Sons of Narcissistic Mothers
June is one month dedicated to #mensmentalhealthawareness but if you were raised by a narcissistic mother, you may be more used to ignoring your own mental health 12 months out of the year.
Men already have unrealistic societal expectations placed on them for how they should handle their emotions. But, having a mom early in life who can’t meet your emotional needs makes the journey even harder.
Growing up with a narcissistic mother you may have experienced neglect as your needs were superseded by hers.
Baby crying? Mom can’t deal with you right now
Baby hungry? Shhh … wait mom’s busy
Baby sad or frustrated? Ugh why are you always so needy, can’t you see mom can’t handle you right now?
This disregard of your needs starts in infancy, but lasts throughout your childhood and then into your adult life.
You learn to meet your mom’s needs in order to try to get your own met. And it creates anxiety and oversensitivity to your mom’s changing emotional states.
A safe mom is one who is getting all the attention, who is getting her needs met first. It is not emotionally safe for you to have needs that conflict with hers.
In adulthood this can impact how you relate to others. You may find yourself people pleasing, getting into relationships with critical and possibly emotionally abusive partners, and having difficulty receiving and giving unconditional love.
It’s a big attachment injury to overcome and there is a lot of grief in confronting the reality that your mom couldn’t love you the way you needed to be loved.
An emotionally healthy mother and son relationship makes space for the child to develop into his own person and know that his mother will love him even if he displeases her. The relationship you’re used to - however - comes with a lot of conditions to keep your mother’s love.
Do you feel like you have to …
let her speak to you a certain way (even if it feels bad)
let her criticize you without speaking up
work a certain job or make a certain sum
give her money, praise, or gifts to keep her love
put her relationship above all your other relationships (maybe even above your spouse/partner and even children)
Therapy can help you heal when you’re ready to hear that:
“You deserved to have your needs met when you were vulnerable and small”
“You deserve to have your needs met now and feel safe being vulnerable”
Author’s note - a little self-disclosure; as I have been writing this piece it has taken several tries and interruptions as my own 10 month old son struggles to go down for his morning nap. As I’ve been writing I’ve been mindful of the clock on the wall and the timer on his monitor and have been mentally weighing if this is the “right” amount of time for him to cry for him to learn independent sleeping skills. Or, if because he is teething he might benefit from a few more check-ins than usual, maybe some extra soothing milk, or another change. After a few visits over the past 40 minutes he has finally settled into a comfortable sleep.
Did I want to write this uninterrupted?
For sure.
Were his needs more important than my wants?
Absolutely.
Hopefully if his needs are met more often than not … he will expect that from the people in his life. That he deserves to have his needs met. That he is worthy of love because of who he is, not because of what he does.
