Today my therapist asked me how's your relationship with your mom now....and my one word answer:

Fake.

When you realize your mother has NPD, you either ignore them, or humor them.  Humoring someone is not a real relationship.  I love her, yes.  Like how a real human loves another human.  But her love is 100% conditional.  For real.  Its not like she's pretending her love is conditional, it really is.  She cannot love like a real human can love another human.  And we have to accept that as a shortcoming of hers if we really want to be able to heal.  (Hers, meaning your mother and mine).

So while we have a "fake" relationship, its still a type of one.  And while its not perfect, its something.  

And I guess that counts for something. 

The fact my mom treats most everyone the same sometimes makes me feel better.

But then sometimes it doesn't.  Because she doesn't treat those she sees as above her that way, only those below her. 

I am included in that category. 

So she treats me, and her 3 friends, and my kids and sometimes my hubby all the same.  She says her little phrase "Oh, you think so?" with her squinty eyes at us.  She brushes off our issues as if they are nothing.  She acts like she's humoring us with her presence. 

So in other words, we are her minions and she is queen. 

BUT to know its not just me does help me to feel better just a tad.  But her one friend is mentally retarded.  One is only slightly brain damaged because of trauma she received as a child.  And the last one, who is my friend as well, she treats as though she IS retarded.  She she lumps my intelligence into those she deems as mentally inferior.

But that's what the maternal narcissist does: turns her children into emotionally retarded people around them.  She will keep you as a child by treating you like one, make you feel crazy by not validating things that actually happened, and invalidates your feelings as if they don't count.  So no matter what, around her, you will feel like a child.  And an emotionally stunted one, at that.


So if you're used to your mother treating you in a certain way, then pay attention to how she treats others.  If you see her using the same techniques and the same "narc-y" phrases, then you can be sure of how she sees that person on her totem of narcdom.  Behind their backs she may talk shit about them, OR she may talk them up like they are AMAZING, but to their faces she treats them like shit, OR puts her "narc facade" (that mind-numbing, fake presentation of OVER niceness, and sickening sweetness). 

BUT people can go up and down her totem pole like a stripper in a show, depending on where they are are in mom's good graces.  Even if she isn't their mother.  She likes to play this game with my cousins.  She pretends to me they are AMAZING (although before they were ASSHOLES), but then others she talks shit about them (who then tell me).  And if I bring that up to her, she will deny, deny, deny!  "I never said that about them!  She must have heard wrong!"  So you quickly learn to keep your mouth shut and don't get into any "real" conversations with her about anyone else.  BUT if I prove I am a good girl and don't bring up any "triggers" for her, then I am in her good graces enough to hear her talk smack about others. 

Luckily I am not with her every day anymore, so I don't have to play that "totem pole" game.  I don't bring up my cousins.  I don't comment on them when she talks about them, other than saying "oh really?".  I talk about her cats, her dog and my pets.  I don't bring up my friends, or other people.  I try not to talk about my life except in general.  I will slip up sometimes and bring up something important to me, just out of habit.  But normally I just leave it alone.

I know she sees me as below her.  But she doesn't only see ME as below her, so I guess that's nice.  But be that as it may, I need to remember, I am NOT below her.  Though when I am around her, I sometimes have a hard time not feeling childish or as an outsider in my own mother's house.  But that's why I limit how much I see her.  Its better for my own psyche.  And I've trained myself to see when she treats others the same as myself.  It makes me sad for them, but it also makes me realize:

THIS IS ALL A GAME TO HER.  And I don't have to play it if I don't feel like it. 

Remember that.  You don't have to play their games.  You can do as I do, and just say "I gotta go!" when you've had enough.  Or you can never play the game at all. 

You and I are not below them.  We are so far above them, that they can't see us, and it scares them.  So they have to play pretend.  So let them.  Its not about you anymore.  It all about them.  They are the queens and we are the pawns.

And its okay if she thinks I am a pawn.  I know I am queen.  Not the queen of others, like she wants to be.  But the queen of me.  The queen of my own life.  And I don't need her approval.