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My mother is a narcissist. She has a kind of love that needs to feed off brokenness.
I write this not to hurt her, but because I know there are so many others with mother’s like mine.
I am a great disappointment to my mother. She disapproves of my lifestyle. My lifestyle is defiantly traditional, marriage, kids, Christianity, white picket fences. All my life I wanted “normal,” a good man, healthy children, a home, stability. I got it all, ten fold, although sometimes it’s a bit like the Addams family around here, but hey, nobody’s perfect.
If I had developed a drug habit, wallowed in feelings of persecution, perceived myself as a victim, my mother would have delighted in me. Her particular pathology requires those around her to reflect her identity back to her. Anyone experiencing too much success, joy, health, are perceived as a threat. We are oppressors making her feel bad about herself. She may not even be aware of it, but she is driven to sow seeds of discord around her, so she can rush in like a martyr and cluck her disapproval.
The thing is, it’s all about her, all of the time, and the health and well being of those around her becomes a conflict of interest. She’s not there to help or fix the situation, she’s there to feel better about herself, morally superior. Your continued angst, boosts her self esteem. Her emotions, her feelings dictate every situation
Narcissistic mothers tend to put a great burden on their children. I’ve spent my entire life trying to take care of her, help her out, make her life better. Narcissistic mothers teach their children to perceive them as victims, they tie you to them with these bonds of pity and guilt. My mother has attempted to drain me emotionally, financially, psychologically, a bit like a vampire feeds off a person’s life energy.
It’s a distortion, a perversion of love. She can’t help it.
I don’t know what made my mother this way, but I know that pride/shame dichotomy plays a significant role. It’s a very feminine form of pride, one that I honestly don’t really understand. She perceives herself as compassionate, as humble, but it is an act of self deception, because pride tells her she is the only one who truly cares about others, who is capable of such humility and self
awareness.
I have a very defiant nature. When I was a child, God told me to do everything backwards. Everything people say to you, reverse it and you will find the truth. I listened, I obeyed, and I took those instructions very seriously. I even walked backwards for weeks on end, slamming into trees, falling into the creek, nearly being
hit by cars. What can I say, when God tells you to do something, you do it with all your heart and soul. That reversing everything, that bass akwards approach to logic, has served me incredibly well. In math, if you reverse an equation, you can check your answers and test the truth. In politics, the truth is pretty much always
going to be the opposite of what’s being said. “No new taxes,” means there’s going to be lots of new taxes. “I did not have sex with that woman,” means I slept with that woman and half a dozen others.
When you live with a narcissist, you are simply a mirror reflecting their reality back to them. Everything they do or say is a projection of themselves and if you reverse it like a mirror image, you will find the truth.
I have forgiven my mother many times over. She did the best she could with what she had. I see her for what she is and I love her anyway. It’s a difficult relationship because I cannot comply with her need for brokenness. I may
have been the bug on several people’s windshields, but I will never be a proper victim. I am the kind of person that would go to the gallows laughing, because I know that there is strength in weakness and when I am broken,
God is always right there.
About 3 years ago I had a major marital crisis. My mother wound up homeless, ill, in need of care. My husband is a big believer in taking care of your own, including his wife’s own. I did not want my mother to come live with us. He said we couldn’t leave her to deal with the consequences of her own actions. I said, oh yes, we certainly could. There was much shrieking. Unfair, God, terribly unfair. I pondered divorce, smuggling myself off in a shipping container, anything but this. Hubby is very understanding, very accommodating, very kind, but he often wins eventually, so my mother came to live with us.
In such an ironic twist, love, the real kind, compels me to put his honor, his integrity, before my own desires. He needs to provide and care for my mother, it is his identity, it reflects who he is as a man, as a husband. The irony is that my mother, even in her brokenness, has inadvertently taught me what true love is really all about.
That man Mother, the one you disapprove of so strongly, the one you shoot daggers at with your eyes? It’s that man’s honor that now looks out for you, not mine. I wish you could see him as I do, but you’re caught in a trap of your own making, a trap I am powerless to free you from.
I love this dark honesty and the knack you have for sizing up the situation as you have. Mostly, I love how you manage, somehow, to continue loving your mother. I, too, have a narcissist (or 2) in our family tree. Like you, my overriding reaction, after the initial bouts of righteous indignation (we get those a lot) is pity. They really and truly can’t help themselves. It is a green-eyed emotional immaturity that is as ageless as it is poisonous. The key, I have found, is to become resistant to the venom and to smother it with kindness when I can. Kindness – as irksome as it can be for someone spoiling for a fight – has deflated many family warships sailing with all sheets into the wind. Arguments fall flat when only one party is pushing. The only argument I can win is the one I refuse to have, so I simply refuse to participate. Am I a disappointment? In some ways, yes. I think sometimes they are left wondering what makes me tick. If I tried to explain it, my relationship with my God that roots me solidly in life, they would not listen. But I am sorry, IB, that your thorny problem continues. But I am not sorry you have a wonderful man who, through one means or another, forces you to the moral higher ground. Well done for finding (and keeping!) him. You did not give your mother the insecurity that drives her narcissism. You cannot choose your mother. But your other choices sound pretty sound to me. MH
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Thank you for your kind words. That not being able to explain how God roots me solidly in life, is really the hardest part. It’s like having this source of so much joy and inspiration and not being able to share it.
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It’s the story of my life. You can lead a horse to water, yet the world remains full of thirsty horses! Thank you for sharing your story with us… not many of us have your eloquence or insight, and somehow seeing it all in black and white is so helpful. 🙂
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Pretty amazing. I was sure when you said that you had a marital rift, that your husband was not going to want to help your Mom. Imagine my surprise when he was the one insisting she be helped. Astounding that even with her dislike of him , he took her in and helped her. You’ve got a keeper there IB.
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He’s definitely a keeper, but a bit unpredictable sometimes. It’s kind of funny to have been married for so long and still be surprised by him. I’m pretty good at predicting people’s behavior, but his, not so much. I laugh about it now, but at the time I was thinking, you have got to be kidding me. This is the most irrational, insane idea yet. But it wasn’t, I can see the logic behind it now.
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My parents divorced when I was 10 years old. It was my mother’s idea. She loved herself more than anyone else. She always got what she wanted because she was a beautiful and smart woman. When I married she tried to teach my wife to think about herself first. My wife did not like it.
Then my mother had an accident, was in a coma for 6 months, recovered and lived many more years. My wife did everything a person could do for my mother. However, we agreed that she must not live with us and spoil our children. We are very proud that our children have very good families and our five grandchildren (26-12) love their families very much.
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Thank you for sharing your story about your mother and your wife. I think there are a whole lot of mothers like this in the world, but we tend to idolize mothers in general, portray them all as self sacrificing, giving. Unfortunately, some simply are not.
Congratulations on the kids and grandkids! You must have done something right 🙂
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Thank you! I am convinced that if everyone took proper care about her/his family and upbringing of their children the world would be a wonderful place to live in.
Too many people talk about compassion and help to others without trying to understand why help is needed.
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Givers attract narcissist like bears to honey. God should be everyone’s source, but if your not connected to God you have to take from those around you. The main way to spot a narcissist is how they feed. You have to feed them with constant flattery or they will turn on you feeding off the emotional torments they will then inflict on you. Yes, my mom too.
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You are so right. Being connected to God is a bit like having an over flowing cup, all of the time. Narcissists need to feed constantly because there’s just nothing filling them up..
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A gifted, simplified, rewrite of your mother’s day post. I cannot read your posts without an admiration for your style. It’s rare the person who can see in, and out, of the window. Thank you… as usual.
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Narcissism is at the heart of too many “modern” relationships in this generation. Fine article. May God continue to draw you and your husband and family into ever deeper rivers of wisdom and love.
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I loved this post. It’s honest. It’s encouraging, in a way. I believe that God wants us to do the hard things, the most difficult things we feel we cannot even bear, and I felt that in your post. When the world urges us to cut people off and give up on them, and our own feelings are parallel to that, God wants us to do the opposite. Ugh, that’s not what I want to hear, but it’s the right thing to do. I love how this post is unlike others I’ve read on the same subject, Narcissistic Mothers. Others, usually also written by fellow women, are too emotion driven and the writers focus a lot on self compassion (I’m not a fan of my own sex). I would really love to cut off my mom and never see or speak to her again, but ugh, I know God would want me to choose the more difficult path, to do what’s right, and to learn a lesson from it all. Ugh, I hate learning lessons…
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Thank you for reading and for your kind words. Hang in there and know that God sees, God understands, and He is full of mercy.
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