NPD Moms – The Accomplishment Oriented Type with Dr Liz

Transcript

Hi, Dr. Liz here from drlizhypnosis.com. I’m doing a series on narcissistic mothers from the book: Will I Ever Be Good Enough, Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers. It is one of my specialties to work with grown-up children of narcissistic parents. So I’m putting these videos out there to help someone who maybe doesn’t have access to me or a therapist who’s knowledgeable in this area. It can be very confusing to children once they really begin to get a clue about their parent’s narcissism. And also, it’s very subtle things that happen. So, unless you have a therapist as educated on that, they may really just blow it off like you’re overreacting or you’re too sensitive or something like that. And really this is about a pattern that’s happening over time. So be aware of that and don’t put yourself down about it if you’re suspecting this and haven’t gotten a lot of validation. Okay?

It is a very small specialty area, but if you start looking there’s lots of support on the internet for, um, parents, for children of narcissistic parents. Okay. So let’s go on to this other type. This type is the accomplishment-oriented mom. Woof, this is a doozy. Okay. This is all about what the child can do. Their grades, their performances. Do they stand out? The moms put incredible pressure on the child, or they’ll often ignore them if they’re not standing out, if they’re not talented in an area. These moms will also take on the child’s accomplishments. So, let’s say that someone won a ribbon or they did really well, or, or they got into a good college or something like that. All of a sudden the mom is bragging left and right, well, so-and-so did this and this and this. And it’s always like their daughter is perfect.

So sometimes you’ll see people roll their eyes if you’re like sitting at, um, a table full of moms or something, this is the mom that’s like, her daughter is perfect and can do nothing wrong. And this is the one where it’s like, “Oh, they bumped her up two grades,” or, you know, advancing her in the band because, “She just can’t be in that first level band, she’s way better than that.” Occasionally this is accurate. The child really is way better, but often this is exaggerated and it is very much all based on what the child can do, their performance in any type of thing versus who the child is. So who the child is, is not really supported, them having feelings is not supported. This is all about like, imagine the piano mom, who’s like just making her child practice all the time.

Practice, practice, practice. She has to be perfect. Or the house has to be perfect or the child has to be dressed perfect or look perfect because the mom sees the child as a reflection on herself. I talked about that a little in the other video about the flamboyant extrovert mom, that the child is always a reflection of the mom. This is the case here too. So, the child begins to develop this sense of sometimes of rebellion, like I’m not going to accomplish, because I realized that that’s all this mom wants me for. Or shame when the mom’s exaggerating, the child knows it’s not true, or sometimes they’ll develop it a deeper sense of, I just want to be me and I can’t really do that around my mom. I have to put on a performance for her. So all of those things happen and they’re often very painful for the child who is trying to grow up and do things that perhaps they enjoy and love and become their own person.

When the mom is really like squashing that, you know, if it’s not excellent and perfect then it’s not worth anything. The child often feels like a very low level of self-esteem and this feeling of, I’m only worth what I can accomplish. Okay. And that carries through to their adult. Work-life sometimes too. So be aware of that. If that’s what it feels like to you. Like if I can accomplish great things in my job or my career, then I feel like I’m nothing. That’s probably coming from the parenting style that you grew up with. If you have a narcissistic parent. Okay. So, um, if you want to know more about me or how to work with me, my website is Dr. Liz hypnosis.com. I am a specialist in this area as well as anxiety. So I run the anxiety clinic of Hollywood. If you want to see that, too. All right. Peace.

I work with people all over the world. If you want to feel better and have a transformed life, grab your Free Consultation with me to get the deets on working together (the how, the when, the where, and the how much)!

Click to Schedule a Free Consultation

Peace and Health,
Dr. Liz