Hit the Nail on the Head
I have been struggling with my mom ever since I turned around 12. I don’t want to go into detail but she’s been the cause of most of my mental health problems while simultaneously telling me that she has done nothing wrong and that I was the reason she “acted this way.”
I’ve always felt crazy and wondered if I was overreacting, but she never let me talk about her to my therapists. I tried once and she found out somehow and the aftermath hurt me so much that I never tried again. So for years, I was wondering if I really was a terrible child.
My thought process was “if I was a better child, then she wouldn’t be this controlling,” etc. And yet at the same time, the few friends who knew of my situation tried to tell me that she was NOT normal.
Well, I went to a new therapist today and very hesitantly told him about my mother. Oh my God. He very gently told me that she was a narcissist, and her behavior was very typical of narcissistic parents.
He told me a few symptoms of narcissistic parents and he hit the nail on the head for every single one of them. The relief I felt when I realized that I was NOT insane and NOT a terrible child made me nearly cry from happiness.
I’m not a bad person. I never realized how much stress and self-hatred that belief gave me. I’m not a bad daughter. I was brainwashed.