Narcissist parent

My childhood and teenage years weren't exactly easy and I know that what I went through over this time significantly contributed to my low self esteem as well as the development of my anorexia. At the time I had no idea why my mum was treating me the way she was but now I know that she was treating me differently from my siblings because she was in capable of feeling maternal love towards me. I remember balling my eyes out and asking her why she hated me so much and eventually she stopped denying that she hated me and just admitted that she didnt know why she couldnt love me like she did my siblings. Accepting this was hard and to begin with I tortured myself for year's trying to win her love. All I got from her however was more emotional abuse and neglect.

In the early stages of my eating disorder when I had just started making myself vomit after eating sometimes I remember breaking down and telling my mum what I had been doing. I expected her to take me to the doctor or atleast try to help me through it. All she did however was tell me that "you should stop that"andInever heard another word about it again until I was hospitalised about 4 months later. She hever once asked me if I was ok or if I was still practicing that dangerous behaviour. I asked her later about why she didnt do anything when I told her what I had been doing and she told me she was too busy dealing with my little sister to worry about me too. Also, when I was first hospitalised I remember laying in my hospital bed hooked up to heart monitors and unable to even walk to the toilet and having my mum call me and growl at me for not taking my text books to hospital with me as I would miss out on studying. She wasnt concerned about the fact that my heart was failing or that I was very sick, all she cared bout was me missing out on school.

These are just a few of the signs that my mum didnt have normal maternal feelings towards me. She was also very jealous of the relationship I had with my dad and she felt incredibly threatened if ever my younger sister looked up to me as a mother figure also. Mum was an alcoholic so whenever she got drunk, her true loathing for me really came out. Atleast while she was sober she could try and hide the fact that she didnt care about me the way she did about my 2 brothers and sister.

The reason I am writing this post today is to reach out to anyone else who my have a narcissistic parent. In order for me to recover, I had to cut myself off from my mother all together and had to stop trying to get her to love me the way I always wanted her too. I highly recommend you try to cut your parent off too, if they are a narcissist, or atleast stop trying to win their love. The truth is, your narcissistic parent can not love you unless you are their 'golden child' and as long as you try to get them to, you are only torturing yourself. I have accepted I will never have a mum and that is completely ok. I have so many other wonderful people in my life so I really dont need her, one little bit! And oneday I hope to have a daughter so I can have the mother daughter relationship with her that I never got to have with my own mum.

21 Signs of a Narcissistic Mother (Be Concerned if She Has Many of Them)

http://thenarcissisticlife.com/do-i-have-a-narcissistic-mother-21-signs-of-a-narcissistic-mother/

• 1. She has to be the center of attention all the time. This is a defining feature of narcissism. She will steal the spotlight or spoil any occasion if someone else is the center of attention.

• 2. She demeans, criticizes and makes derogatory remarks to you. She always lets you know that she thinks less of you than your siblings or other people.

• 3. She violates your boundaries. You feel like an extension of her. There is no privacy in your bathroom or bedroom; she regularly goes through your things to find information she then uses against you.
• 4. She ‘favoritizes’. Narcissistic mothers often have one child who is “the golden child” and another who is the scapegoat.
• 5. She undermines She will pick a fight with you or be especially critical and unpleasant just before you have to make a major effort.
• 6. Everything she does is ‘deniable’. Cruelties are couched in loving terms; aggressive acts are paraded as thoughtfulness.
• 7. She makes YOU look crazy. When you confront her with something she’s done, she’ll tell you that you have “a very vivid imagination” (common phrase that abusers use to invalidate your experience of their abuse) or that she has “no idea what you are talking about”.
• 8. She’s jealous. If you get something nice, she’ll take it from you, spoil it for you or get something the same or better for herself.
• 9. She’s a continuous liar. To you, she lies blatantly. To outsiders, she lies thoughtfully and in ways that can always be covered up.
• 10. She manipulates your emotions in order to “feed on your pain”. This behavior is so common among narcissistic mothers that they are often referred to as “emotional vampires”.
• 11. She is selfish and willful. She makes sure SHE has the best of everything and always has to have her way.
• 12. She is self-absorbed. Her feelings, needs and wants are Very Important and yours are irrelevant or insignificant.
• 13. She is almost absurdly defensive and extremely sensitive to criticism.
• 14. She terrorized you. Narcissists teach you to beware of their wrath. If you give her everything she wants, you might be spared; but if you don’t-the punishments WILL come.
• 15. She’s childish and petty; “getting even” with you is important to her.
• 16. She is aggressive and shameless. She doesn’t ask, she demands. She won’t take no for an answer-she will push, arm-twist, or otherwise manipulate or abuse you until you give in.
• 17. She “parentifies”. She sheds her parental responsibilities to the child as soon as she is able.
• 18. She is exploitive. She will go to any length to get things from others for nothing (work, money, objects)- including taking money out of her children’s account or even stealing their identities.
• 19. She projects. She will put her own poor behavior or character onto you so she can punish you. For example, you refuse an especially outlandish request of hers, she becomes enraged and furious at your refusal, then screams at you, “we’ll talk about it after you’ve calmed down and aren’t hysterical”.
• 20. She is never wrong about anything. She will never, ever genuinely apologize for anything she has done or said.
• 21. She is not aware that other people have feelings. She will occasionally slip up in public, and because of her lack of sympathy, will say something so callous it causes disbelief in people. The absence of empathy is another defining trait of narcissism and underlies most of the other signs that are on this list.

An interesting read

August 27, 2015

For 15 years I worked as a research scientist examining the neurobiologic and genetic underpinnings of eating disorders. The number one question I heard (and still hear) is:

What causes eating disorders? Is it nature or nuture?

Some say they believe eating disorders are the result of over-controlling mothers and stubborn children. Others believe eating disorders develop because of difficult relationships, abuse, or trauma. And, still others have stated that eating disorders run in families and are genetic. The truth is, although controlling mothers and stubborn children DO NOT cause eating disorders, there are many variables, such as biology, environment, and experience that can contribute to their development.

Eating disorders are complicated illnesses that develop over a period of time. The interaction of many variables during this time ultimately determines whether or not an eating disorder emerges. As people go through life, genes influence the biology of their bodies and brains, help shape their personalities, affect how they respond to stress, and impact the sports or activities they choose and the friends they make. At the same time, their environment and experiences, such as stress, trauma or abuse, their thoughts and feelings, and how and what they eat can not only change the biology of their bodies and brains, but can also alter the way their genes are expressed and function.

So the answer to the question is:

Nature AND nurture cause eating disorders.

Individuals may have a genetic predisposition to develop an eating disorder, but if their experiences and environment promote health and wellness and do not activate biologic triggers to initiate disordered eating behavior, they may never develop an eating disorder. Alternatively, individuals with no genetic predisposition for eating disorders who are exposed to environmental stimuli that trigger a biologic and emotional response, such as severe stress, may experience changes in body and brain chemistry that influence eating behavior, leading to disordered eating. Disordered eating can further change the individual’s biology, inducing changes in body and brain chemistry that can become conditioned to particular environments, such as specific places or specific emotional states. This interplay among biologic and environmental variables becomes a self-perpetuating cycle of disordered eating resulting in eating disorder illnesses.

It is important to note that there is not one single variable that causes eating disorders. Just as many complex interactions occur to contribute to the development of a disorder, so too must many complex interactions occur to recover from an eating disorder illness. Treatment must address the biologic and environmental contributors to the disorder. Managing biology through proper nourishment, establishing effective coping and communication skills, and identifying and addressing environmental triggers, together, can promote recovery.

Wendy Mathes, MS, PhD, LPCA, NCC

Outreach Education Coordinator, Veritas Collaborative

When my eating disorder first started to develop.......

I got some really good questions from one of the wonderful girls I regularly email and thought I would answer it in a post, so all of my readers can read about my experience of this. She asked;
'I'm curious how your family reacted when you started to develope your eating disorder. And how you felt in that time? Were you aware of your situation?'

My eating disorder developed over a period of 6 months or so however in this time I did not loose a cosiderable amount of weight so no one really noticed that I was suffering. In this time, I started restricting what I ate more and more and slowly became obsessed with counting calories. I wouldn't let myself eat anything unhealthy and if I ever did eat something unhealthy, I would make myself vomit.

Even though I was eating a lot less and exercising a lot more, it didn't seem to make any difference at all to my weight wich really frustrated me. I suppose that this was just because I was at my natural set point and my body was therefore trying its hardest to maintain that set point. I compared my self and my body to every single person I would meet and became obsessed with food.

Because I was away at boarding school and had access to my own private bathroom, no one ever knew that I would regularly make myself sick. For a while I only did it once a week or even less when I ate something 'really bad' I had forbidden myself to eat like chocolate or dessert. But eventually I felt incredibly guilty for eating anything at all so made myself sick atleast once a day. One day I remember making myself sick after eating some strawberries, because the guilt was too much for me.

At one point my mum knew something was wrong with me as I was extremely sensitive and would burst into tears over almost nothing. Eventually I told her that I had been making myself sick after esting some things but she never did anything. She just told be i should stop and never mentioed it again. I think I told my  mum what was going on as I was scared and felt as though I had lost control so it really hurt when she didn't seem to care or didn't try to help me.

I kept telling myself wach time that I made myself sick that it would be the last time. I neverr thought that I was developing anorexia as I didn't think Iwas 'skinny enough' to be anorexic. Now I realise that anorexia is a mental illness that can happen at any weight. For instance just because I have now reached a healthy weight does not mean that I am no longer suffering from anorexia. I thought that I may have had bulimia at the time my eating disorder was developinng as I wasn't aware that anorexics can sometimes make themselves sick too (purge type anorexia).

Eventually I got so fed up with going to so much effort too lose weight without seeing any results and so I stoppped eating all together. And because I wasn't eating, I obviously wasn't having to make myself sick either. In fact I have never made myself sick ever again. My weight loss was rapid from then. I lost 10 kilograms in only a few weeks and was so weak I had to be put into hospital. In those few weeks leading up to going to hospital, I was at home as it was my school holidays.

I got away with not eating for a couple of days as I just said that I wasn't hungry or that I didn't feel well. I think my parents could see what was unfolding but they soon realised that there was nothing they could really do. I cant remember a lot from this time to be honest but I know that neither of my parents yelled or screamed at me to try and get me to eat. Perhaps they just thought it was a stage I was going through and that I would hopefully snap out of it.

We went on a family trip to Port Arthur and my parents realised then how unwell I was. I refused to eat anthing but steamed vegetables for one meal per day and a piece of fruit. I had hypothermia and had a miserable time away. It was only a couple of days after I got home from tht trip that I was admitted to the childrens ward at the Launceston General hospital, where I would spend the next 6 weeks.

I remember not wanting to go to hospital but at the same time, I didn't really see any other option as I literally couldn't eat. I knew that I was killing myself and that I couldn't survive on what I was eating for very long. I was scared of going to hospital because I knew that I would be forced to gain weight but I was also scared of not going to hospital as I knew that I would eventually die. At the time, both options seemed equally terrifying. But now I am incredibely glad I ended up in hospital and was given another chance at life.

After leaving hospital, my eating disorder got a lot worse before it started to get better but all that maters is that I have got to where I am today in the end. I know that it doesn't matter how long recovery takes me, all that matters is that I recover eventually, and I know that I will.

To the person who asked me these questions, thankyou for giving me a great post topic and I hope I have answered the questions you asked thouroughly :)

My experience of boarding school

Between 2009 and 2012 I was a boarder at a private school in Launceston. I was lucky enough to get an academic scholarship to attend the school and I was very excited to be going to a school that would be more of a challenge for me and hoped that it would increase my chances of oneday making it into university to become a vet. I had very mixed feelings about leaving home. Things were not great between mum and I back then so it was good that we would be able to get some space from one another and since I was not coping very well with her drinking, I felt as though going away to boarding school would allow me to escape from that. Of course I was worried about leaving my dad and sister behind but knew that I would be able to come home on most weekends and in school holidays.

Although getting used to being away from home took some time, I really did enjoy it in the end. The first year I was at the boarding house their was 60 boys and girls from all over Tasmania, as well as some international students and we were all like one big family. We watched tv together, went shopping, studied, went swimming, played board games and hung out together. It really was an amazing atmosphere to be in. Some peope did not handle the rules of boarding school very well but they didnt bother me at all as I had grown up in a relatively strict household anyway. I had always used my manners, went to bed when I was told to and followed the rules at home so it was no more difficult having to do it at the boarding house.

Unlike many boarding houses, our food was amazing! We had a chef cooking all of our meals for us and there was always more then enough food available. I think that having so much delicious food available all the time is what led to me gaining weight in the last year or two that I was at boardng school and becoming so unhappy with my body. For breakfast we could help ourselves to any toast or cereal that we wanted but there was always a hot option as well. One day per week it would be eggs and bacon, another morning it would be baked beans or spaghetti and that type of thing. For recess (morning tea) there was always a bakery snack available. This would usually be something like a piece of slice, a muffin, some cookies or some other sweet treat. We could also help ourselves to as much fruit as we wanted.

For lunch we would have hot food delivered to school. Somedays it would be something like meat pies or pasta. Other days we had hot meat and gravy rolls, fried rice, pizza, dim sims or toasted sandwiches. Afternoon tea was always something nice too like pikelets or scones with jam and cream, biscuits and cheese, french toast, Muffins or pastries. Tea always consisted of two courses. Either soup and main or main and dessert. The soups were always quite hearty and there were always 5 or 6 loaves of thickly sliced bread available to have with butter and your soup. Tea could be anything from meat and vegetables to pasta, rice, casserole or stir fry. Desserts were always really delicious. They were usually something like pudding with icecream, banana splits, chocolate mousse, terimasu, pannacotta or lemon meringue pie.

Lastly, we would have supper before going to bed which included a hot or cold miky drink and as many sweet biscuits as we fancied. So as you can see it was really no wonder that I gained weight while eating all of the delicious food that was available to me, especially considering I was not very active. In my final year of boarding school however I severely started restricting what I ate. I would cook a sachet of oats with water for my breakfast. Eat an apple for morning tea, make myself a salad sandwhich for lunch, eat another apple for afternoon tea, eat tea but not any soup or dessert and I also would not have any supper before going to bed. The shocking thing was, that after making all of these changes I still lost basically no weight as my metabolism just got really slow.

In the last year or two of boarding, I also got really obsessive over studying so I did not enjoy being a boarder like I should have. I hardly ever came home on the weekends as I would just stay at the boarding house and study in my room all weekend on my own. In my final year of boarding I also had my own room with my own bathroom and fridge as I was boarding house captain. I loved having these privileges but obviously having my own bathroom was not a good thing went it came to the developement of my eating disorder. This meant that it became extremely easy for me to make myself sick, witout anyone ever suspecting a thing. So I suppose that boarding was good for me, for the first couple of years I was there, however it wasnt so good in my final year as I was in a very bad state of mind.

I never thought I would get anorexia

Growing up, I never thought for a moment that I would become anorexic. I remember watching news stories as a young child about anorexic sufferers and being quite interested in the stories however I did not really understand what anorexia was about. I failed to see just how much of an illness it was and honestly did think that the sufferers were just choosing not to eat.

About 6 months before my anorexia started to develop, I actually had a conversation with my nan about anorexia. She was talking about another local girl who had been admitted into hospital with anorexia and I remember saying 'there is no way I could ever be anorexic, I love food way too much.' It was quite ironic really as it was only about 12 months later that I was put into hospital at the same time as that other local girl, where we stayed together for over 6 weeks.

I suppose the message I am trying to get across is that no one ever sees anorexia coming and that even though someone may think that they would never develop anorexia, this does not mean that they won't. It doesnt matter what race, nationality, gender or age you may be or how intelligent you are, anyone can develop an eating disorder. Anorexia really doesn't discriminate!

How bad body image contributed to my eating disorder

My body image issues started long before I ever developed anorexia. When I was really young, I was really quite thin and I was therefore confident in my body. As I got older, the first thing I started to hate about myself was my bum. I hated it and thought that it was way to big and I soon started to feel this way about my legs too.

There was nothing unhealthy about my body at that stage and I was still thinner than most other girls my age. However I think that the reason I didn't like it, was because I would compare myself to my brothers who were both skinny. I wanted to have no bum and skinny thighs like they had but now I can obviously see that boys and girls are built differently and are not suppoed to look the same.

As I got even older and went through puberty I developed a real hour glass figure. I had a very thin waist, which probably indicates that I was in fact healthy however my breasts got bigger, as did my bum and legs. My legs were never really fat, however they were very musclar which I still hated. At first I did not let my insecurities bother me and I just continued to live normally.

Eventually however I felt so awful about the way I looked that I coldn't ignore the way I felt about my body anymore. When I was in year 12 at boarding school, my bathroom had a full length mirror in it so I would see my whole body before I got into the shower each day and I hated every part of it. I started to get acne which just made me even more depressed and self conscious and the only way I thought I could make myself happy was by losing weight.

I think lots of things contributed to my bad body image. I think it was partly due to the fact that Iam a perfectionist and therefore was not happy with my body as I didn't believe it was perfect, as well as the fact that Iwas at a very athletic school where everyone seemed to be a lot skinnier than me. The fact that the boys in my family constantly teased me about my weight also made me more self conscious and of course the media affected me also.

Knowing what I now know, I so desperately wish I could turn back time as I know that losing weight was not going to solve any of my problems. I was a perfectly healthy weight and had no need to lose any weight. The problem was not with my body, but the way that I felt about it. Instead of deciding to lose the weight I didn't like, I wish I had decided to instead put more energy into learning to accept and love my body, the way it was supposed to be.

Swimming

As a child, I was always a 'water baby.' I loved swimming and felt most relaxed when I was in the water. Since it is so cold in Tasmania, there are probably only 4 months of the year it is actually warm enough to swim, unless you have access to an indoor pool which I rarely ever did. I didn't mind swimming at the beach, but I didnt feel as comfortable swimming at the beach as I did in a pool. Luckily our family had a swimming pool in our backyard. It wasnt a huge pool but throughout the summer I would spend hour after hour swimming. I loved the feel of the water flowing around my body and would sometimes just hold my breath and lay at the bottom of the pool. Being underwater was the most serene feeling for me and I honestly think that if I was an animal in a past life, it would have been a dolphin or turtle or something like that.

I suppose it was only natural that I became a good swimmer. Swimming was the one sport I was good at. I was never very good at running or athletics or any team sports for that matter. I think the reason I liked individual sports more is because of my controlling perfectionist nature. When you were playing as part of a team, you can not make your teammates try there best or put in 100% effort. No matter how hard you try yourself, you can not control how your teammates perform. When you are competing alone however, you can ensure you are trying your best and have more control over how you perform. All of my friends played netball for clubs on the weekends but I never did, I just swam.

While our pool wasnt very big, it was still big enough to do 'laps' in to train once I started swimming more competitively. I also did swimming squad training 3 or 4 times a week throughout the week where we would go and swim for atleast an hour straight.  I dont remember exactely how far we would swim but I do remember my coach telling me to jump in and do a 1 km warm up on arriving at the pool each day it was a 25m swimming pool so that was 40 laps! I think I surprised many people when they saw me swim as I was not typically a sporty child. Swimming made me feel powerful and strong and was the only sport I truly loved, which is why it hurt so much when I had to give it up.

In the summer of 2011, my collar bone started popping out all the time. Even now, every time I raise my arm above my head, my collar bone will pop out. While it can be a little painful, it doesnt really hurt that much unless it repeatedly pops out many times in one day, which is exactly what was happening when I swam. I went to see a doctor that they told me my collarbone was actually dislocating every single time I lifted my arm above my head. This confused me as it didnt feel like a dislocation while it was happening, in fact while my collar bone was actually popping out, it wasnt really painful at all.

My doctors had never seen anything like it before and neither had any of the specialists I went to. I was diagnosed with ligamentous laxity which means that my ligaments are heaps stretchier then they should be and therefore don't hold my joints together as they are supposed to. This explained why I had always been so flexible as a kid and had been able to do lots of tricks like putting my legs behind my head and hyper extending my elbows.

Even in tight skinny jeans I can still put my leg behind my head 

My freaky elbow :o

Not only does my collar bone disslocate regularly but so do my hips, ankles and wrists. As I said, it usually isnt too painfull when it actually happens and this is because my ligaments do not tear when the joints move as they would in a normal person, they just stretch. It is still a problem however as while my joints are so unstable, my bones are constantly grinding on one another and causing permanent bone and nerve damage. I will probably have osteoarthritis in the future, if I do not allready have it now and it also causes muscle problems as the muscles try to compensate for the lack of ligaments and have a lot more pressure placed on them then they are designed to have.

As you can see in this image, there are lots of ligamets aroud the collar bone which are supposed to hold it firmly in place however my ligaments dont work.

So swimming became far to painful and I had to give it up forever. Going from swimming everyday to never being able to swim another lap in my life was very hard for me. I could no longer do any sports I enjoyed and therefore lost heart in doing any physIcal activity at all. I became much less active but still continued to eat the same amount as I always had which meant I gained weight. I think I started to become unhappy with my body at this time as I was also developing a more womenly figure at the time. 

I honestly do think that being forced to give up swimming contributed to me developing my eating disorder. My ligamentous laxity felt like just another thing in my life that I had no control of and this really frustrated me. I was also frustrated that my body was changing and that I was gaining weight due to not being as active as I had always been. I decided I wanted to lose weight at the start of 2012, just one year after I had to give up swimming and my anorexia continued to develop from then on.

Falling into the deep hole of Anorexia

I think that one of the scariest things about anorexia is that you really can't see it coming. You can't feel yourself developing it and once you realise you have it,  it is far too late. The damage is already done and this damage is extremely hard to undo. Just like a hole in the ground that is hidden by leaves and undergrowth, often a person doesn't even know that it is there until they fall right to the bottom of the hole. It happens so fast that the person falling only realises that something terrible has happened when they hit the ground at the bottom of the hole. For me, it only took about 6 months to go from being a perfectly healthy and bubbly 17 year old girl to being a miserable and very sick girl suffering from Anorexia.

Some people can never get out of the hole as they have simply fallen too far in. Others may be able to eventually climb out of the hole but it takes a lot of time and a lot of strength to do so. Initially I thought that the hole I had fallen into was impossible to climb out of but now I realise It is possible, it will just take a long time and a lot of strength to do it. So far it has taken me 3 years to get to where I am in my recovery and I know I still have a long way to go before I reach the top and recover completely.

The point I am trying to get at is that if you suspect you could be developing an unhealthy relationship with food, try to get help before you develop this awful illness and fall deep into the hole of anorexia. Also, if you suspect someone you care about may be developing anorexia, don't wait until they have developed the illness entirely before getting help for them. The longer a person Is sick, the more powerful their anorexic voice becomes and the harder it is for them to recover. It is a known fact that early intervention is very important and can often determine the recovery outcomes of a patient.

I can not stress enough just how serious Anorexia is. More people die from anorexia than any other mental illness because it is so hard to fight. It has a higher mortality rate then some cancers and also has very few treatment options as very little is understood about it. Dont risk developing this awful disease as it WILL ruin your life (well at least a significant part of it anyway). Please, trust me when I say that there is nothing good about having anorexia.

I wish that I could somehow show everyone just how awful it it to have anorexia because then I think they would take extra precautions to avoid developing the disease. If only someone had been able to explain to me how awful Anorexia is when I was becoming obsessed with food and weight, perhaps I would have been able to stop myself from falling down the hole. I may have been able to see the hole coming and stepped over the top of it, instead of falling into it.

I never imagined just how terrible anorexia could possibely be until I was going through it. It wasn't until I suddenly had no control and was unable to eat anything at all that I new something was wrong.  By then, the damage had allready been done. I had developed anorexia and had no choice but to start fighting for my life to get out of the hole and survive.