family photos. So instead of a lovely pre wedding dinner, we are in the house trying to talk her down, on the phone to our grandma, while my brother in law is entertaining my family in law to be in the garden! Mum wasn’t even paying for any of the wedding. My dad, step-mum, and we were. It took me years to realise she had to be centre stage and was also sabotaging the wedding so I would end up living with her. To rub salt in the wound. She had her boyfriend of a few months in the photos, and her dressmaker that happened to drop by. The dressmaker hadn’t made any dresses for the wedding. She was just being a b#$&@. After 7 years of marriage we decided to start a family. When we told her I was pregnant, this was her response “ you have just wrecked my chances of ever meeting a man”. When I was pregnant the second time, her response “ I thought so” . That was the same response I got when we got engaged. My husband was posted overseas 6 weeks before I was due to give birth with baby number 2. He had been away for most of the pregnancy on courses anyway. He wasn’t there for the birth. The night before I went into hospital she picked a fight with me and said “ I’ve wanted to cry for 6 weeks “ . Think about that. I had an almost 3 year old, about to give birth without husband. And said husband is in war zone. Hmm. I gave birth, my best friend was birth partner. Mum turns up with my 3 year old. I asked were my dad is. Dad had come from his home interstate to help look after my toddler. She said “ I told him I am the most important grandparent so I made him wait” . 2 hours later my birth partner tells me my dad is in the car, in the car park. I thought Mum had made dad wait at home. I had a vomiting migraine that night. Dad doesn’t like confrontation. My stepmum told me later he was devastated. Mum told me later what she said to him. She was quite proud of herself. They had been divorced for 30 years by then because she was unfaithful. She picked a fight with him, and told him “he was a selfish prick and always was”. Selfish is the one thing you could not call my dad. He’s almost a saint. So episode like this, but not quite as bad just the classic narc behaviour happened and life continued. I learnt to not engage and we moved interstate, and limited the contact. We lost a son to suicide 4 years ago. My other 2 sons no longer talk to her and my husband won’t have her stay here since his funeral because of her behaviour. She arrived to “help” , but didn’t life a finger. Literally would was her own plate and cup so she wouldn’t have to empty or re stack the dishwasher. Didn’t cook. Kept reminiscing to the boys about the fun things she did with our son. Except there weren’t any fun things. She wasn’t the type. My step mum was their grandma. She did craft and read books and took them to to the zoo. My mum sat on her computer all day when she visited. She picked a fight with my husband the night we were writing the obituary. Can you imagine that. And he was the one one that found him and tried to resuscitate him. So the next day she comes over all huffy, “I won’t visit until the day of the funeral “. I said “whatever “. At the funeral itself, my friends asked her how she was. Polite conversation as you do. She launches into a how terrible the last 10 years of her life have been wail. My friends have to find a way to escape. Then there was the duelling grandmas as we now call it. My step mum wanted to talk as they were very close. He stayed with her when dad was away and acted as carer. She is disabled. My mum wanted to read a poem which had no significance except to her. The whole family was together here Christmas 2018. We were doing family photos. Different groups. Dad and step mum with their kids. Grand kids. Mum and her kids and grandkids. Not that she’s a grandmother, her daughters have children. Anyway, mum starts crying. I ignore it. Over it. My sister fusses over her. My sister comes to me later and says she’s upset because her husband isn’t here. I look at my sister. And then we have this strange conversation where I have to justify whose grief is the worst. I say to her, “ I know she has lost him. But I lost my child that I carried on my own, gave birth to on my own, breastfed for 12 months , and had in our lives for almost 21 years”. Bizarre. And I get nothing back. Mum tried to tell me her psychiatrist has diagnosed her with PTSD. because her husband of 4 years died of cancer 5 years ago. I have grown so much that I challenged her. I said, they over diagnose PTSD. You don’t have it. My husband probably does. He had to cut our son down and tried to resuscitate him. But he hasn’t had any counseling yet. For once she didn’t answer back.
Hi Anna,
Contact me directly at ragingfemalejournal@gmail.com with any questions and we can also set up a free consultation if needed.
Hello there, I just stumbled across this blog. I really like what you have to say, I was married to my narcissistic husband for five years. I have many struggles of my own that I think stem from different things and what caught my attention the most was your mentioning of RTT. I would like to book a session with you but also I have some questions prior to booking. Is there any possible way to contact you so I could just ask directly?
I’m having a hard time finding words. your story, and mine are so similar and it’s triggering me but I am so thankful you put it into words. I can’t.
be well
Omigosh! I don’t know about anyone else, but by the end of reading all of that it felt like my head was about to pop off my neck from all of that nodding! “Yes, exactly!” I was saying, pointing at the screen and wishing I could share that with either of my best friends, one of whom has a narc mother like me, and the other who I suspect had a narc father. No wonder we feel this really strong bond and connection.
I can remember after I left home (desperately trying to escape my mother), I’d had a small falling out with my flatmates. Suddenly I felt overwhelmed and just had to get away from them. I couldn’t figure out what went wrong and I went for a drive and parked at the beach bawling my eyes out, I was 19 and I couldn’t understand what was happening to me. It was kind of like a volcano erupting and all of my suppressed emotions began pouring out though I didn’t understand it at the time and I had no idea how to deal with what I was experiencing. It took me years to work through that stuff.
Five years ago I moved back to my home-town after 25 years away. My narc mother had a major hissy fit, threatening to track down some woman that she claimed my stepfather was having an affair with, and making my stepfather’s life even more a living hell then it usually was. It was utterly confusing and I’d never seen her behave that way before – much more extreme than I’d ever seen.
My siblings and I got together and it was then I discovered she is a narc. I began reading about narcissism and about having a parent who is a narc etc. It was like my eyes were finally open and I began to understand her behaviour and her brokenness. I went through months of mourning the mother I thought I had – I never realised that others have had a similar experience too.
My mother’s hissy fit was due to plain jealousy – I’ve always been close to my stepfather, and she realised that she wouldn’t have him ALL to herself any more since I moved back home, and my sister and her family moved back around the same time.
Now, my mother has my stepfather on such a tight leash that I can’t spend any time with him, unless I share that time with her too. I can’t even hug him for more than 2 seconds or she’ll turn nasty again.
I’m pleasant to my mother for the sake of my stepfather, but it’s like she’s some woman who looks an awful lot like the mother I had once who died and I mourned her. She really doesn’t mean anything to me any more, though I feel a vague kind of pity-love for her that she’s ruined so many lives, including her own. I understand and accept that no-one can have a relationship with someone like her. If my stepfather wasn’t in the picture, I wouldn’t go to see her at all – not out of vindictiveness, but because there’s simply no point.
It took me almost 40 years to recognise what had happened to me all those years ago when I was 19 – I’d suppressed my emotions so much for years, I literally didn’t know what I was feeling as it all came gushing out, and couldn’t even identify what emotions I was feeling, let alone know how to deal with them at the time.
So over the past 40 years, I’ve been through 3 narcissistic ‘best’ friends, lived with and almost married a narc, followed by years of trying to get past all the rubbish I’d been through growing up, and now I finally feel like I’m over it.
There are still things that crop up sometimes, memories I’d suppressed or forgotten that now make perfect sense, looking back at my mother’s behaviours when I was a child, and why I didn’t trust her. I’d learned when I was young to stay out of her way, to behave well, to never talk back and most of the time I’d avoid getting belted. Thank goodness I had 4 siblings – our mother had more than enough anger and fury in her to take it out on all of us – I’d hate to imagine what it would have been like if been an only child.
Nowadays, my siblings and I would all be in the foster care system I imagine. She really didn’t seem to care that our teachers saw the bruised and red welts on the backs of our legs and elsewhere, though she restrained herself towards the middle of the week so there’d be no marks on us when we went to church.
It’s interesting that when I look back at my childhood, one of the people I valued the most was a man at my church with kids our age. It wasn’t that he did anything spectacular, but simply because he was the one consistent adult who seemed always genuinely pleased to see me, and would be interested in what I had to say. (I wrote and told him that about 15 years ago, and how much I appreciated him.)
Nowadays, I visit with my mother on my own terms – I don’t go to visit for her sake, I go on her birthday, mother’s day and Christmas, but my purpose in doing so is to show my stepfather that he has someone who really does love him.
My stepfather admitted recently that he saw through my mother and realised what she was capable of doing. I think he also recognises that his feelings of love and self-worth are all messed up in the nightmare that is my mother.
Hi Jon,
I think a healthy level of cynicism is a great idea. Most of us that are abused by these people believe that everyone has good intentions, and now we know better. Thank you for adding this, well said.
I did the classic thing and jumped out the frying pan and into the fat!
My Dad was a narcissist, but my Mum wasn’t. I lived with my parents until I was 28, then met and moved in with another narcissist! I lived with her for 11 years before our marriage finally dissolved. (Yes she cheated!)
So for the first 39 years of my life I lived with narcissists. I’ve spent the last 5 years living on my own. So this is the first time in my life I’m not living with them!
Several narcissists have tried to get in over this time. It seems with me that “nature abhors a vacuum” when it comes to narcissists. When I get rid of one, another soon shows up.
I’m clearly a magnet for narcissists. And it’s not surprising, because to me their behaviours were normalised.
So I’m working on myself. And trying to make sure I don’t let any more into my life. A big part of this is reading and learning their behaviours. And appreciating that not everyone thinks like me.
I always gave people the benefit of the doubt. And thought the best of them. Now I’m developing a healthy level of cynicism. And hopefully it’ll stand me in good stead for the rest of my days. Here’s hoping!
Hi April,
Thank you so much for sharing this, I’m glad you were able to make peace with your parents in the end. So sorry for your loss.
Hi Daydra,
Despite all this, it sounds like you are determined, and I’m so glad to hear a counselor helped you see it’s not you. Remember, it’s not you. Normal people don’t act like this. Anything that feels oppressive or negative is bad, and you’re none of those things. We just want to be free, and you’re in the fight right now. And you’re right, you’ve made it this far, and there’s no going back. Thank you for sharing your story, and you’ll be in my thoughts. It’s a tough age, and it’s not fair that you have to deal with this too.
I will be 55 next month. From my earliest memories if I didn’t do a specific chore “just right” ie “If you can’t do dishes any better than that you won’t get a good husband. You probably won’t find one at all.” No matter how hard I tried, I never got my Mom’s approval. Nothing I did was ever good enough. I was pretty much a straight A student with very little homework or studying. My sophomore year on high school I got pregnant, and married at 16 then divorced at 19 with a 2 1/2 year old daughter on my hip and carrying my son. After my daughter was born, her Dad became physically, emotionally and mentally abusive. I didn’t grow up in a physically abusive home, I still don’t understand where that kind of rage come from.
As my kids got a little older, right before my daughter started kindergarten, Mom had a new phrase for me.
“If you hadn’t gotten pregnant in high school, you really could have been somebody.”
She said it I front of my kids, my friends and her and Dad’s friends. It didn’t bother her one bit. My Dad raised me from the age of 5. He was my Hero, the only one I ever had. A few years before he passed away, my Mom made that comment for the last time. My Dad’s voice reached a decibel level I had NEVER heard from him before. He told her that was enough, he never wanted to her say that again because I have been somebody my entire life. Just not the somebody she thought I should be. My Dad was a Marine and worked in radio communications. His CO wanted him to make the Corps his career as a Drill Instructor. After that day, I knew why. Dad walked softly, he spoke softly and he never repeated himself. He spanked me once in my life when I was 9 and he cried harder than I did. He was the best man and the most intelligent man I have ever had the privilege of knowing. He never gave up on me when he had every right to walk away. He loved me when I was unlovable, he believed in me when I gave him no reason to have hope. October 13, 2017 at the age of 80 he passed away at home. His heart stopped while he was sitting on the side of his bed. I miss him every day and how he was able to deal with my Mother for so many years I do not know. I loved my Mom, but she would have been the reason Satan went home in tears every day after kindergarten because she would have bullied him. My daughter is a lot like my Mom and learned all the best ways to hurt me. I have known conditional love and forgiveness my whole life. From my Mom, my daughter, my son and sometimes my husband. My Dad did, and our granddaughter does,love me unconditionally.
I grew with ultimatums and I loathe them. I was 52 years old the very first time my Mom told me she was proud of me. I said, “OK, thanks.” She expected a little more excitement from me. I was honest with her. I told her after so many years of not measuring up and getting her approval, at 52 it felt really hollow.
When people refer to being homeless, it’s always in the physical, material sense.
There is another kind though. I have been emotionally homeless my while life.
My older brother having served in the Gulf during Operation Iraqi Freedom said something to me several years ago I had never considered. I too have PTSD, just a different kind. I worked in the medical field for over 20 years as a CNA and MA. I couldn’t see the forest for the trees.
Thanksgiving 2019 was the last holiday I spent with my Mom. It was me, Mom, my husband, my best friend of 42 years and her oldest granddaughter. Before we were leaving to go home, my Mom apologized to me. She apologized for all the times she said I really could have been somebody, that Dad was right, I always had been somebody. She said she was trying to push me so I would have a better life than they had, but ended up pushing me away instead. I told her I loved her, she said, “But I loved you first.”
On the long drive home I cried, just tears no sound. My husband asked what was wrong. I told him that based on all the stuff we talked about that night, but especially that past part, I “knew” it would be my Mom’s last Thanksgiving, and it was. She passed away September 3, 2020.
I loved her because she was my Mom, at times I couldn’t stand to be around her because she was an awful human being…but I forgave her. It took until I was 50 years old to realize it takes great strength to forgive, it’s not a weakness at all, and it’s so selfish, but aren’t we all worth that? I miss them both every single day…losing my parents is the most painful thing I have ever experienced.
I went through the same exact thing, I moved into my dads and stepmoms house when I was 13 and it was the worst mistake of my life.. They are both narcissists and would abuse me every day, neglect me, lie to other people about me, I always had to ask for meals I could never just eat, I also was convinced that I was bipolar and I had something mentally wrong with me because I would cry when I was getting yelled at and spit on and I would remember conversations they didn’t. They always told me they wanted to “get my head examined” so they could figure out what was actually wrong with me. They sent me to a counselor and she even told me I wasn’t the problem and she wanted to do a family session but when I told them that, my dad made me quit going because I “ made him look like the bad guy.” I tried to repot them but they told the social worker that I was dilutional. And so many other things, basically I moved out just last year. I’m 18 years old. I have no self esteem I’m super insecure about everything, I apologize about everything. And everything that goes wrong around me I mentally find a way to make it my fault and I’m not able to convince myself that it wasn’t my fault. After I moved out they continued to harass me. They actually are right now but I am in the middle of getting a restraining order because I’ve tried everything else but they won’t leave me alone. Everyone thinks I’m really strong but honestly, I don’t feel strong at all I feel like I’m failing. But I know I’ve made it through a lot.
Dear Kirsten, you are a beautiful, brave soul, whose not alone, don’t ever forget that. You are taking the right steps to heal yourself. I had to start by actually looking at myself in the mirror and telling my reflection that I loved her. Seems simple but it was really hard. Find what works for you and keep going forward. You are loved, you are love and you are perfect just the way you are.
Hi Kristen,
No, thank you for bravely sharing your story. This is what happens to us and it’s so unfair because we didn’t do this to ourselves, it was done to us. And you’re right, once you start healing there’s no other direction to go. Strength and love right back at you.
Thank you dearly for sharing your experiences and insights with regards to the long, painful, complicated and absolutely necessary journey of transcending and realizing our whole, integrated, authentic beings. I have begun my healing process only a month ago. I feel, for maybe the first time in my life, a true connection to those of you who have survived the abuse and are posting here and in other places, encouragement and assistance for the long road ahead to others who have believed until now that they were truly alone in this world. Im literally in tears, trembling as I try to express my gratitude to the beautiful souls who have shared here. I am not alone in the dark any longer and will never be again. Thank you, sisters..
My mother is a covert/ victim narcissist. She did not physically abuse me as my father (a police officer) did. She stood and watched him painfully assault and terrorize me. Always silent, just observing her 5 year old daughter being traumatized and hurt. It was an expression of disgust and contempt written always on her beautiful, cruel face. She was jealous of my youth and my appearance. The price I paid for these precious gifts included psychiatric long-term stays throughout my childhood, being forced to take near-lethal doses of lithium starting at age 13, and continuous Narcissistic abuse involving gaslighting, silent treatment, isolation, revoked privleges of all type, scapegoating, emotional neglect, rejection, smear campaigns, and eventually, abandonment. My sister was 2 years younger than I and of course was the Golden Child. She and my mother bullied, humiliated, and terrorized me relentlessly throughout my childhood. I became a reclusive, silent, suicidal young girl who sat alone in the darkness of my bedroom and cried endlessly while cutting my forearm and disassociating to records by Joy Division and The Cure. I was branded as being crazy and had absolutely no person whom I could trust or confide in. My lifelong addiction to benzo’s and heroin began at age 14. I was homeless and dropped out of high school by 17. By 19, I had slept with over 100 men. My pimp got me addicted to crack cocaine. My father was aware of most of these things, but would not allow me to live in his 4 bedroom, empty house in the middle of the woods.
After 3 rehabs, I knew instinctively that I had to leave everything I had ever known to travel alone to the opposite coast. The distance and no contact began to heal and cleanse me again. I developed some semblance of confidence and tried to change the way I thought about myself. I actually began to thrive. After a bad split with my boyfriend, I drove across country back to my family, who surely will be thrilled with my new identity and the positive changes I had worked so hard to make. My father ordered me not to set foot on the property and my mother threw me out of her boyfriend’s house that I was invited to stay in briefly after only two days. They originally gave me one month to secure employment and relocate to.. who cares? My mother was extremely bothered by my tanned, toned look and my fledgling, still budding confidence. Her jealousy of me enraged her. My golden child sister had been seeing my ex-boyfriend that she knew I still had feelings for, while I was away. After my hopeful attempt at acceptance by my family ended in cruel rejection and a smear campaign, I found and lived in an abandoned house that was very isolated and hidden deep in the woods. Another failed overdose. Another psych stay. Back to the hard street drugs.
The uncanny thing about my story, as you will most likely relate to, is that even at this point in my life, I still believed that my family was pretty normal. That my parents really did love me, even though I was a psychotic person who was extremely defiant angry and embarrassing to my family. Even though I was such a waste, a disgusting, useless, stupid child that was also ‘spoiled rotten’. If I could only change enough to deserve to be in the presence of my family they will realize the mistake they made when they rejected me. Over time, my thoughts became less and less about my failure as a daughter and I focused on my addiction full-time.
I am now 45 years old. I have been through it all. And I have one year clean from using drugs. The void they filled became empty though, and I took to painting and writing in my journal. After filling 3 journals, it became clear to me that in order for me to heal from the abuse and find peace in my life, I had to reassess my life, what it was that had turned me into such a voracious addict in the first place. I had to process my childhood unattached to the beliefs I have always been taught by my mother, father and golden child sister. I had to revisit without any attached prejudice, so that I could form my own thoughts and perspectives of what the root of my suffering was, so that I could begin the healing process. So after months of re-processing my past and forming my first very own perspectives, I found an enormous variation between what I now believed and what I was taught since I was born to believe. I was not prepared to learn that my entire life was a terrible lie. I began to realize so many truths so quickly that I was shell shocked by the depth and depravity of the cruel belief system my family had created and kept me a prisoner of. Then I realized that… I am not crazy. Or stupid. Or a bad person. Or weak and broken. I was a scapegoated daughter of a family of abusive narcissists that had attempted for my entire life to destroy me and humiliate me for their own pathetic and selfish agenda.
And that was it. That is all it was.
This realization gave me horrible panic attacks and I thought that I was having a mental breakdown that I would never recover from and I simply could take no more in this lifetime.
So that brings me to where I am today. I have had non-stop deeply repressed memories surfacing uncontrollably, flashbacks, panic attacks, crying episodes. And now I feel a deep dark red boiling rage beginning to form. How could my parents violate me like this?
Considering that I have never learned how to trust anyone or what a healthy relationship is, the fear of being hurt or rejected has kept me from reaching out for help. But I am convinced that I can not navigate this process of healing by myself. I think that I need guidance and support from someone who is familiar with this process to take over from this point. I am fully committed to my healing process as there is no other option for me. I am very interested in RRT. I will begin researching it now.
I apologize for being so pedantic and for this post being so long. Thank you so much for this experience and the opportunity to post my thoughts. Be kind. Stay Strong. Love.
How do I help my step babies, how can I help to empower them. Thier mother is a full blown narcissist . She tried to kill my husband when they were married in front of our daughter when she was 3 years old. When our son was 7 he tried to kill him self 6 times. We are in the middle of a custody battle, and our babies are so beaten down. Idk what to do with this, ive never experienced this kind of evil before.
Hi Adelina,
I’m glad you asked. How RTT works with the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind records everything that’s ever happened to you in your entire life and when you experience something traumatic in childhood it leaves an imprint. These imprints are the root cause of issues like anxiety and self-esteem. I’m specially trained to help you understand what happened with your adult mind and when you fully understand that what happened wasn’t your fault and you were not to blame, it dissolves and resolves the anxiety.
Understanding is power and after all you’ve been through the mind gets confused and starts to believe things especially if it keeps happening or repeating over and over again. RTT lets you straighten all this out and when you believe in yourself again, when you have unshakable confidence and trust yourself completely because you know the truth then you will be unstoppable. You will trust your instincts when it comes to your children’s needs and you will never question whether or not you can trust yourself ever again.
You don’t have to continue feeling this way and by the time the session is over your cup will be overflowing. That’s what RTT feels like, and everyone should have this experience.
How does RTT work?
I’ve been my entire life with anxiety and self esteem issues due to childhood trauma. Now in a narcissistic relationship and I have 2 small kids which I need to have protected. How can I help me so I can help them
Hi Shannon,
Thank you for sharing this. I’m going to email you directly.
Wow, I read this article when I woke up this morning. I don’t sleep well. I slept sitting up lastnight because when the n8ght time comes I have an immense fear that takes over.
I was adopted at 9 months after almost dying at 3 months. My biological mother is and was an alcoholic. She left me for days in my crib to go out to party. My aunt found me and rushed me to the hospital, 3 months it took to get me back to normal. Then a foster home, then adopted.
My adoptive pareñts were wealthy but abusive. I was not loved. At 14 yrs of age I had an adoption breakdown. They put me back into children’s aid.
My life has been like a hundred bad movies. I’m 42 and I don’t know how to let it all go. I’ve been to at least 20 different therapist. I’m stuck in the past. I don’t believe I deserve love. Sometimes I wish for death. I really want to move on, I don’t know how. Please help me. I don’t want to keep being a statistic.
Oh yeah, did I mention I’m indigenous. Which makes the stigma worse.
I live in Ontario, Canada.
Hi Gwen,
I never understood my past and how addictive personality could affect life. The constant apologizing and always feeling guilt or not enough. Although life changed I was damaged. The monsters kept reliving in my mind just to get some closure which never came, although my life was full with my family.
Forgiveness is well and good. But I learned a hard lesson families can be damaged and that is not your journey.
Sometimes families need a scapegoat for there own design . The key is never go back home without a support person. Or just do not go. Healing is very trying and some people do not make it. Respect yourself for this is totally underestimated scenario in families. Be well because life is beautiful and very fragile. Guilt can be a powerful tool of manipulation.
You do not ever have to put family first before your own well being ,if your broken hearted and know it . Take care of yourself first so you do not have a set back. Believe
in your instincts. Best of luck creating your joy and loving life.
Hi Christine,
I know what you mean, I was always trying to figure out what’s wrong with me. Turns out it wasn’t something, it was someone. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you so much. I wanted to comment it’s been three years for me too and I haven’t been sick.
I was always told I was depressed my real health issues were ignored, mine was/is a nurse on paper, and at 33 I am finally seeing i may not actually have some incurable unidentifiable and intrinsic sickness.
I am becoming a stronger person even though I still have to deal with narcissistic personalities at my workplace too often. I balance this, catching feeling helpless, with a belief I am a caring person. I have been researching this topic for a while. Thank you for describing healing as brutal, I can appreciate that.
My sister is a single, adoptive mother of two children. One is a boy, 13, with special needs (episodes of temporary violence – otherwise an angel), and the other, a girl, 12, who has always been the target of his physical abuse. She is now the target of her mother’s mental, psychological, and emotional abuse.
They have both been with my sister since infancy. My sister adopted to relieve her loneliness since she couldn’t keep any friends and every time she lost someone, it was all their fault, because she is perfect (sadly, I believe that she really believes that.) The one seemingly stable friend she had was killed in a car accident several years ago.
I spend my days trying to figure out how to neutralize, as best I can, the damage being done to my niece’s self-esteem and self-worth. I have only recently learned what it means to love myself, to truly love who I am (The Power of Now was a catalyst for me as well!) And with self-love, I learned my life’s purpose, to ensure my niece has what she needs to create a happy life for herself as an adult, including a true love for who she is and healthy relationships with others — a genuinely fulfilling life — something that I didn’t have a chance at, until now, by helping her figure out who she is on her own, separate from her mother. I don’t want her to have to wait as long as I did to know happiness and understand love. I am 46.
Damn, I love her like she is my own little girl and I’ll never go another day (interaction) with her without showing and telling her that.
Hi Alina,
All I can say is you’re amazing! I’m sure this isn’t even half the story, you managed to come out on top against all odds. Thank you for sharing.
I only just parted with my narcissistic/abusive father about two years ago. my mom, brother, and I ran from that toxic environment late one night and stayed with friends and family. We told him if he got help and showed true improvement we would come back… A month later our home of 20 years “mysteriously” burned to the ground. My mom immediately filed for divorce and my grandma took my little brother out of state for a week to hide ( he got the most abuse). Ever since the only contact was for divorce hearings and around Christmas time last year he gave my brother and I Christmas cards(mine went straight in the trash as soon as I checked to see if there was money or not, there wasn’t). Now my mom is so much healthier and happier, my brother is as goofy and geeky as can be, and I am engaged to the man he insisted I break up with 6 years ago. I don’t know what he’s up to now and I couldn’t care less. We are living our best lives, one day at a time.
I feel as if this was written about my life except that my mother has been gone for 9 years and I miss her dreadfully. I know that sounds strange especially when I have been in therapy for depression and PTSD for the last 11 years with my current psychiatrist and many years before that. I even saw a therapist in high school because I couldn’t deal with the cruelty shown me – especially when my mother was drunk. Anyway, thanks for this post and others on this topic. I have new insights into my detachment and numbness now.
Hi Sherri,
That’s a wow, right back at you. I don’t know how you made it through this. I’ve been reading stories about narcissistic adoptive parents who adopt children for there own sick psychological needs. Certainly not because they want to help the child and be a good mother to them. It’s too bad your birth mother never got well either. You don’t need their love and approval to be whole, none of us do. You would make a great life coach with all the things you’ve had to overcome. I’m so glad you’re doing well and living your life. In the end, we win.
Wow Qwen…. sounds like you literally lived my life! Thank you for your comments to this post , I don’t feel so alone in the world knowing others have gone through this too!
Wow it’s like I wrote this ! It’s very encouraging to hear someone understands what I’m going through
Wow, just wow! I was taken away from my mom at 4 and a half, spent time together n a state children’s home, then adopted by a woman from hell. My new dad worked constamtly, so he didn’t really see what she did to my brother and i. I could never make the right decisions for her, and she was also very physically abusive. It was horrible. I was told I was someone else’s left over and someone’s else’s problem child. Are age 22 I found my bioligical family and my birth mom didn’t treat me well either. She didn’t like the way I did things cause I was taught by someone else. Well,one day I told her what I thought of her and she did not like it. I am 69 now, and in the last few years started healing from their abuse and I absolutely love myself. I’m smart and loving and reading your article made me so happy to know I’m on the correct path. I love life now. I do deal with PTSD , but have gotten help with that. So, no more anti depressants, no more self-hate. Thank you so much for sharing with the world. Keep in keeping on. Yay, life!!!
Hi Chrissy,
I always said my mother treats me like a 2nd class citizen even as a young child. I vividly recall exactly how you’re feeling and one day I decided I deserved better and stopped talking to them. Since my late thirties, I get bad tension headaches and they take so long to recover from, I hope you’re seeing a doctor to help take that edge off, it helps. You can’t function properly when you’re in pain like this, I can’t even think straight, my chiropractor knows me well too.
Don’t try to do this all on you’re own, get that massage or whatever you have to do and take care of your body. I swear the stress manifest physically in your forties.
My mum died when I was 17, leaving my narcissistic father behind & my sister is similar to him. I have chronic headaches. I’ve just turned 40. They are in my life still because they live nearby and technically they haven’t done anything publicly abusive to me since my 20s. Now there’s grandkids too. But the low grade abuse of non acceptance is still there. They always 2nd guess my decisions & make me feel stupid. They don’t know how to love. I do. And so it makes me need so much more from them. I know my headaches are a result of their treatment of me. I’ve had headaches for a decade now. I’m so tired.
Hi Kathy,
I’ve always struggled with my little sister too and we don’t have a relationship anymore because she’s pretty nasty to everyone around her.
I truly believe that just because you were born into a certain family doesn’t mean you were meant to spend the rest of your life with them.
Your sister may never grow up so we outgrow them and get to a point where you’re indifferent.
You don’t have to go full-on no contact or get approval from your family. Toxic is toxic and you don’t have to put up with it no matter who it is.
Take care of you.
I’m almost 58 and have a narcissistic sister. I keep trying to end our relationship but my family doesn’t understand. They keep saying just get along. She’s 5 yrs younger, but I’ve been putting up with her abuse since she was about 11 and I was 16. I can’t take anymore.
Hi Gretchen,
Here’s to the other side of narcissistic abuse.
It’s better here.
Thank you for sharing your positivity and courage, may we all be brave enough to step into the unknown.
I’ve been asking, “Why does my mother hate me?” as long as I can remember. Thanks to your article I now understand that she hates herself. I have never known another person who holds so much hatred in their heart as my mother. I have been in therapy for nearly a year and have not had contact with her for a year. I’m 56 years old now and truly believe it’s never too late to begin to better your life. It is difficult to not feel guilty because she is old and her body infirm but her mind is as it ever was. It is a challenge to fend off offensive siblings and relatives so I have pretty much left my entire family. I am learning how to love myself and find acceptance and approval within. I am unlearning fear and lack and insecurity and many other depressing things. I’m going to spend the rest of my life working on filling my cup with love and learning how to receive love. Your words “nothing from her is everything to me” resonates with me also. Thank you.
Hi Kirsten,
I know, it makes no sense. I also have a wonderful daughter who does nothing wrong. She attacks her like she’s some terrible person for having her own thoughts and feelings.
I see my daughter as the best thing ever and that’s when I understood my mother wanted to destroy her because she’s a good person.
Watching it happen forced me to deal with the reality that this is what she’s done to me my whole life.
It is her loss because we’ve lost nothing from leaving her behind.
Thank you for putting all of the jumbled words in my head into this article! I’ve never read something that made so much sense! I haven’t spoken to my mother in 8 years, but only recently started working on my mental health. I have always felt so guilty for living my life, but I also always thought “I went to school, I have a good job, I don’t get in trouble….why is my life considered so wrong to her?” It never made sense to me. I’m so sorry to everyone who is going through these life lessons!!! We are all pretty awesome and it’s their loss.
Hi Verniece,
Relief, freedom, healing, thank you for sharing.
Thank you for your story. It makes me feel better about going no contact with my mom for almost 3 years. She passed away last December and I can honestly say that even on their death bed, they are Narcissistic. They will almost never change and it’s not our fault. We are screwed up and it’s not our fault. I feel a sense of relief now that she’s gone but every once awhile the guilt creeps in and I start feeling bad about not being there for her in her beginning stages of cancer, but then I remember, she didn’t tell me she had cancer until 2 weeks before she died. It’s not my fault. None of it. I’m free now and I’m healing. I have a long road ahead of me but I know the way.
Hi Gwen,
We don’t talk enough about the physical toll this takes especially when we’re trying to figure out the mental and emotional part.
I agree the first two years are the hardest and I hear it a lot because those two years feel like ten.
Most people don’t understand no contact because they think it’s so bad and unhealthy until they read stories like yours.
We have two choices, stay trapped forever until it kills us or run like hell and be free.
I choose to be free too.
Thank you for sharing your story, immune system issues are real and directly caused by this kind of toxic abuse.
I am coming up on 4 years of no contact with my alcoholic narcissist mom. She was controlling, emotionally and physically abusive towards me. I was the black sheep, oddly as I was the only one who looked like her mini me. I think I reminded her how much she hated herself. She would neglect common illnesses until I had to hospitalized and that took a toll on my little body over the years. She emotionally abandoned me around age 8. Tried to runaway multiple times and fell in with the wrong crowd (because I was bad, stupid, a loser, etc according to her) I struggled to make it work and moved away as soon as I could escape. She sabotaged my wedding and I ended up eloping and went low contact. I thought she changed after a few years but she didn’t, even had the nerve to ask if my first born could call her mom (she already had 2 other grandkids by then) and finally at 30 years old I cracked. She turned all of my siblings against me when I outed her and her poisonous tactics. They are all very codependent on her and I’m watching my siblings flush their lives (and their kids’) down a bottle of vodka or wine. Producing another generation of emotionally wounded and neglected children.
The first 2 years were the hardest. She stalked me and my life collapsed. I began getting seriously ill, developed allergies(Ironically to alcohol among many other), panic attacks, migraines and I was diagnosed with a chronic viral condition just to name a few. My immune system was wiped. I came too close to dying and I was smoking loads of weed to numb out and just feel good enough to smile. I made another mom friend on a chance encounter and she pointed out I apologize constantly. She knew I had been through some shit and she has been crucial- an accepting friend. Most people won’t get it, going NC, even thinking you have a NPD parent is mind blowing for most people, especially bc the children of narcs are more often very loving, good people. You aren’t doing it for them though, this is for me and my kids to have a better chance.
It’s gotten somewhat easier as time goes on. I saw a therapist for over a year until I was hospitalized for my pregnancy and she helped me open up and start trusting again. I had pushed all of my friends away in an attempt to hide my shame, hopelessness and shield myself. I think I’m ready to start rebuilding relationships and letting people back in. I am going to find a life coach bc I think that is a great suggestion, I wouldn’t have pursued it for fear of more judgement but I am willing to try. Every time you let go of the fear of changing, the hold they have on us dissolves some. I can say easily now, I am excited for the future and the freedom it holds. <3
Hi Shruti,
Your comment is the voice of freedom, that’s the feeling that convinced me I was doing what was best for me.
There’s a price for peace, but it’s worth it. Thank you for adding this.
“Nothing from her is everything to me ” that hit the spot…now i realize what i wanted my entire life…i couldnt answer myself i kept soul searching for answers wat is it i want that will make me happy…never got the answer…today i felt like u summed up my life for me …my sister abused me mentally ever since i remember …i left home got married..but kept looking for my souls peace…Thanks for giving me my answer Nothing from her is Everything to me…My small beautiful world minus her presence is what i have been searching for… too simple to handle her by not wanting anything from her.God Bless You fr helping people by writing all this.
Hi Meagan,
I still find it disturbing how similar our stories are. It happens all over the world and we’re so isolated we don’t know there are others just like us.
I’m glad this helps set you free. Don’t wait to write your story, start now! I would love to read it.
I wish all of us would write our stories so the whole world can see them and then they won’t be able to ignore us anymore. Thank you for sharing such positive energy.
Omg! This is nearly identical to my story! Thank you for writing this! Maybe in a few years, I can write my own story as well, to help others heal! It is so freeing to see this… even the medications as a child, her going through my stuff all the time, even reading my notes from school… then the children’s home… etc…
I have been no contact since Christmas & I have a therapist now… but there is so much healing in this article! In hearing someone else say, me too… and let’s begin healing!!! Thank you!
Hi Michelle.
This brings tears to my eyes because I know what you’re going through. You realize you’re not crazy, and then you wish you were crazy so you can fix what’s wrong.
It sounds like you’re coming out of the fog of war.
You’re still young; I love my forties, best years of my life so far. The body can heal itself with a little care and time. Please go easy on yourself for a really long time until you’re ready; at our age, the pain manifests physically.
Thank you a thousand times over. I’m 44 have a bipolar/narc mother and lost my son to her as well. Finally made the decision to have no contact with either of them 18 months ago and even though it nearly destroyed me I know it was the right choice. My health is suffering big time, it all caught up with me so much my adrenals and thyroid are shot. I’m determined to heal and reading your story so much paralleled with my own life it opened my eyes. I’m not crazy. Thank you for the push in the right direction. Maybe now I can heal.
Hi Paula,
My Dad died at 16 and I was raised by my narcissistic mother. Like why, why keep the narcissist around? The mean ones live forever. Thank you for sharing your parallel universe with me.
Thanks soo much for sharing your story, I can’t tell you how much it means to me. My mother passed away when I was 16 and raised by my narcissistic father. It’s been a nightmare . I’m 50 now and trying to fix me. So again, Thankyou you’ve been really helpful.
Paula
Hi Julie,
Losing a child to this is one of the worst things in this world. Thank you for taking the time to comment.
Wish I would of read this two years ago. Perhaps I would still have my son.
Great information- thanks for sharing!
God Bless
Hi Maisie,
I wish I would’ve found out at your age. I feel like not knowing held me back most of my adult life.
You’ve got a huge advantage and a real opportunity to heal and live your best life.
I like how you say you coach yourself through those interactions, that’s good advice, thank you for sharing it.
Thank you so much for writing about your story! It is so refreshing to know I am not alone and aren’t “crazy” for thinking ill of my mom. I am only 4 months into therapy and setting boundaries with my mom. You can see her losing herself because me (25) and one other sibling (31) finally have had enough. I live in a different state which helps tremendously, but still have high anxiety and have to really coach myself through our interactions.
Thank you for showing people we are not alone!!
Hi Louise,
I know what you mean. I’ve come to expect the setbacks when things resurface. My blood boils and fire shoots out my eyes.
We will never forget, how could we when it’s all around us.
I’m right there with you, this post was a good day. Thank you for sharing so others will know healing from this is full of hills and valleys.
I have been seeing a therapist for about a year now and she has helped me tremendously. I was doing so much better until I met a woman who reminded me of my mother and had to work with her until we were all sent home. She brought it all back. I have regressed and become an emotional mess again. Healing from a narcissistic mother is a very hard road to travel.
Your blog has helped me put things back into perspective and it is always good to know you aren’t alone.
Hi Christina,
What helped me the most was having one person, just one person in my corner who believed in me. Sounds like you are that person for your kids. I will work on being proud of myself, thank you for that.
You should be very proud of yourself. I have a narcissist ex husband and we raised 3 children…I worry about patterns on top of the mental side of the abuse. Thank you for sharing your story.