A Daughter’s Pain - a Mother’s Happiness: Growing up with a Jealous, Narcissistic Mother

The Friday Edition | No. 15

A Daughter’s Pain - a Mother’s Happiness: Growing up with a Jealous, Narcissistic Mother

As an adult, you may look back at your childhood self and realize how ill-equipped, poorly protected, vulnerable, and deceived you were. You begin to see how betrayed, used, abused and manipulated you were by a narcissistic parent. From the adult perspective rage, anger, anxiety, panic disorders, and even sadness and depression may show up in our lives as we become aware of our dysfunctional childhood or may arise in response to coming to terms with this troubling truth.

A narcissistic parent will generally choose a child of the same gender to scapegoat, gaslight, and employ as their object to terrorize. Narcissists see others as merely extensions of themselves, not as individuals or autonomous beings – therefore, their ability to use anything you do or do not do as ammunition against you is easy for them to justify. They believe that who you are, what you do, and how you act and relate to others is a direct reflection of them. They can be competitive with the child, ignore the child’s needs, become jealous and angry when the child innocently outshines the parent, and treat you well in public and around others but revert back to the insensitive, cruel narcissist behind closed doors – in short, the child can never win.

From a child’s perspective being pleasing and pleasing the parent is their instinctual guide, and only tool to sustain their survival – which sadly, is the perfect landscape for the narcissist to exploit. No matter what the child tries to do to appease the abuser, or in frustration throws a tantrum in opposition, and pure overwhelm the abusive parent will use all of it to make the child the “bad one,” and to punish the child further. Conversely, any achievements the child might have, outside adoration or praise, physical looks, beauty, likeability, popularity, or other positive attributes are also theirs, and as a result of them.

In the end, nothing is yours except for the pain, anger, and retribution that they decide is justified, and their right to take it out on you. For the daughters of narcissistic mothers, the unbelievable is endured and internalized.