Maternal Narcissism Survey: Is This Your Mom?

Is there a father-daughter version of these sites?

You mean Bipolar disease right?

This disease is genetic and the daughter will most likely get it. The daughter is simply engaging in Behavior which is disease related hence being self-obsessed.

It's silly to blame the parents, unless of course you want to blame the parents for passing along a genetically dysfunctional brain.

I'm a man but my mother has quite a few of those traits listed!

That was my way of calling NPD a myth.

Such people are full blown, mentally ill, Bipolar's .

Everyone knows, Bipolar's will call themselves everything (always less serious sounding) except Bipolar.

... you forgot one thing, even though this is list is very very EXACT in my own experience. You forgot the mother's need to find an illness in her child, so much so that she's goes to great lengths to create one. It has always excited and entertained her, to think that I might be deathly ill. She still gets excited at the prospect that I might have something. I also realize that I've been anethetizing the anger that I have always felt towards her, pretty much all my life. When I actually address, in small part, her behavior, she weeps and wails and wants to be hugged. It's more than bizarre. I know it'sher own childhood that torments her, but unfortunately, she only takes it out on her daughter, not her two older sons.

I thank you so much for creating this list. At first it hit me, pit of the stomach, and now, I (very) unfortunately realize that I'm "not alone" and that others have had to lug this burden around. It would be nice if it stopped now. Lately I've taken different tacts with her, and in my life, and feeling better about it all. I shall look forward to reading your book Karyl, and I'm pretty certain already, that I should just go ahead and pour out a heartfelt THANK YOU before I even read it.

So, THANK YOU.
XO

25 out of 33

You described my mother and my relationship when I was 20. The first few boyfriends I had in my early dating years were exactly like my mother. The boyfriends knew what traits to seek and I was it, low self-esteem, eager to please. Conversely I subconsciously knew going into the relationship that this was a man I was not going to have any problem controlling and manipulating. I learned during my childhood how to make a narcissist putty in my hands. It was all a sick game to me.

Back then there was no Internet and the self-help books on narcissists were few and far between. I did find one book that became my bible, "Toxic Parents", which I am sure in now quite dated. I have healthier relationships with men and learn to bolt much earlier as I can recognize the narcissism signs early. I do think that many boys are raised to be a little self-centered and needy through mothers who enjoy babying them and making them dependent. This is why some men have some real trouble in the dating world as they age, and also can't seem to do a load of laundry or clean their home.

Isn't it sad...just picked up the book recently and I'm wiggling my way through it...to give an example, my mother got fired from her job (of course it was someone else's fault...she even sued) and has called me throughout her unemployment for advice on what wine to bring to a ladies networking night, how to prepare for the interview, 17 phone calls about the interview and 'tell me how good I am' via indirect questions, a facebook post about getting the job which was vague to everyone but me and 3 phone calls last night because she starts the job today...she also once called me from a hotel room saying the airline had lost her luggage, there was a Khol's across the street and she had a meeting in the morning and all she had was a pair of jeans...so, what did I think she should do. ? I no longer enable my mothers illness, but that hasn't stopped her from seeking it out (okay, I may occasionally fall into a hole) Supply. Demand. Did I mention that she failed to acknowledge both my college and grad school graduations? She also threw out my Passport after I came back from a course in Ireland that I had paid for. She wouldn't admit to throwing it out, but she did say, "I don't see what the big deal is. You don't need it now."
Ugh, as a therapist, I'm reading the book also to look for constructive ways to help my clients overcome the effects of neglect they felt in childhood...why is it that some folks can hold onto to good feelings and build self-esteem and other folks are forever seeking out a new host to play parasite to? How do you help them develop their own internal supply of love? I suppose thats the trick of narcissism...you don't 'fix' Axis II...permanently broken, move on. ?? Really?

I read through the list, substituting "wife" for "mother", and (not surprisingly) she met a lot of the criteria. I know it's tied to her childhood, but I feel like she needs to hear it from a professional rather than me, so she won't ignore it. Doubt any change now will saave our marriage, though. I can't feel anything anymore for her.

My mother meets every single one of your Narcissistic Mother questions.

I am 58 years old, my mother is now 76 years old, and she is STILL trying to bludgeon me to bits with her hate. About 3 weeks ago she sent a 60+ page hate letter to me, telling me every single thing that she sees as "wrong" about me, going all the way back to my earliest childhood. She did the same thing 28 years ago, when she sent me a 50-page hate letter. She did this, with NO PROVOCATION, either time. This time around, she sent a copy of her hate letter to her sister, my aunt, presumably because my aunt and I have grown close over the past several years, and my mother must have thought that she could make my aunt hate me, too, with her hateful letter. But her horrible letter had the opposite effect on my dear aunt, who happens to love her two very imperfect grown children, UNCONDITIONALLY, generously, and with no strings attached. My aunt was appalled by the letter. She wrote and told my mother so, sent a copy of her classy letter to me, and then, my aunt declared that my mother is no longer her sister.

My mother tried to gas us all to death when I was 12, shortly after her marriage to my multiple-personality father came to a violent end. She tried several times with the gas, but could not figure out how to override the safety shut-off valve on the whole-house gas furnace. When my mother confessed to me that she had been putting out the pilot light and turning the thermostat all the way up, hoping to kill us all as we slept in our beds, she said, "I brought you all into the world, so I have the right to take you out of it. And life is so horrible, I would be doing you all a favor by killing you."

I was the eldest of 5 when my mother made that confession to me. I had insomnia a lot, after my parents' marriage ended, so I would be lying in bed awake, notice the house was getting very cold, and that the furnace wasn't coming on. Finally I wouldget out of bed, go look at the thermostat, and find it turned all the way up past 90. Then I would go look in the utility room and see that the pilot light was out, so I would wake my mother up so that she could relight the pilot. I thought the pilot light was going out all by itself, and that one of my much-younger siblings was trying to warm the cold house by turning the thermostat up as high as it would go.... this happened several nights, maybe a half dozen times, maybe more, in the winter of 1965-66. I never would have imagined that my mother was trying to gas us all to death, until the day she told me she "couldn't live with the secret" anymore, and she couldn't think of anyone esle to tell, she said, besides me.

Then my mother warned me that if I told anyone what she had done, she would go to prison for the rest of her life, and the 5 of us kids would go to 5 separate foster homes and never see each other again. To my 12-year-old mind, this was a fate worse than death! So, I did not tell.... But I went to bed every night and lay there in fear that she would do it again, and succeed this time. I went to school every day, exhausted from all the sleepless nights, and worried that while I was gone my mother might snap and kill my 4 pre-school siblings... (I was the eldest by 7+ years).

Every day on the school bus my dread would grow as I got nearer to my house. I would home from the bus stop, visualizing in my mind, that when I went inside my home, I would find my whole family dead. I always would stand outside the back door and wait and listen, afraid to open the door and go inside. I would wait and listen until I heard at least one of the younger kids laugh or cry or yell out... just hearing the tv wasn't enough, she could have left it turned on..... every day, when I would finally hear one of my siblings make a sound that let me know they were alive, RELIEF would flood over me, and I would open the door and go inside.

My mother had been a mostly indifferent mother toward me prior to this time, only occasionally doing or saying something that was outright very hateful towards me. But, beginning with the day that my mother sat me down and made me her personal private confessor of her terrible murderous secret.... FROM THAT DAY ON MY MOTHER TREATED ME LIKE SHE ABSOLUTELY HATED MY GUTS.

I am 58 years old, and in many ways, despite my very high iq, I still feel like I am stuck at 12 years old. It has only been in recent years that I have told my ancient secret... and been BELIEVED. People don't like to believe that a mother would try to kill all her children, even though, sadly, horribly, you see these stories on the news all too often. I cannot watch the news or read newpapaers, because of these stories. It brings it all back, when I do, and I feel like it is happening all over again, right NOW.

Lynda

My mother meets every single one of your Narcissistic Mother questions.

I am 58 years old, my mother is now 76 years old, and she is STILL trying to bludgeon me to bits with her hate. About 3 weeks ago she sent a 60+ page hate letter to me, telling me every single thing that she sees as "wrong" about me, going all the way back to my earliest childhood. She did the same thing 28 years ago, when she sent me a 50-page hate letter. She did this, with NO PROVOCATION, either time. This time around, she sent a copy of her hate letter to her sister, my aunt, presumably because my aunt and I have grown close over the past several years, and my mother must have thought that she could make my aunt hate me, too, with her hateful letter. But her horrible letter had the opposite effect on my dear aunt, who happens to love her two very imperfect grown children, UNCONDITIONALLY, generously, and with no strings attached. My aunt was appalled by the letter. She wrote and told my mother so, sent a copy of her classy letter to me, and then, my aunt declared that my mother is no longer her sister.

My mother tried to gas us all to death when I was 12, shortly after her marriage to my multiple-personality father came to a violent end. She tried several times with the gas, but could not figure out how to override the safety shut-off valve on the whole-house gas furnace. When my mother confessed to me that she had been putting out the pilot light and turning the thermostat all the way up, hoping to kill us all as we slept in our beds, she said, "I brought you all into the world, so I have the right to take you out of it. And life is so horrible, I would be doing you all a favor by killing you."

I was the eldest of 5 when my mother made that confession to me. I had insomnia a lot, after my parents' marriage ended, so I would be lying in bed awake, notice the house was getting very cold, and that the furnace wasn't coming on. Finally I wouldget out of bed, go look at the thermostat, and find it turned all the way up past 90. Then I would go look in the utility room and see that the pilot light was out, so I would wake my mother up so that she could relight the pilot. I thought the pilot light was going out all by itself, and that one of my much-younger siblings was trying to warm the cold house by turning the thermostat up as high as it would go.... this happened several nights, maybe a half dozen times, maybe more, in the winter of 1965-66. I never would have imagined that my mother was trying to gas us all to death, until the day she told me she "couldn't live with the secret" anymore, and she couldn't think of anyone esle to tell, she said, besides me.

Then my mother warned me that if I told anyone what she had done, she would go to prison for the rest of her life, and the 5 of us kids would go to 5 separate foster homes and never see each other again. To my 12-year-old mind, this was a fate worse than death! So, I did not tell.... But I went to bed every night and lay there in fear that she would do it again, and succeed this time. I went to school every day, exhausted from all the sleepless nights, and worried that while I was gone my mother might snap and kill my 4 pre-school siblings... (I was the eldest by 7+ years).

Every day on the school bus my dread would grow as I got nearer to my house. I would home from the bus stop, visualizing in my mind, that when I went inside my home, I would find my whole family dead. I always would stand outside the back door and wait and listen, afraid to open the door and go inside. I would wait and listen until I heard at least one of the younger kids laugh or cry or yell out... just hearing the tv wasn't enough, she could have left it turned on..... every day, when I would finally hear one of my siblings make a sound that let me know they were alive, RELIEF would flood over me, and I would open the door and go inside.

My mother had been a mostly indifferent mother toward me prior to this time, only occasionally doing or saying something that was outright very hateful towards me. But, beginning with the day that my mother sat me down and made me her personal private confessor of her terrible murderous secret.... FROM THAT DAY ON MY MOTHER TREATED ME LIKE SHE ABSOLUTELY HATED MY GUTS.

I am 58 years old, and in many ways, despite my very high iq, I still feel like I am stuck at 12 years old. It has only been in recent years that I have told my ancient secret... and been BELIEVED. People don't like to believe that a mother would try to kill all her children, even though, sadly, horribly, you see these stories on the news all too often. I cannot watch the news or read newpapaers, because of these stories. It brings it all back, when I do, and I feel like it is happening all over again, right NOW.

Lynda

I am nearly 33 years old and have gone almost all of my life dealing with a Mother who has ignored my feelings, my pains, and treated my two brothers vastly differently to myself. Each attempt I made to try to bring about my feelings my Mother would say that I was the 'problem' and even though I have been in the parental role a lot of my life to my brothers and parents, she continues to stay in this role of 'everyone else is the problem, not me.' She would criticize me greatly when no one else was around and tell me I was 'just sensitive'. Through my adult years especially, I have had panic attacks around her and become stoic, virtually catatonic in her presence, and completely miserable. When I moved out of state my panic attacks abated almost entirely. I keep a minimal relationship due to the fact that I feel it's important for her to have a relationship with my children but I have virtually no trust of my feelings in her hands and at nearly 33 and wishing for years she'd 'come around', I've started to accept the fact that she won't. I struggle each day with ensuring to the best of my ability that I will not be the same sort of parent. I hug my children every chance I'm able, I console them when they are hurt, I praise them in their efforts, and despite how rundown and exhausted and overwhelmed I may be with two children under two years old, I do the absolute best I can to bring about a big smile and joy for them so that they see it's unconditional. I have to be cognizant not to repeat my Mother's narcissistic traits onto my husband as well. Sometimes I realize I'm perpetuating some of the pattern, other times I realize I'm breaking it and not perpetuating the legacy; breaking the chain is something to rejoice in and something to be proud of. Those of use being conscious of all this, albeit it's still a painful process, should be so grateful that we can re-write the story of sorts. We can evolve and learn and give our children a different story. We're fortunate to catch this cycle now than to never.