If mothers are our first teachers, then having a narcissistic one teaches us that human closeness is terrifying, and the world is a heartless, inconsistent place.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
It's no wonder the narcissistic mother will always have a place in literature: she's a freak of nature.
There's a definition of narcissism that when a parent is narcissistic, instead of the child seeing himself reflected in the mother's face and the mother's joy, the child of the narcissistic parent feels like, 'What can I do to make her okay, to make her happy?'
I think that people in the phase between being someone's kid and being someone's parent have always been uniquely narcissistic, but that social media and Twitter and LiveJournal make it really easy to navel-gaze in a way that you've never been able to before.
I don't know if my mother was a narcissist - or bi-polar or borderline. Those were words she tossed around over the years.
I think narcissists are endlessly watchable. The way they view the world and the way they interact within the world.
Above all, there is Mother. She taught me how to love, how to have respect for other people.
One thing a narcissist doesn't like is to look in a mirror that is in any way genuinely reflective of what's on the other side of it.
One of the darkest, deepest shames so many of us mothers feel nowadays is our fear that we are Bad Mothers, that we are failing our children and falling far short of our own ideals.
I've always been a narcissist.
What makes a narcissistic mother so scary? Her absolute power and controlling influence. A narcissistic mother is your only 'friend,' at least until you're old enough to go to school.