A Letter to the Narcissist – No. 16
Hello mother,
Where do I start but to say we’ve missed out on so much together. We could’ve and should’ve had so much more between us as mother and daughter. I look around and see so many beautiful relationships that could’ve been ours. I’ve spent years crying over the mother I wanted to have.
I yearned to have someone that I could relate to and share my innermost feelings without fear of judgement. Instead you made me feel I had no right to those feelings and I was wrong to feel them. I was always flawed in your eyes and never entitled to be me.
I wanted so badly a mother that would embrace me fully the way I was and build me up instead of tearing me down. I grew up doubting myself and still do to this day. I never felt good enough in your eyes and still struggle with this in the eyes of others.
I believed everything you told me and this formed my view of other people and the world around me but it was your world through the eyes of a narcissist.
Yes, narcissist. I’ve never told you that you are a narcissist have I? I’ve learned so much over the last few years and you have a disorder called narcissism.
Before you start denying it and shutting me down please hear me out. You had a traumatic childhood of emotional and physical abuse with grandmother a raging alcoholic and again a narcissist. You were tossed around from relative to relative and then a convent. Somewhere through that abuse you shut down and with that was your empathy and emotional development. You formed a survival mechanism and part of that was the need to control and bury away the real you.
Yes I know not you, no, its me reading too much into the situation but I know what you are now and no amount of gaslighting can ever fog this new found knowledge I’ve obtained. I’ve learned how you’ve triangulated my brother and I to achieve your control over us but that backfired.
You see now you also will never have the experience of seeing a relationship the way you dreamed it would be. That being the relationship between your grandchildren.
Before you start getting angry know this was not done to hurt you but rather protect my children and myself from further abuse on your part. I now know you can’t help the way you are it’s a part of who you’ve become.
This disorder you have has stolen so much from you and I. We will never be able to be a proper family ever again. No family dinners where we laugh and share our lives. No Christmas holidays around the tree unwrapping gifts together. No trust where we can open up to each other during times of need. No spending time together you and I shopping or just even going for a coffee together. We were robbed of so much because of narcissism. One word but so much damage.
I’ve mourned the loss of the mother I so very wanted through the years but in the process i’m gaining a love for myself. You didn’t want me to know i didn’t need your approval or validation but through understanding narcissism I realise it’s not about me and my shortcomings but its about your personality disorder, narcissism.
I want you to know I love you and have forgiven you but you will no longer control the way I feel about myself. The abuse stops here. Oh you can continue on as you always have but i won’t allow you to affect me as you have all these years.
Mother you have a personality disorder called narcissism and this is why we will never be what we should’ve been to each other but I will make sure i’m that parent to my children.
15 thoughts on “A Letter to the Narcissist – No. 16”
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Dearest writer and lovelies,
Ohh wow ! This letter breaks my heart and hits home almost word for word ….you are not alone lovely
I feel every ounce running thru your veins and I truly feel your pain, tears and have sadly experienced the same losses and experiences you’ve endured. It’s never easy. You are a beautiful strong person, mother and wife. Your courage and determination shine thru along with your desire to do better and be better in spite of, that makes you amazing. Your family would be so proud of you …..you should be so proud of yourself ☺️
Thank you for sharing lovely one, your heartfelt story will make a difference to others, more than you know
Luv Bubbles xx 😘
What a wonderful letter! Yes, I hear you, I can relate to that 100 %, only with the difference that it´s my father who has NPD. One word, one disease, which takes everything away. A horrible mental disorder named narcissistic personality disorder took our parents. 😔
Hi Leela, this is how I’ve come to look at it also. Sad isn’t it, all the way around.
I wonder why my letter to my mother was never posted, not saying it has to be, just curious?
Recycling is a thing 😉
@Witch,
Mine hasn’t been either but I’m my case I suspect it’s because mine is quite similar to this one. Or because HG may not feel it would benefit anyone, which I left up to him.
I’m hoping more parental ones are published though, to see if they are all so similar. .
@AV
Mine is quite emo so maybe it would be too triggering for some people
Witch, just realised my comment on recycling could be taken the wrong way – I meant HG seems to have a number of letters he reuses for educational purposes here and referred to that as ‘recycling’ … not that somehow other letters (including mine) to the narcissist are being disposed of – albeit in an environmentally friendly way 🙂
This one I understand very well. It’s uncanny how such mothers have similar effects on their children.
To the writer, thank you for writing this. You are not alone. Your experiences reflect mine and I’m sure the experiences of many others.
Hopefully, knowledge, research and consistent discourse about the effects of narcissism on children will change how future generations experience it. I hope your children and others too can grow up differently.
Shortly after writing this comment yesterday, I went grocery shopping. At the supermarket, there was a young family – a mother, father and two small boys aged about three and one. The father was either holding or busy with the older boy while the mother was carrying the younger one in a baby carrier on her body.
I noticed them in the carpark as they were getting out of their car and walking towards the shops at the same time as me. As I walked by, the mother automatically made my spidey senses become aware. She had very non-committal body language – almost bored – for someone with two small children. The father was the one who appeared busy and agitated as he carried a large bag on one arm, the three-year-old on another, and was organising a shopping cart at the same time. While he was doing that, the mother impatiently said something to him like, “well, you need to put the bag down and hurry up!” Without responding or looking at her, the father actually did move faster even though he already had his hands full while she was empty-handed, waiting and looking on.
I looked at the mother’s face. She was young, probably no older than 25. She had a blank looking face, expressionless with blank eyes. Her face was as non-committal and uncommunicative as her body.
As they were organising themselves, I walked on to the supermarket. A few minutes later, while in the supermarket, I saw them shopping as well. Now, the three year old was crying and screaming, unconsolable. His crying could be heard throughout the supermarket. Even though I don’t have kids and I’m not experienced with babies, I could tell his crying was an angry, frustrated, indignant kind of cry. He wasn’t hurt or tired or grumpy. He was furious and stubbornly so.
While the three year old was crying, his father was very patiently talking to him, closely and quietly, trying to appease him and calm him down. The more the father did this, the more the little boy refused to be appeased. He was angry and his father’s attempts to appease him seemed to make him even more determined not to relent. It was like a tug of war and the little boy did not want to ‘give in’.
Meanwhile, the mother was standing nearby, oblivious to the ruckus and totally ignored both the father and the three year old. She didn’t look concerned, embarrassed, unnerved – nothing. She had her back to them and looked like she couldn’t care less. She and the one year old were as cool as cucumbers. It made me think this was not the first time it happened. If this scenario occurred in public, what was it like at home?
The three year old’s screaming and emotional tug of war with his father went on for a long time and did not change. If anything the little boy became even more emotionally distressed. It was unnerving for me and I was a complete stranger.
As I was shopping, I thought about what was going on in that little mind and body. How the emotional distress and anger had totally taken over his brain and nervous system. How he could not be calmed even by his father who was trying diligently and with patience.
The little boy’s distress and the tense energy was clear to many in the supermarket because I noticed the drawn, serious, stony looking faces around me. All the strangers passing by and watching were powerless though, as was I.
How could his own mother be so nonplussed? Instead of having an attuned relationship, she ignored him. I think he was angry not because of ‘anger’ but because of despair. He needed her attention and care and had no other way to ask for it. God knows what she was like from the time he was born until that point.
I now think of my ‘hopeful’ comment above about future generations. Thinking about ‘hope’ in light of yesterday’s supermarket scenario makes me wonder if anything will change. The only way to change it is to test for narcissism and prevent such people from becoming parents.
Ah, the heartbreaking response of a daughter to her narcissistic mother. About as tragic as it gets 🙁
“One word, but so much damage” is correct.
I’ve often said that when my mother dies, I will not mourn her loss but the loss of the mother I never had.
The reminder of family occasions not being spent together, and all the joy they can bring, really tore at my heartstrings. We miss so much. They miss so much. Our children and grandchildren miss so much. We create for our children what we never had and carry on those traditions which help us to remain close. It’s very sad to contemplate how those occasions no longer reach back down the generations as they should.
To the writer of the letter, you have my sympathy. I can relate on a very fundamental level <3
Hi LET,
This letter hit me hard, it is eerily similar to the one I wrote. It made me realize more than ever that just as narcs have the same behaviors, we are also often left affected in similar ways.
I won’t mourn the loss of anything when mine is gone, the mourning for what should’ve been is long since past. I will likely throw a party.
Yes, AV, thinking about dancing on the grave!
It sounds awful, but narcissism is awful, too.
A party sounds like a real release from the bondage you are currently under.
And HG promises it is a release from the contract they believe we signed.
Things can only get better, at least eventually <3
It’s going to be a dumpster party, throwing all her shit in there! 😂
It will be a real purge … gotta get it off our chest one way or another!