What is Maternal Narcissism?

Maternal narcissism is the level of narcissism a mother displays. It can range from a few narcissistic traits to narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).

Maternal narcissism is hard to talk about because mothers are highly regarded in our society. 

I believe this packs on the narcissism they are not held accountable. 

Many daughters spend their lives thinking there is something wrong with them. 

They look elsewhere to find the answer. 

A mother is usually the primary caregiver. It’s through the mother that the daughter learns to trust people or not.

A narcissistic mother has serious implications for daughters. Daughters feel unworthy of their mother’s love. They feel like they are only valued for what they do, and not who they are.  

She feels this empty void and emptiness and she doesn’t know where it’s coming from.

A mother doesn’t have to be diagnosed to cause damage. Exhibiting some narcissistic traits is enough. 

Mothers are protected under the veil of motherhood, society, cultures and religion. She almost never questions her parenting. And doesn’t accountability for her damaging behaviors.

The best way to describe what maternal narcissism looks like is the lack of empathy and the inability to give unconditional love. 

These mothers cannot tune into the emotional world of their daughters.

The American Psychiatric Association estimates that 1.5 million women in our country alone are diagnosed with NPD.

Narcissism is a spectrum disorder and we live in a narcissistic culture the prevalence may be much bigger.

First let’s start with how clinicians diagnose narcissistic personality disorder

1. Grandiose sense of self-importance
2. Preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love
3. Believes he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by or should associate with other special or high status people
4. Requires excessive admiration
5. Has a sense of entitlement – has unreasonable expectations of favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
6. Is interpersonally exploitative – uses others to achieve his or her own needs
7. Lacks empathy is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of them
9. Show arrogance, haughty behaviors

1. Grandiose sense of self-importance
   1. A mother who only talks about herself.
   2. She doesn’t ask the daughter about her or takes interest.
2. Preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love
   1. A religious mother who believes that she is the daughter of a king (GOD).
   2. That she can do anything that she wants.
   3. That she is special and has a gateway directly to God to help her get what she wants.
   4. She is rich because her father is rich (GOD). She can ask to make her rich and he will
3. Believes he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by or should associate with other special or high status people
   1. A mother treats servers around her in a restaurant as her servants answering to her beck and call
4. Requires excessive admiration
   1. A mother who demands that a daughter be grateful for all the sacrifices SHE chose to make.
5. Has a sense of entitlement – has unreasonable expectations of favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
   1. A mother who doesn’t feel like she needs to wait in line.
6. Is interpersonally exploitative – uses others to achieve his or her own needs
   1. A mother who only seeks friends for supply and to boost her ego.
   2. A mother who uses her children to fulfill her needs.
   3. A mother who never attunes to her children’s needs but expects them to do that for her.
7. Lacks empathy is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
   1. A mother who cannot tune into her daughter’s emotional needs.
   2. Instead she invalidates her.
   3. Tells her to be ‘strong’ so she won’t have to empathize with her daugher.
8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of them
   1. A mother who doesn’t have female friends because they are all jealous of her anyway.
   2. A mother who puts her daughter down to boost her ego.
   3. A mother who projects her insecurities onto her daughter.
9. Show arrogance, haughty behaviors
   1. A religious mother who believes she is untouchable because she believes in God.
   2. A mother who knows God will forgive her anyway, so never takes accountability.

Daughters of a narcissistic mother you may have internalized these messages:

• I’m not good enough
• I’m valued for what I do, not who I am
• I’m unloveable
• You have crippling self-doubt

You may also feel:

• Emptiness inside
• Lack of happiness and satisfaction
• You long to be around sincere, authentic people
• You struggle with love relationships
• You fear you will become your mother and worry about your own parenting
• It’s hard to trust people
• Like you had no role-model for being a healthy well adjusted woman
• Like your emotional development was stunted
• You have trouble being a separate person from your mother
• Like you can’t trust yourself and your own feelings
• You feel uncomfortable around your mother
• You find it difficult to create an authentic life of your own

Daughters can stay stuck in the Maternal Narcissism Loop if they don’t work on their recovery

This loop will continue until the daughter finally accepts her mother for WHO she is.

Acceptance sets the daughter free from this loop so that she can start focusing on her healing. 

The goal is for daughters to:

• Learn to meet her own needs
• Love herself
• Separate psychological from her mother
• Work on becoming her authentic self

Why focus on mothers and daughters?

A mother is usually a daughter’s first role model. A daughter learns from her mother how to be in the world, how to be in love, how to be a friend, partner and mother.

A narcissistic mother sees her daughter as an extension of her. She does not see her as a separate person with her own identity.

She puts pressure on the daughter to act and react to the world in the manner that the mother wants. 

The daughter finds herself trying to prove herself to her mother over and over without any hope.

Growing up with a narcissistic mother feels like:

• You didn’t have the mother and daughter bond that everyone talks about. 
• Your mother wasn’t empathetic or saw you
• You may have tried to rationalize this by saying this is just normal behavior. 
• You may have talked to friends or therapists who didn’t understand maternal narcissism. 
• You made excuses for your mother’s behavior and took the blame for not having that bond.
• You most likely made mistakes and felt unworthy, so you self-sabotage.

Understanding maternal narcissism is the key. So you can heal, and create your own sense of identity apart from your mother.

The goal is to become more centered and to be okay with taking up space, you deserve it.

• To heal so that we love and forgive ourselves. 
• To take accountability for our own lives and feelings. 
• To be healthy and understand what we experienced and move forward for ourselves. 

Understanding what our mother’s narcissism did to us is an important step of recovery. 

We have to face the truth of our experiences and our longing for the mother we never got to have.

• Healing will require acceptance. 
• Dealing with uncomfortable feelings and being vulnerable.
• Lastly, facing narcissistic traits you may have that you may not like. 

You are doing the work so that you change the legacy of distorted love.

Even if it’s always been about your mother, it’s YOUR turn now. 

Healing is about YOU now. You deserve this. You are worthy.

Ready to heal from maternal narcissism? Click here.