Raging Mothers. It's not you, it's them

We first learn about ourselves and the world around us through our interactions with our mothers. We establish our sense of self-worth from how she nurtures, cares for, and protects us from harm. We learn that we have value by her empathy in response to our feelings, wants, and needs.

Our mothers are the foundation of how we grow as an individual and how we integrate ourselves in the world. However, if this important foundation is contaminated with emotional, verbal, and even physical abuse, it is very possible the child will grow into an adult with a heightened risk for anxiety, depression, self-doubt, low self esteem, lack of self worth, and self loathing.

While a healthy mother protects her child early on from harm and danger of the outside world… the narcissistic mother is the SOURCE of fear for her children and distorts the child’s self perception. Instead of being given the knowledge and tools to build and maintain a healthy self-esteem, children of narcissistic mothers have seeds of doubt and low self-worth planted deep into their being.

While a healthy mother embraces her child with unconditional love and acceptance to provide confidence and a safe space to discover and grow into who they are, the narcissistic mother gives performance-driven, conditional love – only for stakes to be raised even higher without the reward being given. This creates a persistent sense of anxiety, self doubt, and distrust.

This is where it all starts. Narcissistic mothers contaminate their defenseless children who trust and depend on their mothers for love, attention, validation, guidance and protection.

Your narcissistic mother managed to always find fault in you. And even when you work hard to make the changes and improvements, you hardly get an acknowledgement. Always leaving you to question, “Why can’t I ever be good enough?”

Regardless of what you’ve achieved, your mother has achieved more. Whatever challenges you are struggling through, your mother’s struggles overshadows yours. She absolutely refuse to acknowledge, accept, and appreciate you as your own person, because you are simply an object she uses as a step-stool to make herself feel superior.

The narcissistic mother is emotionally and mentally fragile, and as such, she needs constant validation of her sense of importance and superiority. Her emotions are like a never ending psychological roller coaster.

At any given moment, she can burst into a full-blown rage because you failed to meet her demands (that she never told you about, but you were expected to know anyway), and the next moment, she’s love-bombing you because she needs something. There is little or no consistency in the narcissistic mother’s household. Her children walk on eggshells every day, fearing their mother’s rage.

Many adult children of narcissistic mothers continue to believe mom can’t accept them because there’s something wrong with THEM. Many are absolutely blown away when they first realize others have experienced very similar abuse in the hands of their mothers during childhood.

The bottom line is, what your mom is, is NOT your fault. No matter what she’s said throughout your life – and may continue to say until the end of times. Processing this is painfully challenging because all we see is a MOM. We expect her to play the role of a mother… behaving like the loving moms everyone else has. But mothers are humans too. And like all humans, some moms become very sick. If you have a narcissistic mother, she has a personality disorder – an illness that’s very difficult to repair.

It can feel almost impossible to deal with a narcissistic mother, but you can survive and rise above her behavior. Turn to those in whom you can trust for validation for who you really are. You’ve probably asked yourself, “Why do others commend me for being a great person while my own mother constantly accuse me of being a horrible disappointment, no matter how hard I try to prove myself worthy?”

As a child of a narcissistic mother, you’ve been looking at a reflection of yourself thru a very distorted mirror that’s been constantly manipulated by your mother. And as such, it’s of utmost importance for you to turn to your trusted circle of support who will hold up a clear mirror in front of you. A mirror that hasn’t been tampered with. One that reveals your wonderful TRUE self!

You grew up leaning on something that was very damaged. It’s very sad and unfortunate. But while you couldn’t defend yourself as a child, you can defend yourself as an adult. You must begin healing and rebuilding, so you can step out of the lies your mother conditioned you to believe about yourself.

It’s time to see and accept the narcissistic mother for who she really is… and more important, it’s time to step into who YOU really are.