You're Not Crazy - It's Your Mother (4 page)

I should point out that Millie was their massive dog. She wanted to bring the whole family, including the dog, to this event. I tell you, my mother would have been in the front row, knitting furiously, at the French guillotine.

Never mind that the dog’s presence precluded that of my husband, who was a) my support that I wanted with me at such a time, and b) the only one of the lot of us who knew anything about cars and therefore was the single most essential person to go.

But usually it’s not funny. A young woman died tragically in my mother’s town. I heard of it when I went to visit her and she said, in that Narcissistic Glow quivering-with-excitement way, ‘I’ve got some bad news for you!’ And proceeded to tell me all about it. And show me the half-page article about it that she had cut out of the local paper, and the paragraph-sized article she’d cut out of the national paper.

She went to the funeral because she knew the woman’s aunt somewhat and her mother slightly. In itself this was culturally reasonable. What was not reasonable, and made me literally sick to my stomach, was the totally inappropriate the way she said, glowing like a firefly, ‘Oh and
both
her mother and aunt recognised me! And her aunt made a point of coming up to me and telling me I was so good to come!’

This was before I realised about NPD but even so I so wanted to tell her, ‘It wasn’t about you, but I knew that would get me a dose of Narcissistic Rage, so I said nothing, to my shame. I felt like a silent collaborator in her voyeurism of this tragedy.

Some narcissistic mothers divide their children in to two categories – that of Scapegoats who can do no right, and Golden Children who can do no wrong.

Growing up as the scapegoat is painful and confusing. Why are you always in trouble, when your sibling never gets into trouble for anything? Why can you not get any of your needs met, while your sibling is showered with attention and material possessions? Why are you always blamed for everything?

If you are the Scapegoat you might well become what’s known as the Identified Patient (IP) of the family. The IP is the person who is subconsciously selected to carry all the problems of the family, to manifest them. So you, as the IP, might be the one with eating disorders, truancy problems, drinking or drugs, inappropriate sexual behaviour. And you are blamed for all the other troubles in the family, because you’re putting everyone under such stress.

You will, no doubt, believe this label. After all, the facts are true, you
do
have these problems. This leads to more feelings of being broken, and is further invalidation.

Your narcissistic mother might even put you into therapy for this. This may, or may not, work in your favour. If the therapist is good enough then s/he will identify what’s really going on, and will possibly even label your mother’s NPD for you. Alternatively a bad therapist will continue the myth that you are the source of the problems, and be yet another person to invalidate you.

Even if you don’t get brought to therapy, it will be ‘known’ in the family that you are the problem child, the difficulty, the source of stress and upset.

It is no fun being the Scapegoat.

However, the Scapegoat is, I believe, the lucky one. Well, comparatively lucky – no child of a narcissistic mother is lucky. However, the Scapegoat is far more likely to seek answers and find them, to escape from the narcissistic web. 

The Golden Child can stay trapped in that gilded cage for her whole life, being the narcissistic mother’s plaything in effect. The Golden Child is usually engulfed, and her life can end up being very enmeshed with her mother’s. On the surface the Golden Child and her mother look to have a very good, and close, relationship. Outsiders might even remark upon it and even envy it. The Scapegoat may even envy it herself and wish she could be as close to their mother.

But it’s not a healthy relationship. It’s enmeshed. The individual boundaries are blurred beyond recognition.

Note, too, that the Scapegoat role and Golden child role can vary depending on the narcissistic mother’s whim. It can even be the same person on different days, which is
very
confusing and leads to more head-wreckingness.

Narcissistic mothers can apply a process called parentification to their children. This means that she will expect her daughter to act as her (the mother’s) parent, to provide comfort to her, to be a sounding board. So the mother might share age-inappropriate (or even just inappropriate) information with her daughter, like details about the mother’s own sex life, or details about her romantic relationships, or money worries.

As a corollary to that, and very possibly existing at the same time, the narcissistic mother might infantalise her daughter in order to keep her weak and trapped, thinking she is dependent on her mother. She may exaggerate the dangers of the world, for example. Or not teach her daughter any of the skills she’ll need to survive in the world such as budgeting.

Narcissistic mothers never apologise. Not properly. Again, it’s because in their own minds they are perfect and never do anything wrong, and so there is nothing to apologise for. If called on some inappropriate behaviour they will try gaslighting and invalidating to deflect the accusation. If, however, that fails, they may possibly be forced into the patented narcissists’
fauxpology
TM.

This false apology takes a variety of forms. There is the classic ‘I’m sorry you got upset’, and its rare cousin, ‘I’m sorry if I upset you”. Or, the invalidation masquerading as apology: ‘I’m sorry that you can’t take a joke’.

Or you might get a sarcastic, eye-rolling, ‘Sorr-eeee!’ in the manner (appropriately) of six year olds being forced to say the word but not meaning it at all.

The flaw in those is this: Each one is pretending to be an apology, but apart from the word ‘sorry’ appearing in it, it’s actually a criticism of
you
!  Either a direct criticism, or an implied one.

And if you say it doesn’t sound very sincere you will be met with Narcissistic Rage and more gaslighting. Maybe, ‘Oh
nothing
ever pleases you! I said sorry, what more do you want? Flesh?’

And you know, deep down, that it’s not an apology. But yet it sounds, on the surface, like an apology. And this inconsistency is another part of the crazy-making, head-wreckingness of dealing with a narcissist.

Here is the anatomy of a proper apology: ‘I did X. I should not have done it. I apologise without excuse. I will do Y to make amends and/or make sure it doesn’t happen again.’ There may be reasons given, because most people are careless rather than malicious, but those reasons will not trump the apology. So, ‘I’m sorry I forgot your birthday. I was so distracted in work. But still, that doesn’t excuse it. Can I bring you out to dinner to make up? And I’ll put it in my organiser so I’ll be sure to be reminded next year.’

You will
never
hear a Narcissist say baldly, ‘I was wrong’.

Once she has fauxpologised she will totally expect things to continue as before. For her, this fauxpology is a kind of Get Out Of Jail Free card. She doesn’t see it as meaning that she has to either make amends, or take steps to avoid the behaviour in future.

Now,
you
apologising to a narcissists works totally differently, needless to say.

Quite often, the narcissist will not accept your apology. Why should she? While you’re apologising you are in the position of a supplicant. And she gets to lord it over you. Which is a lovely position for a narcissist to be in. Why would she want to allow that wonderful situation to end?

And so you might hear, ‘Sorry isn’t good enough.’ Or, one of my own mother’s favourites, a snapped, ‘You should have been sorry
before
you did it.’ (Even as a child I knew the logic was wrong there.)

Or: ‘You will keep apologising until
I
decide that you have apologised enough. And
I
will decide if your apology is sincere or not.’

Knowing what you know now, you won’t be surprised that the narcissist will love the one-upmanship of being in this situation, and you’re more than likely to witness some major Narcissistic Glow in this case.

Okay, sometimes they’ll admit to having done whatever. Maybe it’s impossible to deny. But guess what, it won’t be their fault that they’re doing it! Of course not, they’re perfect, so if they fail it must be some other reason rather than any flaw in them. Classic example: my parents both wanted to stop smoking. My father succeeded and my mother did not. Her explanation: ‘Well, your father managed to stop because I was so very patient with him during his cranky stage. But I could not stop because he got cross and impatient when I was struggling.’

Or my mother’s assertion that she talks too much only because I make her nervous. Or that she never shows interest in my stuff because whatever she does, it’s not right by me and so she’s too tense to react normally.

Narcissists are always victims, never perpetrators. They see themselves as being frequently attacked and are therefore justified in defending themselves. And how do you attack them? By calling them on their behaviour, no matter how mildly you do it. If you say, ‘Mum, I would prefer that you didn’t do X in future as it upsets me’, you will get a reaction which would be more appropriate if you had said, ‘I’m going to kill your pets, burn your house down and torture you for days’. Truly, that’s how it feels to narcissists. Putting a boundary in place feels like an attack on them. Disagreeing with them is tantamount to grievously injuring them.

Every event is twisted into some victimisation of her. It’s amazing how much she will twist the truth and leave out facts to play the martyr.

And, in an exquisite irony, she will have her acolytes, and her co-dependent family members (of which more below), to rally around and give her sympathy for her nasty ungrateful daughter being so mean and nasty to her.

Which further validates that
she
was right and you are wrong, because everyone is agreeing that that’s the case.

Which adds to the head-wreckingness of the whole thing for you. You still have the original upset, and now you have it invalidated and dismissed, and in addition, somehow
you’re
the bad guy?

And, finally, another way of being the martyr and using that to bring you into line is the trump card of, ‘Oh, after all I have sacrificed for you!’. You are reminded how she gave up her big career for you, how much your education cost, how she put herself out to bring you to dance lessons, etc. (Please, please, do not fall for this. It was her decision to become a mother and all of those things were her responsibility as a result of that. You do not owe her anything for giving you what were both legally and morally your rights. You really don’t.)

There are four layers to how a narcissist is:

She first of all wants your admiration. That’s her default state. Admire her, listen to her. Agree with her. Worship her even.

If she doesn’t get your admiration, she’d like your fear. This is where Narcissstic Rage comes in.

Failing that, she wants your pity. She’ll play the victim card as discussed above.

And if even that doesn’t work, she moves onto being vindictive and starting a smearing campaign:

Thing is, they can bear grudges
forever
. Again, this makes sense because if they are so special, so perfect, it absolutely is a capital crime to go against them. They are actually dangerous enough in this respect, because they can wait and bide their time for years to get revenge. And this is why, if you come across a narcissist in your daily life, try to remove yourself with as little drama as possible. Be uninteresting to them is the best advice, and don’t engage them and definitely don’t take them on.

Smearing is one of their big weapons. Smearing means to bad-mouth you to everyone she possibly can. To start a whispering campaign against you. To spread rumours against you. This has the twin benefit to the narcissist of getting her victim status and lots of sympathy (i.e. Narcissistic Supply) on the one hand, and exacting revenge upon you on the other.

Smearing is very, very hard to counteract. It’s all so sly and underhand that you mightn’t even realise it’s happening. The first you’ll know of it is when the friend doesn’t speak to you, or is cool with you. When the business contact stops returning your calls. Even when you ask the friend or the business contact what’s wrong, they won’t tell you. You may be sure the narcissist has anticipated that, and has dealt with it in some way (‘Don’t tell her what I said’).

Whenever I pulled up outside my parents’ house, I sat for a moment before getting out of the car. And in that moment I could feel myself folding my true authentic Self away. What went into their house was effectively a cardboard cut-out that looked exactly like me, but was not ‘me’ in any real sense.  Because, I had learned over many years that the real authentic true me was not welcome. The real me was not approved of, or even tolerated. They wanted the pretty image of me who listened to their stories, never had needs of her own, never rocked the boat, never challenged. The one who played into the fantasy that we were happy families with a happy and healthy and well-functioning relationship.