Is my mother a narcissist?
Hey there!
I'm a 24 year old woman who recently came back from studying abroad and since I've grown as a person, I realise many things that are not quite right.
I'm not really sure my mother is a narcissist or not and maybe I need some help figuring out because I come from a place where people will put their parents first no matter what but I still feel hurt and things feel off. So, here it goes: she won't apologise when she makes a mistake, when I don't do what she wants me to do, she will get mad at me and just ignore me completely for days if I do what I wanted in the first place (what I wanted do being leaving my bike at my boyfriends house because it was too late to come back home biking, having lunch at his house once a week, taking on a job related to my architecture career, buying a present for someone dear to me...). She will also do this when I don't think the same way she does or see things the way she does. Although she has expressed once or twice that she admires me for some of my abilities, I have also felt very pressured to succeed in everything and more and it has brought me depression and anxiety problems, since I've become an overachiever and I usually felt like a failure when I didn't achieve my goals all the time. I've had to teach myself how to deal with this and to be okay when I don't perform as well as I thought I should have. She will make mean remarks disguised in jokes like saying 'you're so stupid' 'you're too fat, I can't believe you fit in that dress' 'you eat too much/too little' 'you look sick/bad'. Another thing she does very often is telling me she knows better, that I don't know anything about life, that I'm just a kid and I should do as she says (I'm 24 btw). I try not to argue with her. Like... I state my opinion but try not to get into an argument. So yeah, I often feel belittled by her, as if I wasn't an intelligent human being capable of making her own decisions.
Another thing she does is, whenever I'm doing something, she'll come and say 'what are you doing that for?' 'you're crazy' if I do something she's not familiar with, or 'you're doing it wrong /you don't know how to do this' if she is familiar with what I'm doing. She'll say that I'm always picking fights when just trying to express my feelings and when I tell her that something she did hurt me, she will say I'm being dramatic, that she never said or did that, which hurt me. She will say I never do chores when I clearly do and my father acknowledges it.
On the other hand, she has no real friends (willingly) and will speak ill of all the people she comes in contact with, be it family or "friends". No matter how good they are, she will always have something bad to say about them.
Can anyone relate to this? I'm not sure that she's a narcissist but she does have these attitudes that make me feel bad and that she will just dismiss as me being dramatic when I try to address the subject.
@Justapartofmylife I come from a similar cultural background as yours, where parents can "overpower" the children by a single statement "I'm your mom, don't you dare talk back to me. Who do you think you are?"
The traits you mentioned are very similar to my narc mom. Similar to you, I only "figured her out" after 15 years of hibernation under her lies and belittlement. I sincerely don't want you to end up in a similar spot like me. It'll be more upsetting... the more you try to please her.
Since a narc has no empathy and views everyone lower than herself, she'll always talk trash about anyone, anytime she wants to. Anything you do is to "serve" her, not against her (even if you are the right one & she's the crappy one). If you "dare" to set boundaries, or make statements that she doesn't expect to hear from you, she'll claim that you are crazy, that you are making things up, or you are being mean.
From my experiences... don't try to please her. Whenever she tries to tell you to do things her way (and you know you don't want it that way), literally try to retreat from further conversation with her about those things & do it the way you want anyway. The more you try to appease her, the more she'll walk all over you to feed her sense of power. It's not worth it. I wasted 15 years of my life to recognize this 
Thank you for sharing your experience and advice, I will really try to apply it whenever I feel conflict arising
@Justapartofmylife I also come from a similar cultural background and am trying to figure this out myself. When my dad and I get into arguments- he tends to shout over me, invalidate my feelings/perspective and insult me in every regard. I feel like he's created his own narrative where everything I do is meant to hurt him and belittle him so he always feels threatened. I hope things go well for you and your mom learns to communicate with you in a healthy manner. If not- you're 24 and living independently. You get to decide how much your mother's words affect you. Like someone else said in the forum- you do you!
Thank you so much. 💕
I relate to this, my mom has become a horrible person since my dad passed and me and my siblings just want to cut her off permanently. I wish we didn't have to but her behaviour has been so toxic and disruptive to everyone else's life that it would be better for us
Many people are like 'but family is forever, they're always there for you' well, not always. Besides, if it's our mental health at stake here, it's not worth it to stick around just because we share the same genes. I hope you can figure out what would be better.
Hi, this does indeed sound a lot like a narc, but could also be a codependent mother. I’m having issues sorting out what my own mother is. I’m 35 and just figuring this out after so much time of gaslighting. I didn’t understand anything was wrong until my husband pointed out she acts like this even towards our daughter. And that’s not okay. Recently she yelled at my daughter for helping out because she assumes she had thrown things away. Then she realized my daughter just had placed everything very properly and pretty and couldn’t even say sorry for yelling at her for nothing. After that she said to me “I don’t want you to feel unwelcome” and I said “well we don’t feel welcome when you scream at us” then she got mad and gaslighted me. I was “too sensitive and playing the victim”. You’re not alone and I’m happy you are figuring this out now. Please don’t ever let your mother treat your kids in the future the same way she treats you. I did this and I have so much regret😢 I highly recommend you read about codependent parents as well. I’m leaning more towards that my mum probably is codependent, however my sibling and dad is definitely narcs.
Thank you very much, I will read about it and I'm so very sorry you've been through this with your husband and daughter as well. Stay healthy, these situations may affect our mood but let's not let them affect our emotions. 💕
