It’s Mother’s Day Again?

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The term narcissism is thrown around loosely these days. We need to remember that narcissism is a trait that appears across a spectrum and that people can have a few or many traits along that continuum. The more traits one has, the more likely it is that narcissism is causing harm in their parental and other relationships. Maternal narcissism is difficult to process, so let’s unpack it a little here.

As we progress through each stage of development, when our parents nurture and love us, we ideally grow up feeling secure and that our emotional needs are being met. But when a child does not receive such nurturing, they grow up lacking emotional confidence and security and must figure out a way to gain these by themselves. It's not an easy task.

Normally, a mother interacts with her baby and responds to their every movement, utterance, and need. She thus fosters a solid bond of trust and love. The child learns to trust the mother to provide physical necessities, emotional warmth, compassion, and approval, which allows the child to develop self-reliance. But a mother without compassion, who fails to forge a bond with her children, provides for that child only when it is in the mother’s best interest. The child thus learns that they can’t depend on the mother. The child grows up apprehensive, worried about abandonment, expecting deceit at every turn. In a narcissistic family—one led by a narcissistic parent—the central theme is that the parent's needs take precedence over the child’s.

A striking example of the effect of maternal narcissism is exemplified in a dream told to me by a client, George, who was 54 at the time. The dream has recurred throughout his lifetime, beginning when he was a child and continuing into adult life.

“I’m walking through a summery green meadow carpeted with wildflowers and shaded with stately trees. There’s a melodic brook whispering through the tall grass. In a clearing, I spy a beautiful, spirited horse, which is grazing, unperturbed by my approach. I run to the horse joyously, anticipating her whinny of appreciation and approval as I offer the apple I picked from a nearby grove. She ignores me and the fruit and viciously bites my shoulder instead, then returns to her foraging with complete indifference.”

After reporting this dream, George said to me sadly, “If my own mother can’t love me, who can?” George came to understand that the horse in the dream represented his longing for a fantasy mother, the one he wished he had, as well as his real mother, who typically turned away and did not respond to his needs for love and approval.

It's a natural human feeling to long for a mother who loves everything about you absolutely and completely. It’s normal to want to lay your head on your mother’s breast and feel the security and warmth of her love and compassion; to imagine her saying, “I’m here for you, baby,” when you reach out for her. We all need more than the roof over our head, food to eat, and clothes to wear. I always say you can find that in an orphanage. We need the unconditional love of a trusted, loving parent.

Cerena, who was 30, was chatting with me one day about her mother and telling me about her therapy. She encapsulated the longing for maternal love when she said, “When I am talking to my therapist, sometimes I want to jump in her lap, curl up on the couch with her, and pretend she is the mommy I never had.”

Motherhood is idealized in our culture, which makes it especially hard for children of narcissistic mothers to face their past. It’s difficult for most people to conceive of a mother who's incapable of loving and nurturing her children, and certainly no one wants to believe that of their own mother. Mother’s Day is this country’s most widely observed holiday, celebrating an unassailable institution. A mother is commonly envisioned as giving herself fully to her children and our culture still expects mothers to tend to their families unconditionally and lovingly, and to maintain an enduring emotional presence in their lives, available and reliable no matter what.

Even though this idealized expectation is impossible for most mothers to meet, it places mothers on a heroic pedestal that discourages criticism. It is therefore psychologically wrenching for any child or adult child to examine and discuss a narcissistic mother frankly. It is especially difficult for children whose mothers don’t conform at all to the maternal archetype. Attributing any negative characteristic to Mom can unsettle our internalized cultural standards. Good children are taught to deny or ignore negative feelings, to conform to society’s and their family’s expectations. They’re certainly discouraged from admitting to negative feelings about their mothers. No child or adult child wants to believe their mother to be callous, dishonest, or selfish.

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Sadly, I hear far too many people expressing that they dislike Mother’s Day. If you struggle with the holiday, mixed emotions, anger, or sadness, know that you can feel better and find a better way to live. Recovery is a huge blessing. You can learn to nurture yourself and feel good about who you are. You can also prevent your own children from undergoing what you went through. You can stop the legacy of distorted love if you had or have a narcissistic parent. (Check out my resources and books for recovery listed in the Reference section below.)

You may want to do some work today to start or continue your healing path. Try journaling with the following exercises:

• The ideal parent I wished I had would be…
• What is my narcissistic parent really like?
• The ideal family I wished I had would be…
• What was my family really like?
• How were my parents different in public from how they were behind closed doors?
• Write about the little child you didn’t get to be.
• Write about what you missed as a child that you needed or wanted.
• Complete this sentence: When I grieve the loss of the parent or family I didn’t have, I feel…

Remember that you are not alone in this process and remind yourself it is okay to have the courage to stand in your own truth. If you are a mother, celebrate yourself on Mother’s Day and do something kind and compassionate for your day. Think of other mothers you admire and let them know why. Embrace and deal with your feelings so they don’t deal with you, but also know there is always opportunity hope and recovery.

My new book, Will the Drama Ever End? Untangling and Healing from the Harmful Effects of Parental Narcissism, will provide a complete recovery program.