Author: James Anderson

Tips for coping with a narcissistic mother

Often you don’t know you are being gaslighted—it’s a poison that spreads insidiously. You’ll be told you are too sensitive, crazy, or some other derogatory adjective. A person who has a parent with NPD may find that it affects different aspects of their life. It can affect their relationship with their parent as well as their own mental health. Isolation from a parent with NPD may be helpful in healing. However, it can also be difficult because it can cause conflicting emotions.

You will be surprised how initially challenging, but ultimately clarifying, this can be. It is also helpful to write at least a brief summary of your feelings and reactions after your current interactions with your parents. What have you noticed, and how might this behavior have affected you as a child? Again, I advise against sharing these writings with your parents. Narcissism and alcoholism are different conditions, but they can occur simultaneously and may share some overlapping symptoms. While both conditions can be challenging, certain approaches can help individuals overcome the potential complications of these disorders.

One of the best and healthiest things I’ve ever done was cut off and quit talking to/seeing (and I mean 100% zero contact) my biological family. I did this 2 years ago and have never looked back and have never regretted it. I know some will say how awful I am and how they wish they still had their parents as mine are both still around.

1. In a conflict, a narcissist will turn everything around on you, gaslight, and refuse to apologize or agree to change.
2. Following alcohol guidelines can help people stay within moderate levels of alcohol consumption.
3. For some people, isolating themselves from their parent with NPD may not be the right choice.
4. You had the impression that they only loved you when you PROVED your worth to them.

You can also find narcissist abuse support groups, both online or in-person, through organizations like Help Within Reach. There are numerous other online support groups and chat rooms dedicated to loved ones living with alcoholism and NPD. All personality and substance abuse disorders are diagnosed based on a strict set of criteria described in the DSM-5.

Support Our Work

You’re likely to be this way in other relationships—and you’re hypervigilant for any time you may get into trouble, always in a state of anxious watchfulness. This severely depletes your energy levels and health over the long term. But because you’ve lived with this your entire life, you’re not aware of just how exhausted you are. Sometimes, it’s a combination of the race to the bottom and the top.

Naturally, anything you do or aspire to that does not align with what will make her proud will be shot down. These may include avoiding or limiting contact, setting boundaries, or trying gray rocking. Gray rocking, or the gray rock method, is a method some people use when managing abusive or manipulative behavior.

Coping with someone with a dual diagnosis can be more difficult than if that person suffered from only narcissism or untreated alcoholism. You could start by engaging with a mental healthcare provider or treatment center that specializes in dual diagnoses. This ensures that care is coordinated under a central provider.

Consider those beautiful chapters of your life, after healing. In essence, you’ll become the champion and parent your younger self never had. What this translates to is learning to give yourself permission to have boundaries and learning how to have boundaries—you lay down the law. You’ll experience guilt for things you did and the things you did not do. For being human—experiencing certain emotions, making mistakes every human makes—and for the things others did, that you blame yourself for. And you’ll shame yourself because you see yourself as a fundamentally bad and unlovable person.

You have terrible or nonexistent boundaries.

You can feel like you’re betraying your roots, or you may worry that healing may take forever. This is detrimental to nurturing intimacy because an avoidantly attached person is always misinterpreting others as impinging upon their independence. Or, you could be a combination of both anxiously and avoidantly attached.

But they and the rest of my family including brothers, cousins, aunts uncles etc. screwed me up in the biggest way. If your mother and/or father was a narcissist, they likely reacted in an extreme way. They would scream at you and likely physically hurt you through smacking, or some other method. You felt that you could never share your feelings with your parent/s because they would either make fun of you or talk about themselves instead.

This might include joining Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and other 12-step programs that offer nonjudgmental peer support to others living with AUD. You can also join a local support group offered by the National Association of Mental Illness (NAMI), which addresses substance abuse when NPD and other mental health disorders. After reading through this list of symptoms you might still be unsure of how to define your parent/s. Your narcissistic mother and/or father wouldn’t have exhibited all of the signs above (but if they did, pay attention). Obviously, your issues will differ depending on your history and any underlying inherited predispositions. Evaluation by a licensed mental health professional is always key.

What to know about narcissism and alcoholism

A 2019 study looked at the link between narcissism and alcohol consumption in a questionnaire of 345 college students. Both grandiose and vulnerable narcissism were predictors of alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems. These would be things you should do with trained professionals—a mixture of therapy, coaching, energy- and bodywork, as well as supplementation, to take care of your gut and brain. We went to school and learned loads of nifty formulas and facts—you might even have many, many fancy degrees. But we didn’t learn crucial life skills and financial fluency or boundaries. Otherwise, you’ve left the playground, but you’ve become your own bully.

There wasn’t any “private” space to call your own growing up. Your narcissistic mother or father would go through your room and private belongings, without a thought, sometimes even using what they found against you. The thing about having a narcissistic mother and/or father is that you have been taught to believe that you are the crazy and imbalanced one, instead of them. This causes you to constantly doubt yourself and any feelings you have about them. I always recommend writing about your childhood, including what you remember, your feelings about what you recall, and what confuses or eludes you.

Needless to say I had a bullseye on me 24 hrs a day 7 days a week. I’ll say this, I’ve come to the realization I will never have what’s considered a “normal” life. I’ve known instability, chaos, invalidation, and exploitation, all my life.

Everything good you do is considered a reflection of her—her superior genetics and her hard work in raising you. And she’ll never stop bringing it back to it being all about her, plus she’ll dramatize it all. Or steal someone else’s credit, like claiming she worked her fingers to the bone to send you to violin classes when your father paid for it.