Are you among the growing number of women realizing they’re daughters of narcissistic mothers? 

Maybe you’re not sure if your mother daughter issues are normal or toxic. But you know your relationship with your mother has never “worked” even though you’ve tried everything. 

If you’re wondering whether to emotionally detach or even walk away, this post will help you gain clarity and strategies to cope.

characteristics of a narcissistic mother

When I attended a Tony Robbins event years ago, he asked women in the audience to raise their hands if they had a troubled relationship with their mother. Over 80% lifted their palms.

Mother daughter relationship struggles are common. And not all those women had mothers with NPD, obviously. So, how do you know if your mother is normal or toxic?

Here are a few signs that you have a narcissist mother on your hands:

Poor Boundaries

We could just as easily say “no boundaries” because your mother views you as an extension of herself. There is no room for individuation as she does not see you as a separate person.

If you’re like me, you were not allowed to choose what you wore, your hairstyle, or the activities you took part in.

You’ve been conditioned from an early age to know that the consequences for saying no or disagreeing with your mother are dire. As a result, you go along with what she wants and lose your sense of self in the process. 

You may ask yourself why you didn’t put up more of a fight, or at least not until later. It’s because as a child we experience rejection from the primary caregiver as life-threatening.

And it is dangerous for a dependent child without access to resources to lose her mother’s love. So, you did whatever it took to stay in her good books and that meant putting your needs to the side.

If you got into trouble, rather than asking what was going on with you, she shrieked “am I a bad mom?!” (Or maybe that’s just me and my clients.)

A mother’s job is to help her child see and understand herself, so she can grow into the woman she’s meant to be in the world. But your mother taught you to abandon yourself to appease her and focus on her instead of yourself. 

Lack of Empathy & Compassion

Daughters of narcissistic mothers feel worse after seeking emotional support from mom. She’s likely so self-referential she can’t allow the focus to stay on you for very long.

She’s not able to see you, your emotions, or problems. It’s always about her. She might even act annoyed if you come to her for help.

I would argue that empathy and compassion are two of the most important attributes of a healthy mother. And these are lacking in a toxic mom.

The consequences are huge for your future relationships because it alters your attachment style. A mother like this can’t attune to her child, which means she doesn’t respond appropriately to its needs. 

This results in the child (you) developing an insecure attachment style which makes it more difficult to connect with other people. If you feel alone in the world, you may have been raised by an unhealthy mother.

Nothing is sacred to her. She loves to ruin ceremonial events like your wedding or graduation because she can’t stand someone else enjoying the spotlight.

My mother wreaked havoc in the months, weeks, and days leading up to my wedding, and on the day of the event. She withdrew her promise to contribute financially, threatened not to come, and gave an embarrassing speech which prompted my sister to walk over and force her to sit down.

Gaslighting

Gaslighting comes in many forms and is designed to discredit you and your experience. Your mother will pretend what you’re talking about never happened (“I didn’t say that”).

She’ll accuse you of lying or misremembering things. Or focus on some small detail that’s not exactly how you described, to obscure the bigger picture.

She will focus on your reaction to her abuse rather than the abuse itself. This makes you believe you have to suppress your emotions to be heard.

But when you suppress your emotions, she’ll call you cold and heartless. That’s what we call a double bind and narcissists love to use it.

She will isolate you from other people who have information to support your hypothesis. Example: mine would never let me alone with my aunt because she knew something my mother didn’t want disclosed.

I mistakenly believed my mother was jealous of my relationship with my aunt (which would have been bad enough). But it was more manipulative than that. 

So, you see how gaslighting can alter your view of reality. And that is the whole point: to set you off kilter and stop you from pursuing the truth.

Because the truth is, your mother’s personality is like a house of cards she keeps from toppling by controlling everyone and everything. She feels in constant threat of exposure, and gaslighting keeps her false image intact.

Can daughters of narcissistic mothers heal?

These are just a few of the signs of a narcissist mother. For more, refer to the DSM’s traits of narcissistic personality disorder.

It’s important to note that you don’t need a diagnosis to know if someone is narcissistic. So few narcissists ever seek out a diagnosis, we can’t rely on this standard.

And your mother may have traits of other Cluster B personality disorders as these often overlap. For example, my mother had traits of both borderline and narcissistic personality disorders.

So, ignore the naysayers who shame us for referring to someone as narcissistic when they’re not clinically diagnosed. You’re welcome to refer to the traits in the DSM, and if the shoe fits…put it on your mother.

Next, we’ll talk about the best healing strategies for daughters of narcissistic mothers. These include emotionally detaching and walking away.

It’s important to understand that dealing with your mother will likely require you to distance yourself emotionally or physically or both.

That’s because someone with these traits is incapable of taking accountability for their actions. This lack of self-awareness or responsibility makes a functional relationship impossible.

It’s likely you’ve been doing all the heavy lifting to make this relationship work. Any time you express yourself honestly or do anything your mother deems unacceptable, you’re in the dog house again.

emotionally detaching

You may not realize that your mother provokes you on purpose to get a reaction out of you. Your emotional reaction makes her feel powerful and in control of you - that’s a narcissist’s supply or the thing that feeds them.

Appealing to her motherly conscience won’t work because she has none. She doesn’t care about your feelings and has no interest in a healthy relationship with you.

Once you accept these tough truths, you will need time to digest them. You won’t overcome a lifetime of brainwashing overnight.

But if you understand that refusing to react is the best way to protect yourself, you’re on your way to freedom. You may have heard this approach referred to as gray rock and it means making yourself as boring as the object in question.

You refuse to engage with her on anything more than a surface level. You don’t discuss what’s going on with you because, as you may have noticed, it gets turned into ammunition.

Better yet, turn the focus on to her where she loves it anyway. When she asks how you’re doing, say “Okay, what’s going on with YOU?” And keep doing so until the conversation/visit comes to a merciful end.

You’re reframing the relationship as one in which you protect yourself from a predator. Rather than pretending this person just needs more information to understand your side of things.

Walking away from a narcissist mother

You may feel that gray rock is yet another instance of compromising yourself to get along with your mother. And you’d be right.

Gray rocking requires a lack of self-expression and you may be tired of that. In fact, the method is not recommended as a long-term solution.

It can buy you time as you decide whether to continue a relationship with your mother. Or it can be used if you feel it’s necessary to maintain a tie with her for whatever reason.

There’s no shame in keeping a relationship with someone you don’t trust. And there’s no shame in walking away if you choose to do so.

Walking away often means going no contact. That requires cutting all ties and, since this is the mother of all boundaries, your mother won’t accept it.

She will use every tool in her arsenal to get you back. NOT because she loves and misses you, but because she needs control over you to fill the emptiness inside.

That’s why you will likely end up blocking her on your phone, email, social media and other platforms. The gaslighting will continue with gifts, cards, and messages designed to guilt, shame, and tell you why you’re wrong (or what’s wrong with you).

Like any narcissist, your mother will stop at nothing to get you back. Any reaction out of you she will take as her foot in the door.

She wants to win and if that means smearing your name, she will do that, too. Be aware and protect yourself when you make this decision. 

Healing from the abuse

It’s all well and good to understand and break free from narcissistic abuse. But your broken heart still needs mending from this deep betrayal by your primary caregiver.

Get appropriate support

Receive support from someone who understands narcissistic personality disorder. Someone who views your experience as run of the mill mother daughter issues will only re-traumatize you.

Avoid daughters of narcissistic mothers support groups where people re-tell their stories over and over. You want an empowerment rather than a victim mentality to rise above this abuse.

inner child healing

The child inside you needs the care and attention it never received from mother. It has helped you survive through maladaptive coping mechanisms that hold you back as an adult.

You likely struggle with people pleasing, toxic relationships, extreme self-sufficiency, and other negative life outcomes. These are products of your inner child’s attempts to keep you safe.

For example, your people pleasing originated with your mother and extrapolated to include everyone else in the world. Your nervous system got rejigged to feel as though rejection of any kind was fatal, so the inner child rushes in to strike down your boundaries and keep you alive.

Healing the inner child will put your adult in the driver’s seat of your life. That’s where you get out of survival mode and start creating the life you want instead of reacting to what other people want.

self-compassion

Be kind to yourself as you do this work of healing a lifetime of emotional abuse and neglect. You may have been hard on yourself in the past, but now is the time for self-kindness.

Accepting your emotions instead of denying or judging them is crucial to self-compassion. Giving space to your emotions may be new, but they have lots of important information to share.

If you slip back into old patterns or break no contact, you can always get back on track. The journey is not linear but if you do the work you will always move forward, even if you take baby steps at first. 

next steps

Now you know how to recognize if you’re the daughter of a narcissistic mother. It may be hard to hear, but understanding what’s really going on is the first step to breaking free. 

You’ve also got the best strategies for dealing with a mother like this. And 3 things you can do to overcome the devastating impact of lifelong emotional abuse and neglect.

Now, I’d love to offer you a free gift:

3 Myths About Survivors of Narcissistic Abuse.

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