We’re cruising down a suburban street, Amy is leaning out of the window and Kirsten is playing DJ with the radio. Jackie starts singing along and soon I join her. We’re laughing, tears in our eyes, about some story about some guy from another school. It’s the late 90s, we’re in our second last year of high school, and the cusp of adulthood is so close we can almost feel it.
I look down at my watch and see that it’s 11.34pm. I want the night to go for longer; I know that soon they’ll be visiting a club, and then a fast food place, and then on the beach watching the sun rise together. And if I was a normal kid, I’d join them, but I wasn’t. I knew my mother was anxiously watching the clock, waiting for my curfew.
I also knew what would happen if I didn’t make it back in time. If I didn’t arrive by midnight, she’d start calling me, then my friends, then their parents, then me again, and finally, the police. With a feeble excuse, I asked my friends if they could drop me off at my house. They knew the drill, and off we went in the direction of my house, my prison. I made it through the door with a few seconds to spare. The porch light was on, my mother sitting by the couch closest to the front door, wrapped in a blanket, looking angry and exhausted at the same time. “Did you have fun?” she asked, in an accusatory tone. The question was a trap and I’d been her prisoner long enough to know her tricks.
“I’m tired, I’m getting to bed,” I told her as I walked up the stairs to my room. I tried to sound as defeated and exhausted as possible — I wasn’t allowed to be happy, or to enjoy my night. When I left the house earlier, she gave me what I like to call her little ‘gifts’ — a sneer and comment that cut me down to size and upset me, ensuring I wouldn’t be able to enjoy myself for a few hours. Now, being at home, any giveaway that I was happy would be met with full-blown anger.
I heard her turning off lights and sighing in exhaustion at every turn. I’d be hearing about this tomorrow — directly at first and then as she spoke to her numerous acquaintances and Friend of the Month loudly on the phone. She never kept her close friends for long. She wanted me to have fun, she’d say, but why couldn’t I meet my friends for lunch in the daylight? Bad things happen at night, why would we possibly want dinner? Why would we watch a movie at night? What are we hiding?
I didn’t want to be the person keeping their parent up at night while I was out enjoying my youth. I didn’t ask for her to sit by the couch in a blanket while I was out, showing just enough pain and exhaustion so I could feel like I was being a burden for wanting a night out. I didn’t want to be the kid who wasn’t allowed to do anything. I didn’t ask for any of it, the guilt trips, the silent treatment, the interrogations, the gas lighting, being constantly on edge and never feeling comfortable in my own home.
Sometimes I thought she wanted it to get past midnight so she would have a reason to target her anger in my direction.
Living with her was toxic. She knew my hiding places. She went through my garbage. She questioned everything. She laid clothes for me to wear, and rarely did I wear them but she continued to lay them on my bed every morning. She’d tell me what to say. She’d force me to talk to her friends, to tell them about my achievements, but they never felt like they were mine. For every achievement was endless phone calls to her friends, endless parading, that eventually, they were no longer achievements but embarrassments.
In elementary and middle school I was allowed to see friends, but there was always a catty comment to be made about my friend and their family, where they lived, what their parents did. It was relentless and constant, and made it not worth seeing people. I remember one time I went to the movies with my friends, and for some reason they brought along some boys. As soon as I was home my mother interrogated me about it. Was it just Sandy and Nicki that I was with that day? She’d ask the same question in different ways over and over, through the course of the afternoon, and when I didn’t crack she became factual: “I hope you enjoyed your time with boys. You are not a whore like Sandy.” She must’ve watched me from a distance as I met with my friends. It was a reminder that she was always there, always watching. I didn’t feel safe anywhere.
Over the years she would give me permission to go to birthday parties and big events. But it was never real. Every invite was followed by questions. Had she heard me talk about this friend before? Where did they live? What did their parents do? What would we be doing? Who would be there? What’s their contact number? The questions all came at once, in a dozen different wordings, in order to exhaust me into submission.
Every ounce of enjoyment and fun I had would be repaid by anger and resentment once I was home. Eventually, I became the person who’d always agree to go to the party, never tell my mother, and suddenly develop a cold or headache last minute. It became a running joke, but it avoided an unpleasant encounter with my mother. As I grew older, the invites stopped coming. Eventually the friendships stopped as well.
For those friends who did persist, my mother had elaborate and resentful nicknames for them, most famously that of my childhood friend Nanette, who was “Cockroach” because of her skin colour and her ability to always tail me in exam results. It was deeply racist, and reductive, but that was my mother; she had an uncanny and natural ability to reduce people to their core and strip away all the bullshit. As my mother’s Mini Me, I learned how to strip people to their core as well.
As the years went on — Nanette was an elementary school friend, and a friend throughout high school even though we went to separate schools, and then a college friend for my undergrad — it became apparent I was significantly the smarter of the two. And while I downplayed this so Nanette wouldn’t feel bad, my mother savoured competition between us in all forms. I was my mother’s trophy, and her trophy had to be the best at all times. It resulted in a very unhealthy and jealousy-driven friendship with Nanette, and developed into snobbery and a condescending attitude to everyone when it came to my intelligence — an attitude I’d spend years fighting.
I remember my mother being so happy when Nannette slowly made her way out of my life. For me, it was that I couldn’t participate in everything she wanted to do, and I didn’t like dragging people down. Nannette would send me invitations to parties and say “I know you won’t be able to come, but know that I want you there.” It broke my heart, and so I began to distance myself from Nannette. My mother was delighted over the fact that I’d become increasingly isolated.
The more isolated I was, the easier I was to control.
How does someone in high school, and then as an adult allow another person to control them so thoroughly? It was simple. This wasn’t something that started a year or two into my teenage-hood, this was deep set from my early beginnings. She controlled me as early as I can remember. She controlled everything — she put thoughts in my head, she killed my will to fight. I was isolated from anyone or any activity she deemed inappropriate.
She spent years trying to have a child, and would often blame my father for it. Over the course of ten years she’d have multiple miscarriages and one stillbirth. I was her last attempt at a pregnancy before IVF. Writing this makes me feel for her; I’ve had my own miscarriage and I know the feelings that come along with it. I can’t imagine having multiple ones, with a strong desire to have a family. She never wanted me to be an only child but that’s the card we were dealt. Maybe things would’ve been different if I had siblings. Or maybe she would’ve played jealousy and envy as tools against us.
When I was young there was physical and emotional abuse. She eventually stopped with the physical abuse when I fought back, and she became frail, but the emotional abuse continues to this day. I just don’t let it consume me the way it once did, but I can still feel the sting. She controlled every aspect of my life, including my independence, my finances. The people I knew. What I studied. My future.
I’ll never know the truth about what happened between her and my father, but I do know the facts: he was never fully a presence in my life when I was a baby, and at 10 years old, he abandoned my family, ceasing to be a presence in my life at all.
My mother had unchecked power.
The story of my narcissist mother begins in her childhood, but I am not privy to this. Instead I’m left to understand pieces of her history and how her story shaped mine.
She never loved my father. She’ll say she married him to explore the world but really it was family pressure (at 28 she was considered old when she married). He needed a wife, she needed an out. They had an understanding.
To outsiders, my mother was amazing. And if I think about it, maybe in another life I would’ve liked to know her — the charismatic and the deeply fraught parts of her. But as her daughter, she won’t let me in to see the truth about her.
She is a charismatic, charming woman who knows her way around small talk. At dinner parties I’d watch in awe as she struck up conversations and made people agree to do whatever she wanted — political favours, career moves, you name it, she could do it. She was a quick judge of character, an ability she gave me, and she knew how to use it to her advantage.
To her, people were to be mimicked. Those with opposing views were idiots, or stupid. People in high office were looked up to. If someone dared to say something against her, I’d hear about it for months. If I didn’t fully agree with her, I’d be in trouble. The person she appeared to be in public was incredible. I was always told growing up that I was so lucky to have her for a mother, to have someone so insightful raise me. Behind closed doors, she was something else.
The people she spoke to never knew this, but she saw their failures almost instantly. She knew their weaknesses just by looking at them. People were either failures or trophies, and any good traits were deflected. People weren’t kind and generous and sweet, they were naive, stupid, to be used. They were drunks, or celebrated individuals whose ass we could kiss. But people were never people, they were objects to be moved around a board at our will; to do with as we pleased. They could never see the real me; and for the longest time I didn’t know who the real me was. I watched my mother change her personality to suit the person she was talking to, how she mimicked them — and in turn I mimicked her.
Everyone had faults. The praise was because of what they could do for her, but in her mind, and mine, they were stripped down to their core objective. They could help her with red tape, or introduce her to someone. “So and so has a great network,” she would tell me, and in private she’d go over their faults and weaknesses with me, to make sure I understood.
Because of the mimicry, when I try to be only myself people think I’m autistic, or lacking in social graces. The truth is, I never learned proper social responses. What I saw on the playground, I brought back home, but it wasn’t responded to in the same pattern. I catch myself cutting through all the bullshit now, telling it to the people closest to me, and being told that it’s “too much”. It doesn’t feel like much of anything to me.
I never learned empathy because I was taught to never empathise with people. To this day, even if my heart feels empathy, I have no idea how to express it, and so I’m caught off-guard. I have a number of different phrases I cycle through to express the empathy my heart feels.
Kids of abusers have incredible, finely-attuned senses. It’s a fight or flight response we develop early on in childhood, our ultimate defence mechanism. I am aware of the smallest change in people — their expression, their voice, that gaze held for just a split second too long. If you change your emotions or train of thought, I’ll know. I don’t think about it, I just know innately, intuitively.
When I was a child, I’d notice these small changes in my mother, and I had mere seconds to choose whether I stayed in the room and braved her rage, or ran into my room to hide. I still brace myself when I notice these micro-changes in people, but I don’t always let on that I know, and I’ve become very good at managing the anxiety that comes with it.
It took me a long time to learn that I can’t make people feel something, and I can’t control what they think about me. My mother spent my whole life telling me the opposite, always comparing me to her friends and strangers, over exaggerating situations and lying. With her friends, she built me up to be an incredible person, and I wanted to believe this was me. In private, I was broken down, stripped to my core, my every failure and weakness revealed and replayed for years on end. I was told things were my fault, that I was inherently bad, that I would never achieve anything. I didn’t know what to believe, but I leaned towards what she said in private. It felt true, and she’d been saying it since I was a young child. She’d fused her envious, grandiose personality with mine. For the longest time I believed I was completely and entirely worthless.
It’s so freeing nowto think that no matter what I do, I can’t really change what people think. I can make them do things, sure, but their feelings? Their thoughts? That’s up to them.
I remember applying to a university about three hour’s drive from my house. It wasn’t a great university but it was my first choice because it was far enough away from her for it to be feasible for me to leave. It would be my first real attempt at leaving, or how I better thought of it as: escaping. I remember her squealing with delight when I received the acceptance letter, even though she thought the institution was beneath me. After she’d finished squealing and settled down, she told me she’d sell our house and move with me. We’d get a house with a nice yard and possibly sell again once I finished my degree. This was not negotiable. She was delighted by the thought of doing this. I was horrified.
I went to a different, prestigious university, staying at home because it was close by, and felt suffocated just as I had all through my childhood. Often I think about how my life would be different if I went to the other one, the people I would’ve met and the freedom I would’ve had. The years of my youth she stole.
I did a degree she wanted, majoring in the areas she wanted me to, and I ended up doing a PhD as well — also in the area she wanted, but I lied to her about the topic so at least I could call one thing my own. We had a fight when I wanted to change majors, and it ended with me being told to do it her way. It was always her way, and the consequences weren’t worth facing. She still brings up the fight we had when I wanted to change majors, and the fact that I got into a PhD program but never did a masters, as if that makes me less of a person. I don’t work in the industry she made me study, and have lost my chance to work in the one I wanted.
Years later while going through some old paperwork with her, I’d learn that I was accepted to a selective high school. I don’t know if it’s the same system now, but back then, you could take a test and if you passed you’d gain acceptance to a selective high school, mostly dealing with advanced subjects. I was aiming for the top high school in my state. At the time, she told me I failed. But now, with the paperwork in front of me, I could see that I not only passed, but that I was in the top tier of applicants — and had been accepted into the high school I craved. I asked her about this, and she told me it was too far away from our house, but also, and most importantly, the high school was co-educational. How could I go to high school with boys?
She had a strange relationship with men. She never seemed sexual, and she always had a problem with me dating — I did it in secret for a long time. Boys were to be stayed away from. She never had anything good to say about boys, except when she was fishing for information. Every now and then, while watching tv or talking about something, she’d turn to me with a cheshire grin and say, “so and so is cute though, isn’t he? What do you think of him?” I had learned this was a trap, so I’d always reply with a lukewarm response or change the subject. And that’s how it started, initially, not letting my mother into the secrets of my life, until the lukewarm attitude towards her became the norm.
She’s a complex being that I still don’t fully understand. She’d sign paperwork for sex ed and gloat, “of course you need to learn about this! It’s only natural!” and help me pick outfits for co-ed dances. She’d talk about how natural and normal it was for me to know boys, but yell at me after for actually talking to them.
When I was 19, I brought a boyfriend home to meet her. It went about as expected, an interrogative dance coupled with a conversation where she didn’t bother hiding her disdain. She pretended to have a heart attack, and from her hospital bed she begged me to break off the relationship. I continued seeing him in secret, and my mother would talk about marriage and appropriate relationships loudly to her friends, so that I would know what I did was wrong. She didn’t care how I felt or that, from her perspective, I’d be going through a break up. Feelings for men were foreign to her, and I was reminded about my “bad decisions” for years.
Most kids move out of home when they head for college, a wonderful time filled with fathers checking the car, mothers making sure there was an endless supply of food ‘just in case’, and siblings promising to bring news of home and take over your old room. It’s filled with love, kindness, and a generosity we can’t quantify in the moment.
Most people don’t escape, but I did. For months I planned my move, opening a bank account in my name and hiding what I made. I couldn’t use the same bank she did; she knew the branch manager and used them to access my accounts. Over the course of 5 or so weeks I slowly moved my clothing into a room of a share house that I rented in secret. When she noticed some of my belongings were missing, I told her I donated them — and she seemed pleased that I didn’t have things I loved anymore. I waited for her to leave the house one day and I packed everything that was dear to me into my car, the stuff she would otherwise notice was gone and question. I put a letter I had written for her on her bed, and I drove away.
I parked my car in the garage of my rented house for a month because I was so afraid she’d report it missing to the police.
I had to warn all my colleagues and friends to stay away from her if she tried to contact them, and not tell her where I was. Can you imagine telling your boss you were afraid your mother might come by, and to call security if she does?
The truth is, as long as there was some hold of her over me, I would never be truly free — but I wouldn’t learn this for years. I lived in fear for a month and half, and eventually, started breathing easy.
I began to feel free.
I always knew there was something off about her, I just didn’t know what it was. Everything had to be her way. If things didn’t go her way, she’d either force me to obey or I’d be inflicted with physical abuse, endless interrogation, guilt trip, usually ending in the form of a silent treatment which would last for minutes, hours, days — however long it took me to beg for forgiveness. Sometimes, she’d inflict self-harm by pretending to tear her hair out and slap her face. None of this seemed normal. No one did this in the movies I watched or the books I read. I knew since I could form thoughts that something was not right about her.
I love her; there are good parts to her. It’s important for me to remember that narcissism is only one part of her overall persona. She protected and nurtured me as a child. She taught me important life lessons. She still wants to protect me to this day.
Then there are things I learned directly from watching her and from facing her: to see through other people’s bullshit and reduce them to their core; to lie believably; to be charismatic; to always have a Plan B, Plan C, Plan D and so on. There were picnics, fun books being read to me, laughter and shared moments on days we cooked together. Even now I see her: the narcissistic part that is insecure, and the part of her that truly loves me. I want to hold the real part of her.
For the longest time I thought I was deeply emotional and dependent on people — because growing up, other people were my freedom. Now, more than a decade after not living with her, I can safely say I am neither of those things. I am in touch with my emotions and deeply aware of other people’s, but I don’t always want to act out on what I can sense. I’m not overly dependent — people come and go, there’s an ebb and flow to life and relationships. I’m not avoidant or anxious when it comes to attachment, I’m in a well-adjusted middle, but I’ve had to work hard to get there.
I am fiercely independent, which some children of narcissists become. I don’t trust easily but I do trust deeply — those in my life who value me, I value back. It’s not cold-hearted, it’s self-preservation. I want to be liked and I try to act kindly towards everyone I meet, but I won’t go out of my way for people who don’t return those feelings.
From my experience, children of narcissists can either go one of two ways. You can either identify with your parent and become a narcissist yourself, or, know that something’s off and try to get out of the situation — if you’re going through this I thoroughly recommend grey rocking (stick to boring, monotonous responses to boring, monotonous subjects that eventually discourage conversation) and no contact. There’s lots of different ways to do it, I didn’t talk to my mother for months and then only saw her for a few hours. When it felt safe, I spent a couple of nights during Christmas with her. I can fly down to my hometown for a whole weekend with her, every few months, but it took a while to build to this and a week during with her is my current limit.
I worry about what happens when I have children of my own. Between my mother and my absent father, I know what not to do. I want to give my future children a loving, secure, stable environment to grow up in. I also want them to learn things, things that I learned with my mother that developed from a place of need. But I don’t know how to teach them these things while maintaining a stable and safe environment. I want them to be able to see through people’s bullshit, to understand people’s intentions within seconds of meeting them, to have multiple possibilities in their head for every scenario. But why would a stable, secure, happy person ever need to learn these things?
Growing up was alien to me. I had a strong sense of myself, and I could see that she wanted everything to be about her, how I’d measure up as her perfect, personal trophy. If I ever spoke against my mother, there would be a tirade of ‘good things’ she’d done for me — provide shelter, pay the bills, take me to doctors, and my education was proof that I was raised well. I am privileged; I understand this and I’m grateful for the opportunities I did have. I refuse to call myself a victim because that removes my agency.
But what she didn’t do was allow me to make my own mistakes, learn humility, explore my emotions and personality. I couldn’t go to her for advice or tell her I’d had a bad day, or it would turn into a lecture and fight. Through the years I’ve become emotionally resilient to the point where I don’t have the same response as others to something emotional or interrogative.
This is probably the hardest part to process for me. I wasn’t a bad kid. I didn’t do anything wrong. The blame was always put squarely on me, but it was never about me. Her actions and issues were hers and hers alone. I took on her scars and added my own.
I really feel for other kids growing up with narcissists. The scars are with us for life, and we deserve better than to take on someone’s insecurities and weaknesses, or become a projection or extension of someone else.
Some people in my position ask if they’ll ever be good enough, but they shouldn’t — only you can answer that question, and your answer is the only one that matters.
