This signs are in relation to her relationship with her daughter. It is the mother daughter dynamic.
- You find yourself constantly trying to win your mothers love.
- Try to get her attention and approval but never feel able to please her.
- The goal post is always moving.
- Growing up, you need love, attention and approval from your mother.
- The approval needs to be for who you are as a person, not what you do.
- You try to appease her by giving her gifts.
- Showing her what a great guy you’ve picked only to be put down about your choices.
- Your mother emphasizes how it looks but now how it feels
- The narcissistic mother’s mantra: “it’s better to look good, than to feel good.”
- A narcissistic mother sees you as an extension of herself and if you look good, so does she.
- So even though it may look like she cares about you, it’s really all about her and the impression she makes upon others.
- How you look is only important to your mother because it reflects her weak self-worth.
- When you are not on display and can’t be seen by others, you almost become invisible to her.
- To your mother, what you feel inside isn’t important.
- Your mother is jealous of you.
- Your narcissistic mother may perceive you as a threat if you take attention away from her.
- She punishes you by putting you down and stonewalling you.
- She may be jealous of your looks, your material possessions, accomplishments, education.
- Even the relationships you have with your father.
- Criticizes the way you look, your body, your weight.
- Calls you a slut, hoe.
- Your mother is the quintessential mean girl who never grew up.
- What’s insidious about this is that your mother gives you a confusing message. “Do well but don’t do better than mom because it outshines hers.”
- Your mom may act proud that you look good, but punish you behind closed doors.
- In the end it’s all envy and a “hit” on her fragile ego.
- Your mother doesn’t support your healthy expressions of self.
- Since they are almost always in conflict with her own needs, or your mother sees them as a threat.
- As children, we develop a sense of self by exploring, experiencing new things.
- We learn to make decisions about what we like and don’t like.
- The narcissistic mother doesn’t allow this to happen.
- She controls her daughter’s interests and activities. So that they revolve around what the mother finds interesting, convenient, and nonthreatening.
- They won’t encourage their daughters to seek what they are interested in.
- This is why daughters feel like they have no idea who they are apart from their mothers.
- This can go as far as the decision to have a child or not.
- Examples: When a daughter does well in something. Like a school musical, if it isn’t part of the mothers plan, she will sabotage her daughter.
- A narcissistic mother may not attend a graduation and say it’s too hot.
- She may threaten to leave a wedding or make the birth of a baby about herself.
- In your family, it was always all about your mom.
- Narcissistic mothers are so self-absorbed.
- They don’t even consider how their behavior affects their daughters.
- For example: a daughter may be studying a lot because she has a final coming up.
- A mother may guilt her daughter into spending time with her. She tells her daughter she can study some other day or she can retake the class.
- If a daughter start taking antidepressants, the mother makes it about herself. She may say “have I been that bad of a mother that you need to take pills for depression?”
- Your mother lacks empathy.
- Daughters feel invalidated and unimportant.
- Your mother cannot attune to you as a person.
- She has no clue who you are because she doesn’t care to get to know you.
- You try to tell her mom about how you feels or what’s going on in your life. In the end she stonewalls her daughter or makes it about herself.
- Example: A daughter tries to tell her mother about her feelings. The responds by telling the daughter to stop and “just be strong.”
- Your mother can’t deal with her own feelings.
- This means as a child the daughter learned to deny and suppress her own feelings
- The daughter put up a show to meet her mother’s needs.
- It seems that the only feeling a narcissistic mother feels is anger which she shows often.
- Since the narcissistic mother can’t deal with her own feelings, she can’t deal with her daughters.
- The relationship feels superficial with almost no emotional connection.
- Your mother is highly critical and judgemental.
- A daughter of a narcissistic mother is constantly criticized.
- Because of this a daughter becomes overly sensitive about everything.
- Narcissistic mothers are critical because they have a fragile ego. They use their daughters as scapegoats for their bad feelings about themselves. They blame their daughters for their insecurities and unhappiness.
- As children, daughters don’t know that their mothers are being critical because they don’t like themselves.
- Daughters internalize this message as “I am bad or mother wouldn’t treat me this way.” This becomes their truth.
- A narcissistic mother’s criticisms create the feeling of never feeling good enough. It’s incredibly challenging to shake for the daughter.
- Daughters are insecure about any decision they make. In the back of their head they think “what would mother think”?
- Your mother treats you like a friend, not a daughter.
- A relationship between a mother and a daughter should be that the parent takes care of the child.
- Narcissistic mothers use their daughters as their audience to spill all their adult problems onto.
- They use their daughter to meet their emotional needs from a young age.
- Some daughters deal with this friendship because at least their mother is paying attention to them.
- A narcissistic mother may prematurely involve their daughters into the adult world. They do this by talking to them about their boyfriends, sex life, and adult topics.
- You have no boundaries or privacy with your mother.
- A narcissistic mother doesn’t let her daughter be her own person.
- She sees her daughter as an extension of herself.
- There is no privacy and a mother can talk to her daughter about anything. It doesn’t matter how inappropriate.
- She will also tell other people about the daughter’s life.
- Narcissistic mothers fight tooth and nail when it comes to boundaries. This is because he daughter is essentially taking away a part of herself.