Status Updates From Mothers Who Can't Love: A H...

[...] If she perceives that something was meant to embarrass or diminish her in any way, you’re likely to find yourself facing her suspicious accusations. The relationship between narcissism and paranoia hasn’t been fully explored. But when the narcissist takes one of your benevolent gestures as a deliberate attempt to embarrass her, you can feel the connection.

Even the most well-intentioned act or statement can be distorted through the narcissist’s self-referential lens and her insatiable need to look good.

"I’m sad to say that that’s highly unlikely. Narcissistic mothers are close to impossible to please.
Daughters resist accepting this. They keep hoping for the perfect words, the perfect gesture, that will let them hear the words “Thank you” and “I love you” from mothers who so rarely express real affection and gratitude."

Oh good, it is a relief to know I can just ignore the guilt of the exhaustion of trying.

These battles may well be a window into the roots of your mother’s sense of deprivation; it’s quite possible that she’s reenacting old patterns between her own sisters and brothers when she manipulates you and your siblings. But this time, while her own kids start to be jealous of one another, she can remain above the fray. This time, she wins.

Apparently, Golden Child and Scapegoat status can be shuffled between siblings, depending on who pleased her the most at the time.

"What you experience is the push-pull sense of wanting to succeed but being held back by some mysterious force, which is often a deep sense of guilt. Your mother has taught you that you can’t, and shouldn’t, go for what you want. You’ve learned her most important lesson: Don’t outshine your mother."

OH 💔

'An adult daughter who longs for renewed closeness with her narcissistic mother frequently considers such alternatives and stalls at the threshold, clueless as to why she’s procrastinating on a high-profile project or putting on weight on the eve of an important appearance. The process isn’t rational, and for the most part, it’s not conscious."

Tell me more???

"And at least momentarily, she enjoys the reflected glory of your success. After all, she’s your mother, and she can take some credit—even most!—for your accomplishments. Your success is also often a screen onto which she can project her fantasies about being young, desirable, capable, and talented."

Oh, on point.

“I deserve it because I’m superior.” VS “I deserve it because I need to feel superior”

This story of Jan triggered a childhood memory where I was singing and Mother criticized me out of the blue and went on about how she could be a famous singer by then if it was not because of her marriage and her children.

I guess that was why I never bother to sing or learn to sing or whatever.

"Her mother’s constant theme—you’re not good enough—replayed and escalated in her head until the only way to escape it was to shut down. So that’s what she did."


If I said I did not have tears as I read this line, that means I am lying 💔💔💔

If you’re enjoying yourself, you must be neglecting something important, or getting in trouble. Your eyes are too small. Your nose is too big. You’re too fat, too thin. Your legs are too heavy, or they look like toothpicks. They may flatter you by spinning grandiose fantasies around you, but when you fall short of their ideals—that is, when the fantasies are revealed to be just that—they criticize even more.

"Yelling, screaming, and insults to your worth are common responses to even neutral comments that disagree with the enraged narcissist’s point of view. You’re judged as good or bad depending on whether you totally support her."

Ah yes, classis ones.

"A severe narcissist is highly unlikely to admit being wrong, no matter how egregious her behavior, and she’ll say whatever she feels she must to portray herself as being in the right. She’ll lie about what she has promised, lie about behavior that you’ve witnessed, and lie about what other people have said and done."

Oh good so it is confirmed that Mother is the Narcissist type?

"Daughters try again and again to hold up a mirror, hoping that this time, things will be different. But severe narcissists stay true to form, responding to any confrontation with drama followed by deflection and a focus on your shortcomings."

💔

She’d most likely allow the possibility of another point of view. But any time you disagree with the severe narcissist, or criticize her, her raw nerve endings tell her only one thing: She’s been attacked.

What we know concretely is that people with NPD behave in ways that are highly dramatic, emotional, and sometimes bizarre. And we know that severely narcissistic mothers are dysfunctional and destructive to their daughters.

These daughters become accustomed to being pushed aside, treated as an accessory or fading into their mother’s long shadow. Their confidence and natural enthusiasm evaporate as the narcissist takes credit for their accomplishments, and blames them for her unhappiness. Her needs, ego, and comfort—not theirs, they learn—almost always come first.

From an unloving mother, a girl develops high tolerance for mistreatment, and at the darkest end, a battered child may become a battered adult or an abusive mother herself.

Much of their behavior is driven by forces outside their conscious awareness, or emotions they are afraid of confronting: a crippling sense of insecurity, an unshakable feeling of deprivation, deep disappointment in their own lives. As they look for relief from their own fears and sadness, they use their daughters to shore up their feelings of power or agency or control.

What keeps you in the dark is a neat bit of emotional alchemy and amnesia.

Great pressure is brought to bear on daughters to not tell about the verbal, emotional, and even physical cruelties of their past and present. As you can see, for children the rules become clear early: Don’t tell anyone. Don’t even tell yourself.

That’s how you learn to bury, minimize, and mistrust your own truth.

People with reasonably healthy mothers have a tough time understanding that all mothers are not like theirs, and it’s quite common for even a well-meaning friend or relative to
discount an unloved daughter’s pain or blame her when she looks for sympathy.

Of course the Freudian tradition of mother-bashing—blaming mothers for everything that goes wrong—is erroneous, but it is also a fantasy to believe that the role of mother is automatically synonymous with healthy love.

There’s no magic switch that turns on “maternal instinct” and ensures that a woman, especially a troubled one, will suddenly bond with her baby, know and respond to what that child needs, and give her the nurturing she craves.