Will I Ever Be Good Enough?: Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers (6 page)

I see an astounding number of ignoring parents in divorce cases. Since the court system operates on the basis of adversarial relationships, spouses usually end up squaring off on one side or the other. Professionals advising families during divorce proceedings generally work for either the mother or the father. In many parenting-time proceedings, the discussion focuses not on what is in the best interest of the child as the law dictates, but on what is best for the parent. It is a sad commentary on our culture that many parenting-time evaluators and judges listen more intently to what the parents want than what is truly best for the children. In Denver, there is even talk about which evaluator is “for the father” and which is “for the mother.” What about being a “child advocate”?

Divorce also sometimes leads one parent to turn a child against the other parent so he or she can have his way in the custody battle. This is a classic example of emotional child abuse that hurts the child much more than these alienating parents realize. In these cases, parents may take care of the child physically, but completely disregard his or her emotional needs.

• Keri’s mother destroyed Keri’s relationship with her father when the two adults were going through a divorce. “Mom was crazy jealous of our time with Daddy. She would say, ‘Go see your father and I will be fine,’ and then she would go into a depressive stupor for ten days and make us feel guilty. It got so bad that we stopped seeing Daddy because we didn’t want to hurt our mom. Then he died suddenly and we couldn’t even go to the funeral. We couldn’t grieve his death in the presence of our mother because it bothered her too much!”
  

The behavior patterns of abusive, ignoring, or neglectful mothers are generally identifiable, but grow much more complex and confusing when a narcissistic mother demonstrates a mix of both engulfing and ignoring behaviors. Let’s look at the ways this particular combination plays out.

The Mix of Engulfing and Ignoring Behaviors

Although my research suggests that most narcissists display one type preferentially, the two styles are not mutually exclusive. A mother can flip from engulfing to ignoring and back, as does the mother in the film
Terms of Endearment
. Aurora, the mother (Shirley MacLaine), constantly examines her infant daughter to see if she’s breathing. She jiggles her baby, waking her abruptly to check. When the baby cries, Aurora indicates her maternal approval with a contented, “That’s more like it,” and closes the door, leaving the baby crying alone in her crib.
⁵

My mother exhibited both extremes with two different daughters—engulfing behavior with my sister and ignoring behavior with me. I believe her actions were related to where we were in birth order and where Mom was in life. In a nutshell, she pressured me to grow up quickly to take care of her and help her with the rest of the family, and she tried to keep my sister a child by helping her with everything. I was the second to oldest child. My mother would say no to me and assume that I would figure things out. She would always do things for my sister, who was the baby, even when my sister was being irresponsible. While my mother gave me the message that I had to handle things on my own, she gave my sister the message that she could not handle anything without her intervention.

Effective mothering strikes a proper balance between permissiveness and restraint. A girl who has been parented on that middle ground learns she can grow along with her talents and passions; her feelings are acknowledged and treated with respect. But a girl who is raised outside that middle ground must overcome a painful set of hurdles if she wants to enjoy healthy love relationships, make satisfying career choices, and someday be an effective, affectionate, kind parent herself.

The Six Faces of Maternal Narcissism

My research has identified six types of narcissistic mothers, all within the engulfing-ignoring spectrum. I call them “the six faces.” As you explore this list, please understand that your mother can be primarily one type or a combination of several of these. In addition, the engulfing and ignoring mom can be interwoven into any of the following types.

THE FLAMBOYANT-EXTROVERT

The flamboyant-extrovert is the mother about whom movies are made. She’s a public entertainer, loved by the masses, but secretly feared by her intimate house partners and children. If you can perform in her show, too, all the better. If you can’t, you’d better watch out. She is noticeable, flashy, fun, and “out there.” Some love her, but you despise the outward masquerade she performs for the world. For you know that you don’t really matter to her and her show, except in how you make her look to the rest of the world. Seeing how the world responds to her confuses you. You see that she doesn’t offer the same warmth and charisma to you, her child, as she does to others—to friends, colleagues, family, even to strangers. “If she could only love me, then she could be whatever she wants to be and I wouldn’t care,” you feel. You desperately want her to know you and to let you be yourself too.

More often than not, these mothers lead charmed lives and want their daughters to fit into their social world and conform to their mold.

• Sherry’s mother was a perfect example of this. She worked hard at getting attention. Her looks changed as often as the weather, and for maximum dramatic effect. “I don’t recall ever seeing her natural hair color,” Sherry, 55, said with a wry smile. She remembers her mother’s different phases. “In the early ’60s, she had the Jackie O look, big hats. When the mod things came out, she had sunglasses and miniskirts. She was always in style, the center of attention. I always felt I didn’t want to move into her territory. I remember being embarrassed about the hot pants and pantyhose under them. White go-go boots and stiletto heels. She always took it a step beyond tacky. Somehow I think she knew she wasn’t very authentic. She actually said she wanted this inscription on her tombstone: ‘Will the real Betty please stand up?’”
  
• Amy had an eccentric, flamboyant mother, whose charisma helped her get into and out of a lot of interesting situations. Her mother owned 144 pairs of shoes with matching purses and watches, and was a self-proclaimed psychic who once had her own cable TV show. A chronic liar and gossip, Amy’s mother used to get together with the neighbors and give them psychic readings. “One lady on our block decided that Mom was Satan. She convinced the neighbors of that, so we got kicked out of the neighborhood. My mother’s response was that people would short circuit if given too much spiritual information. She always had an excuse for things or tried to blame others.”
  
• Lina’s mother had a perfect venue in which to shine as the owner of a glamorous nightspot. Lina smiles as she recalls how every evening her mother would dress up in a ball gown and go to her coffeehouse to play hostess. A onetime blues singer who had spent time in Hollywood, Lina’s mother claimed that she had sung with Desi Arnaz, partied with Frank Sinatra, and sat on Cary Grant’s lap. To Lina, her mother is nothing but show. “She likes to tell people who she knows. It’s all about her image. She still does inappropriate stuff like dance around the room to get attention or make an entrance that all will notice. I’ve always thought it was strange that when I introduced her to my friends, she would say, ‘I’m so glad they got to meet me!’”
  

THE ACCOMPLISHMENT-ORIENTED

To the accomplishment-oriented mother, what you achieve in life is paramount. Success depends on what you do, not who you are. She expects you to perform at the highest possible level. This mom is very proud of her children’s good grades, tournament wins, admission into the right college, and graduation with the pertinent degrees. She loves to brag about them too. But if you do not become what your accomplishment-oriented mother thinks you should, and accomplish what she thinks is important, she is deeply embarrassed, and may even respond with a rampage of fury and rage.

A confusing dynamic is at play here. Often, while the daughter is trying to achieve a given goal, the mother is not supportive because it takes away from her and the time the daughter has to spend on her. Yet if the daughter achieves what she set out to do, the mother beams with pride at the awards banquet or performance. What a mixed message. The daughter learns not to expect much support unless she becomes a great hit, which sets her up for low self-esteem and an accomplishment-oriented lifestyle.

• As a little girl, Yasmin loved to ride horses. But her mother was reluctant to support this costly, time-consuming passion. Yasmin’s father helped her, though, working hard with her to teach her barrel racing, and her mother was furious with him. But success changed the family dynamic. When Yasmin won a blue ribbon at the kids’ rodeo, “Mom plastered the winning smile on her face and the bragging spree began.” Yasmin remembers being confused and hurt.
  
• Carol grew up feeling controlled by her mother’s ambition for her. She took seven years of piano lessons, where she had to play in recitals as well as for her mother’s friends. “I would be playing along and hear her snort if I made a mistake. I could feel her disappointment in me. I felt like I had to be perfect for her. When I was old enough to choose, I purposely flunked the test to the academy for piano where she wanted me to go. After that, I didn’t touch the piano for 12 years. When I moved out and had my own home, I wanted a piano just to play for me. I still can’t play in front of Mom. When I started therapy, I had to stop playing the piano again because it brought up all the old stuff with Mom. I still have a love/hate relationship with the piano. Somehow the line between Mom’s benefit and my benefit got crossed. I was a trophy for her.”
  
• Eleanor’s mother judged people solely on their educational accomplishments. First thing she always asked was where someone went to college. “Harvard and Stanford people were the very best you could find.” Then she wanted to know their degree level. “M.D.’s and the Ph.D.’s were outstanding. Anything less was not good enough. All of her friends were Dr. So-and-So or married to Dr. So-and-So. She didn’t care what kind of people they were or if they were even nice to her or us.” Eleanor leaned back in her chair, exhaling a sigh of relief, and told me, “Thank God, I made a few A’s in my day and have a couple of degrees because if not, she probably wouldn’t even speak to me! Poor Dad is only at the master’s level—I don’t know how he survived with her.”
  
• Mia’s mother obsessed about cleaning. “She was psycho about it: Everything had to be perfect, like we clean the house before the maid comes. One thing is out of place and she notices, and becomes ballistic. She is beyond neat freak! My mom would throw out everything in my closet and make me color code my clothes. I would have to clean the bathroom four times until I did it perfectly.”
  
• In the film
  The Other Sister,
  the developmentally delayed daughter says to the narcissistic mother, “Mom, you don’t look at me, you don’t see me, not the real me. I don’t want to play tennis, or chess, or be an artist. I want to be me. I can’t do those things, but
  I can love
  .”
  ⁷
  What a powerful message.
  

THE PSYCHOSOMATIC

The psychosomatic mother uses illness and aches and pains to manipulate others, to get her way, and to focus attention on herself. She cares little for those around her, including her daughter, or their needs. If your mother was like this, the only way you were able to get attention from her was to take care of her. If you failed to respond to her, or even rebelled against her behavior, Mom would play the victim by becoming more ill or have an illness-related crisis to redirect your attention and make you feel guilty. I call this the “illness control method.” It is very effective. If the daughter does not respond, she looks bad and feels like a loser who can’t be nice to her mother. The most important thing to the psychosomatic mother is that her daughter be there to care for her and understand
her
.

Many times the psychosomatic mother uses her illnesses to escape from her feelings or from having to deal with a difficulty in life. The daughter will commonly hear from her father or other family members, “Don’t tell your mother. It will upset her or make her sick.” Some daughters learn that being sick themselves brings some attention from their psychosomatic mothers because illness provides a common bond. The mother can relate to illness and is able to communicate about it with the daughter, but the daughter must be careful not to be sicker than her mother is, because then the mother will not feel cared for, which she feels entitled to.

• While migraine headaches are genuinely debilitating, May’s mother used them as a way of escaping problems in the household and would not take care of herself in ways that can help prevent migraines. For instance, she never dealt with her stress, a common trigger for migraines, and allowed herself to become upset by many things. “Mom was not able to deal with anything. She would instantly get a headache and have to be run to the emergency room for some shot that would knock her out for days on end. Then Dad and I would have to deal with whatever it was that was a problem. It was her escape!” This continued throughout May’s young adulthood. “I remember one time telling her that I was dating a much younger man and it was like the headache came on so suddenly neither of us knew what hit her. I guess she didn’t like that!”
  
• Irene was blamed for her mother’s inability to deal with stress. “Whenever anything went wrong at home, Dad would say, ‘Look what you’ve done to your mother.’ Mom would end up in the bedroom sobbing, and have a headache and diarrhea and be on the toilet for hours and then come out to the couch with a rag on her head and all sad. Dad would come to her rescue and blame us, saying she handles stress badly.” Irene needed recognition for herself, but learned that “if I don’t live up to her expectations, she gets aches and pains, has cold sores on her mouth, develops weird rashes, and makes herself sick from emotional stress. Everything has to be about her.”
  
• Jackie’s mother’s behavior got worse as she and Jackie’s father got older and he began to get sick. “Mother always had to be sicker than Daddy was. If I gave Daddy attention because something was wrong, she always had to ‘up’ the illness. Once she faked a heart attack. I can’t count the number of times she called me at work and I rushed over there only to find nothing wrong with her. The one time I didn’t come over after a call, she didn’t speak to me for days, said I never cared for her, and wrote me nasty letters.”
  
• Mona cried during therapy as she discussed her father’s hip surgery, which was hard for him because he was aging and weak. But she was really crying because “the whole time Dad was going through this, my mother said her hip hurt and she needed hip surgery too. She couldn’t let the attention be on him. It was so sick! Her hips were just fine. As soon as Dad recovered, we never heard about her hips again.”
  
• Celeste tells me, “My mom just did a lot of groaning. When she got up or sat down, or walked across the room, she just groaned! She had no physical reason to do this. It seemed to be her way of getting everyone in the room to look at her and ask her if she was okay. Then she would say, ‘Of course I’m okay. Why?’”