NARCISSISTIC MOTHERS: THE DAMAGE DONE BY MOMS WITH NARCISSISM

foreign Dr Kim Sage I'm a licensed clinical psychologist this channel is all about childhood trauma and attachment and wounding and healing and hopefully helping you understand what happened to you the past what's happening right now in the present in terms of how that's impacted you in your life and relationships and some information and tools and knowledge to help you in the future that really is my goal and we're in a series now really focusing on narcissism and this video is really a heart a heart filled sort of Brokenness I would say about what happens to

people when they're raised by narcissistic parents and specifically narcissistic mothers now for for practicality's sake we're going to pretend although I do believe it's often layered with other issues trauma mental health borderline we're going to pretend that a parent is for the most part generally narcissistic in terms of what meets the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder at present we know these are often trauma-based things that emerge there's genetics involved in these disorders and while I don't want to label I do believe there is a power in knowledge and a healing once you understand oh my

parent really struggled with this it gives us permission to say it wasn't my fault and I also believe it for me it gives me a treatment plan an understanding of where the the broken cracked pieces and wounds are often with parents who might have narcissism borderline trauma some form that manifests in a consistent pervasive pattern of behavior so let's talk about narcissism now as we go into the mothering role what I think is so Paramount is that for many people now this can be anyone but generally from a from an evolutionary perspective and cultural perspective

mothering the act of mothers not just carrying life in the womb but being the first person to provide potential sustenance if you breastfeed or historically right because historically if you could not breastfeed and there wasn't a community to help you babies didn't survive and so I'm talking about nurturing that's why I'm mentioning that of course there are a million ways to feed your baby as a mother of four I could get into that it's a whole other thing but I will not because there's so much Mom shaming around this issue but it's profound when you're

mothering core person if they really are high on the narcissistic trait Spectrum or you believe they have the disorder because it's so interferes with the act of mothering which should be you know generally unconditional and selfless and available and and soft and and truly you know um safe and if you had a narcissistic mother you did not get a lot of those things you may have had all your basic needs cared for you may have lived in the biggest house on the hill or the smallest place on the planet but it was never really about

you and that's the heart of where the trauma lies so as we go through we're going to talk about quickly the diagnostic criteria for narcissism for the disorder and then I want to go into sort of how this affects us as their children and how it plays out in our lives and relationships and who we might choose or what we might stay or what we might tolerate so when we're talking about though all of these traits I want you to keep in mind that the core part of this too for narcissistic mothers is this idea

that they are either tend to be engulfing like consuming controlling I'm just gonna like literally consume you to the other end which is more ignoring you know I don't see your needs they don't exist and or some combination right and so they might also be in a season where they were more controlling and one more they were more ignoring if they met their own needs it really can vacillate but I want you to keep those in your mind now narcissistic PD is a disorder that is characterized by a pervasive pattern of grandiosity either in like

the Fantasy Life or the actual belief and behaviors a need for admiration a lack of empathy and really entitlement arrogance those kinds of things really beginning by early adulthood and really present in a variety of settings so we wouldn't say oh they're only that way in this relationship it really is the skin that covers their body who they are the first criteria now you have to meet five of these for a diagnosis for example in the DSM-5 I know the DSM-5 is not perfect but it's what we have right now okay number one grandiose self-importance

now we know that the DSM doesn't talk as much about vulnerable narcissism and all the other types of narcissism but there can also be the grandiosity kind of flipped inward where it's like Oh I'm a victim and no one sees how great I am and that's the more vulnerable or covert or passive aggressive narcissist I've got other videos on that here and I will go into more detail in future videos that's the most important thing though is there something about themselves that either they want you to see or know they believe is so great or

you don't see how great they are but there's a grandiosity to that in some sense number two preoccupied with fantasies of success Brilliance Beauty ideal love you know everything is like at the extreme they're they're really focused on that number three they believe they are special and they can really only be understood by other special talented beautiful gifted successful people number four they require excessive admiration right so they need that sense to feel good because remember the core is very the core is very shame based and very not good enough base but they try to

cover all of that up and make up for those feelings by engaging in all of the stuff I'm describing number five sense of entitlement so unreasonable expectations unreasonable expectations of how they should be treated and that you should just you know you should just automatically comply with whatever they're asking because you know they are worthy of it interpersonally exploitive so they basically take advantage of others to their own benefit number seven they lack empathy which is a huge part they are unwilling to identify or accept or label or honor or own their pardon things or

your feelings or the needs of others emotions Etc and lastly that they often show a very haughty or arrogant behaviors now that can play out in different ways with the different types of of narcissism but that's the core center of it right so how this affects us and the research is pretty clear on it affects you know every part of who we are and so I'm going to use those that actually is from my course I have a whole section in a course on this if you happen to be if you happen to be raised

by parents like this but the bottom line is that it goes through all of the things like actually let's just get into it the first one is it affects who we choose and why we stay in relationships and so we're often searching for love searching to be seen finely and validated and loved just as we are but the problem is because if we're raised by this we often don't believe that we are worthy of being seen or valued or loved and so if you're wearing that lens when choosing people that's a problem the other thing

is oftentimes if the other parent let's say even if they were divorced or not the other parent might enable The Narcissist maybe they were so much better in comparison like they're the good parent but they allow that parent to treat you that way they never stop the behavior they coddled them they were afraid of them whatever and I know when they get when parents get divorced it's terrible because you are sending your kids to this narcissist home at times and you have no control over what happens there and I'm you know I'm not talking about

that all to some extent I understand why we blame our parents because we still hold them accountable but there's only so much we can do and that's a whole other video on co-parenting with a narcissist which is frankly pretty catastrophic and devastating it can feel like it never ends because it really doesn't but that's I'm not going to digress there but remember that the other parent plays a role too and we'll get into that in another video so we're looking for the person the partner the job the situation something to give us this final sense

of validation and being seen and being heard and we can end up pursuing degrees careers relationships uh pattern situations all kinds of things in this pursuit to finally be accepted not just by our parent finally even actually if they're alive or when the partner takes the place of the parent like an attachment or by ourselves right we're or we're seeking this inside and so that really makes makes it unlikely if we're not aware we're not doing the work or we just didn't realize it that unconsciously we're often repeating these same patterns and we have no

idea that we're doing that and so we can really find partners that of course repeat the same cycle now I want to say really quickly if you were raised by especially a mother I think especially but it could be a father role who was who really struggled with some form of borderline really intense emotionality and a lack of predictability you can really be seeking somebody who seems really collected and stable and I say it in a bunch of videos but narcissists often present that way in the beginning they're so confident they're often successful they they're

going to control things they've got it figured out and that can feel really deceptively safe if you had a really chaotic parent so number one we often choose the familiar the same because we know what that feels like so we might actually just choose another narcissistic partner extremely common number two we might struggle with decision making because we never were given a sense of self and so we often choose people that we think will be good decision makers and we kind of give over our control our power people who we think we can let them

be the deciders and then we end up giving away our identity our sense of self our preferences things like that but we weren't really allowed especially in really controlling engulfing Dynamics to have any control and so that can seem enticing in a partner number three we often choose Partners who need parenting and so we're so used to doing all the parenting and rotating around that narc parent or taking care of ourselves if they ignored us that we're really good at that compulsive care taking and and just kind of like parenting partners and if you choose

a narcissist who doesn't want to do all the yucky hard stuff like raising kids and taking care of the home and all all the non-glamorous stuff they're really happy to give that stuff to you and initially that feels like really good in controlling for you finally but really it's another way to sort of keep you feeling less than for many people this is a thankless job as much as it is a wonderful job to be the home parent if that's your job it's a very lonely job and narcissists are not great at supporting their Partners

so you're very lonely and that can be a very common theme also number four we can find ourselves in relationships with very avoidant type people or we can be avoidant right and so or we can be extremely anxious and be seeking out avoidant Partners the bottom line is and in my mind many narcissists are very avoidant because they're never really going to be in it with you right they might be anxious and jealous and possessive and that can trigger other things in you but when it really comes to being deeply vulnerable and close you're not

going to get that from them it's going to be very very triggering and you might also have this too because it wasn't safe for you to be vulnerable and so even though you think you're pretty vulnerable and pretty open you have your own walls of protection up inside number five We Believe love is conditional and so we stay in that people pleaser and compulsive caretaking role and that is also a very lonely place to be but we think love must be earned by doing performing delivering and so that's what we choose and that's the role

that we stay in number six we're often raised to shut down our emotional needs because narcissists are not having this reciprocity with us these kind of mothers right they're not a safe open nurturing space and so we don't even know how to access our own feelings or we shut them down or we feel a lot of Shame about those feelings the next one is we often blame ourselves for everything and we choose Partners who are happy to blame us and that becomes a cycle it's all our fault yes it is your fault okay that's right

it's all my fault so that really keeps us down and low and stuck in that sense of worthlessness we're often looking for constant validation because because that's either how we got seen when we were the good child the performer the deliverer mommy saw us as wonderful so that's the only time she said oh I'm so proud of you or what a good job you're doing or what a great dancer you are or whatever and so we feel really insecure often at our core and so we're looking for partners to give us validation and even if

they are generally healthy our need can be kind of great and our sensitivity to anything that feels like criticism even if it's just feedback can be really hard for us to hold because it was so severe in our childhood we can keep choosing unavailable people we're just always chasing those who will never give us love really toxic relationships because that is what we knew and that is the pattern and this time I'm going to get that love I'm gonna I'm gonna chase them and we're so used to that abusive pattern and a narcissistic mother that

we never felt loved back that we will take a lot of toxic behaviors in relationships and along those lines we can tolerate abuse because it was normal and we don't believe we deserve more so we might accept and tolerate verbal abuse emotional abuse passive aggressive behaviors a huge one is Rage and anger which is very common for narcissists and so whether it's internalized repressed yucky Rage or outright yelling and raging at you anger is a whole other issue for you so you don't know how to deal with it or you repress it or you take

it and then you blow but all of that is like connected to that really extreme mismanagement of of behaviors and emotions towards you number 11 we often don't see or recognize narcissist at first especially if they are coverts because they seem so different and it seems like oh we can finally help heal them and support them and they don't feel like they're enough and we're going to give it to them and meanwhile you're like right back in that trap and they can become very overtly grandiose in their abuse towards you especially as the relationship progresses

and or if you leave them the next one is we often have a lot of intimacy issues around our bodies and expressing ourselves in Intimate ways because if you think about the message we got is that we're defective we're flawed and then in the culture and the world we live in it's so conditional historically about what is considered attractive or valuable and then just feeling unsafe in our bodies Our nervous systems aren't safe because we were on hyper alert hyper Vigilant or we were shut down and collapsed because we were neglected by the ignoring mother

that was narcissistic and so just kind of like showing up in Intimate ways which I think is hard for for many different reasons not just narcissistic mothers but it really is hard-pressed to have a real genuine authentic uh intimate experience especially because we're often choosing Partners who are unfortunately like our parent in some way we we've also learned to feel this mismatch in our body between what was said and what was done what was happening and so it's a setup for being gaslit right if your whole childhood your mother said oh I love you so

much but then all the behaviors and stuff you know did not feel like real love it's like God that's confusing you know I don't really understand that but that is normal and so feeling crazy not trusting yourself can lay perfect groundwork for gaslighting that will come in relationships confuse motherly love with control and so being in control was what narcissistic mothers did one way or another The Narrative of the situation the foods you ate the people you dated the things you were allowed to do the Hobbies academics whatever it is and so we can also

struggle with control issues ourselves because that was how we felt like okay if I get it all right and I do it perfectly or whatever but or or control is how you love that is what love looks like so you might try to overly control your children right how this illusion or fantasy that love is about everything looking or being a certain way and that's when you're going to feel like you're worthy and a good mother or a good partner the next thing is we can choose others where looks are the most important so we

can often find ourselves with other shallow people or other angry people who seem like they're not angry but really they are it's like what it looks like on the outside is what matters most so we gravitate towards that because we were taught that manners or beauty or success or privilege or succeeding was What mattered and yet oftentimes those people might also have their own wounds and not have a lot to offer we can be expected to be therapists and they're receivers in relationships because we don't get to give and demand not give we don't get

a demand or ask for what we need and so we're so used to that to being her therapist her best friend her emotional Dumping Ground that we take that exact same pattern we put that in other relationships the next one is we walk around carrying deep shame and deep resentment because we never got to express ourselves we're always just feeling this toxic less than ISM and then there can be like a resentment and anger underneath that you know because we don't feel good we didn't get what we needed and we might project that on others

or other situations and not really know that we're doing that because it's just such a part of our wound we might believe that life has rules and it must be done in this order we can be very rigid because oftentimes narcissists are and that being perfect is the first step to never failing and so we also never try right there's this whole thing there are rules there's procedure you can't fail so if you're not going to succeed don't try we can be hard on ourselves if we show any what we think are narcissistic traits that's

that am I a narcissist people will say because they're just not ever really able to tap into the fact that they are allowed to have needs like God forbid they're demanding or have some request and so that feels like oh my God am I a narcissist too and also narcissist narcissistic mothers will all will oftentimes call you selfish and self-centered and spoiled as a projection of their own stuff and then the last thing is we can surround ourselves by a lot of other wounded people because we can often suffer with our own self-esteem and mental

health issues and we're you know or we're sick a lot or we're afraid and so we can gravitate towards other really wounded people and and the ideal sense that feels really good because we feel like they get us we don't have to wear that mask with them but if we're stuck or they're stuck in their healing and they they kind of want to remain a child and not grow or they don't take any accountability for their lives or we don't we can get stuck in really unhealthy kind of like reinforcing relationships like well then we

become victims right and I think that's the hard part it's like on the one hand I absolutely believe that as a result of my childhood I am a victim to what my parents did and to the toxicity and the chaos and it has you know I don't know what my life would have looked like if I had not had those wounds and yeah I look at other families and I think gosh you know that that must have been nice to have that security and safety at the same time if I stay in that I am

powerless to change my life and so I want to honor that that these wounds are real and they have hurt you and they have held you back and you have struggled and yet I don't want to be identified by those things I want to say yes and and I'm gonna still Chase my dreams yes and I'm going to stand in my truth and I'm not gonna just sit back and accept whatever is handed to me I'm going to work hard I'm going to fight I'm gonna you know try to give myself Grace that's for many

of us this result of these kind of toxic childhoods too is this very driven must do kind of dynamic or a collapsed one where you feel a lot of Shame for not doing and so I'm not suggesting that you have to be the doer to survive it but the end of the day you have to do things to try to heal go to therapy find healthier relationships work on yourself buy online courses listen to podcasts buy books right I mean it at some point all of this is about saying this hurts us to me it's

and I know parents hate to hear this but it's the truth we all hurt our kids in some ways it's just some of us do a lot more damage and so yeah your child might be discussing you in therapy someday that's okay it doesn't mean you're doing a bad thing it just means you're a flawed human being but it'd be nice for them to be able to say at least I saw them trying to change and heal and do the best that they could not every day and nowhere near perfectly but at the end of

the day you are the only one that can heal your life you really are it's the hardest pill to swallow but you are and so I hope that you know that you're worthy of your pain and your story and your loss and it's not fair it wasn't fair and it's not fair now but if you had a narcissistic mother your core wound is often not feeling like you're even worthy of healing your life or that you even can but that is a child's internalization of a toxic wounded other human right that's the core whatever the

labels are these people were often struggling too it doesn't make it okay because justifying abuse by saying well they were narcissists like tell a child in the middle of that it doesn't feel good it's not the answer but at the end of the day you're the only one that can start to heal it so I hope you know that and I'll you know that I see you and I understand and I'm glad you're here and I wish you well please take care and I will see you next week really quickly also too if you're new

here please consider subscribing I would love for you to do that and check out the links down below if you say yeah I think I may have been raised by narcissistic or borderline type parents who struggled and I'm not sure where to go from here I have all also list of books I use and my courses and things like that on my website so check all that stuff out please if you need it and thank you for being here I'll see you soon take good care bye