Is Your Mom a Narcissist? 5 Red Flags You Shouldn't Ignore

Have you ever wondered if your mom might be a narcissist? It's a tough question and one that can be difficult to answer. Narcissism isn't always as obvious as we might think. And it can be even harder to spot when we're looking at someone we love. I've spent the majority of my professional life developing tools to build self worth. And what I've found is that there is a strong correlation between struggling with low self esteem and having been raised by a narcissist, especially a narcissistic mother. Low self worth isn't something that just happens to you often. It's something that you were trained into, something you were taught or a coping skill that worked for you. The impact of your upbringing doesn't just go away no matter how old you are. It leaves an imprint on you. If you were raised by a narcissistic mother, there will be undeniable signs. And in this video, we're going to explore five red flags that might indicate that your mom is a narcissist and particular struggles that you might be experiencing. Now, let's dive in. Hey there. I'm Meadow d'. Vore. On this channel, we explore tools to build self worth and master life. To start with, it's important to understand what narcissism is and isn't. The term narcissist is sometimes used to label someone who's vain or arrogant or grandiose. And if that were the extent of it, I don't think they'd cause that much harm. But narcissism is far more dangerous. The term narcissism comes from the Greek myth of Narcissus. Narcissus falls in love not with himself, but with his reflection and echo. The mountain nymph fell in love with narciss, but could only echo back exactly what he said. So no matter how much she loved Narcissus, he only cared about his reflection. She could only mirror back what he said. And this is exactly how narcissism works. They don't love themselves. They are enamored with an image that doesn't exist. They are unable to love those around them, but need an echo to mirror themselves back. This is what it feels like to be raised by a narcissist. Your job is to be the echo that is never loved while they spend their lives worshiping an image they'll never actually become. Narcissism, or narcissistic personality disorder, or NPD for short, is described as exaggerated feelings of self importance, an excessive need for Admiration, a delusional sense of status, a lack of empathy, and the willingness to exploit others for their own gain. This typically shows up in two different ways, the grandiose pattern and the vulnerable pattern. The grandiose narcissist always needs to be the center of attention, and they expect their children to be part of the audience that adores them, helps fuel their status and and serves their unending need for attention and admiration. Think about the evil queen in Snow White or Emma Thompson's character, the baroness in Cruella. The vulnerable narcissist or covert narcissist is harder to spot, yet just as toxic. This is the parent that is fragile, depressed, anxious and needy. They feign weakness to garner pity and use faux humility to elicit attention. Think Mother Gothel entangled. For both types of narcissists, the roles of parent and child are flipped. As the child, you are required meet the needs of your parent rather than the other way around. But if you have your own needs, which means you stop playing the role of echo, you are punished, ignored and dismissed. Today I'm focusing on narcissistic mothers, but I want to touch a bit on narcissistic fathers. Narcissistic fathers have a more hot and cold approach to their kids. Rather than seeing them as an extension of themselves, they see their kids as useful when needed and irrelevant when not useful. Narcissistic mothers, on the other hand, tend to see their kids as an extension of their own reflection. They see their as part of their adoring audience and demand that admiration from them. They put pressure on their children to be special and perfect. If you're a daughter of a narcissistic mother, your job is to elevate her status without becoming too much of a threat. Be beautiful and thin, but don't be too beautiful. Be elegant and charming, but don't step on her toes. She often wants you to feel inadequate and uses that to inflate her own ego. Your job is simply to make her feel good about herself. It's to echo whatever reflection she's fallen in love with. If you're the of a narcissistic mother, your job is similar. But rather than seeing you as a direct threat, your job is to be her substitute husband. You are to love and adore her and to make her look good, but to remain in an oedipal relationship with her. Your job is to see her as the fairest of them all. To never fall in love with a stronger or better woman. She wants you to sacrifice your own life in order to serve her. So now let's look at some of the signs that you might find in your own life if you were raised by a narcissistic mother. Sign number one. You believe that you are responsible for the happiness of others. You often default to apologizer, caretaker, or people pleaser mode when your mother is a narcissist. You are trained from a young age to see love as transactional and to perpetually apologize for anything that inconvenienced her. You were taught that love was earned by either doing something for her or by achieving something for her. Because of this, you internalize the idea that love is conditional and therefore believe that you need to please others or serve others or earn your place in a relationship or a community. Even today, you might find yourself saying, I'm sorry for things that are clearly not your fault or responsibility. Because we've been trained into this, we are susceptible to recreating the dynamic. We befriend narcissists, date narcissists, and even marry narcissists because we have been taught to be the perfect counterpart. We are the echo, and we apologize when their reflection isn't perfect. And then we people please and caretake to reflect back the image they adore. Sign number two. You feel like you can't trust yourself, and you often doubt yourself and your reality. When you've been raised by a narcissistic mother, you've been raised to believe that the mythological reflection in the water is more important, more real, more desirable than anything else. Her inflated image, her need for attention, her need to win, her need to use you is more important than anything you experience when you're raised like this. You're brainwashed into believing her and not yourself. And as an adult, this leaves you riddled with self doubt and also makes you an easy target for narcissists and predators. Sign number three. You believe that you're not enough. You struggle with self worth and you think you should always hide your inadequacies. Think about what happens when you're raised by someone who has no capacity to love you and instead is completely absorbed in their own reflection. What happens when your only purpose is to echo admiration back to someone who will never be satisfied, who can never be satisfied? You literally learn that you are not enough and that you will never measure up. You are only worth the constant stream of attention and adoration that you could supply to her. And that will never be enough for the bottomless pit of a narcissist. To have self worth, you must have a self and a narcissistic mother lacks the ability to see you as a separate self, nor the generosity to allow you to be a separate self. As her child, you experience intermittent rewards that make no sense. On one hand, she's critical and abusive when you're not doing your job making her look good or when you do something that threatens her fragile ego. And then on the other hand, she's adoring you and lavishes attention on you when become the source of validation for her. This means that anything good about you is co opted, co owned and because of her and anything bad about you is a failure on your part because you're not living up to who she wanted you to be. She valued the reflection rather than the real and taught you to do the same. As an adult you find yourself always comparing yourself to the ideal image, a better, faster, smarter, prettier version of yourself. This tendency can be found in almost all humans. What you see in children of narcissists is that the image, the reflection, the ide, the fantasy is more real, more vivid and even more painful. We believe our inadequacies make us incapable of being loved and that failure to live up to the ideal fantasy means that we cannot and will not be loved. Therefore, we do everything we can to keep our flaws hidden. If you want to know more about building self worth, my best selling book the Worthy Project is available for free on audible. I linked it in the Description Sign number four. You believe that you are a burden to others. You feel guilty for having needs. You believe that your feelings aren't even important because narcissism revolves around a self entitled need for constant admiration. A narcissistic mother has a hard time seeing her child as having needs or emotions that deserve attention. You've been groomed to believe that your needs and your emotions caused your narcissist parent pain, inconvenience and emotional distress. A narcissistic mother cannot be bothered by something that takes her attention away from the object of her own infatuation, herself. If you were upset or hurt, sick, cold or hungry, she did whatever she had to do to shut you up and make you behave so that she could get back to pursuing her own needs. She taught you that you are a liability, a burden, and difficult to endure. You learned that your needs and your feelings were unimportant and as an adult you feel that anyone else's feelings and anyone else's needs supersede your own. Sign number five. You have a difficult time with boundaries and feel guilty or rude when you don't have the capacity to perform for others. A narcissistic mother believes she deserves special treatment and privileges. Considering herself above you and anyone else. She expects you to bend to her will and becomes frustrated or even angry if her desires aren't immediately fulfilled. Her sense of entitlement knows no bounds, which is why she ignores crosses and destroys any. Any boundaries that you might try to put into place. If you think about the myth, Narcissus couldn't see anything beyond his own reflection. And no matter how much Echo loved Narcissus, she was never her own entity. What would happen if Echo stopped echoing, if she said something else, or if she kicked the water and refused to admire the reflection? That's basically how it goes when you try to set a boundary with a narcissist. They cannot and will not allow you to have boundaries. To a narcissistic mother, you are a tool to be used. If you set limits or make yourself unavailable for use, she will resent you, punish you, and do whatever it takes to devastate you into complying with her. She'll use your own compassion and empathy against you, making you feel guilty or rude when you don't do what she wants.