Each child desires to be cared and loved by their mother. The child’s sense of worth comes from the bond that is nurtured by the parent. When we feel we matter, this allows us to attract other good people and form lasting relationships.
A person with a narcissistic personality believes they are right. They are vindictive by nature. Recently, I worked with a 65 year old woman whom I will call Sarah. Sarah wanted help to find a way to connect with her mother before she dies. Her mother is 90 years old. Sarah describes her childhood as cold and distant. She kept telling me that she grew up in the era where children were seen and not heard. She is the adult child who lives closest to her aging mother, and she shares that her mother never says thank you for all the driving and chores she does for her. Sarah is feeling angry and resentful that her mother is taking her time and kindness for granted, and she says this is no different than when she was a child. Her mother demands obedience now, just as she did back in Sarah’s childhood.
I often direct clients to listen to Dr. Ramani, who is a psychologist in California specializing in narcissistic personality disorder. Dr. Ramani has noticed that when a child is raised by a narcissistic mother, they may likely become an anxious person, always second-guessing themselves, and never trusting that someone has their back. They may have problems regulating themselves, like eating or drinking, because their mother never learned or modelled self-regulation. As well, they may not get the opportunity to regulate themselves because they don’t get to talk in the language of emotions. If your narcissistic mother was focused on appearances, the long-term effects can be an adult who struggles with food and body issues. The other long-term effects can be attracting narcissistic partners, or staying too long at work working for a narcissistic boss. You may feel isolated because you do not trust others, never developing the secure sense of Self. Or you may not trust that others will truly care for you. You may feel guilty or embarrassed about the relationship with your mother, and so you do not confide in others for fear that they will not understand or will judge you. This can lead to a sense of grief.
Sarah describes how her body braces and how she is always feeling anxious and angry when talking to her mother. Her negative self-talk about these interactions make her feel guilty. She feels it is her responsibility to make peace with her 90-year-old mother. I heard that her mother never asks how she is. I heard how Mom expects and demands that her needs be addressed on the same day regardless of what Sarah is doing. Sarah’s goal in therapy was to find a way to be close to her mother, in the hopes this will improve their mother/daughter exchanges.
After exploring early childhood themes of feeling neglected, I helped Sarah to see that parenting herself (inner child work) may help “little Sarah” to feel she matters. When you support the early child wound, over time the person has less need for outside approval and begins to feel more worthy. Inner child work means you are parenting yourself from the inside. For Sarah, this did have an impact of softening and making her realize how much pain she has been holding onto. However, as Mother’s Day was approaching, her inner guilt and tension about what to do about reaching out to Mother brought up more anger.
I heard how her mother tried to compliment her. Sarah did not respond. There was another example of a repair put out by Mom, and again Sarah did not respond. This highlights the stuck or cut-off mechanism of attachment in the giving and receiving in mutual relationships. It now made sense why Sarah holds herself back from connecting. To protect her child heart, her child brain shut down a part of the attachment mechanism to not receive, to avoid feeling hurt or disappointed by being overlooked by her mother. It now changes the reality of the situation because Sarah does not want to make herself vulnerable in her mother’s presence, and so no matter how we talk about ways to connect, Sarah is not willing to receive from her mother.
The focus of counselling switched then to Sarah finding ways to decrease her feelings of guilt and shame about how she feels and treats her mother. To start, we talked about telling her close friend, who likes Sarah’s mother, about her true feelings. The exercise is to say out loud, to a trusted person, her secret feelings without being judged. I also suggested Sarah write a letter to her mother from the perspective of Little Sarah. Do not filter this letter. It is a letter she will not be giving to her mother. Once completed, read the letter out loud, take in a few deep breaths, and then rip it. Then light a candle for “little Sarah” to honour how “little Sarah” took care of her own needs to the best of her ability. Honour the woman she has grown into today, despite not getting the love and support she needed and wanted from her mother. Then, light a candle and say out loud, “I let go of the guilt that makes me believe I need to take care of my mother. I now realize I need to take care of me to help my growth and stay connected to my children.”
This is not an easy exercise! Sarah’s mother’s expectations of Sarah feel like a trauma bond which confuses Sarah’s child heart when she purposely distances herself. Adding to these expectations are the feelings of isolation by societal pressures to respect our mothers and/or the elderly. Sarah is also contemplating hiring a compassionate-care person to take her mother to appointments and provide social stimulation.