How can I live in peace with my narcissistic mom without affecting my mental health?
Share
Sign Up to our social questions and Answers Engine to ask questions, answer people's questions, and connect with other people.
Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link and will create a new password via email.
Please briefly explain why you feel this question should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this answer should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this user should be reported.
How can I live in peace with my narcissistic mom without affecting my mental health?
Create strict boundaries, learn to say no and to keep saying no when no is the right answer.
Try to find out all you can about your mother’s childhood, and her parents’ childhoods and so on. There will likely be trauma going generations back. Your mother is probably an “unhealed” product of her own past. This is very sad and maybe, eventually, you can feel grief on her behalf, compassion and maybe forgiveness – it’s your choice how far you go down that line. I found that putting the situation in a historical context that made sense made it feel manageable. It took the “crazy” out of things and answered the ““why?”. Also made me realise it was nothing to do with me as a person, I was a normal person in a bad situation, not a bad person in a normal one.
Tell her as little as possible about your life. Anything you say can and will be used against you. Keep any social media accounts on the highest privacy settings that you can. Consider having a public account where you put very little and let her think that is the only one you have. Remember that she is a traumatised child with stunted emotional development who needs attention from others just to psychologically survive minute to minute. Don’t take it personally. If she is nicer to other people than she is to you it is because there is something in it for her, not because she really likes or values them- she isn’t capable of real concern for another person. She is a damaged child in an adult body who has a very warped perception of reality. Her opinions on you, your life, your relationships, friends, children, marriage, career, religion, politics, weight, brains, looks, clothes, sense of humour etc etc are therefore nonsense and should be utterly ignored. Get a therapist if you can.