Meeting the narcissist feels so good at first, and then comes the time where you eventually are invited to meet their mother.
You take a step into her house, and within fifteen minutes, there’s a fog that lifts; that’s where everything that hasn’t made sense to this date suddenly does. Those dots you hadn’t been able to connect are suddenly joining, and now it’s clear where that theme of narcissism began.
After all, toxicity like this has to start somewhere, right?
It all starts with the mother!
1 She is the OG, the one who started it all
Everything the narcissist is, started with the mother. I mean that in every way, but particularly how he came to wind up being a narcissist.
It all starts in childhood, right? Those beliefs you have, the opinions you form, the habits you fall into; they’re all offered to you by the environment you’re raised in.
Those very patterns you’ve been trying to work out with him all make sense when you meet his mother. At some point you’ll have felt that exhaustion from simply trying to be the right person for him, and you’ll have been left feeling pretty darn confused a lot of the time.
There his mother stands, the source of all you are experiencing, and she is making it frightfully obvious that it all began with her.
She tells you that you’re not loading the dishwasher correctly. She’s showing you indirectly that all the years of conditioning him started long before you were ever in the picture.
Just when you felt like he was just this person by chance, you’ve come to see that there are roots, and those roots are very toxic.
2 Notice how the narcissist’s mother talks to them
The telling nature of any narcissist’s behavior will always derive from how they’re treated and spoken to by their mother, and that’ll be where you hear the phrases where everything suddenly makes a lot of sense:
You were always my most sensitive child, weren’t you? I have sacrificed my whole life for you, you should show some respect. Your brother was here yesterday, and he never ever gives me the trouble that you do.
When spoken to like this, a narcissist will act in one of two ways. They will either shrink into oblivion, or they will perform, putting on a show where they become whatever their toxic mother needs them to be in that moment.
See also 5 Creepy Things Every Narcissist Hides Somewhere in Their HouseWhen you’re home with the narcissist, you do the same thing. You shrink, or you perform, being whatever he needs you to be exactly the same.
It’s wild, isn’t it? Behavior travels from person to person, generation to generation, and we experience it all.
I would definitely say that it’s very uncomfortable witnessing all of this for the first time, by the way. It’s like you’re walking into some kind of dream world where nothing is real. You’re faced with the person who is responsible for how you’re being treated at home, and it’s hard not to shut yourself down or away from that reality.
3 The transactional family
With rules that were never made to make everyone equal, yet in every single family, love was made to be a transaction that people had to earn, rather than be freely given. It’s not fair, is it? I can’t imagine being raised that way, but so many people are, and that can be where narcissism comes from.
The narcissist’s mother should have been the heart of the house, and instead she was the one who made everything cold and unstable. She would withdraw her love if her children didn’t comply, and neglect them during the biggest moments of their life.
All on purpose.
For the kids? They end up chasing love, time, and affection. They don’t get it nearly as much as children of healthy parents, so it ends up being a craving that they feel they constantly need to fight for.
This will be what your narcissist would’ve had to go through, but please don’t feel that sorry for them. Their mother’s treatment of them has now become your problem, and that’s just how it flies through and affects different people.
It’s weird to watch these transactions between narcissistic family members. You wonder if you’re in some kind of twilight zone, but in fact, this is normal for them, and for once, you can see the pattern and all those pieces begin to fit together.
4 The narcissist’s mother will never do any wrong
I don’t want to throw you off track here, so stay with me. The narcissist in your eyes, should resent their mother. It’d make perfect sense to, after all, you’d think her behavior would be seen through and exposed in a heartbeat, but that’s not the case here. There is zero self-awareness about their entire childhood, but you hear from them these things instead:
She did the best she could. It was all she knew. You seem to find fault in my family very easily, don’t you?
This person’s mother has been placed on a pedestal for so long, I’m surprised her butt isn’t numb from sitting down. This ultimately means you are going to be attacked for any observation about her behavior that you notice or speak about. You will be seen as attacking her, and anyone she’s raised or married.
There you are, the problem. Isn’t that just typical? This will happen a lot to you, and it’ll feel like you’re right at home with the narcissist on your own with them. Those same feelings or guilt or shame will rise up, and it will all click.
That’s why it’s like this! That’s where he gets it from!
5 The comparison between her and you will be constant
You can call this direct, or you can see it more subtly. The truth is, those comparisons will exist no matter what, and that’s just something you’re going to have to deal with.
My mother would never say/do that. Mom would have probably used the beef mince instead, which is why hers tastes so good.
Other comparisons may be less obvious, but will be more about how they act when you do something that she would never do.
There’s this underlying competition bubbling away between the both of you, though, and that’s what this is all about. His mother sets the standard, and you have to spend the rest of your life trying to live by it. If you don’t, you’re called out on.
This is something, and I hate to say it, that you’ll never win.
6 Now what do you do with all of this
Information; everything is information. You have to see it this way if you’re going to untangle yourself out of it.
You have to understand these dynamics, but in doing so, it doesn’t mean you have to then keep tolerating it.
Seeing where the narcissist’s behavior is sourced from means you are offered something pretty valuable: clarity.
You aren’t confused any more. More importantly, you know that none of how the narcissist treats you is even close to your fault.
