How do you cope with a narcissistic mother?

[BrunoMattei]

do you have any advice as to how to deal with a parent like this?

Pretend that you still love them and then when you're able to you should cut them off permanently the first chance you get.

You may think "But that's my parent and I have to love them." No. You don't owe them shit. They're already out in an ocean looking for anything to grab onto to stay afloat and if you let them they'll take you with them as they drown.

 

[YautjaWeeb]

If you stick around like a fool one day you'll see the narc-on-a-deathbed routine and realize you should have cut off all contact with this person the minute you could do it without becoming homeless and never looked back.

If you had any idea how they truly see you or feel about you as a 2d object in their broken game of object relations theory you'd realize they are more alien than human and you wouldn't ever think of them again.

There is no cure for NPD and no strategy for self protection that works. There is only saving yourself and giving yourself treatment before you wind up with a narc-mother type for a spouse that can smell your festering trauma and manipulate you into a loveless charade that mirrors your parental one.

 

[tetraterezi]

leave AKA no contact.

 

[brooky]

Do whatever you can to be financially independent. Rethink what you require for that to be true. Living in poverty is better than dealing with this shit, and it's something I personally wish I had known ten years earlier in regards to my father.

For healthy parents, money is a gift they can lovingly provide their adult children. For narc parents, money is a tool they use to control and manipulate. One day, even if you're never rich, you'll laugh at how ridiculous it is that this person could have so much emotional control over you in return for clothing, a meal, or rent. It's like being a sugar baby without any of the fun.

People will try to tell you that forgiveness means going back and letting her walk all over you. It doesn't. One day you'll forgive her because you'll be able to understand that she cannot change, and you don't expect her to, and you'll feel peace instead of hurt or frustrated over that. That's forgiveness, when they no longer have power over you.

Until then, grey rock. Be civil. Don't stoop to her level. Don't give her narc fuel. She will never change. She is incapable of it. Surrender to the truth of reality. She is who she is. Being around her is damaging to you. You're an adult and you have to take care of yourself. When you're ready, move out, set boundaries, and stick to them. She'll have a narc tantrum. Let her. It's nothing to do with you. You are her child. You are not in control of her broken brain or her actions, you're only in control of yours.

In the immortal words of Jack Donaghy: say no, talk low, let her go.

 

[Aztec Death Squad]

She is incapable

This is the key word. I find it helpful to think of these types of people like they have dementia. They are literally incapable of behaving in the manner in which you would want and expect. They are mental cripples. It would be ridiculous to expect a double amputee to get up and walk; it is equally ridiculous to expect a person with NPD or BPD to be act like a normal loving mother or father. Therapy and medication may help but cannot fix them. You certainly can't fix her, even though you have been conditioned from childhood to be the adult in the relationship and bear her emotional burdens.

It's difficult because they may have periods where they seem lucid and say things that make sense, but it's a chronic disease. Their behavior will always return because dysfunction is their baseline. In personal experience, trying to understand or anticipate their behavior is an unproductive exercise; the only thing you can do is control how you react and remind yourself that you are dealing with an irrational person. A lot of times you just can't, tho, because on a primal level children expect a certain set of behaviors from a parent.

Try and obtain your independence as soon as possible. I'm glad you're sharing; that's a big step towards healing. I'm sorry you have to go through this.

 

[YautjaWeeb]

This is the key word. I find it helpful to think of these types of people like they have dementia. They are literally incapable of behaving in the manner in which you would want and expect. They are mental cripples. It would be ridiculous to expect a double amputee to get up and walk; it is equally ridiculous to expect a person with NPD or BPD to be act like a normal loving mother or father. Therapy and medication may help but cannot fix them. You certainly can't fix her, even though you have been conditioned from childhood to be the adult in the relationship and bear her emotional burdens.

It's difficult because they may have periods where they seem lucid and say things that make sense, but it's a chronic disease. Their behavior will always return because dysfunction is their baseline. In personal experience, trying to understand or anticipate their behavior is an unproductive exercise; the only thing you can do is control how you react and remind yourself that you are dealing with an irrational person. A lot of times you just can't, tho, because on a primal level children expect a certain set of behaviors from a parent.

Present day studies suggest its closer to toddler and people who want to study them say the only thing that has ever worked is child psychology techniques and "work" does not mean change or cure but to merely communicate a single basic idea.

The idea can not have any historical, personal or emotional resonance. "I think the grass is green" and getting them not to say that it's orange or actually the world's largest body of water. If you ruminate on your narc discussions long enough you should be able to pinpoint times where you should have known you were talking to a toddler. From the deadly serious, the mundane and irrelevant to the infantile rage filled biographical episodes still a toddler.

This is how they wind up involved in so many cons, scams, MLMs, etc. too despite being many being con artists themselves. Porous relationship with reality at their very best.

 

[The Stranger]

Blog posts: the thread
1: be financially independent
2: if someone is a cunt, tell them to go fuck themselves
It's as shrimple as that

 

[Friend of Dorothy Parker]

You of the opinion that nothing can be done to salvage a relationship with someone who has some kind of narcissistic personality disorder? I've never had to deal with anyone I cared about being like that, save for a few ex girlfriends but who cares about them. None of my family are like this so it's totally foreign to me. Is there nothing that can be done? It makes me sad to think of being forced to just cut out a family member :'[

The thing you have to realize is that there is no real relationship of the deep kind to be had with a true narcissist. It's a choice of being forever in conflict and abused, cutting them off completely/as completely as possible even if only mentally, or accepting that it will never be a "real" (= loving, two-way) relationship and adjusting hopes and expectations accordingly. Those are very difficult choices for children of narcissists, because children want to love their parents, and parents owe their children more than a narcissist will ever be able to give. The children of a narcissist that I know have chosen option #3, and that seems to work okay, though every interaction is still a bit (or a lot) of re-wounding. Narcissists should never have children because the narcissist's nature is to use and to hurt and to disregard, and doing that to children causes forever damage and pain.

To the OP - @Meursault's gun said a lot, and I agree with it. Disengage - most importantly mentally, but also physically. This will require constantly re-grounding yourself so you are not triggered by her, and you can expect she will be very bothered not getting the reactions she wants. So you have to anticipate her likely reactions - rage, manipulation, unfairness, gaslighting - and plan how to handle them without getting ruffled yourself. Be flat, practice a shrug and an "ok," bite your tongue, be factual and minimize engagement, ask for as little as possible in order to mminimize her ability to manipulate you . You see her now, and that is your secret power. Use it for your own advantage. It may feel uncomfortable to plan and to outwit her (bc that can feel very wrong to someone not built that way), and it may feel unfair that you have to be the one to adjust your emotions, but do it anyway. And never, ever trust her to do the right thing nor believe that her compliments and offers to you mean anything. Remember that everything she offers is in service of what she - not you - wants. Take the money or the whatever, but don't get emotionally invested in it or tricked by it. Think of her as one of those trap-door spiders, and mind where you step. Don't let her see your emotion, even when she once again disappoints you. Be prepared. Study and spend time elsewhere if you can. And keep planning your future and your focus there - 8 more months is all you need to get physical separation, sounds like.

And I'm really sorry you got a parent like this.

 

[Friend of Dorothy Parker]

The literal only way I could imagine salvaging such a relationship would be for the narcissist to willingly seek help and follow through with it (indefinitely, maybe). However, narcissists are infamous for not being able to be able to introspect effectively. Even if they do, they will likely only reach conclusions that favor them. Many just straight up manipulate the therapists they go to.

A word on that. The narcissist I mentioned in my last comment went though some supposed big come to Jesus with himself/therapy. He (tearfully, of course*) apologized to his kids for x...and then kept on doing x, though with some veneer of being better. As far as he is concerned, he has atoned and mended everything, not to be spoken of again. And bc he is good at it, also did it in such a way that his kids don't feel they are still allowed to be angry or bring it up, and any lasting problems they might have as a result are theirs to deal with (though he will exercise "parental" power if they screw up, esp if it costs him a dime...which he charges them back for). He clearly favors one (the one who causes him the least inconvenience). The gaslighting and manipulation doesn't end, no matter how much they claim and pretend (or even believe) that they are so aware or repentant.

Accepting your mother's behavior will make it a hell of a lot easier to treat it like water off a duck's back.

Only if "accepting" means "it exists and will not change," not "it's fine and I should not object."

Detachment is acceptance, btw. You accept a thing exists and then you can stop wishi g it did not, instead just factoring it in without the emotion.

 

[Iron Hamster]

The older I've gotten, the more I've come to terms with a hard to acknowledge reality: I don't like, love or respect my mother.

Are you my neighbor? It was like reading what I've watched periodically. I don't know how either of you don't punch them in the head. You're saints.

 

[Hey Johnny Bravo]

Only if "accepting" means "it exists and will not change," not "it's fine and I should not object."

This is precisely what I mean. Accepting it and that it (probably) won't change frees you up from trying to "fix" it or "figure it out," and pushes you towards "how do I not let this thing I cannot change ruin my life."

By "detachment," I mean the kind that ignores the behavior and does not register it. That kind of ignoring makes a narcissist/borderline person even angrier. It's hard to describe, but there is a way to acknowledge someone's bad behavior while not letting it bother you.

 

[Friend of Dorothy Parker]

If you stick around like a fool one day you'll see the narc-on-a-deathbed routine

This is a different kind of deathbed story, but it reminded me. The narc I have spoken of also had a narc father (he was the golden child). The man blew up his family and fucked off, after which it came to be known that their whole life as a family - which they already knew had been screwy bc of their dad - was also a lie. Decades later the siblings were still wrestling with dysfunction individually and among them, all rooted in dad. On his literal deathbed, emotional reconnections were made, as some of the siblings traveled to see him, including the favored son, the one in dad's own image. Lesson learned by the narcissist fils: you can fuck up your children and entire family, but even if you are rejected by your children throughout their lives because of what you did and how you are, at the end you will be forgiven. Because that is every lesson a narcissist learns: whatever (in his mind) reinforces so-called legitimacy or acceptability of his own behavior.

By "detachment," I mean the kind that ignores the behavior and does not register it.

OK, yes, if you mean numbing out or pretending it isn't there, yes, that's not good or useful. That's not how I typically see detachment used in this kind of context, though.

That kind of ignoring makes a narcissist/borderline person even angrier.

So? Assuming they are not literally going to hurt you in some way, their emotions are irrelevant. The point is protecting oneself and managing one's own emotions, not tiptoeing around theirs. How to do that most effectively depends on scenario. Living together and being dependent could be a situation to want to keep the peace, agree - just not at your own expense. And oftentimes blunting their attacks by not rising to the bait (i.e., ignoring the bait and the offense) disarms them and diffuses their emotionality.

No one should be caretaking a narc's emotions, unless it's pretend and done with the purpose of getting from them what you need - and you're absolutely sure you're mentally strong and canny enough to do that.

It's hard to describe, but there is a way to acknowledge someone's bad behavior while not letting it bother you.

Acknowledging in the sense of being personally and internally aware of what they are doing, yes, but not responding to it (= outwardly ignoring it).

 

[The Crescent King]

A word on that. The narcissist I mentioned in my last comment went though some supposed big come to Jesus with himself/therapy. He (tearfully, of course*) apologized to his kids for x...and then kept on doing x, though with some veneer of being better. As far as he is concerned, he has atoned and mended everything, not to be spoken of again. And bc he is good at it, also did it in such a way that his kids don't feel they are still allowed to be angry or bring it up, and any lasting problems they might have as a result are theirs to deal with (though he will exercise "parental" power if they screw up, esp if it costs him a dime...which he charges them back for). He clearly favors one (the one who causes him the least inconvenience). The gaslighting and manipulation doesn't end, no matter how much they claim and pretend (or even believe) that they are so aware or repentant.

Thanks so much for your great, sensitive advice, I really appreciate it. The part of your reply I'm quoting is surreal to read - I spoke to my grandmother about what happened between my mother and I, and she went to my mother to try to mediate, and the exact phrases the narcissist you know were the ones my mother said to defend herself. Basically all of my past hurts are in the past, she can't fix or atone for them and they're my responsibility to deal with, she can only do better in the future, etc. I left home early this morning and when I came back she gave me a flat "Hi" and said nothing else.

I'm very grateful to all of the insight offered here. I'm still struggling to accept that my mother is a covert/vulnerable narc, but replies like yours are so spot on as to how she acts that I just can't bury my head in the sand for any longer.

 

[Friend of Dorothy Parker]

Thanks so much for your great, sensitive advice, I really appreciate it. The part of your reply I'm quoting is surreal to read - I spoke to my grandmother about what happened between my mother and I, and she went to my mother to try to mediate, and the exact phrases the narcissist you know were the ones my mother said to defend herself. Basically all of my past hurts are in the past, she can't fix or atone for them and they're my responsibility to deal with, she can only do better in the future, etc. I left home early this morning and when I came back she gave me a flat "Hi" and said nothing else.

I'm very grateful to all of the insight offered here. I'm still struggling to accept that my mother is a covert/vulnerable narc, but replies like yours are so spot on as to how she acts that I just can't bury my head in the sand for any longer.

Thank you for your kind words, and I hope the very best for you. Knowing about people like this - as in really knowing, and fully internalizing that these people are just built differently, un-human imo - is awful knowledge I wish I didn't have. But also wish I knew long before I did. Tearing the scales from your eyes is painful, but seeing clearly is worth it.

I'm really glad for you that you've put so much of this together already - brava. You're young and have all the possibilities of a brilliant future ahead of you. And I hope that seeing all this confirmation that yes, she really is like this and it's disordered, and that you're not crazy or wrong or over-sensitive or anything else she may or may not ever have flung at you, helps you keep moving toward independence in every sense of the word.

 

[Mandy Stroyer]

There's a lot of good advice in this thread. Accepting there is no true relationship is the first and hardest step but it's necessary to make the following steps easier. Your mother only loves you when she can see you as an extension of herself because she's only capable of loving herself - and even then that love is self serving and a projection of positive traits she has applied to herself. She feigns introspection out of manipulation. It's something my mom did a lot too, crying that knows she didn't always do her best and wants to reconcile then screaming what a brat I am seconds later when I don't accept. She has never apologized for anything. She won't. I will never even fantasize about it because it's so absurd to consider. There will never come a time when your mother considers how she treated you as wrong.

Unfortunately, you're stuck with her for the time being. I was in the same position. Your dad is out of the picture so there's no potential enabler but you and you've decided to no longer take it. Grey rocking does work wonders, it's also difficult at first. It's important to remember her behavior is not a result of you or anything you've done but that you just happen to be there. She'd treat anyone else in your position the same, it's not personal no matter how much she makes it feel it is. Your boundaries are not negotiable just because she's your mother. As far as you're concerned now, she's just a mean stranger.

Grey rocking and eventual no contact will lead to some panicking on her end. She's losing a support, as she's lost countless others due to her behavior, but you're supposed to "owe" her for your existence. You're not supposed to leave. You've outgrown a cage you were born into that in her pea-sized brain was supposed to hold you forever. She's going to beg for a response - act out, lovebomb, threaten, and guilt. Do not respond to any of it. Responding means you care and you caring about her is all she has left.

Something else that's common is her seeking out other people to enable her behavior because she'll die without attention. My mom is currently targeting my younger brother as I'm no longer available. He hates her but is under her thumb due to extended family supporting her. I had to cut them off too. People who ask you to reconcile or "just talk" with her are not your allies. I've also had family do recon for her, telling her why I hated her so she could get rid of evidence and change the story. You do not owe anyone an explanation and I suggest you don't give them one if they're associated with her. People who see it for themselves will leave with you.

Once ready for no contact, secure legal, financial, and medical documents and high value or sentimental belongings. She will likely try to take them once she catches on. Know your rights, know where you went, when, and why. False missing reports, wellness checks, or involuntary psychiatric holds aren't unheard of. She will do everything she can to keep you there. Your goal is to not give her a legal reason.

 

[Meursault's gun]

Once ready for no contact, secure legal, financial, and medical documents and high value or sentimental belongings. She will likely try to take them once she catches on. Know your rights, know where you went, when, and why. False missing reports, wellness checks, or involuntary psychiatric holds aren't unheard of. She will do everything she can to keep you there. Your goal is to not give her a legal reason.

I want to second this because it hasn't been mentioned. I've personally dealt with narcissists who will threaten you in the most incomprehensible ways the second they realize they have lost - things even your worst assumptions could not cover. I couldn't properly assume how far your mother would be willing to go just based on your post, but I suggest limiting yourself even in text interactions. Such things can be very easily used to undermine how sane you appear to an officer, for example.

 

[Mandy Stroyer]

I couldn't properly assume how far your mother would be willing to go just based on your post, but I suggest limiting yourself even in text interactions. Such things can be very easily used to undermine how sane you appear to an officer, for example.

Very important to note the behavior tends to escalate when they feel they're "losing". People who were previously non violent can get violent, threats of police or legal action, leaking of personal information to get others to contact you. You can also notify police of the situation if they're used to do wellness checks so they don't bother, some are kind enough to only respond to requests from specific contacts. Changing your number and e-mail does wonders, as does removing social media accounts. Removing. Not just blocking because they can use spams/alts or people who follow/friended you to see what you're posting. There are going to be nails dug into everything you try to take away.

 

[Schizoid Wife]

You of the opinion that nothing can be done to salvage a relationship with someone who has some kind of narcissistic personality disorder? I've never had to deal with anyone I cared about being like that, save for a few ex girlfriends but who cares about them. None of my family are like this so it's totally foreign to me. Is there nothing that can be done? It makes me sad to think of being forced to just cut out a family member :'[

You can't fix someone who is not interested in improving. That's all it comes down to.

 

[VargReallyDidNothingWrong]

I feel like labeling someone in your family (a parent most often) is one of the most common ways to get support and attention from others online, you see it all the time in comments sections of YouTube videos even slightly related to narcissists. People will trauma dump about this shit at the drop of a hat. Pop psychology and surface knowledge of psychiatric disorders have really made everyone think they're qualified to diagnose personality disorders everywhere, which really just lets you shit on someone you don't like but have a veneer of "factual basis" for it. My dad isn't just an asshole, he's a gaslighting narcissist asshole

I feel like a lot of the time the narcissism, if it is there, is a heritable trait because the person claiming their parent or spouse is a narcissist also shows traits of narcissism themselves.

Anyway, on topic: sorry but I don't have any advice on how to make your current situation better, just a lot of questions about how you managed to get yourself in the situation in the first place.

1. Why don't you have any savings?
2. Why don't you have any friends locally? Are all your friends "internet friends"?
3. You talk a lot about how bad your country is - which country is it? You may have a way out you can't see but someone else could suggest.

Take some initiative and stop being the victim of circumstance.

 

[YautjaWeeb]

I feel like labeling someone in your family (a parent most often) is one of the most common ways to get support and attention from others online, you see it all the time in comments sections of YouTube videos even slightly related to narcissists. People will trauma dump about this shit at the drop of a hat. Pop psychology and surface knowledge of psychiatric disorders have really made everyone think they're qualified to diagnose personality disorders everywhere, which really just lets you shit on someone you don't like but have a veneer of "factual basis" for it. My dad isn't just an asshole, he's a gaslighting narcissist asshole

If you wanted to be basic bitch edgelord and followed the American schools of thought over Vienna then basically no one has NPD because it doesn't exist, only males can be psychopaths and only females can be borderlines. That gets people way more riled.