Halo Percy - Narcissistic Mothers

Narcissism In My Life (Series): Linas Story How I Coped With a Controlling, Narcissistic Father and Ex-Husband

Narcissist In My Life (Series): Johns Story How I Coped With a Toxic, Narcissistic Church Leader

Narcissist In My Life (Series): Helens Story How I Coped With a Married, Narcissistic Lover

Chapter 1: Meet Percys Monster

Chapter 1a Lets Start With Catharsis

The narcissists in our lives (and I have no doubt that we have all met one), are irritating, manipulative, unprofessional, and often just plain difficult to try to build our lives around. They make absurd demands, throw tantrums and are riddled with insecurities that we have to work around, smooth over or pander to. Its like trying to have a logical, adult relationship with a three-year-old, and it can be one of the most stressful things in your life.

So my sympathy goes out to those of you who, like me, have to deal with your narcissist on a personal level in my case, my mother. Her increasingly erratic behavior and wild acts of self-destruction have had an overwhelmingly negative impact on my life.

The stress has broken down my relationships, interfered with my ability to work, and at times hit me quite hard financially. Ive rolled into work late and tired because she just had to be reassured, at 3am, that she was the best mother in the world and that I loved her. Ive lost partners because not only is she too difficult to deal with, but they cannot stand to see me torturing myself trying to set her straight (and because, of course, those late-night phone calls affect them too).

Ive been screamed at for my disloyalty, and Ive been told I am a complete and utter bitch that she wishes shed aborted because I didnt give in to her every need. I have spent countless hours worrying, fretting, crying, arranging and fixing things in response to the actions she has taken or the things she has said.

I started counselling my mother through her life, being her advice guru, life coach, mentor, shoulder to cry on and frequent verbal punching-bag when I was twelve. Ill let that one sink in a minute, yes, twelve years old, a little girl who had just started high school, as we call education from ages 11-16 here in England. Now, twelve years later, at 24, I am tired too tired to carry on.

Theres only so long you can live on a roller-coaster, and more than a decade later, I have decided to finally get off. It took four suicide attempts, umpteen rows, scratches, screaming, a car crash, several broken relationships on my part, that caved under the weight of her insanity, numerous emails that still, years later, bring me to tears to try to read, dozens of late-night phone calls, gallons of gin, one attempt to section her, and finally she has pushed me to my limit. I have cut her off and can only hope that from this distance she can do no more harm.

Some, like my dad (who has been divorced from my mother for 9 years), think I should have done more, that I am bowing out early and shirking my responsibilities. I mention this because to me, this is one of the big reasons it took me twelve years to sever such a cancerous relationship (the other biggest reason I consider far more idiosyncratic, and will mention later).

When your narcissist is someone closely related to you, others consider that they are your responsibility they are your relative, so you should fix them. My dad was especially good at this sort of guilt-trip, as he not only made it my problem, and mine alone (since she clearly couldnt sort out her own issues, nor in his opinion should be made to; a fact I found baffling considering she was 53 and should have been left to clean up her own mess years ago); but he made me out to be uncaring, lazy, and, most ironic of all, selfish.

He pushed the problem onto me, as though she were my teenage child who had gone astray; and all the while, completely deadpan and missing the irony of the statement, he would repeat, shes not my problem. What he didnt seem to comprehend, what I have only just come to realize recently, is she wasnt my problem either. She, as any other person, belonged only to herself, as did her problems. I had just acted as her mule, lugging the heavy weight around for a while.

Whilst realizing this for myself was the first huge step I took to ridding myself of my narcissist problem, the second, and arguably harder part of the process was trying to convince those around me that I wasnt being irresponsible, or indeed, narcissistic myself. This has been my greatest challenge so far in my effort to let go, to get rid of this enormous problem, and Im not entirely convinced Ive yet surmounted it.

However, in learning to let go of the feeling that I am responsible for someone elses actions, I have also learned to not care if others think me cruel or unkind: they do not know the effort I have made, or the lengths I have gone to. They do not know the emotions I feel, or the strain it has put on me. And most importantly, they do not have to live my life.

To me, cutting my mother out of my life was extremely difficult, but also probably one of the best things I have ever done, and I am learning to not feel guilty about it. I have come to realize that I have more than paid my dues, and that at this stage, it is she that owes me: apologies, patience, respect, love. But Im not asking her for any of those things. All I ask is for peace, and in severing my relationship with her, I realize a very small part of me is taking a leaf out of her book: I am thinking about what I need, and whilst it is far from selfish, it is a healthy step away from the selfless martyrdom upon which my relationship with my mother has thus far rested.

But as I say, the most difficult part of letting go is convincing others around you that not only is this the right decision, a good decision, but that it is neither cruel, nor selfish, nor irresponsible. It is in fact the opposite, as you are breaking the narcissists gravity, that ability to make the world revolve around them. My dad was by far the worst person for this (in fact, thinking about it, it was only him and my mother herself that thought my decision was in any way wrong everybody else wondered why it had taken me so long to come to this inevitable conclusion). My break from her was recent, and my father and I talked about it over the phone for some time. It went something like this.

Dad, I tried to explain, for the fourth or fifth time, exasperated and losing patience, Dad, Ive done everything there is to be done, but at the end of it all, she needs to sort out her own life. These are her problems, and whilst Ive put her in touch with people who can help, and Ive made appointments and meetings for her, and Ive told her how to make it better, if she ignores my advice and skips her doctors appointments and doesnt do any of the stuff I told her to do, well, theres nothing more I can do. I cant force her to grow up.