NPD Moms – The Addicted Type with Dr Liz

Transcript

Hi, Dr. Liz here, and I’m doing a series on narcissistic mothers. This is from the book: Will I Ever Be Good Enough, Healing The Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers by Carol McBride. Excellent book, I recommend it all the time to my clients, to other people. I recommend it to men as well, not just daughters of narcissistic mothers, because I think it’s so helpful, but there are certain things specific to daughters in narcissistic mothers that need to be healed over time. So that’s really what therapy is for. I am a specialist in this area and there’s not a whole lot of therapists that are, and sometimes they’ll just misunderstand what someone is trying to tell them if they’re not educated in this area, because often the narcissism is very subtle. And it’s a pattern over time though, that a child will pick up and particularly as they move into adulthood, they’ll get much more of a sense of my parent is narcissistic.

Whether that’s male or female, they’re talking about their dad or their mom. They’ll start to get a sense of that as they move into their twenties or when they have their own children and they see some of their behaviors, it’ll be like, whoa, wait a minute. So anyway, okay, let’s talk about the addicted mom. So this is one of the six types that Carol McBride identifies. Now. Sometimes when people get sober, they move out of narcissism. Addiction itself is considered a narcissistic disease. It’s also considered a disease of anxiety. Oftentimes the addict is covering anxiety, their own abusive childhood, or trauma. They’re trying to handle something, but that’s a whole another topic. Okay? If the mom is solely focused just on her drug of choice, whether that’s drugs whether that’s alcohol, she will do it to the exclusion of her children. Okay. So children who grew up in homes like these will often say it was all about the drinking and the drugs and the partying for my mom. I was never an issue.

They often even put down the child or they’ll hide the child away. They’ll say, “You need to stay in your room, cause we’re having a party tonight.” Often this life includes all kinds of chaos that the mother is creating and she sometimes will even leave a child alone so that she can go out and party. She really isn’t addicted to the drug or the alcohol or, you know, whatever her addiction is. So, this does fall into the narcissistic category it’s about her and her needs and not about the child at all. So as the child gets older, you are at risk. If you have this type of narcissistic mother, if you have addictive parents, you’re at risk, period, okay. Of addiction for yourself. So please be aware of that because sometimes children will swear that they will never be like, their parents will never drink, but this is the behavior you grew up learning.

So when something hits, it’s like, oh, I am gonna reach for the bottle or I am going to reach for drugs. Or sometimes they find themselves like falling into this when they really didn’t want to, that’s the time to get help. Okay. You need to heal this part of your life so that you can move out of it. If that’s happening to you. Now, sometimes when someone gets sober, if they’re truly don’t have the personality structure of a narcissistic mother, they will move out of narcissism. Okay. They will make amends, they’ll work the steps, they’ll go through, um, all kinds of means to be available to their children and to really take care of them and heal that relationship. Sometimes just too late. There are often adult children who are like, I want nothing to do with you. That’s the prerogative. I believe that. But sometimes it’s not.

Sometimes people get sober when their children are younger. And so then they really do work hard on being present for their children, being at events, supporting their growth, um, being present for the family, that kind of thing. So that I would say they move out of narcissism. That’s a possibility. But often if they have the personality structure of a narcissist, they’re never getting sober, they just stay in that narcissistic state constantly using, or they’ll turn to, um, maybe one of the other different types. So this is a series on the six different types. You can look at those and see if they fit into one of those categories. So that’s just something for you to know about the addicted mom. Okay. This would fall under the ignoring type if we’re looking at the broader umbrella, I did a video on that one, too. The ignoring type of mom, because all of her focus is on the addiction and herself and getting those addictive needs met.

All right. Have a wonderful week. And I’ll talk to you soon. You can always see more about me over at my website, drlizhypnosis.com. And I also am an anxiety specialist as well as this area, because children of narcissistic parents often have significant anxiety. I mean, I like anxiety even separate from this category. I love working with it, but it is the case. So I suggest some deeper healing if that’s going on for you. Hey, whether through, um, talk therapy, cognitive behavior therapy, or hypnosis, or the combination thereof. Right. All right. Have a wonderful day.

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Peace and Health,
Dr. Liz