Cutting A Narcissistic Parent Out Your Life

I understand how it feels to cut a narcissistic parent out of your life. Intimately. My mother was the ultimate narcissist, and I was the stereotypical scapegoat. First hers, then everyone's emotional punchbag- after she succeeded in convincing me that was all I was worth, it was my identity. WAS.

But I didn’t escape that life by cutting her off. I escaped by finding my real identity. It was within me all along, and despite everything, my mother is still an intrinsic part of me, despite having left this realm.

Identity: The Blueprint of Love, Suffering, And Life

We are all beneficiaries and victims of our parents' often warped version of love - their own unique interpretation of what it means to love and be loved. Few parents bring new life into the world with nefarious intentions. But this parental estrangement series is not about the searingly cruel psychopaths and abusers. It’s about “ordinary” people trying to live their lives the only way they know how, doing the best they can, centred around our unique identities that were shaped over 300 million years or more of evolution, and which undergo intensive adjustment during our lifetimes.

Who we are - our identity - determines how we make decisions, how we engage with others, and how we build a life. We are given the ultimate blessing- life, and with it the countless joys, and equally countless hardships that are part of the package. It is up to the individual to navigate these after starting out life in that complex social structure called a family.

Mothers come in all shapes and sizes- with every imaginable mental disposition. You kinda get what you get, and who your parents are is one of the things you can't change. My relationship with my mother was difficult, to say the least, but she was, after all, my mother- her blood runs through my veins, her DNA is connected to mine, whether I like it or not.

One of the most brutal truths I ever had to come to terms with was:

My mother is central to my identity.

When this thought first drifted into my consciousness, I fought it as fiercely as though my life depended on it (Spoiler alert: it did). Surely I could never be that cruel, that vicious, that uncaring? And certainly, my entire life had been dedicated to maintaining unreasonably high levels of honesty, of doing motherhood far better than she had.

I spent years begging my narcissistic mother to give me space- just to give me space to think and make a life for myself. Yet the harder I fought, the tighter her grip became. And she knew precisely how to manipulate me- I was a rainbow baby, meticulously trained to serve her purposes, and- as it later dawned on me, the shared ancestry and DNA meant she knew me inside and out.

While I always associated my mother with pain and a vice grip when she was alive, some conversations we had in the years before she died planted seeds that sprouted later, seeds that turned into trees of learning, its heavy branches being pulped into understanding and growth.

Perhaps one of the most important things I learned was that my narcissistic mother loved me- but in her own way. She loved me as an extension of herself, as a useful tool, and as a scapegoat. But underneath that, she loved me in the limited way she could- when her mental illnesses and burdens weren't clouding her judgment.

No, what she did was neither fair nor right. But the foundation she laid made me strong enough to suffer, fierce enough to explore, and brave enough to keep moving forward, most days. And, being the manipulator she was, she gave me strategies to refine into my own version of life skills, and an eye to look under the surface.

When I accepted that my mother was central to my identity, I could embrace the good bits- and there were many (there always are at least some), and use the suffering I endured from the bad bits to grow and learn during a years-long quest. I found meaning in my suffering. And my mother, and my suffering, I now see, are intrinsic to who I am, my identity.

But this may never have happened if I had not left her when I did- the timing was perfect.

How I Left My Mother: Cutting A Narcissistic Parent Out Your Life

It’s a long story- it always is. But I did eventually lose everything- absolutely everything, including my preconceived ideas. The last time I saw my mother alive was a few weeks before she died. By then, I was close to being completely dysfunctional, gripped in pain that I clung to – it had become my uncomfortable comfort zone.

On the advice of a friend, I said to my mother, who was deep in the grip of dementia, “I don’t know what I did to deserve the way you treated me, but I’m here to ask your forgiveness.” I said this softly, without expectations.

My mother's wild eyes stared at me intently before focusing sharply. In the same quiet way, she said, "You don't have anything to be forgiven for. I need to bow down at your feet and beg your forgiveness."

The room fell silent - others were sitting in the same lounge, but the moment was between a mother and child; nothing penetrated the moment for a few seconds. Slowly, the words seeped into my head and crystallised. But my mother's eyes had already started darting around the room- floundering as she started making wild promises she could never keep.

The visit got a whole lot weirder after that, but when I stood up to say goodbye a few hours later, I knew I would never see her again. I wasn't aware of just how ill her mind was, nor the drugs she was being force-fed that were guaranteed to kill her, but still, it was the perfect moment to end a painful relationship- on a note of perfect peace.

So I checked out, but my mother will never leave. There is just too much shared everything, too many connections. Too much love.

It wasn't a cathartic moment that miraculously changed my life, but it was pivotal in redirecting my healing journey, acknowledging me as a person- with value and worth. I didn't get what I had always thought was the perfect mother. But I did get the mother who was perfect for me and the lessons I needed to learn. Without her, I would never have learned about life, love, and the depth of the human spirit, and may have searched in vain forever for meaning.

And perhaps I would not have been given a host of other difficulties to overcome had this life's challenge been easier. Yet, one by one- like eating an elephant, our life’s lessons can be undertaken. We have to start somewhere, some time, and sometimes it’s not until our pain bring us to our knees, that we can begin to start taking bites of that elephant.

Read more about Parental Estrangement

It's sad that my mother and I couldn't have had more happier days, but it may never have been meant to be. I, too, acknowledge that I played a role in pushing her away because I thought that would be the only way I could save myself, as some so-called healers suggest. Yet, it was in finding a real connection, at the end, that I was saved.

And I now accept who I am. My mother was, is, and always will be part of me, intrinsic to my identity. And, it turns out- that's not the bad thing I thought it would be. I'm grateful for the good, and thankful for the balance that suffering brought to my life- the learning, growth, and meaning an easy life could never have delivered.

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P.S. And I have learned to develop boundaries, and the skills to cut psychopaths out of my life. They bring nothing with them, adding nothing but pain and suffering. They help us learn and grow- definitely unintentionally (their goal is to destroy), but- unlike narcissists, psychopaths have no empathy, no capacity for love beyond themselves. There is no value in keeping them in your life after you have learned the lessons they were sent to teach. They bring pain and sometimes PTSD.

But learn to know the difference between a narcissist and a psychopath- the latter are the hardest to identify, and impossible to connect to authentically.