You are a slave to no one. As an adult now you know this. If you do not, tell yourself this every day, during the day. You are a unique human being–love this person who is inside of you, this small child you have known all of your life. Many of us need to take time to hold our babies and whisper “I love you” to them.
In infancy and childhood and through the teen years those who grew up with narcissistic sociopaths were often treated horridly. You were at the disposal of your narcissistic sociopathic parent. The other –mother or father–was too weak, terrified, traumatized to protect you against this monstrous person who ruled the household.
In grammar school you were in stark fear as you counted the steps as you got closer to the front door of your house. Your heart rhythms beat like wild drums. Your mouth was dry. You wanted to scream but knew you dared not. He or she might hear you and the horrible drama already in progress would become more Hitchcockian. You may have asked yourself: Am I going to die tonight?” In the house you walked as quietly as possible, trying to be invisible and unheard as long as possible. Finally, the moment came when you faced the person who terrorized you the most. At night in bed you waited and heard every sound, every creak and murmur, always hoping that the beast downstairs would remain in his chair. (I use the pronoun he to represents male and female narcissistic sociopaths).
You survived that house of terror, desecration and desolation. You are the one who did it through each moment, day, months and years. That deserves our deepest respect.
The narcissistic sociopathic parent is internalized in many of his/her children. The child feels at the mercy of these cruel and unpredictable individuals. Due to this fusion, some children feel like slaves even after they have physically left their homes. Working with the aftermath of growing up with a narcissistic sociopath parent often involves participating in skilled psychotherapy. Others use various healing modalities like gentle hatha yoga, varying forms of meditation, creative pursuits, support groups and friendships.
As you heal you learn that you belong to yourself, that you are genuine and precious. There is and never will be anyone like you on the face of the earth ever again. Let this truth sink deep inside of you. You will find your way along the path to freedom. You will fly like a great bird. I can hear your wings soaring higher and higher into the blue.
Linda Martinez-Lewi, Ph.D.My book Freeing Yourself from the Narcissist in Your Life is out in Paperback and the Kindle version is available at Amazon.com for 9.99 Paperback and ebook is widely distributed.
Comment: From Eva
I wish I would have known all these answers when I was growing up. Maybe our family would be whole and happy now. My mother was so clever at getting people to believe any insane thing she wanted to blame me for (usually to distract away from something she’d done or failed to do) it was like living in a war zone. What she did to my siblings was unforgiveable. The physical & mental abuse is written all over the choices made in adult life that are no where near the people we began this life being. I could have never imagined a life away from my family until it was beaten and tormented out of me. I could never have imagined the lives my siblings chose, so far away from who they started out being. How our parents got away with such crimes will forever boggle my mind. Thank you for this article; it gave me peace to know I wasn’t crazy or insane for thinking my mother was a clever, manipulative and dangerous woman. She killed the spirits in all her children and no one cared to cry for any of us. Looking back I’m convinced the statement children are resilient is a facade; children are better at hiding pain when they want to keep a loved one from suffering. They don’t want to see any pain in the face of anyone they love. After years of enduring that love not being returned, it eventually kills off who that child was meant to be if that child is not strong enough to see through the games early enough. Tragedy for everyone who will never know the heart of that individual because a selfish parent killed it off.
Eva, Bless you for writing that. Tragically we lost my traumatized father, and then my utterly destroyed sister after their 40+ years dealing with this abhorrent monster-woman. God bless you for writing. Killing the spirit, watching her do it to my loved ones slowly until their actual physical demise was incredibly painful. Trying to process only rage for this horrific freak, I only question why God would not only let “it” be born, but allow “It” to reporiduce and have children in the first place is beyond me. Must be a grand design, perhaps I too am meant to continue to tel the truth of the horrific abuse the family has endured. I am trying to find adult daughters of NPD/Sociopath mothers to compare notes and help heal and support one another.
I am the adult daughter of a Narcopath and I too am struggling. Beginning counselling next week because I was unaware of what she was for 39 years. It’s bad enough that her life is a failure, now her children are haunted by her words and actions. It feels just so unjust. Wish I could make it right somehow.
Hi there
I have some great insight into this psychological dynamic and much personal experience of dealing with individuals on this psychological spectrum.
Would be good to hear from you.
Aysha
I believe I am a daught of a Narrcissitic Sociopathic mother. I suffered 35 years of physical and psychological and emotional abuse at her hands. My family splintered. My oldest brother died of a heroin overdose and my baby brother dies at 14 driving a car she let him have. After my little brothers death she told the rental car company he had stolen the car so the insurance would pay the claim.
There is no way I could type my whole life story. I would be willing to compare notes with you.
All my very best wishes for a successful endeavor,
Patti
It is always helpful to return to this page. Thank you all so much for sharing your incredible messages.
The damage seems irrevocable. Within the past year I have gone NC with my entire family and yes, as Eva so succinctly puts it, ” I could have never imagined a life away from my family until it was beaten and tormented out of me.”
We find ourselves wandering in what seems to be a wasteland of nothingness. I am finding my sensitivities especially acute during this election season; narcissism is epidemic and I am trying very hard to stay away from the seduction of learning more and more about what is going on in our country, and world at large. I hear too many people saying “ignorance is bliss.”
To this end, I am also more aware each day of the kind of damage my narcissistic mother, father, sister, and now “bridezilla” niece (to coin Linda’s expression) have collectively been capable of, and how I have consistently been the repository for their self hatred. It takes a tremendous amount of strength to keep going sometimes. I have to keep reminding myself of the demeantors in Harry Potter, and how they are my family. What is really discouraging is to realize what happens when our family does become fractured, and what a lonely place that can be.
I can only trust that there is a “special place in hell” for all narcissists.
You know you had a horrible mother when you can imagine that she has died……..and feel nothing.
that’s a lie……I’d feel free.
Is it possible for the situation to be small but consistent pokes at you, teasing, laughing when you fail, generating anxiety about the opinions of others and fear?
Our home was alternatively supportive and nurturing then struggling, fighting, and one upping. We children learned how to do this to each other from our parents.
I am not sure any of us are full blown narcissists. Then perhaps it is the nature of a narcissist to feel compassion, to a point, until the needs of the other conflict with the needs of the self?
My mother claims I am cold. She says my thought process which involves setting boundaries around my family and life, is cold and unfeeling.
My younger sister has always any time she has been in my life, seen me as a source, a source of funds, a source of boarding, a source of transportation, a source of contacts, a source for unpaid research work, a source for contacts. She has taken friendships and relationships over the years, and there have been times when the things she has said to others about me, have been outright lies. I have tried many times to build a different kind of relationship with her, a relationship where I can say no, where I don’t feel pressured to be an appendage or second mother. It is impossible. It has also proven impossible to have peaceful time with my mother and father, without my siblings around. When I try to explain my reasons for not feeling safe with having all family at the house when visiting, the conflicts, she shares that confidential talk with my sister, in a way that enrages my sister.
I have children. We live overseas. I have tried to get them to my parents about every five years.
My brother has been in and out of prison. He is registered, on a list. You figure it out. The offence is said to be attempted …. Unsuccessful …. In his early 20’s. The in and out of prison thing sounds as though it is connected to either an unjust system looking for excuses to incarcerate a probation, or my brother suffers from delusion, entitlement, and a lack of self contol or forethought which has him making fractional probationary mistakes.
I care about these people. But I can not survive time in an environment with them without becoming altered. I am too vulnerable to them as my family. The tendency seems to be to blame me as the oldest, for all the mistakes of the younger. As though I were the parent, and I have failed somehow.
Raising my own two children, I feel compelled to keep them away!
It’s sad. I do love my parents. 2 years. No contact. Although I do send how we are letters but refuse to receive any.
I have no idea how to contact any of you, but I would love to speak with someone. I pray for a life that is free of all this. I almost escaped. I was so close–but my father became ill and I couldn’t leave him to be, literally, tortured to death. I came back to protect him, and you can imagine how it has been. Eight years of legal battles, false allegations against me, physical threats. I’ve literally lost everything material trying to protect myself and my father–and to no use. Now I’m just trying to survive and not lose my mind.
I too have a narcissistic sociopath for a egg donor. I have been a codependent all my life. I just woke up 6 months ago. Now i am standing up for myself. She is going to make me pay. She has turned my daughter against me. I have thought abuse was okay my whole life. I thought it was normal. After i said i was abuse my whole life out loud. It felt like a weight lifted off me. This pain i had in my stomach all my life. Finally lifted off like a brick. Both of my so called parents. Treated me like their human toilet. I have always been a extension of them. Never a real person who mattered. I was used a a whim to feed their needs. Never a kind word, no compassion or love. It is my fault for her abusive childhood. I am just like my father. When i never really knew him. He was the asshole who left me. For a new family. I will heal. I will live a happy life and love myself. We are important! We never deserved this abuse. Once you speak out and tell someone. It can only get better. You have the right to remove Toxic people from your life.
I always knew something was wrong with my mother at a very young age. She too did things that were criminal & unforgivable. I’m the oldest of 5 kids, 4 different marriages & I was told she had me so she could have a slave. I started taking care of the kids at age 9. She was different with each of us. (scapegoats & golden children) None of us currently communicate. We are all adults now. That is what she wanted. I’m 33 now & just starting to research because she still makes me feel crazy & lies. I wouldn’t be able to put everything she did on here but I’m talking things like allowing a rapist in our home & sleeping with him while married to another man. Allowing her underage daughter to sleep with older men for drugs. Manipulative, controlling, controls your feelings & emotions, abusive mentally & physically. She denies everything. She never pays for anything she has ever done. She always comes out smelling like a rose. Thank you for this article. I hope to be able to continue to learn more about what we went through & lean to heal & realize this was/is not normal. God bless everyone on here. I believe we are special kind of people to survive this unseen abuse.
Melinda
Just to prewarn everyone – this may be a lengthier post but I feel that writing this out will help me and bring me one step closer to freeing myself from my childhood.
I am in my early 40s and the daughter of what I believe to be a form of a sociopathic mother. It took me a long time to figure it out and the realisation did not come until adulthood. I grew up in German-speaking Europe, the illegitimate child of a then 21 year old woman and a 21 year old man. Needless to say, I was not planned and an ‘accident’. My parents never lived together nor were married. For the first ten years of my life, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother who was more like a mother to me than my own mother ever was or will be. My mother chose to live in an apartment away from us Monday to Friday where she worked and to spend the weekends at home. For the first several years of my life – until I was about 6/7 thereabouts – I thought that my life was great. I had my grandmother during the week and my mother on the weekends. There were times when one had to ‘tiptoe’ around my mother, I was not allowed to make any noise if she was out late; or if I said something she did not like I was punished by her not speaking to me and ignoring me for the days she was there – that sort of stuff. But she did not hit me or physically abuse me or any of those things. I was a very cute little girl with big chubby cheeks and I guess at that time my mother loved to show me off.
As I got older and I guess lost some of my ‘cuteness’, whatever fake affection my mother had for me vanished. I started to hate the weekends when she was there and was beginning to look forward to her leaving again on Sunday evening. Every weekend was spent tiptoeing around and making sure she was comfortable. Half the time I did not even know what it was that I said that would set her off; a lot of times it was something as little as a facial expression that she did not ‘approve’ of that would annoy her and result in her ignoring me. To the outside world she was viewed as the lovely lady with her little daughter; at home she was a very different person.
This continued until my tenth birthday; at that point she met my stepfather and all of a sudden – because he lived in the area – she decided that she was going to move back home to my grandmother’s house. And this is when the real hell started.
Not only did she then marry my stepfather, but when I was 12 years old, she also became pregnant and had a little boy. My stepfather is one of the loveliest people in the world and was and always will be more of a father to me than my own father (who decided to disappear when I was about 6/7 and only came out again of the woodworks when I was working as an adult at a global bank in New York because he wanted money from me…). So in that sense I was lucky, but my mother ruled the household and everyone danced to her tune. There were days when she seemed to want me around and I was ecstatic. But there were plenty of other days when she made sure that I was miserable from sunup to sundown. She made my daily life hell. I never knew what I would come home to.
She told me that I was ugly, fat, worthless, dumb and her idea of a work life for me was to send me as a waitress to a hotel and work in tourism. The fact that I wanted to study she was against and every idea I had she told me was worthless.
So fast forward to today – after teenage years of hell and a home I hated, I decided at the age of 19 to leave home initially as an au-pair girl for the United States. I never had any intention of returning home ever again. I studied in New York, work very hard, got a job at a major bank, then another bank, and am now a business owner doing what I love. It was not until I put an ocean between us that my life began.
I have been at home a few times in between always thinking that to maybe spend a week with my family should be doable but every time there was an argument or something she did that made me miserable and I was relieved every time I got back on the plane. There was only ever a bit of normalcy the last one to two days of my stay at home – I guess because she realised that I was leaving and she should be a bit nice to me….
It took me a long long time to figure this out and not until I read several articles about sociopathic tendencies did I put two and two together. Was I physically abused – no I was not. Did I have a decent upbringing with a warm bed and a house and a garden and food and clean clothes, yes I did. All of my basic needs were met. So I by no means wish to insinuate that I was abused in the sense that a lot of people I guess speak of abuse.
But there was a lot of verbal abuse and no unconditional love from my mother and a lot of cruelty when she wanted. I was her punching bag when was she was miserable and I grew up thinking that I was ugly fat and worthless and too dumb to amount to anything. Well, the reality is that I am a slim 5′ 10″ woman who is far from ugly and in fact quite attractive. I worked at some of the leading firms. I studied. Had I never left home, I would now be a beer mug carrying miserable waitress in some hotel somewhere with no formal education – but my mother would be happy.
As it stands now, she is miserable because she knows that I did something that she never managed to do and therefore I went against her wishes.
I am no longer in touch or contact with her. It simply became too painful. And my life has taken on a positive turn that I never imagined. Once I realised what she was, I was able to let go.
I am grateful and thankful to her for giving me life and – after all – that is all that she in principle was responsible to doing. I should thank God and the universe every day for bringing me to where I am today, for opening my eyes to some truly wonderful spiritual teachings that have helped me let go of the past. Am I truly free of her and all she said to me? Far from it. I still doubt my own ability regularly and when a man tells me I am beautiful, I think ‘who are you trying to fool’; but I am getting there, one day at a time.
I agree about the unjust part. My foster mother sounds like a narcopath as well. I’ve been diagnosed with SAD and PTSD and have been to at least 10 different therapists while she continues to acquire more and more wealth. I’m doing fine financially, but it just sucks to see that after all of the physical and mental abuse, I am the one left with mental issues. I feel like she was never held accountable.
you have found one here if not many.
Use pain for purpose and disengage from anyone who treats you less than the valuable human being you were created to be. Having an abusive parent is worse than having none at all. Focus on God, healing, and know there are many, other, children out there that need what we have learned. I am advocate for exposing personality disorders and standing up for those who have been destroyed by these soulless beings. They lack identity. Anyone who have confidence and the ability to see who they really are…will be targeted. I am sorry for your experience as well for mine. These monsters fear exposure ( very selective in their abuse tactics ) and I go out of my way to make sure those who are victims, and will continue to victimized, get educated, healthy and do not become statistics of the wrath. GOD has a special plan for us and for those who destroy his children. Stay strong, be well, and stay away blood or not.
Abusers always call their victims crazy. Do not feed the effects and try and understand you can heal. PTSD and other emotional damage is expected but not terminal. You will never receive an apology, or acknowledgment, so instead focus on SELF. You are not the criminal, or the one who is sick – they are. Evil is as evil does. Pray, I promise you will recover. Being alone, isolated, and desperate are the results of this abuse. We all share the same experience. She may appear to be escaping accountability, but let me assure you, justice will be served. ..MOTHER OR NOT. She gave birth and nothing more. Return to love regardless. Please know you will be ok……God bless