You're Not Crazy - It's Your Mother (2 page)

Part One

All About Narcissistic Personality Disorder

What is Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

The official definition of NPD is in Appendix I. But it is hard for laypeople to relate to, and is in the process of being amended anyway so might be out of date by the time you read this. And so I give you instead a layperson’s guide to NPD, to help you recognise it.

Note also that there are ‘cousin’ personality disorders of NPD, and your mother might have some of these too as there can be overlap (hence the official criteria being amended). These ‘cousins’ are Borderline Personality Disorder, Histrionic Personality Disorder, and Anti-Social Personality Disorder (sociopathy). Do read up on these in Appendix II.

Here is my Layperson’s Guide to Narcissists:

She is the centre of the universe and absolutely everything –
everything
– is therefore about her.

When I say that everything is about her, I mean it quite literally. I am not exaggerating, I am not using hyperbole. It is (for her) literally true. I know that it is difficult, verging on impossible, for normal people to get their heads around such breathtaking self-centredness, but the more you can begin to imagine it, the more you can get a glimpse of understanding of narcissism. I repeat:
everything
is about her. Her husband’s death, your stillborn baby, a regional disaster: all important or relevant only in as much as it impacts on her.

She cannot (or will not) put herself in anyone else’s shoes to imagine how they feel. Again, normal people find it hard to imagine this, but this is the fact of it. Empathy is an intrinsic part of what makes us human (although in fairness, other animals have it too; it’s not unique to us), and it is hard to imagine someone without it. But that is the situation with narcissists. No empathy, whatsoever, ever, no matter what’s going on.

She needs to believe she is perfect and does no wrong, ever.

Again, this is not exaggeration. She believes she is quite literally perfect and does no wrong, ever.
By definition
she does no wrong. So if she did it, it’s the right thing to do. Or if it is indisputably wrong, she cannot have done it, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Everyone has to acknowledge that she is both the centre of the universe and perfect, and treat her accordingly.

It’s not enough for
her
to know that she’s the Centre Of The Universe, and perfect, oh no. Everyone else has to know this too, or at least behave in a way that respects her position, and constantly reinforce this belief for her.

The main way she knows that someone is honouring her position as Centre Of The Universe is if they’re paying her attention. Lots of attention. The kind of attention she prefers is admiration, but fear works well, too, if that’s all she can get. And pity, failing even that.

This attention is called
Narcissistic Supply
. It’s described as being like a drug for narcissists, but I think it’s much more akin to food and drink, i.e. essential for their survival. (In this case, their psychic survival.) This is why they will do anything needed to ensure their Narcissistic Supply.

You, as her daughter, are in a very good place to give her this Narcissistic Supply. You’re available, probably, and you’ve been trained to do that since birth. It’s an endless job as her tanks need constant filling. She needs attention
constantly,
not occasionally or intermittently. Her tanks are more a sieve than a waterproof container.

Now most people like attention, don’t get me wrong. (Having said that, daughters of narcissistic mothers can struggle with that, of which more below.) We can all feel stroked and pleased when people are focussed on us. But the difference is that we
like
it, we don’t
need
it, as they do. And we don’t desire it constantly, again, as they do.

In a very real sense, narcissists are stuck being emotionally between three and six years old. Children of that age go through an appropriately narcissistic stage, when everything is about them. Most of us grow out of it. Narcissists don’t. So, by being raised by a narcissist you were raised with someone with the emotional maturity of a small child. No wonder it was so awful. It’s equivalent to being raised by a toddler.

Narcissistic mothers fall into two categories: Ignoring Mother and Engulfing Mother.

The Ignoring Mother has zero interest in you. You will be mostly ignored, perhaps neglected. You will probably not be taught basic self-care techniques, for example. She won’t come to your school events, or if she does (for the look of it, lest others think less of her for not going), she won’t show much interest. She’ll probably talk to you of how well another child did, with only perfunctory praise for you, if you get any praise at all.

This is hugely disconcerting as it means that you never feel seen. I myself had an Ignoring Mother, and grew up always to be the clown, the entertainer, always ‘on’. Not in an ego way, not to be adored or admired. Merely to be seen, to know that I existed. It was exhausting, both for me and, I am certain, for those who experienced it. I now realise I do not have to do this any more and it is the biggest relief.  I also think my life-long weight issues had to do with this – with taking up enough room in the world so that I knew I existed.

However, bad and all as it is to have an Ignoring Mother, in truth it’s much worse having an Engulfing mother.

Engulfing Mothers think, as do all narcissists, that it’s all about themselves. Unfortunately they seem to perceive ‘themselves’ as including their daughter. Their daughter is not a separate person for them, but merely an extension of themselves.  And as such the Engulfing Mother will try to run the daughter’s life for her. She’ll have an opinion on everything from the clothes she wears to her family-planning decisions.

Geri, who has an Engulfing Mother, relates how her mother would even ask intimate questions about her and her husband’s sex life! And she’d ask it as if it was the most natural thing in the world, and Geri was being
most
unreasonable not to want to share that information. Equally, an Engulfing Mother might share inappropriate information with you, such as details about
her
sex life, and she might start doing this even when you’re very young.

The Engulfing Mother will not see any differences between you and her. She might insist that you like cabbage when in fact you hate it – but she loves it. Or, as happened to Amy on our forum, she might make you put on a jumper when she’s cold, despite the fact that you’re insisting that you’re warm enough. She truly cannot see the difference between her and you. If she loves cabbage or is cold, then you
must
too.

They might also try to take over your children. Annie relates how her mother received news of the new baby’s birth by telling people, ‘My new baby was born today’. They might try and get the children to call them ‘Mamma’ and their mother by her given name. They probably will undermine their daughter’s parenting rules without scruple or concern. ‘I know Mummy said you can’t have sweets before dinner, but I’m telling you that you can. Don’t mind what Mummy says.’

In this way the abuse continues to the next generation as this, of course, is totally confusing for the children.

Daughters of Engulfing Mothers can end up living near their mothers, and having their mothers involved in every aspect of their lives. On the surface this all looks wonderful – who doesn’t appreciate a close mother-daughter relationship after all? The daughter herself might even think she has a great relationship with her mother and is so lucky. She might say, and mean it, ‘My mother is my best friend’.

And so, it’s far harder to extricate yourself from the clutches of an Engulfing Narcissist because you don’t even realise you’re trapped. And even when you do realise this, the psychological tentacles which are wrapped around you are very difficult to remove. In addition there can be practical and logistical tentacles too, such as living together in a co-owned house, which just add to the problem.

It has been known for years that Narcissistic Personality Disorder runs in families, but it was not known whether that was nature (i.e. genetic) or nurture (i.e. caused by abuse or over-indulgence). The consensus seemed to be more towards thinking it was caused by how the child was reared, but with no basis for that as there had been little research done on it.

On our forum we have long considered that there must be a genetic component because so many DONMs have narcissistic children, despite raising them well. And recently this has been borne out by a study (by W. J. Livesley, et al at the University of British Columbia) which has found a clear genetic link.

So that means she can’t help it?

Yes and no. She can’t help having NPD. But she can still help how she acts. NPD is not a defense in court. She is not insane. She chooses her actions. We discuss this more in due course.

The elements of narcissism shared above manifest in different ways of your mother’s behaviour and her treatment of you. I am sure you will recognise many of them.

One of two possible situations applies to your narcissistic mother at any time: she is either getting enough Narcissistic Supply or she is not. There is no neutral ground for her. I coined the terms
Narcissistic Glow
and
Narcissistic Huff,
respectively, to describe the narcissistic mother’s reaction to those two situations.

Narcissistic Glow
is the glow and joy and incandescence, and quiver and excitement and joy that narcissists get when their narcissistic egos are being fed. They can look truly beautiful and happy when they’re experiencing the Narcissistic Glow. The Glow can also appear in satisfaction when they’ve upset you or otherwise gained supremacy over you. One DONM described her mother as being ‘incredibly beautiful’ when she had this glow.

The corollary to the Glow is the
Narcissistic Huff
.
It describes the sulk, huff, glower, mood, pursed lips, etc they manifest when they're NOT getting enough Narcissistic Supply. This is a danger sign, and often presages
Narcissistic Rage
, of which more below.

Because she is perfect all the time, she cannot do any wrong, by definition. Therefore if you bring any wrongdoing of hers to her attention, she will have a range of defences to make it not so. This is akin to the wishful thinking of a toddler who will
swear,
up down and sideways, that she did not eat the cake, regardless of the chocolate stains all over her face. She thinks that if she says it often enough and hard enough, it’ll be true.

So your narcissistic mother is quite happy to rewrite history. This is known as
gaslighting.
It’s named after a 1940s film called, appropriately,
Gaslight
, where the baddie husband turned down the gas supply in the attic, so that the gas lights in the house flickered due to insufficient fuel. When the wife commented on this, he laughed at her and told her she was imagining it, that the lights were perfect – and that was his first step to convincing her she was losing her mind.

The first line of gaslighting defence is to simply deny the incident even happened. You might say, ‘Mum, it upset me when you said in front of everyone that I’d put on weight’. She will look you full in the eye and announce with absolute certainty, ‘I never said that’.

And if she says it with enough conviction and certainty (oh, and she will!), then you’ll very possibly end up believing her statement over your own perceptions and memories.

So, not only does she abuse you (telling you that you’re fat in front of your friends, in this example), but then she denies it even happened! It’s a double-whammy. So you’re left reeling, feeling hurt about the first layer of abuse, and confused about the second.
This leads you to doubt your own perception, to question your own sense of reality, and is, in my opinion, one of the two worst aspects of the abuse we daughters of narcissistic mothers (DONMs) receive. (Teaching us that we’re born broken, as explained below, is the other.)

Consider too that as her daughter, you’ve been subject to this from the day of your birth, so you have had days and months and
years
of this psychological abuse. Add to that the fact that children are biologically programmed to believe their parents, and it makes it even crueller because we are so incredibly susceptible to the lies. 

She might pooh-pooh your memory and say patronisingly, ‘Oh no, dear, I didn’t say that. Your hearing/memory is going, you’d want to check that out. What I said was that it was good that you
hadn’t
put on weight’.

My own mother said once, to me, over a memory we were disputing (picture this in the most patronising tones you can possibly imagine): ‘Now, Danu. You’re a fiction writer. And you’re a
very good
writer. But it does mean that you have a
very
vivid imagination.’