Hi I dont have this problem with my Mother but with my Father. How ever I wanted so much to read the article but it sais its not there any more. Any one know where to find it?

Not sure, but maybe if u googled it and then print article. there is a lot on that page!

I am searching for it.
Hope I find it...

The Destructive Narcissistic Parent creates a child that only exists to be an extension of her self. It's about secret things. It's about body language. It's about disapproving glances. It's about vocal tone. It's very intimate. And it's very powerful. It's part of who the child is.

-Chris

Characteristics of Narcissistic Mothers
1. Everything she does is deniable. There is always a facile excuse or an explanation. Cruelties are couched in loving terms. Aggressive and hostile acts are paraded as thoughtfulness. Selfish manipulations are presented as gifts. Criticism and slander is slyly disguised as concern. She only wants what is best for you. She only wants to help you.


She rarely says right out that she thinks youre inadequate. Instead, any time that you tell her youve done something good, she counters with something your sibling did that was better or she simply ignores you or she hears you out without saying anything, then in a short time does something cruel to you so you understand not to get above yourself. She will carefully separate cause (your joy in your accomplishment) from effect (refusing to let you borrow the car to go to the awards ceremony) by enough time that someone who didnt live through her abuse would never believe the connection.


Many of her putdowns are simply by comparison. Shell talk about how wonderful someone else is or what a wonderful job they did on something youve also done or how highly she thinks of them. The contrast is left up to you. She has let you know that youre no good without saying a word. Shell spoil your pleasure in something by simply congratulating you for it in an angry, envious voice that conveys how unhappy she is, again, completely deniably. It is impossible to confront someone over their tone of voice, their demeanor or they way they look at you, but once your narcissistic mother has you trained, she can promise terrible punishment without a word. As a result, youre always afraid, always in the wrong, and can never exactly put your finger on why.


Because her abusiveness is part of a lifelong campaign of control and because she is careful to rationalize her abuse, it is extremely difficult to explain to other people what is so bad about her. Shes also careful about when and how she engages in her abuses. Shes very secretive, a characteristic of almost all abusers (Dont wash our dirty laundry in public!) and will punish you for telling anyone else what shes done. The times and locations of her worst abuses are carefully chosen so that no one who might intervene will hear or see her bad behavior, and she will seem like a completely different person in public. Shell slam you to other people, but will always embed her devaluing nuggets of snide gossip in protestations of concern, love and understanding (I feel so sorry for poor Cynthia. She always seems to have such a hard time, but I just dont know what I can do for her!) As a consequence the children of narcissists universally report that no one believes them (I have to tell you that she always talks about YOU in the most caring way!). Unfortunately therapists, given the deniable actions of the narcissist and eager to defend a fellow parent, will often jump to the narcissists defense as well, reinforcing your sense of isolation and helplessness (Im sure she didnt mean it like that!)


2. She violates your boundaries. You feel like an extension of her. Your property is given away without your consent, sometimes in front of you. Your food is eaten off your plate or given to others off your plate. Your property may be repossessed and no reason given other than that it was never yours. Your time is committed without consulting you, and opinions purported to be yours are expressed for you. (She LOVES going to the fair! He would never want anything like that. She wouldnt like kumquats.) You are discussed in your presence as though you are not there. She keeps tabs on your bodily functions and humiliates you by divulging the information she gleans, especially when it can be used to demonstrate her devotion and highlight her martyrdom to your needs (Mike had that problem with frequent urination too, only his was much worse. I was so worried about him!) You have never known what it is like to have privacy in the bathroom or in your bedroom, and she goes through your things regularly. She asks nosy questions, snoops into your email/letters/diary/conversations. She will want to dig into your feelings, particularly painful ones and is always looking for negative information on you which can be used against you. She does things against your expressed wishes frequently. All of this is done without seeming embarrassment or thought.


Any attempt at autonomy on your part is strongly resisted. Normal rites of passage (learning to shave, wearing makeup, dating) are grudgingly allowed only if you insist, and youre punished for your insistence (Since youre old enough to date, I think youre old enough to pay for your own clothes!) If you demand age-appropriate clothing, grooming, control over your own life, or rights, you are difficult and she ridicules your independence.


3. She favoritizes. Narcissistic mothers commonly choose one (sometimes more) child to be the golden child and one (sometimes more) to be the scapegoat. The narcissist identifies with the golden child and provides privileges to him or her as long as the golden child does just as she wants. The golden child has to be cared for assiduously by everyone in the family. The scapegoat has no needs and instead gets to do the caring. The golden child can do nothing wrong. The scapegoat is always at fault. This creates divisions between the children, one of whom has a large investment in the mother being wise and wonderful, and the other(s) who hate her. That division will be fostered by the narcissist with lies and with blatantly unfair and favoritizing behavior. The golden child will defend the mother and indirectly perpetuate the abuse by finding reasons to blame the scapegoat for the mothers actions. The golden child may also directly take on the narcissistic mothers tasks by physically abusing the scapegoat so the narcissistic mother doesnt have to do that herself.


4. She undermines. Your accomplishments are acknowledged only to the extent that she can take credit for them. Any success or accomplishment for which she cannot take credit is ignored or diminished. Any time you are to be center stage and there is no opportunity for her to be the center of attention, she will try to prevent the occasion altogether, or she doesnt come, or she leaves early, or she acts like its no big deal, or she steals the spotlight or she slips in little wounding comments about how much better someone else did or how what you did wasnt as much as you could have done or as you think it is. She undermines you by picking fights with you or being especially unpleasant just before you have to make a major effort. She acts put out if she has to do anything to support your opportunities or will outright refuse to do even small things in support of you. She will be nasty to you about things that are peripherally connected with your successes so that you find your joy in what youve done is tarnished, without her ever saying anything directly about it. No matter what your success, she has to take you down a peg about it.


5. She demeans, criticizes and denigrates. She lets you know in all sorts of little ways that she thinks less of you than she does of your siblings or of other people in general. If you complain about mistreatment by someone else, she will take that persons side even if she doesnt know them at all. She doesnt care about those people or the justice of your complaints. She just wants to let you know that youre never right.


She will deliver generalized barbs that are almost impossible to rebut (always in a loving, caring tone): You were always difficult You can be very difficult to love You never seemed to be able to finish anything You were very hard to live with Youre always causing trouble No one could put up with the things you do. She will deliver slams in a sidelong way - for example shell complain about how no one loves her, does anything for her, or cares about her, or shell complain that everyone is so selfish, when youre the only person in the room. As always, this combines criticism with deniability.


She will slip little comments into conversation that she really enjoyed something she did with someone else - something she did with you too, but didnt like as much. Shell let you know that her relationship with some other person you both know is wonderful in a way your relationship with her isnt - the carefully unspoken message being that you dont matter much to her.


She minimizes, discounts or ignores your opinions and experiences. Your insights are met with condescension, denials and accusations (I think you read too much!) and she will brush off your information even on subjects on which you are an acknowledged expert. Whatever you say is met with smirks and amused sounding or exaggerated exclamations (Uh hunh! You dont say! Really!). Shell then make it clear that she didnt listen to a word you said.


6. She makes you look crazy. If you try to confront her about something shes done, shell tell you that you have a very vivid imagination (this is a phrase commonly used by abusers of all sorts to invalidate your experience of their abuse) that you dont know what youre talking about, or that she has no idea what youre talking about. She will claim not to remember even very memorable events, flatly denying they ever happened, nor will she ever acknowledge any possibility that she might have forgotten. This is an extremely aggressive and exceptionally infuriating tactic called gaslighting, common to abusers of all kinds. Your perceptions of reality are continually undermined so that you end up without any confidence in your intuition, your memory or your powers of reasoning. This makes you a much better victim for the abuser.


Narcissists gaslight routinely. The narcissist will either insinuate or will tell you outright that youre unstable, otherwise you wouldnt believe such ridiculous things or be so uncooperative. Youre oversensitive. Youre imagining things. Youre hysterical. Youre completely unreasonable. Youre over-reacting, like you always do. Shell talk to you when youve calmed down and arent so irrational. She may even characterize you as being neurotic or psychotic.


Once shes constructed these fantasies of your emotional pathologies, shell tell others about them, as always, presenting her smears as expressions of concern and declaring her own helpless victimhood. She didnt do anything. She has no idea why youre so irrationally angry with her. Youve hurt her terribly. She thinks you may need psychotherapy. She loves you very much and would do anything to make you happy, but she just doesnt know what to do. You keep pushing her away when all she wants to do is help you.


She has simultaneously absolved herself of any responsibility for your obvious antipathy towards her, implied that its something fundamentally wrong with you that makes you angry with her, and undermined your credibility with her listeners. She plays the role of the doting mother so perfectly that no one will believe you.


7. Shes envious. Any time you get something nice shes angry and envious and her envy will be apparent when she admires whatever it is. Shell try to get it from you, spoil it for you, or get the same or better for herself. Shes always working on ways to get what other people have. The envy of narcissistic mothers often includes competing sexually with their daughters or daughters-in-law. Theyll attempt to forbid their daughters to wear makeup, to groom themselves in an age-appropriate way or to date. They will criticize the appearance of their daughters and daughters-in-law. This envy extends to relationships. Narcissistic mothers infamously attempt to damage their childrens marriages and interfere in the upbringing of their grandchildren.


8. Shes a liar in too many ways to count. Any time she talks about something that has emotional significance for her, its a fair bet that shes lying. Lying is one way that she creates conflict in the relationships and lives of those around her - shell lie to them about what other people have said, what theyve done, or how they feel. Shell lie about her relationship with them, about your behavior or about your situation in order to inflate herself and to undermine your credibility.


The narcissist is very careful about how she lies. To outsiders shell lie thoughtfully and deliberately, always in a way that can be covered up if shes confronted with her lie. She spins what you said rather than makes something up wholesale. She puts dishonest interpretations on things you actually did. If shes recently done something particularly egregious she may engage in preventative lying: she lies in advance to discount what you might say before you even say it. Then when you talk about what she did youll be cut off with I already know all about ityour mother told me... (self-justifications and lies). Because she is so careful about her deniability, it may be very hard to catch her in her lies and the more gullible of her friends may never realize how dishonest she is.


To you, shell lie blatantly. She will claim to be unable to remember bad things she has done, even if she did one of them recently and even if it was something very memorable. Of course, if you try to jog her memory by recounting the circumstances You have a very vivid imagination or That was so long ago. Why do you have to dredge up your old grudges? Your conversations with her are full of casual brush-offs and diversionary lies and she doesnt respect you enough to bother making it sound good. For example shell start with a self-serving lie: If I dont take you as a dependent on my taxes Ill lose three thousand dollars! You refute her lie with an obvious truth: No, three thousand dollars is the amount of the dependent exemption. Youll only lose about eight hundred dollars. Her response: Isnt that what I said? You are now in a game with only one rule: You cant win.


On the rare occasions she is forced to acknowledge some bad behavior, she will couch the admission deniably. She guesses that maybe she might have done something wrong. The wrongdoing is always heavily spun and trimmed to make it sound better. The words I guess, maybe, and might have are in and of themselves lies because she knows exactly what she did - no guessing, no might haves, no maybes.


9. She has to be the center of attention all the time. This need is a defining trait of narcissists and particularly of narcissistic mothers for whom their children exist to be sources of attention and adoration. Narcissistic mothers love to be waited on and often pepper their children with little requests. While youre up or its equivalent is one of their favorite phrases. You couldnt just be assigned a chore at the beginning of the week or of the day, instead, you had to do it on demand, preferably at a time that was inconvenient for you, or you had to help her do it, fetching and carrying for her while she made up to herself for the menial work she had to do as your mother by glorying in your attentions.


A narcissistic mother may create odd occasions at which she can be the center of attention, such as memorials for someone close to her who died long ago, or major celebrations of small personal milestones. She may love to entertain so she can be the life of her own party. She will try to steal the spotlight or will try to spoil any occasion where someone else is the center of attention, particularly the child she has cast as the scapegoat. She often invites herself along where she isnt welcome. If she visits you or you visit her, you are required to spend all your time with her. Entertaining herself is unthinkable. She has always pouted, manipulated or raged if you tried to do anything without her, didnt want to entertain her, refused to wait on her, stymied her plans for a drama or otherwise deprived her of attention.


Older narcissistic mothers often use the natural limitations of aging to manipulate dramas, often by neglecting their health or by doing things they know will make them ill. This gives them the opportunity to cash in on the investment they made when they trained you to wait on them as a child. Then they call you (or better still, get the neighbor or the nursing home administrator to call you) demanding your immediate attendance. You are to rush to her side, pat her hand, weep over her pain and listen sympathetically to her unending complaints about how hard and awful it is. (Never get old!) Its almost never the case that you can actually do anything useful, and the causes of her disability may have been completely avoidable, but youve been put in an extremely difficult position. If you dont provide the audience and attention shes manipulating to get, you look extremely bad to everyone else and may even have legal culpability. (Narcissistic behaviors commonly accompany Alzheimers disease, so this behavior may also occur in perfectly normal mothers as they age.)


10. She manipulates your emotions in order to feed on your pain. This exceptionally sick and bizarre behavior is so common among narcissistic mothers that their children often call them emotional vampires. Some of this emotional feeding comes in the form of pure sadism. She does and says things just to be wounding or she engages in tormenting teasing or she needles you about things youre sensitive about, all the while a smile plays over her lips. She may have taken you to scary movies or told you horrifying stories, then mocked you for being a baby when you cried. She will slip a wounding comment into conversation and smile delightedly into your hurt face. You can hear the laughter in her voice as she pressures you or says distressing things to you. Later shell gloat over how much she upset you, gaily telling other people that youre so much fun to tease, and recruiting others to share in her amusement. . She enjoys her cruelties and makes no effort to disguise that. She wants you to know that your pain entertains her. She may also bring up subjects that are painful for you and probe you about them, all the while watching you carefully. This is emotional vampirism in its purest form. Shes feeding emotionally off your pain.


A peculiar form of this emotional vampirism combines attention-seeking behavior with a demand that the audience suffer. Since narcissistic mothers often play the martyr this may take the form of wrenching, self-pitying dramas which she carefully produces, and in which she is the star performer. She sobs and wails that no one loves her and everyone is so selfish, and she doesnt want to live, she wants to die! She wants to die! She will not seem to care how much the manipulation of their emotions and the self-pity repels other people. One weird behavior that is very common to narcissists: her dramas may also center around the tragedies of other people, often relating how much she suffered by association as she cries over the horrible murder of someone she wouldnt recognize if they had passed her on the street.


11. Shes selfish and willful. She always makes sure she has the best of everything. She insists on having her own way all the time and she will ruthlessly, manipulatively pursue it, even if what she wants isnt worth all the effort shes putting into it and even if that effort goes far beyond normal behavior. She will make a huge effort to get something you denied her, even if it was entirely your right to do so and even if her demand was selfish and unreasonable. If you tell her she cannot bring her friends to your party she will show up with them anyway, and she will have told them that they were invited so that you either have to give in, or be the bad guy to these poor dupes on your doorstep. If you tell her she cant come over to your house tonight shell call your spouse and try get him or her to agree that she can, and to not say anything to you about it because its a surprise. She has to show you that you cant tell her no.


One near-universal characteristic of narcissists: because they are so selfish and self-centered, they are very bad gift givers. Theyll give you hand-me-downs or market things for themselves as gifts for you (I thought Id give you my old bicycle and buy myself a new one! I know how much you love Italian food, so Im going to take you to my favorite restaurant for your birthday!) New gifts are often obviously cheap and are usually things that dont suit you or that you cant use or are a quid pro quo: if you buy her the gift she wants, she will buy you an item of your choice. Shell make it clear that it pains her to give you anything. She may buy you a gift and get the identical item for herself, or take you shopping for a gift and get herself something nice at the same time to make herself feel better.


12. Shes self-absorbed. Her feelings, needs and wants are very important; yours are insignificant to the point that her least whim takes precedence over your most basic needs. Her problems deserve your immediate and full attention; yours are brushed aside. Her wishes always take precedence; if she does something for you, she reminds you constantly of her munificence in doing so and will often try to extract some sort of payment. She will complain constantly, even though your situation may be much worse than hers. If you point that out, she will effortlessly, thoughtlessly brush it aside as of no importance (Its easy for you/Its different for you).


13. She is insanely defensive and is extremely sensitive to any criticism. If you criticize her or defy her she will explode with fury, threaten, storm, rage, destroy and may become violent, beating, confining, putting her child outdoors in bad weather or otherwise engaging in classic physical abuse. Its easy to provoke her wrath because she takes everything personally and any attitude short of constant emotional and physical availability is perceived as a slight. If youre short with her because youre exhausted and depressed, she has to have it out with you over your hostility. If a toddler shouts I hate you at her she gets angry and punitive. If you refuse her nosy request to let her read the letter you got she shouts about how unappreciative you are and how hard she has it. She has no sense of perspective or separation and she cant let anything go. Because the narcissistic mother is so extremely defensive she is completely resistant to change. Narcissists infamously cannot be helped and if anything, change for the worse.


14. She terrorized. All abusers use fear to control their victims, and your narcissistic mother used it ruthlessly to train you. Narcissists teach you to beware their wrath even when they arent present. The only alternative is constant placation. If you give her everything she wants all the time, you might be spared. If you dont, the punishments will come. Even adult children of narcissists still feel that carefully inculcated fear. Your narcissistic mother can turn it on with a silence or a look that tells the child in you shes thinking about how shes going to get even.


Not all narcissists abuse physically, but most do, often in subtle, deniable ways. It allows them to vent their rage at your failure to be the solution to their internal havoc and simultaneously to teach you to fear them. You may not have been beaten, but you were almost certainly left to endure physical pain when a normal mother would have made an effort to relieve your misery. This deniable form of battery allows her to store up her rage and dole out the punishment at a later time when shes worked out an airtight rationale for her abuse, so she never risks exposure. You were left hungry because you eat too much. (Someone asked her if she was pregnant. She isnt). You always went to school with stomach flu because you dont have a fever. Youre just trying to get out of school. (She resents having to take care of you. You have a lot of nerve getting sick and adding to her burdens.) She refuses to look at your bloody heels and instead the shoes that wore those blisters on your heels are put back on your feet and youre sent to the store in them because You wanted those shoes. Now you can wear them. (You said the ones she wanted to get you were ugly. She liked them because they were just like what she wore 30 years ago). The dentist was told not to give you Novocaine when he drilled your tooth because he has to learn to take better care of his teeth. (She has to pay for a filling and shes furious at having to spend money on you.) Unlike psychopaths, narcissists do understand right, wrong, and consequences, so they are not ordinarily criminal. She beat you, but not to the point where you went to the hospital. She left you standing out in the cold until you were miserable, but not until you had hypothermia. She put you in the basement in the dark with no clothes on, but she only left you there for two hours.


Narcissistic mothers also abuse by loosing others on you or by failing to protect you when a normal mother would have. Sometimes the narcissists golden child will be encouraged to abuse the scapegoat. Narcissists also abuse by exposing you to violence. If one of your siblings got beaten, she made sure you saw. She effortlessly put the fear of Mom into you, without even touching you.


15. Shes infantile and petty. Narcissistic mothers are often simply childish. If you refuse to let her manipulate you into doing something, she will cry that you dont love her because if you loved her you would do as she wanted. If you hurt her feelings she will aggressively whine to you that youll be sorry when shes dead that you didnt treat her better. Anytime she feels hard-done-by, she pouts, whines and gives the silent treatment. When you were a child, she would justify things she did to you by pointing out something that you did that she felt was comparable, as though the childish behavior of a child was justification for the childish behavior of an adult. Getting even is a large part of her dealings with you. Anytime you fail to give her the deference, attention or service she feels she deserves, or you thwart her wishes, she has to show you.


16. Shes aggressive and shameless. She doesnt ask. She demands. She makes outrageous requests and shell take anything she wants if she thinks she can get away with it. Her demands of her children are posed in a very aggressive way, as are her criticisms. She wont take no for an answer, pushing and arm-twisting and manipulating to get you to give in.


17. She parentifies. She shed her responsibilities to you as soon as she was able, leaving you to take care of yourself as best you could. She denied you medical care, adequate clothing, necessary transportation or basic comforts that she would never have considered giving up herself. She never gave you a birthday party or let you have sleepovers. Your friends were never welcome in her house. She didnt like to drive you anywhere, so you turned down invitations because you had no way to get there. She wouldnt buy your school pictures even if she could easily have afforded it. You had a niggardly clothing allowance or she bought you the cheapest clothing she could without embarrassing herself. As soon as you got a job, every request for school supplies, clothing or toiletries was met with Now that youre making money, why dont you pay for that yourself?


She also gave you tasks that were rightfully hers and should not have been placed on a child. You may have been a primary caregiver for young siblings or an incapacitated parent. You may have had responsibility for excessive household tasks. Above all, you were always her emotional caregiver which is one reason any defection from that role caused such enormous eruptions of rage. You were never allowed to be needy or have bad feelings or problems. Those experiences were only for her, and you were responsible for making it right for her. From the time you were very young she would randomly lash out at you any time she was stressed or angry with your father or felt that life was unfair to her, because it made her feel better to hurt you. You were often punished out of the blue, for manufactured offenses. As you got older she directly placed responsibility for her welfare and her emotions on you, weeping on your shoulder and unloading on you any time something went awry for her.


18. Shes exploitative. She will manipulate to get work, money, or objects she envies out of other people for nothing. This includes her children, of course. If she set up a bank account for you, she was trustee on the account with the right to withdraw money. As you put money into it, she took it out. She may have stolen your identity. She took you as a dependent on her income taxes so you couldnt file independently without exposing her to criminal penalties. If she made an agreement with you, it was violated the minute it no longer served her needs. If you brought it up demanding she adhere to the agreement, she brushed you off and later punished you so you would know not to defy her again.


Sometimes the narcissist will exploit a child to absorb punishment that would have been hers from an abusive partner. The husband comes home in a drunken rage, and the mother immediately complains about the childs bad behavior so the rage is vented on to the child. Sometimes the narcissistic mother simply uses the child to keep a sick marriage intact because the alternative is being divorced or having to go to work. The child is sexually molested but the mother never notices, or worse, calls the child a liar when she tells the mother about the molestation.


19. She projects. This sounds a little like psycho-babble, but it is something that narcissists all do. Projection means that she will put her own bad behavior, character and traits on you so she can deny them in herself and punish you. This can be very difficult to see if you have traits that she can project on to. An eating-disordered woman who obsesses over her daughters weight is projecting. The daughter may not realize it because she has probably internalized an absurdly thin vision of womens weight and so accepts her mothers projection. When the narcissist tells the daughter that she eats too much, needs to exercise more, or has to wear extra-large size clothes, the daughter believes it, even if it isnt true. However, she will sometimes project even though it makes no sense at all. This happens when she feels shamed and needs to put it on her scapegoat child and the projection therefore comes across as being an attack out of the blue. For example: She makes an outrageous request, and you casually refuse to let her have her way. Shes enraged by your refusal and snarls at you that youll talk about it when youve calmed down and are no longer hysterical.


You arent hysterical at all; she is, but your refusal has made her feel the shame that should have stopped her from making shameless demands in the first place. Thats intolerable. She can transfer that shame to you and rationalize away your response: you only refused her because youre so unreasonable. Having done that she can reassert her shamelessness and indulge her childish willfulness by turning an unequivocal refusal into a subject for further discussion. Youll talk about it again later - probably when shes worn you down with histrionics, pouting and the silent treatment so youre more inclined to do what she wants.


20. She is never wrong about anything. No matter what shes done, she wont ever genuinely apologize for anything. Instead, any time she feels she is being made to apologize she will sulk and pout, issue an insulting apology or negate the apology she has just made with justifications, qualifications or self pity: Im sorry you felt that I humiliated you Im sorry if I made you feel bad If I did that it was wrong Im sorry, but I theres nothing I can do about it Im sorry I made you feel clumsy, stupid and disgusting Im sorry but it was just a joke. Youre so over-sensitive Im sorry that my own child feels she has to upset me and make me feel bad. The last insulting apology is also an example of projection.


21. Sometimes she seems to have no awareness that other people even have feelings, and yet she is brilliantly sensitive to other peoples emotions. Every child of a narcissist recognizes this contradiction because narcissistic mothers do possess the ability to exercise empathy, and in abundance. Sometimes this ability also leads them to identify emotionally with people who are suffering and to express caring for them. When caring about anothers suffering interferes with something the narcissist wants, though, the caring vanishes. When a narcissistic mother wants validation, when she feels like eliciting some emotional pain, when something she wants hurts someone else, the empathy is turned off as though it never existed.


From the perspective of ability, narcissists are extremely empathetic; indeed they have a gift of telling what other people are feeling and thinking. Their skill at discerning and guiding the emotions of other people is the basis of many characteristically narcissistic interactions. Narcissists are very socially adept which is why no one ever believes their children when they complain of their mothers. They know just how to make everyone think that theyre delightful. Narcissistic mothers are exceptional manipulators, and manipulators must be extremely aware, on a moment-by-moment basis, of the emotions of their targets. If you dont know what people are feeling, you cant push their buttons. Their exceptional sensitivity to the feelings of others is also the wellspring of their pleasure in inflicting emotional pain through dramas and no-win scenarios. Narcissistic mothers enjoy inflicting emotional pain and they do it very well because they know just what their target children are feeling. That exquisite sensitivity is the reason they dont need to batter. They can inflict agony without lifting a finger, so why risk exposure and waste effort with beatings when they can elicit the same emotions with words alone?


What narcissistic mothers lack is concern for the consequences of their actions, a behavior that seems rooted in profound selfishness, rather than in the absence of empathy. Mothers with NPD are certainly capable of feeling for others: theyre always feeling for the people with whom their scapegoat has conflicts. They feel for their fellow narcissists. They feel for people who have validated and praised them. They even feel for their child when it doesnt cost them anything to do so. They just dont feel for their child when theyre abusing him. They dont feel anything that interferes with their absorption in their own wants and needs. Because they scour their environment for validation of their own abusiveness, they defend their fellow abusers, so they dont have any empathy for the victims of those abusers, as the following story shows:

A four-year-old had come to school with a hand print on her face, which had been inflicted as the result of a slap by her mothers live-in boyfriend. As a mandated reporter my mother had called the authorities, but she told me that she could understand why the boyfriend had hit the child: she was so annoying. Then she said in a dramatic tone dripping with sympathy You should have seen the parents. They were so ashamed! In outrage I said What difference does that make to the child? Her mouth dropped open and I realized she not only didnt care at all about that poor little girlit would never have occurred to her to care. -Chris
This story shows the misplaced empathy of the abuser for other abusers. There was no empathy in Chriss mother for the actual victim. Instead it was reserved for the woman who let her boyfriend batter her child. Chriss mother identified with the abuser, a mother like herself, afflicted with a child who didnt meet her needs. Her empathy actually attributed virtues to her fellow abuser and faults to the victim that werent merited in reality. Someone who hits a small child hard enough to leave a handprint, then sends them to school, isnt ashamed, and the personality of a four-year-old is not the fault of the child!


The selfish empathy demonstrated by narcissistic mothers contrasts with the genuine empathy shown by normal people. Sometimes a normal person will give up something they really want for themselves because they come to recognize that it will hurt another person. A narcissistic mother will relentlessly go after something she wants even if it isnt worth the pain she has to inflict to get it.


22. She engineers no-win situations that leave you violated and angry and not sure why you feel that way. In the classic no-win scenario, the narcissists child is subtly manipulated into a corner and then presented with a demand that the child do something degrading, humiliating or painful in order to please the narcissist. Any response other than compliance triggers retaliation.


These sadistic scenes are a defining characteristic of the narcissist. As so often with narcissistic behavior, the payoff for your mother is the elicitation of painful emotions. Whether you subject yourself to her degradation or you fight back and provoke punishment from the narcissist, you will experience a sense of entrapment and fear, and those emotions are very satisfying to her. Her pleasure is augmented by the pain she elicits by undermining, insulting and demeaning you and, as the scene winds down, by blaming you for the entire event.


These scenes are set up very stealthily; so much so that the children of narcissists rarely realize that a trap has been laid before its sprung. As always, the narcissist maintains deniability, but the consistencies between scenes betray their deliberate nature. Although the narcissist plays the scene as though it was spontaneous, it never is. It is scripted and premeditated and the stage is set well in advance. If a scene plays out away from home, you can be sure that the mother is in charge of transportation so that the child doesnt have the option of walking away. If the scene is staged at home, its almost always in the mothers home, not the childs home, and engineered so that once again, its extremely difficult for the child to walk away. The narcissist commonly arranges things so she is alone with her victim, but she may also use the presence of a young child or complicit spouse to ensure that her target doesnt react angrily.


Often the worst part of these scenes for the child is the awareness of how much his mother enjoys his distress; the children of narcissistic mothers often describe their mothers little smile and air of pleasure as she plays out the no-win scenario. When confronted, some narcissistic mothers will even defend their behavior by saying they were just having fun. There is no betrayal more wounding than knowing your own mother is reveling in the pain she purposely caused, nor any emotion more delicious to your narcissistic mother than your sense of shock and misery at your knowledge that she is hurting you deliberately and for fun.


In the following story, an adult daughter is manipulated into a no-win situation. If she does not want to provoke retaliation from her narcissistic mother, she must accept and express gratitude for a gift that was clearly meant as an insult:

A few days before Christmas, my mother walked into the room where I was sitting carrying a pair of old, worn tennis shoes - the kind with the rubber soles and canvas uppers. She said I know you asked for a pair of running shoes for Christmas. I thought I could give you these and get myself a new pair instead. My mother was a clothes horse, and always had many pairs of new running shoes in her closet. Whats more, her feet are bigger and narrower than mine, so theres no way her shoes would have fit me, but I was too shocked and angry to think of that. I said I dont want your cast-offs! and she looked very satisfied and pleased and said Fine and walked away. That year I got no gift for Christmas, even though I had bought her something from her wish list, and even though my brother and sister got gifts from her. I did get a letter after I got home that started Im sorry you felt that I offered you cast-offs and went on to describe how good her intentions were, how she thought I would be happy to let her do something nice for herself, and how hard she had it as the mother of an unappreciative child like me. This wasnt the first time either. The preceding year she had tried to give me an old, rusty bicycle for Christmas with the stipulation that she would then get herself a new one. - Chris
This story illustrates an absolutely classic no-win scenario. Although Chris did not realize it at the time, her mother had manipulated her into a corner. Chris had traveled to her mothers house for Christmas and it was late at night. As a graduate student, Chris was perpetually short on funds, and going to a hotel, even if she could find one at that hour, was out of the question. None of the rest of the family was there yet, so Chris and her mother were alone in the house. There had been no argument or tension, and the attack by her mother came out of the blue.


Chriss mother proposed something very insulting: she would give Chris her own worn shoes, which didnt fit Chris and, for which gift Chris was to be appreciative. You would have to be very aware and self-possessed to respond calmly to such a demeaning suggestion, and Chris, tired, shocked, and angry, blurted out the first thing that came to mind. Chriss mother got exactly what she wanted: a good feed on Chriss hurt and anger, and an excuse to punish Chris with exclusion and withholding and later with a letter filled with guilt-inducing remonstrations.


In reality Chriss mother never planned on giving Chris a Christmas gift. She was angry that Chris had made herself unavailable for abuse by going to graduate school in another state, and she wanted to punish Chris for her defection. So she manipulated a no-win scenario in which she could simultaneously insult Chris and turn Chriss predictably angry response into an opportunity for punishment and narcissistic venting. In her letter, she projected her own hostility and selfishness on to Chris, blamed Chris for her own bad behavior, and depicted herself as a martyr, all the while maintaining complete deniability about the deliberate nature of the original interaction.


23. She blames. Shell blame you for everything that isnt right in her life or for what other people do or for whatever has happened. Always, shell blame you for her abuse. You made her do it. If only you werent so difficult. You upset her so much that she cant think straight. Things were hard for her and your backtalk pushed her over the brink. This blaming is often so subtle that all you know is that you thought you were wronged and now you feel guilty. Your brother beats you and her response is to bemoan how uncivilized children are. Your boyfriend dumped you, but she can understand - after all, she herself has seen how difficult you are to love. Shell do something egregiously exploitative to you, and when confronted will screech at you that she cant believe you were so selfish as to upset her over such a trivial thing. Shell also blame you for your reaction to her selfish, cruel and exploitative behavior. She cant believe you are so petty, so small, and so childish as to object to her giving your favorite dress to her friend. She thought you would be happy to let her do something nice for someone else.


Narcissists are masters of multitasking as this example shows. Simultaneously your narcissistic mother is 1) Lying. She knows what she did was wrong and she knows your reaction is reasonable. 2) Manipulating. Shes making you look like the bad guy for objecting to her cruelties. 3) Being selfish. She doesnt mind making you feel horrible as long as she gets her own way. 4) Blaming. She did something wrong, but its all your fault. 5) Projecting. Her petty, small and childish behavior has become yours. 6) Putting on a self-pitying drama. Shes a martyr who believed the best of you, and youve let her down. 7) Parentifying. Youre responsible for her feelings, she has no responsibility for yours.


24. She destroys your relationships. Narcissistic mothers are like tornadoes: wherever they touch down families are torn apart and wounds are inflicted. Unless the father has control over the narcissist and holds the family together, adult siblings in families with narcissistic mothers characteristically have painful relationships. Typically all communication between siblings is superficial and driven by duty, or they may never talk to each other at all. In part, these women foster dissension between their children because they enjoy the control it gives them. If those children dont communicate except through the mother, she can decide what everyone hears. Narcissists also love the excitement and drama they create by interfering in their childrens lives. Watching peoples lives explode is better than soap operas, especially when you dont have any empathy for their misery.


The narcissist nurtures anger, contempt and envy - the most corrosive emotions - to drive her children apart. While her children are still living at home, any child who stands up to the narcissist guarantees punishment for the rest. In her zest for revenge, the narcissist purposefully turns the siblings anger on the dissenter by including everyone in her retaliation. (I can see that nobody here loves me! Well Ill just take these Christmas presents back to the store. None of you would want anything I got you anyway!) The other children, long trained by the narcissist to give in, are furious with the troublemaking child, instead of with the narcissist who actually deserves their anger.


The narcissist also uses favoritism and gossip to poison her childrens relationships. The scapegoat sees the mother as a creature of caprice and cruelty. As is typical of the privileged, the other children dont see her unfairness and they excuse her abuses. Indeed, they are often recruited by the narcissist to adopt her contemptuous and entitled attitude towards the scapegoat and with her tacit or explicit permission, will inflict further abuse. The scapegoat predictably responds with fury and equal contempt. After her children move on with adult lives, the narcissist makes sure to keep each apprised of the doings of the others, passing on the most discreditable and juicy gossip (as always, disguised as concern) about the other children, again, in a way that engenders contempt rather than compassion.


Having been raised by a narcissist, her children are predisposed to be envious, and she takes full advantage of the opportunity that presents. She may never praise you to your face, but she will likely crow about your victories to the very sibling who is not doing well. Shell tell you about the generosity she displayed towards that child, leaving you wondering why you got left out and irrationally angry at the favored child rather than at the narcissist who told you about it.


The end result is a family in which almost all communication is triangular. The narcissist, the spider in the middle of the family web, sensitively monitors all the children for information she can use to retain her unchallenged control over the family. She then passes that on to the others, creating the resentments that prevent them from communicating directly and freely with each other. The result is that the only communication between the children is through the narcissist, exactly the way she wants it.


25. As a last resort she goes pathetic. When shes confronted with unavoidable consequences for her own bad behavior, including your anger, she will melt into a soggy puddle of weepy helplessness. Its all her fault. She cant do anything right. She feels so bad. What she doesnt do: own the responsibility for her bad conduct and make it right. Instead, as always, its all about her, and her helpless self-pitying weepiness dumps the responsibility for her consequences AND for her unhappiness about it on you. As so often with narcissists, it is also a manipulative behavior. If you fail to excuse her bad behavior and make her feel better, YOU are the bad person for being cold, heartless and unfeeling when your poor mother feels so awful.