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Growing up with a narcissistic mother & subsequent abuse - Part II

Hello everyone. As I said, I’m going to continue this as a three-part series, focusing on different stages of my life and the progression of abuse I endured having a narcissistic mother.

I’m shocked, surprised, moved and even a little saddened to see how many people related to my last post. So, I figured I would put this out sooner than I planned.


Picking up where we left off…

Growing up with a narcissistic mother & subsequent abuse - Part II

By the time I was in my adolescence, I had already become very reclusive and formed an unhealthy tendency to surround myself with the wrong types of people. I always found myself befriending those who used me in one way or another, who didn’t regard my feelings and even bullied me.

I always justified their actions, however, as I learned growing up that love and affection is in fact conditional.

Alongside my isolation and constant criticism, there would be intense periods of affection and love from my mother. This is what we call “love bombing.”

It is often used to describe the romantic period between a couple with a narcissist who overwhelms their partner with admiration to drop their defences. It’s temporary and is only used to make sure you stay addicted to the narcissist, constantly trying to please them so you can return to this pleasurable phase.

I was forever trapped in that cycle with my mother, my “friends” and eventually some of my partners.

When my mother felt appeased, she would embrace me and hold me in her lap from child to full-grown adult, reassuring me of her love and admiration. How I obtained this affection came in one of two ways:

I effectively did everything she wanted for the time being, whether that provided her with my meagre earnings, wore my clothing and makeup in accordance to her preference, cooked, cleaned, withheld my problems, and apologize for every ounce of burden I placed on her.

Or, I allowed myself to be perfectly damaged and weak.

Narcissistic parents don’t want you to thrive, so much so, they may even use mental illness to their advantage. Once I became a teenager, I had a full-blown eating disorder spurred on by my mother’s own obsession with her failing beauty and her constant criticism of my appearance. I began using starvation and self-destruction techniques as a way of getting out my frustrations and finding a way to control something in my life.

As a result, I was putting on a multitude of medications, against my will, to try and “fix” the problem. One particular medication had the side-effect of making me drowsy. I vividly remember this being one of the most affectionate periods I ever had with my mother, who would hold and stroke my head as the thick of these effects came and passed.

“It’s going to be okay, baby, you’ll get better.”


But I would never get better, not as long as I was in her care.

Instead of trying to encourage me and support me while I struggled with my disease, my mother took every opportunity to tell me how disgusting and offensive my body was and guilted me for whatever food I did eat as it was “a waste” since I wouldn’t gain weight.

"I'm not going to buy you more than an apple, you're just going to waste it anyway so I'm not going to waste my money."

She would put unrealistic expectations on my weight gain, trying to force me to get to a weight that was unhealthy for my height and body type. I would discover later this was because she was unhappy with her own weight and she wanted to feel better about her own body by having me be on the “chubbier” side.

This continued our entire relationship, even after recovery. To this day, if I see my mother, she will criticize my weight and insist that as a 5’ woman I need to be much heavier than what is healthy, according to my family doctor.

By the time I was eighteen, I was finally off medication and made the decision to move away. At first, my mother was oddly receptive to the idea, as my other siblings were showing signs of ailing mental health that took a more drastic turn than mine.

However, she wouldn’t hesitate to later lash out at me for it later. After only a few months of being independent, my mother ex-communicated me from the family after accusing me of abandoning them.

She claimed I had no emotion and heart, looked down upon everyone, and was overall a bad person for leaving them. She would go on to not speak to me for three months before we reconnected, and in that time, I was the happiest I had ever been.

I let her back in, believing I was strong enough now to deal with her.

But I was wrong.


I’m going to end this part here, again, to prevent it from being too long and deterring people from reading. In the final chapter, I will talk about how things became physical, how my mother tried to control my romantic relationships, and how my success in school and my career lead to the ending of our relationship.

Thank you, I look forward to your feedback.

Growing up with a narcissistic mother & subsequent abuse - Part II
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