While you might not think too much about your childhood if you were someone who grew up with a borderline or narcissistic mother you are probably still seeing the effects. Being born to a mother with one of these issues is like being born into a trap in many ways.
Borderline or even narcissistic mothers, in general, see their children as their possessions. They feel as though their kids are obligated to serve them above all else. While normal parents are able to let go of their kids when they get older and allow them to live their own lives, narcissistic or borderline parents struggle big time.
In regards to the narcissistic mother and growing up within her arms Psychology Today wrote as follows:
As a child, you don’t immediately realize your mother’s confidence is brittle. She’s always right because she needs to be right. Everything she says goes without question—that’s the way it is with parents when you’re a child.
You please because you are trained to do so. As a 9-year-old, you don’t take your mother on because, like most school-age kids, you want whatever nurturance you can get. Still, she may get mad at you for forgetting your homework, making a mess or annoying her in some random way. You think it’s you and find yourself anxious in her presence.
Then you get a little older, your consciousness continues to evolve, and you realize your mother’s behavior lacks normal maternal nurturing. You see other kids and their parents.
You see, being the child of a mother with one of these two issues leaves you trapped in an emotional abuse situation that closes you off from proper attachment and leaves you blaming yourself for all you’ve gone through. A lot of the time, people who grow up with Borderline mothers end up feeling quite a bit of hatred for them once all is said and done. They might want to love their mothers, but are unable to overcome the pain that they have faced because of them.
Psychology Today wrote as follows in regards to some of the issues with borderline mothers:
The lack of nurturing is not the only problem with the borderline parent-child relationship. The borderline parent lacks insight and believes that she is the fine parent of an ungrateful child and goes to any length to prove that this is the case. This is weaved into the context of any and all conversations and may be provoked through conflict.
These kinds of mothers are unable to put their children first properly and because of that end up neglecting them drastically in many different ways. The life you live with this kind of parent is usually very toxic and can cause you to become very guarded and leave you unable to properly connect with them even when you’re finally an adult. If you had a parent who was not there for you properly or even who tried to live out his or her life through you, you might have issues that need to be worked through.
For more on this, please take the time to check out the video below. Just because you aren’t in contact with your mother anymore doesn’t mean that you can’t work on yourself and overcome your past. Life is never as simple as we would like for it to be.