I didn't come to the conclusion that my mother is a narcissist on my own. This book, Will I Ever Be Good Enough? by Karyl McBride, served as an excellent affirmation tool, which is exactly what I needed to start me down the journey of self-healing. It offered some healing strategies for each stage of this journey, some of which I'm still not ready for, but when I am, I'm glad I'll have it handy. If you are an Adult Child of a Narcissist (ACoN) in need of validation of your experiences, I can't recommend this book enough!
Before I began reading, I knew I would want to keep a journal, and I'm so happy I got one. I identified with so many passages, and felt the urge to write them down so that I wouldn't forget them, along with why they were so important to me. These are my reading notes:
The Ten "Stingers" of Maternal Narcissism
- #2: Your mother emphasizes the importance of how it looks to her rather than how it feels to you.
My mother has always been obsessed with how she looks to others, not just physically, but "reputationally," as well. When I was a kid, she was very controlling about what I wore and how I styled my hair. I specifically remember one school picture day, I hated the way she had parted my hair, and she threatened to punish me if I changed it once I got to school. If memory serves, I'm pretty sure I cried about it at school because I thought I looked so stupid.
When I was ten, I was tired of my long hair because it was too hot and got in my way when I wanted to play. I begged to cut it, and when she finally let me, she cried while the hairdresser cut it. I was so relieved, but I think she was just sad that I didn't look like a little Barbie doll anymore.
When I was old enough to start picking my own clothes, I still wasn't allowed to choose which stores I wanted those clothes from. If something was too dark or too baggy, I was shamed for liking it. The things I liked weren't bright or form-fitting enough to satisfy my mother.
I think she was most worried about looking bad in front of my dad. She's said many times before that it must really bother my dad that me and my brother turned out so well under her care.
- #3: Your mother is jealous of you.
I have a hard time believing this, but I realize that could be a product of my low self-esteem. My mom has made many comments about my weight in the past, and her own weight has been a major focus in her life. When I was in middle school, I put on a little weight, but was not unhealthy. When she pointed it out, I did my best to lose it, and going into high school, I became depressed and lost even more, at which point she became critical again.
I also have to wonder if her three failed marriages are the reason she despises my husband so much, and why she's tried to turn me against him.
- #4: Your mother does not support your healthy expressions of self, especially when they conflict with her own needs or threaten her.
One thing my mother prided herself on was her musical abilities. She could sing and play piano, and sometimes I would sit at the top of the stairs just to listen to her. I used to really love to sing. Sometimes, I still do, but I don't think I'm very good at it anymore. I joined choir in middle school, and my second year in, I was placed in the advanced choir. My third year, I made the school's all-state team to sing competitively. All-state met in the mornings before school started. I don't think my mom ever told me she was happy for me or proud, but I do remember her saying that it was a huge hassle for her to drive me to school in the morning. I dropped out after three practices because I didn't want to be a burden on her. I didn't sign up for choir in high school.
- #5: In your family, it's all about mom.
When I was in high school, I had told a friend that I wanted to die. My friend had the common sense and decency to tell a teacher, and I was pulled out of class to sit in the counselor's office. The counselor called my mother to come pick me up. I can still remember, on the way home, exactly what I was looking at outside the car window when she complained that she was having to miss work because of me. She wasn't sad or upset that I felt like my life wasn't worth living; she was annoyed that she was missing work. She made me and my feelings seem like such a burden on her, that I actually apologized to her for the way I was feeling. I never realized before reading this book how horrible a thing that was for her to say.
- #7: Your mother can't deal with her own feelings.
In the book, a woman offered a story about how her mother was always upset and always blaming everyone else for everything.
My mother had suffered a stress-related stroke in 2017. She blames the work environment she'd been working in, one that I had worked in with her, and the people who worked there for causing her stroke. Thing is, she was just as guilty as they were in fostering combative attitudes in the office. She was mentally incapable of just minding her own business, or letting things go, no matter how small and stupid they were.
In 2018, she took a job at a place she used to work a long time ago. Many of the old faces in that place had gone away, replaced by younger people she'd never met. That was immediately a point of contention for her. I don't think she's fond of younger people being in positions of authority above her. She started butting heads with a co-worker, one of her superiors, who she believed had slighted her. My mother started trying to listen very hard to everything the co-worker was saying in the office, and even though she would only pick up bits and pieces of any given conversation, she insisted that her co-worker was conspiring against her or speaking poorly of her.
One day, I got a call from her, saying I had to pick her up because she was so upset after hearing the co-worker allegedly talking about her. When I got there, she was breathing fast and crying, convinced she was about to have another stroke. On the drive home, I told her that she can choose not to care about what someone says about her. I must have told her that a thousand times, but she never listened. She was determined to be upset. She wanted her co-worker reprimanded or fired for talking about her. I remember talking to my half-sister on the phone, asking her what I should say or do, and she told me that our mother is her own worst enemy, and that there was no talking her out of being a victim. Not her words exactly, but that's how I interpreted our conversation. I think this was the very first time I really began to think that something was off.
- #9: Your mother treats you like a friend, not a daughter.
In the book, it says: "A narcissistic mother who constantly confides in her daughter about difficulties in her relationship with her husband, for example, does not understand how painful this can be for her child. The daughter knows that she shares traits with her father as well as her mother, so criticizing a young child's father is like criticizing the daughter, too... She also feels guilty about not being able to fix the parental marriage problem..."
As an adult, I learned one thing you never do to a child is saddle them with adult issues. My mother became comfortable with criticizing my father in conversations with my brother and I fairly early on in my life. She could go on for hours about how he treated her, his leaving, and how he valued his drinking buddies over us.
I don't know if this was her being my "friend," or her trying to sabotage any chance of developing deeper or more meaningful feelings towards my father. I have always wanted so very badly to be able to love my father, but our relationship was poisoned from the very beginning. Not that he hasn't played any part in hurting our relationship, but everything bad I've ever heard about him came from my mother. I wasn't mature enough to deal with the information I was given. It wasn't fair for my mother to divulge it, not before I was ready.
- #10: You have no boundaries or privacy with your mother.
I've never been allowed a private life or my own secrets with my mother. When I was younger, she would steal my journals, and go through my room and belongings. No matter where I stashed things, especially when I would leave for two months during the summer to visit my father, she would find them and take them.
As I started coming into puberty, I began to value privacy. One night, I was taking a bath, and my mother burst into the bathroom without knocking. I hid myself behind the wall of the tub and she freaked out, assuming something was wrong or that I was hiding something. I told her several times to get out, and when she finally left, I locked the door behind her. Over the years, she has repeatedly made comments about how I don't let her see my bare body.
She has always gossiped about me to my family, and even when confronted about it, she justifies her trash-talking by saying that she has the right to "vent." Knowing her gossip habits, even as a child, I didn't tell her for two years that I'd had my first period because I was embarrassed.
Those are some of the "Stingers" of maternal narcissism. If you want the full list, you'll need to get the book for yourself! The author moves on to identifying different dynamics of the relationships of your family, and what kind of daughter you turned out to be as a result.
The Engulfing vs. The Ignoring Mother
I don't know definitively what kind of mother mine was given these two choices, but at the mention in the book of child beauty pageants, I'm inclined to say "engulfing." My mother enrolled me in child beauty pageants before I was ever old enough to know what was going on. As an adult, I tried to throw away the trophies I'd won at those pageants, only for my mother to dig them out of the garbage bin. Not the can in the kitchen, the bin in the garage. None of them were even first place trophies. They were all second runner-up or just said "photogenic." They didn't even have my name on them! They were utterly worthless to me, and I could never figure out why they meant so much to her until I realized she was a narcissist.
What About The Brothers?
I have three siblings: a brother, a half-sister, and a half-brother, all by my mother. My father made it painfully obvious that my brother was his favorite, but my mom was more subtle. I can't ever remember a time that he was ever really in trouble. She coddled him for most of his life.
When kids at school were cruel to him, she was at his side, raising hell with teachers, coaches, and administrators. When anyone in the family pointed out that he was lazy, unhygienic, or messy, she defended him to the death. No one was allowed to criticize him, even legitimately. He once called me a whore in front of our mother, and she did nothing.
My mother couldn't wait for me to leave home. As soon as my husband and I moved, she gleefully got to work painting our room and dressing it up how she wanted it.
When my brother tried to join the Marines, our mother begged him to stay, but he went away. He failed at boot camp and came home to be a lazy slob again. Weeks of dirty dishes, tissues, beer cans, and garbage piled up in his room, making it impossible to see the floor or walk around. She did absolutely nothing but enable him, but if I left a dish or two in the sink, I was "lazy." When I asked her why she was so critical of me and not my brother, she nonchalantly told me that he always offered her money. Then, my brother suddenly decided to move to China, and our mother acted like her life was over, and that she had no one and nothing to live for.
My half-siblings are Gen Xers while my brother and I are Millennials. I wasn't around to see how my half-siblings were treated and raised by our mother. The way I understand it, my half-brother was a star athlete with perfect attendance, and my half-sister was a rebellious trouble-maker. As it stands now, my half-sister is one of our mom's best gossip pals, and my half-brother is emotionally distant from everyone.
Over-Achieving vs. Self-Sabotaging Daughters
I have definitely never been an over-achiever. I don't take risks because I fear vulnerability and failure. I went a year without applying for jobs which ultimately ended with my husband and I losing our apartment, in part because I didn't think I could do anything right, or even at all. I felt like no one would hire someone who was just a receptionist for five years, so why try? I don't draw anymore because I can't do everything right the first time I try. I realize how unreasonable that is, but I can't shake it. I always feel incapable and inadequate, not matter how hard I try. Even when I manage to do a lot of things correctly, I'm dragged down by one minor failure or mistake, and I feel worthless. I don't feel deserving of love, and I constantly ask myself how my husband has managed to stand me and still love me for ten years. I've been told that I'm a doormat, and I feel like one. I can't set healthy boundaries or stand up for myself, ever. I had to cry to one of my co-workers about my boss treating me like dirt instead of telling him in the moment that he couldn't treat me that way. I have problems telling people "no," even when they make me extremely uncomfortable.
Both of my parents are responsible to some degree for the person I've become. They've rejected me in their own ways, so I think I just want people to like me, and I'm willing to forgo my self-respect to get that approval, usually from people who don't care about me beyond what I can do for them.
I feel like I can't truly begin to live my life the way I want until my mother is dead. It sounds awful, but not having to be reminded of the anguish she has caused me feels like the only way I can be free of how she makes me feel.
Review
As I said at the beginning of my notes, I highly recommend this book for any Daughter of a Narcissistic Mother (DoNM). Affirmation is the first step to healing, and this book can provide it. You are not crazy. You are not the only one. You are not alone.
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