My Mother the Narcissist

Since You Asked: Uncommon Advice from Cary Tennis

Dear Cary,

I hate my family of origin. I recently discovered that I grew up in a mostly narcissistic family, with a narc mother who subtly but persistently projected her own guilt and shame and anger about her situation onto us, her six children. ...
As children, we knew we were poor, were ashamed about it, and felt something was terribly messed up about this situation. As a result, we - especially the youngest three kids (ages 8, 14 and 16 at that time) felt such a degree of responsibility to help that whatever money we made at our little jobs would go straight to our mother, from our hearts, without a single second thought. The financial help continues to this day.
Fast forward 20 years later and our mother has become a massive pain in our side. She never moved on from our father and all the other “betrayals” of her past, and now subtly accuses us of abandoning her.
Trying to Avoid Being Bitter in California
Dear Trying to Avoid Being Bitter,

She’s never going to give you what you want.

That’s a hard thing to take. But that’s the way it is. She’s never going to give you what you want and she’s never going to change. Accepting that fact is hard.

What you need, my friend, is distance. Not physical distance but psychological distance, emotional distance, the ability to not respond emotionally, which means not asking for the thing that you’re never going to get. I t doesn’t mean not having any emotions. It just means not responding with those emotions, not making demands on those emotions, not looking to her as someone who can make things better because she’s not going to make things better, she’s only going to make things worse. And if you put yourself in her hands as you have many times over your life because she’s your mother, you’re just going to get hurt again. ...

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