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How To Deal With A Narcissistic Mother

Mother is supposed to love and support you unconditionally, approve of you as a person, root for you even if you messed up and everyone turned away from you - mom is the one person in the world who will always be there for you. She is also the one who was supposed to teach you right and wrong, and whose judgment you relied on completely. It was her opinion of your character that you based your self-worth on. Nobody likes to be called selfish, ungrateful, disrespectful, rude, cruel, etc, especially by their own mother, so we would go to great lengths to earn our mother's approval, love, and support. That's what causes strained relationships between mothers who suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder and their adult children: this approval, love, and support will never happen. Bashing people with mental health issues is a pointless exercise, but if you aren't ready to cut your mom off - there are things you can do to not let her impairments affect your quality of life.

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Living With Agoraphobia

i've been struggling with agoraphobia for the majority of my life. It's waxed and waned over the years, swelling and receding in its severity, but it's never fully gone away. There have been times where it was so severe i've been bedbound for a few days. There has been times where it was held back, and going outside wasn't a big deal. There are times where i can go outside easily with trusted companions, but cannot step foot out my door to even check the mailbox on my own. Each time i've battled the extreme 'flareups' that agoraphobia throws at me, i'd had different approaches, depending on where in particular the irrational fears were stemming from. This current bout, though, has been one of the most difficult to fight, and one of the longest stretches i've had to endure it. i started to write about it on Fort about a year ago, at first just venting frustrations, but the thread grew into more than just an explosion of emotions - it shows glimpses of my journey, thoughts, plans, ideas, failures, successes... When i was approached about sharing this particular battle of mine more publicly on Fort, i felt a little bit honored. i often feel that Agoraphobia is misunderstood. i know i'm still attempting to wrap my head around it, even after all these years of living with it. It's a very lonely, isolating condition, and at its worst, it's completely irrational, yet totally unbudging against all forms of logic. And if putting my story out there will help reach others, to...

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Neglect

Neglect means failure to provide adequate care to the child in one's custody. It's by far the most common (and the most lethal) form of child abuse, yet the least spoken about. Many people struggle placing "child abuser" label on a parent who didn't mean to harm their child, who struggles with various hardships and failed to do their job as well as they should have. However, visiting one's problems on a child is inappropriate because the child has no remedy: they cannot divorce their parents and live independently. Without adequate care, they get sick or even die; those who survive often suffer serious psychological trauma, chronic physical illnesses, and/or developmental problems, sometimes irreversible. Overcoming parental hardships is a part of being a parent. People who can't afford bare necessities can apply for government assistance or reach out to charities. People who don't know how to maintain a clean house can google tutorials or hire a cleaning lady. People who aren't sure how to care for their child can take parenting classes. At the end of the day, the parents are obligated to either provide appropriate care to their child or surrender him/her to the authorities. Failure to do so constitutes child abuse.

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Emergency Escape Plan

Being involved in a violent relationship is kind of like living on top of a volcano. Some people leave once they realize it and never look back. Others run off during the eruption, wait out the danger, and come back once things calm down. Many go back and forth a few times, but eventually leave for good. Whatever your long-term plan is (staying or leaving), it's crucial to ensure your basic safety in the here and now, while you're still sharing the house with your abuser and the volcano can erupt any minute. The beauty of an emergency escape plan is that you don't have to hide it, because it's applicable in any emergency: fire, flood, earthquake, burglary, etc. Any reasonable person would commend you for being conscious of safety, your partner won't question your motives, and your friends and family won't suspect abuse (if you wish to keep it secret). You can even disguise your plan as a joke, a game, or a hobby (e.g. zombie apocalypses). It consists of simple adjustments that are easy to implement, but that would drastically increase your chances of surviving violence at home, and eventually escaping it.

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Grounding Techniques

Emotions are a good thing to have: they let us know what feels good (so we know to keep it), and what feels bad (so we know to change it). Without emotions we would be clueless as to where do we want to go with life. That’s how it’s supposed to work anyway. Unfortunately, trauma can shake us up pretty badly, and some things might not fall back into place right away. We end up having emotions that aren’t guiding us towards a better life, but that keep us stuck in pain and misery instead. Moreover, these emotions often flood us at the wrong time: when we are at work, driving, grocery shopping, babysitting, or trying to have a calm evening with a partner. Suddenly, completely out of the blue, anxiety hits us below the belt, or we start replaying old trauma in our head as if it were happening all over again, or we get furious at our perp, or deeply sad about our ruined childhood, or get an irresistible craving to get wasted/high, or an urge to self-injure. Aside from bad timing – these feelings can get quite overwhelming, and thus hard to manage. While technically valid and understandable, they aren’t helping us in the here and now. There’s no reason for us to be relieving that traumatic experience while we are driving to work. If we need to do it – we’ll pick a better timing and surrounding for it, such as our therapist’s office for example. And meanwhile we can’t allow all those old feelings to overwhelm us at random, so we need to distract our mind from...

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Physical Abuse

Physical violence is a crime, regardless of the age of the target, their relationship to the perpetrator, or any other circumstances. However, it affects children differently than it affects adults. First, children are completely dependent on their abusers (legally, financially, physically, and psychologically); they can't divorce their parents and move out, which leaves them no option but to suffer the abuse until someone rescues them. Second, children aren't fully developed physically; their bodies are more fragile because they are still growing, so a light smack on the back of a head, which would be of no consequence to an adult, can cause traumatic brain injury and death to a child. And third, children aren't fully developed mentally; they can't form an accurate understanding of their situation, which results in serious psychological trauma and various maladjustments, sometimes life-long. Many perpetrators of child abuse take advantage of this, presenting their actions as a perfectly acceptable parenting technique, punishment for the child's misbehavior. This page might be hard to read, as some people subject their children to torture, as defined in The United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. However, avoiding this topic doesn't work, because survivors of this type of abuse often end up unsure what to call their experience, whether it's OK to talk about it, and whether it ever happened to anyone else....

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Financial Abuse

Financial abuse is a situation where someone robs you of your money or other assets by playing on your vulnerability or taking advantage of your trust. For example, convincing you to give them your paycheck, stealing your cash, draining your savings account, maxing out your credit cards, making you sign over your house, or using your name to open loans. Sometimes it's done openly (e.g. "sign your house over to me now or I'll kill you"), but often it's disguised as "helping you manage your finances". Financial abuse usually happens in domestic relationships, i.e. between spouses or adult children and their elderly parents, but can also happen between friends, siblings, dating couples, remote relatives, neighbors, etc. It results in financial troubles (like getting evicted from your own house), stress and anxiety, shame, and damaged family relationships. Financial abuse is a crime, but rarely gets reported and prosecuted because it's painful to admit, embarrassing to talk about, and very confusing. However, avoiding the problem doesn't solve it; the more you know about it, the better protected you are.