Is my mom a narcissist?

Am I an "adult child of narcissistic parents"?

I didn't find any better place to post this. Please read the next paragraph if you're going to reply, everything else is optional. Kind of long, I know.

This is going to be tough for me, since it only just dawned on me how I fit oh-so-well into this category, and how it in turn fits neatly onto my childhood memories. I'd like to not have to hear that I'm delusional, or anything of the sort, but I do hope someone will tell me if I'm mistaken. It's also important to me that you don't reply saying my parents are evil, abusive, horrible and so on. They're not.

My father and mother are not divorced, but my father was absent when I grew up. He was the guy who told me I had better finish the entire plate. My emotional contact with him consisted mainly of his complains and criticism whenever I didn't do stuff fast enough or bugged him about driving me somewhere and picking me up. As a grown-up I've learned he's actually a pretty nice guy, as a child I didn't know him well and avoided him whenever possible.

My mother was a good mother when I was very young. She was all the usual stuff to me (most beautiful woman, smartest and wisest person, always right, perfect) until I was about 16. I think she stopped being a good mother when I was seven or eight. Perhaps nine, or possibly even earlier. It's very fuzzy. I clearly remember how it always bothered me that all my friends thought she was the greatest person in the world, and how in spite of this I got very hurt and confused when someone criticized her (even if she wasn't present).

All of my memories are fuzzy, but I will try to show the reasons I have for thinking my mother might be a narcissist and how this has shaped me. First of all, I never felt good enough. My mom told me she was "fond of me" for the first time when I was 18. She has never said she loves me, and growing up I thought she didn't. I didn't tell my parents about my grades if they weren't good enough, so I had to work hard not to get too many bad grades in a row (I needed something to show them). Actually it was my idea to show them my grades in the first place, because my mom only asked about my brother's grades. If my grades were good, I didn't show them that I felt good about myself, I simply told them and that was that. Back to eating dinner, pretending I was happy with their response. At times I needed help from my mother to get better grades, and I remember that these sessions were absolutely horrible. I didn't open my mouth except when told to, and I was hypervigilant all the time. I dreaded these moments. She would criticize me and make me feel stupid. I don't remember how she made me feel stupid, maybe I was just sensitive to criticism.

When we would do things, like clean or sort objects, or she asked me to do or find something, I focused intensely on what she said. If I missed a word and did it wrong, she would get angry. If I didn't find the thing she told me to find, she would get angry and criticize me ("you're just like your stupid father" was a common phrase, but when she really got mad she would say uglier things), it didn't matter how poorly she had explained it, if I didn't know what a word meant or if the thing was even where she had said it was. So I always tried my best to find the thing, even if I didn't know where it was, before I went back and asked. Asking questions made her angry. Doing things wrong made her angry. It had to be just right, and just how she meant it (not how she said it).

I eventually stopped telling her about my needs and worries. I think I had stopped entirely when I was 12, but it started long before that. If I told her how I felt she would often tell me to stop complaining. She was in hell, she was the only one actually doing anything in this house (not true), with a lousy husband and two noisy, messy children and she managed it fine. We should be fine too. To this day I still believe that I have to hide my needs in order for people to like me. I don't tell people what I need, if I do I always become paranoid afterwards and worry that they hate me and are going to leave me. I know one should be able to make demands to friends and lovers and tell them about one's needs, but that's just not how it works for me. If I have to ask for something, like food when I'm visiting and hungry or money that I borrowed someone, I try to make it their idea so that I won't seem demanding. It's probably obvious to those that have known me for a long time, but I can't drop the pretense. That always leads to excessive anxiety. Most of the time I'm not even aware that I have any needs (I think that is why I barely eat and drink when there's no one around to tell me I have to do that).

I'm still scared that people will take advantage of me. I seem to presume that people never have good intentions, even my friends, and especially if they're people with any sort of power over me. I don't trust them, but I still put all my faith in them. I need them to affirm that my feelings and actions are correct. If I don't have anyone around to do that, I'd rather just do nothing at all. I worry a lot that people and especially therapists will use the things I've told them against me, which my mother has done a lot (examples are my depression, hypomania and telling other people about my self-harm right in front of my face).

And lastly, there's the guilt. I feel guilty if food goes bad in my fridge, if I accidentally buy a metro card one day before I can use it, if I have to throw away old socks. Basically anything that could resemble a measurable loss and could, however obscurely, be attributed to me is something that makes me feel guilty. I feel excessive guilt for a lot of other things too, but I really hate money.

Does it sound like I'm an adult child of narcissistic parents, and do you think my mother could be a narcissist? I know I've portrayed her in a very bad way here, and I feel ashamed for it, so please don't make it worse by telling me that my mother is a horrible person. She's not really. Thank you all for reading this

No I don't think your mother is a narcissist - in fact you didn't really give us THAT much info on her. But she doesn't sound like one to me. She might be unhappy and depressed, but not narcissistic. I may be wrong, but I'd need a bit more info to decide.

And you certainly don't sound like a narcissist. You may have a lot of issues but that's not one of them. I think you have Depression, Anxiety, coping problems, and undoubtedly a lot of other problems that only a therapist could determiine. I think you SHOULD see a therapist, and as soon as you can. I'm sure you're having trouble dealing with life right now -- therapy certainly helped ME deal with life.

Have your doctor refer you to a good therapist. He will know who is the best in your area. You won't regret it, believe me. Can your parents help you with this? Do you have insurance that will cover it? I hope so. See what you can do about seeing one.

I wish you the very best. Please take care and God bless. Hugs, Lee

I barely have contact with them since they don't do me any good, but I am in therapy. I'm in Norway so insurance isn't an issue, luckily!

I could mention a few more things I guess:

- She is very concerned about being a good mother, not nearly as concerned about my feelings. She didn't come see me when I was in psychiatric care for depression, because to her my depression was insulting. She had made that clear.

- She is often degrading and belittling under guise of being funny or caring. Strangers don't seem to recognize this, but I usually notice it immediately. She is condescending towards me when she's not trying to be on my good side, and she often tries to make me feel inferior and guilty.

- She'll use what I've told her against me, and tell other people what I confide to her (like medicines, boyfriends, drugs), usually to make a point against me. If I'm too "rebellious", as she (still) sees it, she will blame it on my issues that I've told her about, and she once said that she must have done so much wrong and my childhood must have been so horrible just to win an argument, which she thought it was, about wanting to live. I was just trying to convince her that it makes sense to want to live. When she said this she was implying I was putting my problems on her, somehow, and blaming and insulting her for my issues. We weren't talking about issues, not even about me. She was angry at me for disagreeing with her. It didn't seem like a depressed person talking. And in retrospect I think she started talking about will to live just to upset me.

- She would get angry if I approached her, and yet she would always either sneak up on me when I was in my room or make a lot of noise and walk back and forth so I would know she was always just outside, coming back to yell at me any moment.

- She would often joke that I hurt her and didn't care for her, which would make me feel that I needed to prove that to her.

- My boyfriend says that he's recently started to notice she could have a personality disorder (he's a nurse and has worked in psych). I have thought this for a long time, but I haven't thought NPD before. I don't think she has BPD, because she seems too stable. My T's have also suggested she might have a PD.

Apparently having narcissistic parents can lead to the symptoms and difficulties I'm experiencing, but it doesn't have to make you a narcissist. Adult children of narcissists is a term I just found out about, you can google it or read about it here: http://www.academia.edu/924834/Adult...nts_The_Echoes

I don't hear a lot of narcissism in her either, and it's thought that my mother is a narcissist with borderline tendencies. It could be that she has some sort of personality disorder or even more than one, but I can't diagnose her.

I suggest you tell your therapist over time about what your mother is like. She can't officially diagnose her either, not having actually worked with her, but she might be willing to say what she thinks could be going on with her.

My mother is always concerned with how other people will react to my appearance and behavior. When I made the honor roll, then she made sure to put my picture in the local paper. If I wore something she thought people had seen me wear before when I came home to visit, then she would fuss me out about that. She wants to be first in everything and sees herself as better than other people. She's even broken in line to get ahead
and get something first, etc. Of course, her behavior also manifests borderline issues, too, like going into rages over actually petty things. She is very, very critical and I never know what will set her off, even though I do my best. I can't even trust her to be honest with me. For example, I'll ask her if I can do something, and she'll say it's fine, then she gets really angry that I did it. Sigh.

At any rate, I suggest you deal with whatever her behaviors have caused in you, and don't worry so much about what she has. It's up to you to try to undo the damage as much as you can, with the help of a therapist and other support.

Mind you, I am very sympathetic to how your mother has mistreated you, and I'm sorry she has been that way. But she is unlikely to change, even if you point out her shortcomings. As you see, that even makes her worse. I am still learning, as the mother of grown children myself, to try not to get upset at what my mother says and does. I hope that you can do better and work through these issues earlier, so you won't be miserable. Okay? I do care.

Are you sure that she doesn't have NPD? Did you read my last post, because there are a lot of similar stuff going on and I feel like the descriptions of an NPD mother fit her very well. It would explain a lot of my issues too.

I try to stay away from her. I know I can't change her, I just wish there was an explanation for why she is being how she is and why she tries to break me down and make me feel bad about myself all the time.

Of course, I can't swear that she doesn't. After all, I am not a professional psychologist who works in diagnosing patients. Methinks something weird is going on with her, however.

I assume you have read all about NPD.

Maybe some other folks will chime in with their opinions.

Of course, I can't swear that she doesn't. After all, I am not a professional psychologist who works in diagnosing patients. Methinks something weird is going on with her, however.

I assume you have read all about NPD.

Maybe some other folks will chime in with their opinions.

I try to limit my visits with my mom, too.