Maternal Narcissism

Not All Mothers Love their Children

Maternal narcissism. The term alone registers as an oxymoron. ‘Maternal’ evokes the primal source of love and nurturance. Narcissism on the other end connotes exploitation and cruelty. These disparate terms joined together describe a surreal form of abuse that causes complex relational trauma.

Victims of maternal narcissism present with complex trauma, dissociative disorders, addictions, mood disorders and pathological character traits. Yet they enter treatment confused about the origin of their agony. What is even more peculiar is that many clinicians fail to identify the cause of their pain. How can this be? Mothers have tremendous power. A child’s unconditional need for their mother is innate. We come into this world yearning to connect with the mother.

The idealized archetypal mother is lauded as the embodiment of benign tenderness and selflessness. This one-dimensional fixation makes it impossible to tolerate the darker dimensions of the mother, and in turn, those feared parts of one self and in others. Hence, when a mother is a perpetrator of terror, horror, and agony we resist confronting this paradoxical truth.

It is frightening to consider that the mother embodies capacities as creator and destroyer, protector and offender. The taboo of hating one’s mother, of casting aspersions that assign calculated deliberate malevolence to one’s mother is considered akin to sacrilege.

As a result, clinicians may go so far as to implicate the mother as a ‘misguided’ abuser, but it is tragically rare to find a clinician who will understand and illuminate the full traumatic ramifications of maternal narcissism.

Many of my psychotherapy clients report that they were in treatment for years, yet maternal narcissism was not examined as a fundamental source of trauma. In fact web forums and youtube videos, not therapists, were instrumental in shedding light on the enigma of their dynamics with their mothers.

Seeking validation and clarification of their suspicions, they would bring the information gleaned online to therapy sessions. In spite of those efforts minimization and a forgive and forget platitudes were typically doled out by therapists not versed in treating the ravages of narcissistic abuse. This left clients feeling mystified and retraumatized.

Irrespective of where a narcissistic mother lands on the diagnostic spectrum, she lacks the capacity to empathically attune to her child. The severity of cyclical abandonment, engulfment, cruelty, and brainwashing correlates with how malignant the narcissism is.

M. Scott Peck wrote in “People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil”, “When I say that evil has to do with killing, I do not mean to restrict myself to corporeal murder. Evil is that which kills spirit. There are various essential attributes of life — particularly human life — such as sentience, mobility, awareness, growth, autonomy, will. It is possible to kill or attempt to kill one of these attributes without actually destroying the body. Thus we may “break” a horse or even a child without harming a hair on its head.”

In the most extreme cases a narcissist is a psychopath and is capable of the evil to which Peck alludes. Psychopaths not only lack empathy, they are sadistically driven to destroy. The more malignant the narcissism the greater the proclivity to be exploitive, entitled, arrogant and viciously cruel.

SNL’s Darrel Hammond has publicly revealed an extensive history of extreme systemic torment at the hands of his mother, which resulted in years of psychiatric hospitalizations and sundry misdiagnosis. The true source of his demons were overlooked by mental health professionals, until he finally met a psychiatrist who identified how the most unimaginable abuse perpetrated by his mother was the basis for his torment.

The maternal narcissist can hide behind a veneer of virtue and martyrdom while behind closed doors heinous crimes are committed. In my case, my mother’s narcissism was obscured by psychosis. Schizophrenia shielded her from accountability and absolved her of any malintent.

In spite of being a seasoned psychotherapist, the ambient ways in which my schizophrenic mother maneuvered to nullify my existence eluded me. With the help of a caring and competent clinician I finally faced the reality of my mother’s narcissism.

When I accepted the agonizing truth of how my mother’s vindictive motives infiltrated our dynamic, I realized that in order to save myself from certain psychological and spiritual annihilation, I had to dissolve all ties with her.

That realization was a pivotal choice, one which catalyzed a dark trajectory of healing and growth. After many years of separation and continuous efforts to recover from an extensive history of child abuse and subsequent traumas, I ultimately discovered that the severance of my connection to my mother allowed me to thrive like never before.

I was no longer trapped by concealed prohibitions that dulled my innate potentials and desires. I reclaimed my right to exist for myself.

No contact also allowed me to avow that I will see what others choose not to see, so as to proficiently and compassionately assist victims of maternal narcissism with healing and ending the narcissistic legacy.