Today’s question asks if I can talk about Signs Of A Narcissistic Mother | Mother-Daughter Relationships.
This is actually a fairly common situation that counselors and clinical work see. So I’m going to cover this by looking at the nine signs of a narcissistic mother.
Narcissism is a personality construct. We see that includes characteristics like being self-centered, a sense of entitlement, requiring admiration. And generally is divided up into two types:
1. We have a grandiose type, or somebody is socially dominant, very arrogant, and resistant to criticism. This is a fairly obvious manifestation of narcissism. It’s also called overt narcissism for that reason.
2. And then, we have vulnerable narcissism. And here we see characteristics like shame, hypersensitivity to criticism, being resentful. It’s a little bit more hidden. And it’s also called covert narcissism for that reason.
Like all personality constructs, it’s thought that narcissism occurs because of genetics and because of the environment. And we’ve seen a lot of research around dividing the contribution of each of these two of narcissism.
Looking at these characteristics, I gathered these from the research literature and for my clinical experience. Again, this is a very common issue brought up in clinical work.
So the first sign of a narcissistic mother is:
1. Make every conversation about THEM
The daughter wants to talk to the mother about a problem the daughter is having, and somehow, the conversation becomes about a problem that the mother is having. The mother’s problem is always more important. More serious, worse, and sometimes even caused by the daughter. This is also fairly common.
So the daughter says, I’m having trouble focusing, getting things done, and life is hectic. And the mother says, I know the feeling. It’s exactly how I felt when I was raising you because you would never listen. You always wanted to do things your own way. You never understood how I felt.
The daughter was looking for support or advice, not criticism. But criticism is what she found. There’s the sense on the part of the daughter. There’s this thought, like, how this conversation even gets here? So that’s the first sign of diversion to a topic related to the narcissistic mother.
2. Compete with their daughter
We see this expressed in a lot of different ways, where the mother hits on the daughter’s boyfriends. They compete for the love of the daughter’s father. There is a sense that the daughter will never be good enough for the mother or as accomplished as the mother.
This sets up this competition. The mother treats the daughter as if the daughter is inferior, specifically an inferior version of the mother. A version that never really lived up to the mother,
3. Tell daughter that she is a burden
The mother makes the daughter feel as if the daughter is a burden, and really should have never been born in the first place. And I think this is a particularly cruel and damaging characteristic of the narcissistic mother. And unfortunately, it’s also a very common characteristic.
4. Fail to protect daughter from others’ maltreatment
Perhaps, somebody else in the household mistreated the daughter. And sometimes this goes as far as the narcissistic mother actually protecting the person who is causing the harm. This also seems to be extremely common with mothers who are narcissistic.
They really don’t care if the daughters being Mistreated. Or in a sense, they enjoy it. They believe it’s just because now the daughter is being punished for being such a bad daughter. So just like really all these signs, it’s very cruel. It’s a cruel and merciless characteristic of the narcissistic mother.
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5. Cold (no emotional connection)
The narcissistic mother doesn’t want to or doesn’t know how to talk about emotions. Something else I see which is kind of related is the wrong kind of emotional availability, not necessarily unavailability, but again the wrong kind of availability. Like, making too much of the daughter’s emotions.
The daughter says something like, I’m angry and hurt by what this other person did. And the mother says, you may be dangerous or violent. I always knew you had that in you. I could never really trust you. And I can’t know that you’re gonna be safe.
So in one sense, it does the same thing as being emotionally unavailable in that the daughter doesn’t want to keep approaching the mother about emotions. The daughter doesn’t want to talk about her emotions because things get all twisted around in the mother’s perspective.
Essentially, with this sign, we see no validation or very little validation of feelings.
6. Controlling and manipulative
We see this through guilt trips. We see a lot of drama when the daughter doesn’t meet expectations. Like, for example, if the daughter gets in minor trouble at school. The mother might say, I’m hurt, disappointed, shocked, or disgusted. So really just blowing something relatively small way out of proportion and again making it about themselves.
We also see a look of disappointment sometimes instead of a clear statement. So instead of verbal communication, just a stare, or a look of profound disappointment, again meant to be manipulative, not authentic, not genuine.
7. “I sacrificed for you!” and demand adoration
The seven sign of a narcissistic mother is this idea of a debt that cannot be repaid. So what this means is the narcissistic mother sacrificed tremendously to have a daughter. And in doing so really incurred this debt that can never be repaid by the daughter.
She wants the daughter to be impressed by the sacrifice. And if the daughter is not impressed by the sacrifice, the daughter is ungrateful. And again a disappointment. So we see a really clear theme kind of emerging through these different signs.
8. Give transaction-based love only (love as a reward)
The narcissistic mother gives approval or, in a sense, love as a reward for doing what she wants. This means that there’s no unconditional approval or love. It’s all based on the performance of the daughter.
And I think some would argue that really conditional love. And that’s what this is really creating, is not really love at all. If the daughter has to win or gain through her own performance approval or love, is that really the same thing as love is that we’re really talking about when we talk about love.
9. Have no boundaries
The nine sign of a narcissistic mother really has to do with boundary violations.
Searching the daughter’s room, eavesdropping on conversations, reading the daughter’s diary, providing the daughter really no privacy, and a lot of judgment, which, of course, is partially based on the things that the mother discovers by violating the privacy.
Another part of this would be complaining about the daughter to other people with the daughter present. Again, a boundary violation.
So really by putting the daughter down in front of others, this is crossing kind of an important parenting boundary. It’s not conducive to a good relationship and it leads to a number of consequences.
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