How Loving a Narcissist Helped Me See the Truth: My Mom is a Narcissist, Too.

I hate all the parts of you I see

looking back at me in the mirror.

I've spent years trying to escape your eyes. 

This stern face.

Your blood running through my veins.

I've shed my skin over and over again 

only to find you here still.

I've bled myself dry at the very hint

of your existence within me

only to discover you'll always be in my blood.

You'll always be glaring back at me.

And I wonder

if I'll ever be able to truly love

this skin I'm in

as long as I'm still your daughter.

-reluctant_lioness

---

Any person in my life who knows even a sliver of the story of my childhood also understands that the most painful thing you could ever accuse me of is being anything like my Mom. Do you want to break my heart in the most unimaginable way? Say it. Tell me I'm anything like her and then watch me bleed.

The day I wrote the words above, the man I was in a relationship with had found a roundabout way to say just that without actually saying it.

As narcissists often do.

He'd asked me to show him a picture of her. I had to do some digging to find one because I'd had her blocked on social media for years. Finally, I found one and my stomach turned at the sight of her.

As usual, she wasn't smiling in the picture. She was just glaring with that evil look she always had while reminding me how much happier her life would have been had I never been born. I could hear her voice hissing the words at me in my head as I handed him my phone.

"Here she is."

He looked at the image for a minute, searching for the perfect words to say as if sharpening daggers, and then looked at me and said, "I see the resemblance."

I felt paralyzed. I remember blinking hard several times trying to make sense of his words. THAT woman? Is it true? Can people look at this skin I'm in and still tell that I'm her daughter?

I felt like my insides had spilled out all over the place and I was desperately trying to clean up the mess before he noticed. But he noticed. And then stormed off in disgust because I was being "too sensitive."

"I can't even have a simple conversation with you without you getting your feelings hurt!!"

I had to chase after him and apologize for my reaction so he wouldn't go into full silent treatment mode. I had to agree that I was just too sensitive.

I had to swallow the shards of glass he'd just fed me and smile.

I didn't realize it at the time, but he was giving me a crash course refresher in emotional abuse. He was walking me down the same road I'd unknowingly walked as a child a thousand times and leading me straight to the truth:

My Mom is a narcissist, too.

---

As a child, I knew she was mean and selfish. I knew that in all things, she came first and my job was to comply with whatever her expectations were. I was to love her without needing anything in return because if I needed anything, it was labeled selfish. I learned to stuff my emotions and stay out of the way. I learned to give and never get.

I learned that love is transactional.

When I was 8 years old, I remember searching through a drawer where she kept important papers. I wanted to find my birth certificate because I didn't believe she was actually my Mom. Moms were supposed to love their children. I would daydream that my real Mom was out there in the world somewhere waiting to love me. My heart broke when I discovered I was wrong.

By the time I was a teenager, I began feeling like I was the adult and she was the child. She was boy crazy and would tell me about her sex life. She would steal my clothes, stretch them out and tell me how much better they looked on her. She would accuse any boyfriend I had of "lusting" after her. She acted like a jealous little brat rather than a mom. And I hated her.

Finally, the emotional abuse finally came to a crescendo and I was removed from her care at the age of 15.

Relief.

---

Prior to my last relationship, I was aware that I wanted nothing to do with my Mom, but I didn't have the vernacular to explain why. My childhood was like a jumbled-up puzzle that I just couldn't piece together.

Until I could. Until a man shoved me face down into it and made me relive it again. Same story, different place.

And you know what? I'm grateful.

Prior to that relationship, first I married a drug addict and then an alcoholic. I chased after men who showed me half-hearted interest and begged them to let me put my self-worth in their hands. I attached myself to transactional love over and over again.

What's the definition of insanity? Unconcious childhood wounds keeping you on the same narcissistic merry-go-round for years and years and years.

However, there is an unexpected gift that comes with betrayal. What my last relationship did was strip me completely bare, leaving me with nothing but myself. I had no choice but to look within and go deep. I grabbed onto the rungs of the ladder of toxic relationships I'd chosen in my life and I climbed down - one rung at a time- until I found the last one.

And that last one was named, "Mom."

---

I read an article recently that said we know we've healed our wounds when we can look at the people who hurt us the most and send them compassion instead of feeling hurt or anger. I felt everything inside of me resist those words when I read them, however, I know they are right.

I've started to find compassion for the man that turned my world upside down, and have at least started to see the silver lining in the lessons I am learning.

However, my Mom? I'm not there yet. Not even close.

I still have a lot of work to do before I can get to a place of forgiveness. And even more before I can get to a place of compassion. Honestly, I don't know if I'll ever get there, but I know I owe it to myself to try.

She shouldn't get to live in my head for free forever.

For others out there who are now aware that your upbringing was toxic, I'm curious - have you found a way to look back with compassion and if so, how did you find your way there?

Healing hearts want to know.