Narcissism Traits

Does your mother have any, or many narcissism traits?  This is where you begin to see if your mother actually has narcissism characteristics, and consequently if you really are the Daughter of a Narcissistic Mother.

Now, of course, neither you nor I can accurately diagnose anybody else.

But I think it's fair to say that if your mother has the following narcissism traits, then at the very least the way she treats you is dysfunctional, and the healing help on this website will be valid and valuable for you.

And you know what they say: If it walks like a duck ...

Note that this page, and the link immediately below, are not the official narcissism traits. Those are on the page on the narcissism definition. This is more of a lay-person's understanding of how the narcissism traits manifest in real life.

Here's an absolutely excellent list of
characteristics of a narcissistic mother.

 Characteristics of Narcissistic Mothers 

1. The most specific of the narcissism traits is that it is, always and forever, about her. End of. She has to always be the centre of attention. She hijacks your successes so she can brag to her friends, but God forbid she shares your success with you. She feeds off your tragedies - lovin' the drama.
   
   
2. Another major one of the signs of narcissism is that she 'gaslights' - i.e. lies and denies. So many of the cruelties are sly and subtle that it's the cumulative effect which is devastating. But if you try to remind her of previous examples, to show a pattern, she'll deny flat out that they ever happened.
   
   
3. Another characteristic of a narcissistic mother is that she's always running you down, often subtly (maybe even by a glance or tone of voice) but equally often overtly.
   
   
4. She's extremely sensitive to criticism, no matter how mild. She falls into rage with you at the smallest provocation, even something simple as a request for better treatment.
   
   
5. But at the same time she's very, very critical of others. The snide comments and the constant running-down of everybody else is a classic among narcissism traits.
   
   
6. If she's an engulfing mother, then she displays narcissism traits by wilfully and consistently ignoring your boundaries: physical, mental and emotional.  
   
   
7. If she's an ignoring mother she just, well, ignores you. You don't matter. You're just an audience for her. You don't exist as a real person to her.
   
   
8. She's clever. It's all subtle. She picks her moments so that there are no witnesses (or no witnesses not also under her dominion, e.g. an enabling father). This makes it very, very hard to explain to others, and adds to the crazy-making head-wreckingness of it all.
   
   
9. She talks herself up as being a great mother. "I was so worried about you," she'll tell you, but you get a hollow feeling that it wasn't true. These things are easy to say after all, and require no action or effort.
   
   
10. She divides the family to conquer it. Her children might be golden children or scapegoats. Neither of these is a good position to be in. (Note: not all Narcissistic Mothers do this - mine didn't.)
    
    
11. She's envious of all of your good things, from successes to material things. She'll try to spoil your pleasure in these things to bring you down to earth.
    
    
12. She never, ever, ever gives a genuine apology. If forced she might say something like, "I'm sorry if you got upset," or similar non-apology. She's more likely to deny that the offensive situation actually occured.
    
    
13. Or another of the signs of narcissism is that she's very likely to blame you for whatever happened. She'll never accept responsibility. I complained to my mother once about the fact she talked all the time. Her reply? "Well, you make me so nervous that I talk all the time from nervousness." I had no answer to that, and to this day cannot think of a proper answer.
    
    
14. She'll never accept your genuine apology. Why would she? The one who's been offended has the moral high ground and accepting an apology loses that. So she'll say things like these two favourites of my mother's:, "It's too late, you've ruined it now". Or a dismissive 'Hmph'.
    
    
15. She lacks empathy. She never feels for other people. Oh sure, she'll say the words: "Oh isn't that dreadful! Poor Mary." But there's no genuine empathy behind it. There may well be genuine emotion, but it'll be excitement as per item 1 above, rather than empathy - it's not just your dramas she feeds off, it's everybodys'.
    
    
16. But at the same time as lacking empathy, she's a great student of human emotion. She analyses us (us being the normal ones) all the better to manipulate us.
    
    It reminds me of my dog. My dog studied me intently and knew that a certain shoes and jacket meant a walk and she could get excited. But high heels and handbag meant she wasn't coming out with me. She had no clue about why the different clothes meant different things, she just knew that they did.
    
    Narcissists are the same. They don't experience emotion and don't understand it. But they can observe it and take advantage of it.
    
    
17. Depending on how far along the Narcissism Spectrum she is, she may well deliberately provoke you in order to hurt you, so she can feed on your pain. In this way she's a classic Emotional Vampire.
    
    
18. She's selfish. That goes without saying. There's never any genuine generosity. Any seeming generosity has an ulterior motive. Maybe it's so she can tell her friends about what she got you. Or maybe it's so she can throw it in your face at a later date. Or maybe it's a sly dig, e.g. a book on dieting.
    
    
19. On a similar note, Narcissists are notoriously bad gift-givers. It's a combination of being very stingy with money, and not knowing, or caring, enough about you to get you what you'd really like. The last presents from my mother were: an orange plastic necklace, and I NEVER wear orange, and a quite pretty beaded bracelet which was so small it would cut the circulation off a six-year old; a tea-plate sized lollipop for my son even though she KNOWS we try to eat healthily and he'd never be allowed it; and a flowery address book for my sister, the least flowery person you'd ever meet and one who has an electronic organiser anyway!
    
    
20. Having said that, they can use gifts of money to gain control over you, to make you dance to their tune. So on the face of it, these gifts seem very generous. But there are always huge strings attached.
    
    
21. She won't be thwarted. If you tell her 'No', she'll most likely find her way to doing it anyway, and normally in a way which manipulates you into accepting it, e.g. she asks can she bring a friend to your party, you say no, and she turns up with the friend anyway. Short of turning the innocent friend away, you're forced to accept this.
    
    
22. Her situation is always worse than yours. Even if you're very ill, her trauma of being the loving mother of an ill daughter is worse than yours of being the ill person.
    
    
23. She cannot accept ANY criticism, no matter how mild. She'll erupt in Narcissistic Rage if you try it. This makes dealing with a Narcissist a hugely difficult endeavour.
    
    
24. She won't change. Best knowledge about NPD is that she can't change.
    
    
25. She's a bully. The Narcissistic Mother (and all Narcissists for that matter) uses her Narcissistic Rage to cower you and terrorise you. And of course a mother with a small child is in an excellent position to do this. I was always so annoyed with myself that here I was, a successful articluate assertive woman, reduced to a lump of jelly around both her and my father.
    
    
26. She may have been neglectful, not giving you medical care when you needed it. Or not looking after you physically. I remember as a young girl, too young to be responsible for my own care, wearing the same vest (undershirt) for months on end; it was literally grey. And I guess I mustn't have had a bath in all that time either or the vest would have been taken off me.
    
    
27. She may fail to protect you, by allowing (or, if you're the scapegoat, even encouraging) others to hurt you.
    
    
28. She may, if she's a malignant narcissist, even physically abuse you.
    
    
29. She's manipulative. "You'd do it if you loved me." My own mother, if challenged in such a way she couldn't escape otherwise, would just burst into tears and say, "You've upset me now". That being the point at which all useful communication stopped. My father, being an enabling father, would get angry at me for upsetting her, and I ended up being the bad guy again.
    
    
30. Or she might collapse in over-dramatic tears: "I'm sorry I'm such a bad mother," she'll sob, "You obviously think I'm the worst mother in the world! I wish I'd never brought you into this world to treat you so badly. I wish I'd never been born."
    
    This has the perfect result of moving the discussion away from your legitimate grievance onto her upset and collapse. You may even end up reassuring her that she's not such a bad mother. Either way, it's back to being about her. Result!
    
    
31. Often they're total drama queens. They love drama and feed off others' dramas - both good and bad. And if there isn't enough drama happening, they'll even create their own, e.g. crashing the car, taking an 'accidental' overdose.
    
    
32. She can be very demanding. She doesn't request as much as demand. And woe betide you if you refuse her decree.
    
    
33. She may have done a thing called 'parentification'. There's more information at that link but basically it means that instead of her looking after you, you looked after her.
    
    
34. As well, or instead, she may have infantalised you, i.e. kept you dependant on her so you'd never be able to leave her.
    
    
35. She's sly and dishonest. She may steal your money or belongings. She sees no boundaries between you and her, so what's yours is hers anyway, right? So in her own mind she's totally justified in doing this.
    
    
36. She may project her own neurosis onto you. So if she's worried about her weight, she's always on about your weight. That was something my own mother did all the time. I was the one who, she said, looked so like her, and she was always telling me about people who said it too. (In fairness, some people said it to me directly.) She wasn't confident about her own looks so when she said about me looking like her, she'd say, "Poor you."
    
    
37. She's often very, very vain. My own mother didn't fall into this category at all, but many do. They are always perfectly dressed, maybe even overdressed for the occasion, wearing make-up and so on. These women tend to hate ageing and are prime candidates for cosmetic surgery. (Not that everyone who hates ageing and has cosmetic surgery is Narcissistic!)
    
    
38. She interferes in your relationships. She doesn't want anybody else to be happy without her, because happiness without her presence means she's - gasp! - not the centre of the universe. So she might stir it, sly underminings of your husband maybe, "He's not a very good provider, is he?" 
    
    A classic is to keep you and your siblings at logger-heads. That way she retains control. She will talk about each of you to the others. She's like a spider at the centre of a web, manipulating you all. This is called triangulation.
    
    
39. She can be very rude and haughty to people she believes to be below her on the social spectrum, e.g. waiters in restaurants or shop staff. Again, not every Narcissist is like this - my own mother is not. But many are.
    
    
40. On a similar note, narcissists can be obsequious to the point of embarrassment to people they judge as being their superiors, whether that's socially or in their workplace.
    
    
41. Yet another of these narcissism traits is that they have no sense of humour. They certainly never, ever, EVER laugh at themselves. And God forbid you ever laugh at them, no matter how kindly and how gently - out comes the narcissistic rage again.
    
    My mother, a devout Catholic, met an English Protestant family whilst on holiday. She said to me, of them, "And they had a really good sense of humour for Protestants". I had to laugh at that! I said, "Mother, your prejudices are showing". Whereupon she snapped viciously, "Danu, that's enough!"
    
    But not only do they not laugh at themselves, but they've no genuine sense of humour about, well, humour. They just miss the joke somehow.
    
    Having said that, they DO like slapstick humour. People slipping on banana-skins - well, they find that hilarious. But subtle, clever humour - forget it.
    
    
42. She has a sense of entitlement. Just because. She's the original "Because I'm worth it," woman. Except that she wouldn't even have to say that, because the question of whether she's worth it just wouldn't arise.
    
    
43. She might be overtly and inappropriately sexual - flirting with boyfriends you bring home, for example. Thank Heavens my own mother never did that, but I've heard from enough other Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers about their mothers doing that.
    
    
44. She judges people as being good or bad based on whether they agree with her or not. So, normal people could think of somebody: "I totally disagree with his religious beliefs, politics and economic beliefs. But he's a very good man".
    
    Not your Narcissistic Mother! Her philosophy is, "If you agree with me, you're good. If you don't, you're bad".
    
    It can also happen that somebody who was previously 'good' disagrees with her on something and is changed immediately into being 'bad' and is thrown into the outer wilderness, metaphorically. (And of course, in her mind, being thrown out of her circle is the ultimate punishment!)

These narcissism traits aren't pretty. They're certainly not pretty to endure. The effects on daughters of narcissistic mothers are many and varied.

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