1971 - My Mother Is a Covert or Vulnerable Narcissist

In which Teófilo assembles a profile of his mother after the passing of his grandmother.

In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. We're each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion fighting to emerge into something solid, something real. We've got to forgive ourselves that. I must remember to forgive myself. Because there is a lot of grey to work with. No one can live in the light all the time.

— Libba Bray

Figure 1. Faye Dunaway nailed Joan Crawford’s vulnerable narcissism in the biopic, Mommy Dearest.

“The beatings will continue until obedience improves…”

I’ve been having a long internal debate about how to tackle the issue I’ve raised myself. This is the thing: Mother is a vulnerable narcissist. I recognize this is a grave assertion and a serious diagnosis. As you might recall, being a shattered person is my best qualification to make this judgment. In her I recognize a fellow “shatter-ee.”

You would be justified in thinking I hold a declared bias against her since she was the one who shattered me. Yes, mea culpa. I acknowledge my bias. In fact, there’s a reason why mental health caregivers shouldn't work with their closest relatives. That’s because close-quarter familiarity leads to bias and failed diagnoses. And, I’m no such practitioner, but a semi-educated dilettante.

Now, in my storytelling, repeating the instances of her abuse can be misleading. This memoir I’m sharing with you is not about how the good me overcame the evil her. It's not about how I’ve lived in eternal happiness ever since I “triumphed” over her malice. It’s not that simple. Her personality disorder wasn’t a one-time unitary, monolithic phenomenon, for it developed, and continued to develop, over time.

I reckon Mom and I had moments of ease in which shared our joys in the normal fashion of mothers and sons. Sometimes we were even friends, and laughed ourselves to tears during common bouts of humor. There were times in which we stood for each other in solidarity.

Those were good moments. I still treasure those moments.

I also want to state I’m not judging Mom in the sense that matters most to every human being. I can’t say Mom is God’s reject, that she’s unredeemable and hell bound. I’m convinced that our Father has built-in advantages to His love in our very nature that evil cannot touch. I believe Mom isn’t beyond God’s transforming love.

Because at various times she has received the Body and Blood of Our Lord, God has the advantage in her life. I know His promise that everyone partaking of the Eucharist will have eternal life (John 6:58). God has the advantage in Mom’s struggle against evil because of her partaking of Jesus in the Eucharist. How many times she has done so throughout her life or how long ago is immaterial. God still has the advantage. I pray for her every day and hope to see her one day in the Kingdom. For that matter, I too hope for my own salvation in fear and trembling.

I am thankful she gave me the gift of life and in her own way, within her limitations, she did a lot of good. I find myself standing on the same ground as it pertains to my own children. We deal with the parents God gave us. We learn positive and negative lessons from them and try to avoid the same pitfalls with one’s own children. I can’t say I got it right all the time, especially on those times that I “channeled” Mom over and against them. But I understand my struggle and had embraced it for my own moral and spiritual betterment.

…but bad things increased over time.

Despite all the advantages she has as a daughter of God, I must state this clearly: to be a narcissist is to be evil. It breaks my heart and rends my soul to say so, but it is true. Mom’s narcissism has made her an evil person in thought and action.

A son, especially a firstborn son, should never be in the position to say: “My Mother is evil.” Yet, there I was and remain. My Mom is evil.

Judging Mom’s character and actions had become a top priority early in my life. As I began to pursue virtue, I had to make my own decisions separate from her. She’d hated that I’ve done so, always.

Mom lied to me often. She often gaslighted me. She did others too, but I fell for it right away, because she was my mother and I, her son.

The verbal abuse she leveled against me at others knows no bounds. The physical abuse she showered on me continued unabated until that day I put an end to it. Mom tied me into knots as I tried to maintain loving relationships with the others she’d designated as her mortal enemies. In her view I could only love those that she did at that moment, and hate those she hated.

Mom loved to seek the moral high ground by putting others down. She manipulated others while portraying herself as an innocent victim and swayed many. Some of those she’d swayed had taken upon themselves the task to admonish and berate me for the disloyalty and ungratefulness they perceive in me. These have never cared to ascertain the other side of the story.

It is important to me to write about these things and to declare them because they happened. Mom has never stopped challenging, changing, and denying my recollections. As a son I felt the duty to believe her always. But charity, reason, and common decency always pushed me in the opposite direction. The clash between us has been for me the source of great suffering and distress throughout my life.

It’s not my purpose either to strike back at her by writing this personality sketch. I know that the chance of her reading this essay in translation is next to zero.

I don’t write this memory out of spite, so I can get the last word. I write it for personal catharsis and to increase my understanding of Mom. It’s only in this way I can be able to feel compassion toward her.

Mom’s Personality Sketch

It's better I share with you a general sketch of her personality than stopping every time as her faults surge in the narrative. The sketch will illustrate the constant conflict that permeated my life until I left her side at age 19. Later in this memoir I will address only specific bad moments when these overwhelmed and changed me. I'll speak to those at the time they took place in my life as my story progresses.

It is my lay opinion that Mom is a covert, vulnerable narcissist. Vulnerability qualifies her narcissism, as one opposed to grandiose narcissism. Both kinds of narcissism have common characteristics. They do differ in the way they manifest themselves.

Grandiose narcissists are extroverts, self-confident, attention seekers, and aggressive (Source). An exemplar of this kind of narcissism is former president Donald Trump. In my lay opinion, Trump breaks the measure of what is to be a grandiose narcissist.

Vulnerable narcissists are introverts. They display high sensitivity and negative emotions. They also show a need for constant recognition and reassurance (Source). If you want to picture one, actress Joan Crawford of Mommy Dearest fame fits the bill. I found the way she treated her children as depicted in the movie despicably familiar.

Common to both forms of narcissistic personality disorder is self-enhancement. That's the belief the narcissist holds that their thoughts and actions are exceptional. The way they comprehend things sets them apart from others, they believe (Source).

Mom never sought counseling. She would’ve gained a lot from it, but as it is typical of narcissists, she insisted there’s nothing wrong with her. She hasn’t been shy in telling me to get counseling for this or that or the other. But she’ll never recognize her own dire needs. In fact, such recognition needs to flow from deep, critical introspection, something she’s incapable of doing. In fact, Mom would deflate if she were to acknowledge any personality disorder in herself. Such a recognition would undermine her worldview and sense of self-worth. She has made a considerable emotional investment into her own sense of mental acuity. She would never agree to receive psychological counseling, ever.

This is the type of Mother I had to contend with as I grew up. To say that being raised by Mom has harmed my own developing character and values would be an understatement. I was a broken mess until I began living a life of Catholic faith. Jesus saved me not only from hell, but also from myself. It has taken a long time to rebuild myself and my character since breaking with her worldview. In some ways it remains a work in progress.

Video Bonus

Looks and feels familiar.