If you’re familiar with my blog or my work, you know I’m a huge fan of affirmations and any kind of positive self-talk. Heck, I even wrote a book about it! So let me ask you-
Have you ever really observed how you talk to yourself? Some of us are not very nice to ourselves, and others are just plain abusive. What kinds of things do you say to yourself? Is your self-talk positive and loving? Or maybe you beat yourself up and tell yourself hurtful things?
Have you ever tried talking to yourself as you would speak with a friend? How would that feel? Try being understanding, considerate, and kind to yourself. You would do that for your friend, right? You would encourage her, or him or them, wouldn’t you? You can start doing the same for yourself right now. Acknowledging your feelings about yourself when you make a mistake or struggle and choosing to comfort and care for yourself is called “self-compassion.” Self-compassion promotes positive, healthy self-care practices and a healthy mindset, which help to heal codependency.
It’s not surprising to know that what we tell ourselves is linked to how we feel about ourselves. Changing your self-talk from an unsupportive inner dialogue to an uplifting and proactive one brings about positive change. But, if you beat yourself up for perceived failures or shortcomings, how does that help you? Does it motivate you to change? Does it keep you feeling bad and keep you stuck? How is it different from how your narcissistic mother treated you?
Do you tell yourself, “I’m just _______,” or “I’ve just always been this way,” or “that’s just how I’ve always been”? I have a couple of things to say about these types of comments: first, stop using the word “just.” When you add “just,” it implies that what you’re saying has low significance. It sounds apologetic and meek. Don’t believe me? Take the word “just” out of your self-talk. Say it with and without the word “just.” Do you see how it feels different? Are you more confident? Empowered? Serious? You tell me.
Unconscious Commands
And what we say to ourselves isn’t only a description of what we believe about ourselves; it is a command. Your self-talk TELLS your mind what to think about you! When you tell yourself, “this is just who I am,” “I’ve always been _______,” or “I’ve always done ______,” it implies that there’s no room for change. These statements tell your brain, “this is it. This is final. There is no more.” Why would you want to do that? Chances are, you don’t know you’re doing it, and this is where self-awareness comes in. Start becoming aware of how you speak to yourself and the words that you use. Notice and take note for future reference.
Now, give yourself a break. You’re a human being, and no human being has ever been or will ever be perfect. Perfection doesn’t exist. Instead of comparing yourself to a non-existent standard, try focusing on your progress.
Results happen over time. Making positive life change is aboutprogress, not perfection. Encourage yourself the way you’d encourage your friend or a small child. Tell yourself, “You’ve got this!” and eventually, you will get it! Be patient with yourself. It takes time to learn new things. Treating yourself with kindness, patience, and compassion does a lot towards reparenting yourself and healing your inner child too.
Thinking about and remembering what happened in our childhoods doesn’t promote healing. That’s where many of us get stuck. Recovery requires more than reading, educating ourselves, and revisiting old memories. It requires action: getting in touch with our feelings, prioritizing self-care, dumping limiting beliefs, learning to set boundaries and enforce them, learning new ways of communicating, increasing self-esteem and self-confidence, doing inner child and reparenting work, and emotionally detaching.
It means doing the work, and I believe it begins with changing our unconscious, negative self-talk.
More resources to guide you in healing from childhood trauma, abuse, or neglect. Available on Amazon and wherever books are sold. (ebook, audiobook, hardcover, and paperback.)
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As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf has developed strong coping skills and healing strategies. She happily shares those insights with others who want to learn.
Her books and articles are the result of her education, knowledge, personal growth, and insight regarding her childhood experiences and subsequent recovery work.
Diane holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She has worked in numerous fields including domestic violence and abuse and is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer about family dysfunction. Currently, she writes about recovery from narcissistic victim syndrome and symptoms of C-PTSD on The Toolbox and has authored three books in the “Lemon Moms” series. Visit her author’s website here.
She is no longer a practicing Social Worker, Counselor, Program Manager, or Advocate.
This website is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy.
As I write this article, I am processing my mother’s recent death and what it means for me. My inner child is asking for and needing attention. I am honoring my inner child.
I feel sad that my mother’s life has ended because now she has no more opportunities to heal, or attempt to heal, her relationships that need healing. And there are many.
The morning after her death, “The big bad wolf is gone” was the first thought to form in my waking consciousness. My inner child seems to feel safe now.
For decades I’ve struggled physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally with the concept of having a mother who chose to have solely minimal involvement with me. She was often hurtful, spiteful, and mean-spirited during these infrequent interactions. The continuous emotional abandonment that I experienced during those years was real. Throughout, I continually longed for and chased after her ever-withheld love, affection, and acceptance. I felt like I was lost in the woods, wandering a deep, dark, dangerous forest, unable to find my way home for so very long. Subsequently, I mourned the loss of my mother decades ago when she was very much alive. There are no more tears left to shed.
When I was able to accept that I was only as valuable to my mother as the things I could do or provide for her, I began to deal with the core problem: my codependency. Finally, I found the path and began reversing the codependent thoughts and behaviors. It literally changed everything.
If you’ve read my book Lemon Moms: A Guide to Understand and Survive Maternal Narcissism, you already know that my mother had many narcissistic traits. Among other types of controlling behavior, she often used fear of abandonment to manipulate me as a child. She threatened to give me away to strangers, put me in an orphanage, or send me to live with my father, whom she repeatedly said: “didn’t love us or want anything to do with us.”
And so, because I didn’t want to lose my home, I lived in constant fear of doing the “right thing,” whatever the right thing was at any particular time. “The right thing” could and did change without warning, so I needed to remain constantly alert for changes in her tone of voice, behavior, and in our home environment. As a result, I learned to continually take her “emotional temperature” to keep myself safe.
My mom parented by blaming, shaming, intimidating, threatening, and physically punishing. In the earliest years, I learned that I was somehow to blame for everything that displeased her. Second-guessing and doubting myself ecame my way of life. I felt like a burden, believing that I made her life harder simply because I existed. I stayed out of her way as much as possible.
I felt lonely and alone because there was no one to talk to about this predicament. Most of the people in my life only saw my mother’s public “false face,” so they thought she was a wonderful mother and human being. Only those of us who lived with her saw both faces, the real and the false. Only those of us who lived with her experienced her true self.
Words Matter
My mother shared her thoughts and feelings with me in frightening, highly emotionally charged, biased, and inappropriate ways when I was a young child. Gaslighting and the resulting cognitive dissonance distorted my perceptions and beliefs. Her behavior initiated my codependency, but her words guaranteed it.
There were no boundaries in our home, but there was lots of name-calling, invalidation, uncommunicated expectations, and neglect. I stayed up as late as I wanted. I was expected to care for my younger siblings and was blamed and sometimes punished for their misbehavior.
I was not allowed to openly express feelings, ask questions, or show initiative or curiosity. My emotions were discounted, minimized, or invalidated. Asking questions or taking action meant I was challenging my mother, and that was not tolerated. She rewrote my memories, and I was expected to believe her version. I was to obey, stay quiet and not question.
My mom called me hurtful names and obscenities, and at times, she ignored me, not speaking to me for days, weeks, or even months.
Awakening
Reading, researching, and working through various therapies eventually led me into Narcissism Awareness Grief, a term coined by Dr. Christine Hammond. Once there, I finally came to terms with my childhood experiences and learned how, unhealed, they affected my adult relationships. I worked through the stages and continued learning coping skills like setting boundaries, emotionally detaching, improving self-care, and practicing strategic communication. As I found my voice and spoke my truth, my confidence and self-esteem grew. I began feeling whole and worthy for the first time.
Narcissism Awareness Grief (NAG) begins when you become aware of your mother’s narcissistic traits and realize how they impacted you.
Much like the famous Kubler-Ross “five stages of grief” model, there are several stages of Narcissism Awareness Grief. They’re not linear; they’re not experienced in any particular order. We can go back and forth between the stages throughout the process of grieving. But every step must be experienced before we can get to the final stage, which is “acceptance.” It’s also possible to become stuck in any phase for any length of time and never enter into acceptance.
The last piece, acceptance, comes pretty organically as we do the work necessary to progress through these stages.
The Stages:
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Rewriting
Acceptance
The Power of Words
Written words, spoken words, they all matter. It matters what people say to you, and it matters what you say to others and to yourself. If you live with a narcissist or toxic person (or have one in your life), you already know that it can negatively affect how you think about yourself, what you tell yourself, and how you treat yourself.
Oblivious of my codependency, my mother’s words, and my own negative self-talk combined to confirm my beliefs; I was unlovable, would never be good enough, and didn’t matter.
The combination of the negative self-talk and the limiting beliefs kept me in a state of learned helplessness. Eventually, as an adult, I woke up to the fact that I was stuck. I’d been repeating the same hurtful relationship patterns throughout my adult life and wondering why I was unhappy. Finally, I realized that something had to change. So, among other things, I started examining, questioning, and then changing my unsupportive inner dialogue into supportive, positive self-talk. I watched in amazement as my limiting beliefs began to fade away. As I started thinking differently about myself, my self-concept changed. My opinions about myself changed. I changed.
It’s not surprising to know that what we tell ourselves is linked to how we feel about ourselves. Changing your self-talk from an unsupportive inner dialogue to an uplifting and proactive one brings about positive change. But, if you beat yourself up for perceived failures or shortcomings, how does that help you? Does it motivate you to change? Does it keep you feeling bad and keep you stuck? How is it different from how your narcissistic mother treated you?
And what we say to ourselves isn’t only a description of what we believe about ourselves; it is also a command. Your self-talk TELLS your mind what to think about you! When you tell yourself, “this is just who I am,” “I’ve always been _____,” or “I’ve always done _____,” it implies that there’s no room for change. These statements tell your brain, “this is it. This is final. There is no more.” Why would you want to do that? Chances are, you don’t know you’re doing it, and this is where self-awareness comes in.
Making positive life change is about progress, not perfection. Encourage yourself the way you’d encourage your friend or a small child. Be patient with yourself. It takes time to learn new things. Treating yourself with kindness, patience, and compassion does a lot towards reparenting yourself and healing your inner child.
Time for Action
Thinking about and remembering what happened in our childhoods doesn’t promote healing. Unfortunately, that’s where many of us get stuck. Recovery requires more than reading, educating ourselves, and revisiting old memories. It requires getting in touch with our feelings, prioritizing self-care, dumping limiting beliefs, learning to set boundaries and enforce them. It means learning new ways of communicating, increasing self-esteem and self-confidence, doing inner child and reparenting work, and detaching from people who aren’t good for us.
It means doing the work, and I believe that can begin with changing our unconscious, negative self-talk.
Until I began my healing journey in earnest, I continued attracting toxic people and exercising my codependency. I fixed and helped others without their invitation to do so. I felt resentful when they ignored my advice or were unappreciative of my help. It makes no sense, right? It didn’t feel great either.
Narcissism specialists say that we have two choices when dealing with narcissists and those on the narcissistic spectrum: live on their terms or go “no contact.” No contact felt like avoidance to me, and it didn’t feel good or in line with my intuition. I wanted to heal, not avoid. So I found a third option: walk through the chaos and confusion of narcissism armed with new coping skills and protected by boundaries.
For me, speaking positive healing self-affirmations were part of that recovery package. So, at the end of this article, I include some of my favorite affirmations taken from my book, Lemon Moms Life-altering Affirmations: Change Your Self-talk, Change YourSELF.
Negative and Unsupportive
You might be more familiar with negative affirmations, the hurtful, unkind, and destructive things we tell ourselves. They are the unsupportive inner dialogue that runs in the background of our thoughts. We hear them as that little voice that whispers, “you’re too fat to be wearing that,” or “none of these people care about what you think,” or “you’re not smart enough to do that.” Those negative affirmations can do a lot of harm to our self-confidence and self-esteem. It’s time to replace them with positive affirmations! Let’s kick negativity out of our lives altogether. Negative self-talk has no place in our lives anymore.
If we grew up in dysfunction, especially in a narcissistic home, we understood that we couldn’t do anything right and weren’t good enough or didn’t matter. But, whether intentional or not, if we had a narcissistic mother, her words and behavior, like emotional knives, cut us deeply. And long after we left home, that cruel, critical, internalized voice stayed with us.
We may try convincing ourselves that we’re over-reacting, that she didn’t mean any harm, or that it never really happened (self-gaslighting.) However, denying the reality of our childhood and allowing emotional wounds to remain unaddressed and unhealed leaves us unprepared to face life’s challenges as adults. Instead, our unhealed triggers and wounded inner child can keep us stuck perceiving, feeling, and responding like a frightened child.
Two Powerful Words
Positive, healing affirmations remind us of who we are when we are our authentic selves. By following our intuition, writing, and speaking positive affirmations, we can begin honoring and eventually becoming our true selves. Affirmations help us to find ourselves and create our best lives possible. Affirmations remind us of who we are when we are our authentic selves. By following our intuition, writing, and speaking positive affirmations, we can begin honoring and eventually becoming our true selves. Affirmations help us to find ourselves and create our best lives possible.
Affirmations are designed to promote an optimistic mindset; they have been shown to reduce the tendency to dwell on negative experiences (Wiesenfeld et al., 2001.) Optimism is a powerful tool! When we replace negative thoughts with positive ones, we create a whole new narrative around “who we are” and what we can accomplish.
Doing the Work
When we’ve done the work and progressed through the stages of Narcissism Awareness Grief, it may feel like a huge burden has been lifted when we arrive at the final phase of acceptance. We are finally able to fully confront the reality of our past. It is as if a blindfold was removed; we can see our history and how it relates to who we are now and who we can be in the future.
We’re not fearful or threatened by this understanding. Instead, we have a new sense of the “bigger picture.” All of the bits and pieces combine to give us a fresh new perspective and experience of ourselves and an awareness of our personal power. We feel hope. We feel grateful for allowing ourselves to question our past: in doing the work, we question what we’ve been told, and we challenge those unsupportive inner voices.
We no longer feel the need to push our feelings or memories away. Now, we can sit with them and observe. And as we watch, we see our story unfold. We write, or talk, about it. We acknowledge the courageous little children we were, faced with childhoods full of confusion, doubt, and shame, and we feel compassion for ourselves. We finally know what we want from ourselves and our lives, and we’re willing to start making the necessary changes to get it. We know we’ll be OK. We know we’ve got this.
Using strong healing affirmations helps when living beyond mere “acceptance.” They can help with boundary setting, feeling safe, improving self-trust and self-esteem, increasing self-confidence and personal empowerment, and healing C-PTSD symptoms. When we suffer from C-PTSD, our minds attempt to ensure our safety by alerting us to memories of similar feeling threats. If we avoid these painful memories by actively denying, disconnecting from, and rejecting them, the trauma remains unaddressed and unhealed.
Positive Affirmations vs. Codependency
Positive affirmations are the opposite of codependency. By speaking positive affirmations, we are reminded that we are powerful, that we matter, that we are worthy and that we already have the answers we seek. When we stand in this truth, our truth, we feel this. We know this.
If we don’t frequently remind ourselves of who we are and what we want, we can easily slip back into living our lives on other’s terms and lose our true identities. We can quickly become other-focused and work to become what someone else wants us to be. This loss of self is at the core of codependency, enabling, and people-pleasing.
Many of the following affirmations will help diminish codependent thinking and behaving.
I’ve heard it said that “damnation is the discontinuation of growth and development.” We may not know where we’re going, but let’s not go back to where we’ve been. Instead, keep growing, keep learning, keep moving forward, keep healing. Learn to trust the ebb and flow of life and, most importantly, in yourself.
Here are some healing affirmations from my newest book, Lemon Moms Life-altering Affirmations: Change Your Self-talk, Change YourSELF, specifically written for coping with someone else’s narcissism. They can help if you’re frequently involved in narcissistic interactions, dealing with Narcissism Awareness Grief, Narcissism Victim Syndrome, or coping with the death of a narcissistic parent. Some affirmations are repeated in more than one category, because they apply to more than one.
I sincerely wish you healing and peace.
Affirmations to Counteract Negativity (Affirmations to help deal with toxic people)
I am grateful for all of the love that is in my life.
I accept that others love the best way they know how.
I let go of the need for others to validate me.
I listen when my heart talks to me.
My voice empowers me.
I am centered and focused.
I am capable and can easily handle anything that comes my way.
I am unaffected by the desires of others.
I trust my inner voice.
I let go of those not headed where I am going as a form of self-respect.
I am unaffected by other’s judgments.
I repair relationships only with those willing to take their share of responsibility for what went wrong.
Other’s words have no power over me.
Every decision I make is right for me.
All is well in my life.
Affirmations For Standing in Your Power (Affirmations to help deal with the lossof personal power)
My personal power is stronger every day.
I am my own person. I choose how I think and behave.
I love myself for who I am.
I use my voice, and I am heard.
I value myself.
I am here, I am alive, I am grateful, I am ready.
I easily dial-up my confidence anytime I want.
I acknowledge the things that I like about myself and add to that list regularly.
I am resilient.
I am unaffected by other’s negativity.
I see the good things in myself.
I am intelligent and use my mind to make my life better.
I have strong intuition, and I trust it even if I don’t like what it tells me.
When I see red flags occurring in people or relationships, I pay attention to them and respond accordingly.
Affirmations For Calming Fight or Flight (Affirmations to help deal with hypervigilance)
I have confidence in myself.
The past is over. I happily focus on the present moment, feeling empowered.
I acknowledge and protect my personal power.
I am safe.
I hear, affirm, comfort, and validate my inner child.
I trust my mind.
I trust my decisions.
My self-talk is strictly positive.
I trust my senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.
I am whole.
I can, and I will.
I heal more every day.
I am in control of what I think and how I feel.
I am a survivor and healed warrior.
Today I give myself the freedom to make an error and know that it does not affect my worth as a human being.
I release old habits and practice new ones.
I am connected with my authentic self.
I express myself confidently.
I hear my intuition and inner wisdom, and I listen.
I am well and worthy.
I let go of controlling or manipulating others.
I know and trust my own mind.
Affirmations for self-validation (Affirmations to help deal with constant invalidation)
I accept and value myself exactly as I am.
I use my voice, and I am heard.
I let go of the need for others to validate me.
I am in charge. Today’s thoughts create my future.
I acknowledge and protect my personal power.
I express myself confidently.
I hear my intuition and inner wisdom, and I listen.
I listen to my wise higher self.
I acknowledge the things that I like about myself and add to that list regularly.
I am resilient.
When I feel overwhelmed, I choose healthy ways to cope.
I am kind and empathetic.
I am intelligent and use my mind to make my life better.
I am a caring person, and people care about me.
I am compassionate and show my compassion in a variety of ways.
I have strong intuition, and I trust it even if I don’t like what it tells me.
When I see red flags occurring in people or relationships, I pay attention to them and respond accordingly.
I ask for clarification when I am confused.
I attract mentally and emotionally stable people.
I attract kind and caring people.
My life gets better every day.
When I slip up, I forgive myself and get back on track immediately.
I trust my mind.
I trust my decisions.
Affirmations for Working Through Narcissism Awareness Grief (Affirmations to help deal with feelings of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, rewriting, acceptance)
I always mattered, but my mother couldn’t see it or acknowledge it.
I am in charge. Today’s thoughts create my future.
I hear, affirm, comfort, and validate my inner child.
Today I take care of myself.
I focus on what I can control, and I release the rest.
This is stressful, so I take extra good care of myself today.
I stay in the present and focus on one day at a time.
My body and mind need rest to recharge, so I let myself rest without judgment.
I am kind and gentle with myself.
Today I honor and cherish my inner child, who was blameless then and now.
Now is the time to step into my power.
I am loved, loving and lovable.
I can do hard things.
I focus on what’s happening right now.
When I have a problem, I focus on solutions.
I am naturally relaxed and confident.
I am safe and secure.
I am emotionally and physically strong.
I take time for myself to rest, relax, unplug or do something that I enjoy.
I allow peace into my life.
I effectively communicate my needs and desires.
I make a positive difference in the world.
I release my wounds to my higher power.
I accept that others love the best they can and may be limited in their ability to express love.
I allow myself to be childlike.
I let go of control and allow life to unfold.
I ask for what I want.
I dare to be imperfect.
My voice empowers me.
Today I create the life I want.
I am centered and focused.
I am unaffected by the desires of others
Affirmations to Feel Accepted (Affirmations to help deal with being scapegoated and rejected)
I use my voice, and I am heard.
Only I can determine my self-worth.
I let go of the need for others to validate me.
I value myself.
I am human. It’s OK to be imperfect.
I focus on what I can control, and I release the rest.
I make healthy choices for myself.
I ask for help when I am struggling.
I have easy, mutually accepting relationships.
I allow others to live their lives and release the need to worry or control.
I am stronger than I thought.
I lean on others for support, and I am lovingly supported.
I find something for which to be grateful every day.
I am loving, intelligent, and creative, and I make positive changes in my life.
I am a survivor and healed warrior.
I deserve good things in life.
My relationships are respectful and peaceful.
I release old habits and practice new ones.
I am connected with my authentic self.
I express myself confidently.
I hear my intuition and inner wisdom, and I listen.
I am well and worthy.
I know and trust my own mind.
My boundaries are a form of self-love.
Only I can determine my self-worth.
I easily see a person’s authentic self, and I embrace what they’re showing me.
I listen to my wise self.
I am loved, loving and lovable.
I can do hard things.
I am here, I am alive, I am grateful, I am ready.
I like myself.
I am and always have been good enough.
I take pleasure in my personal development.
I focus on what’s happening right now.
I am smart and capable.
When I have a problem, I focus on solutions.
I am naturally relaxed and confident.
I am safe and secure.
I am emotionally and physically strong.
When I enter a room, I am poised and self-confident.
Affirmations to Heal Betrayal Wounds (Affirmations to help deal with narcissistic dishonesty and lies)
I use my voice, and I am heard.
I let go of the need for others to validate me.
Only I can determine my self-worth.
I listen when my heart talks to me.
I reaffirm for myself that I am on the right path.
I happily focus on the present moment, feeling empowered.
I acknowledge and protect my personal power.
I focus on what I can control, and I release the rest.
I lean on others for support, and I am lovingly supported.
I value myself.
I rely on my higher power for strength and guidance.
I easily dial-up my confidence anytime I want.
I acknowledge the things that I like about myself and add to that list regularly.
I am resilient.
I am unaffected by other’s negativity.
I see the good things in myself.
When I feel overwhelmed, I choose healthy ways to cope.
I am intelligent and use my mind to make my life better.
I am a caring person, and people care about me.
I have strong intuition, and I trust it even if I don’t like what it tells me.
When I see red flags occurring in people or relationships, I pay attention to them and respond accordingly.
I ask for clarification when I am confused.
Affirmations to Feel Safe (Affirmations to help deal with emotional abandonment)
I am open and receiving all the good things life offers me.
I am whole.
I am grateful for my ongoing personal development.
I can, and I will.
I heal more every day.
I am in control of what I think and how I feel.
I am loving, intelligent, and creative, and I make positive changes in my life.
I am a survivor and healed warrior.
My relationships are respectful and peaceful.
I am connected with my authentic self.
I am well and worthy.
Today I honor and cherish my inner child, who was blameless then and now.
I know and trust my own mind.
I am getting through this by making healthy choices.
I do everything I can to be physically and emotionally healthy.
I am optimistic.
It’s OK for me to be afraid and courageous at the same time.
I ask for help when I am struggling.
I have easy, mutually accepting relationships.
I take work breaks to rest or have fun.
I lean on others for support, and I am lovingly supported.
I find something for which to be grateful every day.
Affirmations to Heal Shame (Affirmations to help deal with feeling ashamed)
I am worthy of love, happiness, and fulfillment.
Only I can determine my self-worth.
I have everything I need to be successful.
I am strong and resilient.
I am complete and whole.
I embrace change. I am the author of my story.
I embrace my new life even when it makes others uncomfortable.
I hear, affirm, comfort, and validate my inner child.
I allow without judgment.
I focus on what I can control, and I release the rest.
Everything is working for my highest good.
I belong. I know that I am safe.
I have everything I need. I am safe. I am loved.
I feel safe wherever I am.
I give my time and energy to those who deserve it.
Affirmations to Set and Maintain Healthy Boundaries (Affirmations to help deal with setting limits on what you’ll accept or tolerate)
I deserve all the love, respect, joy, and prosperity that comes to me.
I am compassionate and empathetic.
I treat myself with love and respect.
I honor and value myself.
My body language demonstrates that I am sure of myself.
I feel good about spending money on products and services to care for my body and demonstrate that I value myself.
I take time for myself to rest, relax, unplug or do something that I enjoy.
I allow peace into my life.
I use my voice to protect myself.
I attract joy into my life.
I effectively communicate my needs and desires.
I make a positive difference in the world.
I accept that others love the best they can and may be limited in their ability to express love.
I honor and respect myself.
I face my problems with courage and trust.
I ask for what I want.
I clearly state my expectations.
My voice empowers me.
I joyfully do what’s right for me every day.
Affirmations to Feel Secure (Affirmations to help deal with narcissistic rages)
Only I can determine my self-worth.
I listen when my heart talks to me.
I acknowledge and protect my personal power.
I am safe and free.
I am connected with my authentic self.
I express myself confidently.
I hear my intuition and inner wisdom, and I listen.
I am well and worthy.
I know and trust my own mind.
I easily see a person’s authentic self, and I embrace what they’re showing me.
Now is the time to step into my power.
I am loved, loving and lovable.
I can do hard things.
I am here, I am alive, I am grateful, I am ready.
I like myself.
I am and always have been worthy.
Affirmations for Improving Self-trust (Affirmations to help deal with the effects of gaslighting)
I love myself unconditionally.
I let go of the need for others to validate me.
I listen when my heart talks to me.
I know and trust my own mind.
I love myself unconditionally.
I reaffirm for myself that I am on the right path.
I embrace my new life even when it makes others uncomfortable.
The past is over. I happily focus on the present moment, feeling empowered.
I hear, affirm, comfort, and validate my inner child.
I listen to my wise higher self.
I use my voice, speak my truth, and enjoy feelings of personal power.
I have strong intuition, and I trust it even if I don’t like what it tells me.
When I see red flags occurring in people or relationships, I pay attention to them and respond accordingly.
I ask for clarification when I am confused.
I attract mentally and emotionally stable people.
I attract kind and caring people.
My life gets better every day.
When I slip up, I forgive myself and get back on track immediately.
I trust my mind.
I trust my decisions.
My self-talk is strictly positive.
I trust my senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.
I know which responsibilities are mine and which are not.
I balance my empathy for others with personal boundaries and self-care.
I am whole.
I am grateful for my ongoing personal development.
I can, and I will.
I am in control of what I think and how I feel.
I am in control of my triggers.
I am loving, intelligent, and creative, and I make positive changes in my life.
I am a survivor and healed warrior.
Today I give myself the freedom to make an error and know that it does not affect my worth as a human being.
I release old habits and practice new ones.
I am excitedly hopeful. Healing is possible.
I am connected with my authentic self.
I express myself confidently.
Affirmations for C-PTSD Triggers (Affirmations to help deal with highly sensitive, reactive emotions activated by our environment or someone’s behavior or words.)
I hear, affirm, comfort, and validate my inner child.
I have confidence in myself.
I release past hurts into the universe.
I let go of the need for others to validate me.
I listen when my heart talks to me.
My boundaries are a form of self-love.
This is stressful, so I take extra good care of myself today.
I make healthy choices for myself.
I stay in the present and focus on one day at a time.
I am naturally relaxed and confident.
I am safe and secure.
I am emotionally and physically strong.
I take time for myself to rest, relax, unplug or do something that I enjoy.
I allow peace into my life.
I use my voice to protect myself.
I effectively communicate my needs and desires.
I make a positive difference in the world.
I love who I am, and I love my potential.
I release my wounds to my higher power.
I accept that others love the best they can and may be limited in their ability to express love.
I honor and respect myself.
I face my problems with courage and trust.
I allow myself to be childlike.
I clearly state my expectations.
My voice empowers me.
I am centered and focused.
I am capable and can easily handle anything that comes my way.
Conscious awareness: Be aware and make conscious choices before acting. Self-awareness releases us from making impulsive and potentially damaging decisions.
Self-care: We are in control of ourselves and no one is responsible for us but us. We can only choose to focus on and be responsible for ourselves, our own thoughts, actions, and behavior. We can change ourselves with patience, persistence, and practice. When we take responsibility for getting our needs met, instead of waiting for someone to change or meet our needs for us, we are healing.
More resources to guide you in healing from childhood trauma, abuse, or neglect. Available on Amazon and wherever books are sold. (ebook, audiobook, hardcover, and paperback.)
Like these posts? Want them automatically delivered to your inbox twice monthly?
As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf has developed strong coping skills and healing strategies. She happily shares those insights with others who want to learn.
Her books and articles are the result of her education, knowledge, personal growth, and insight regarding her childhood experiences and subsequent recovery work.
Diane holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She has worked in numerous fields including domestic violence and abuse and is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer about family dysfunction. Currently, she writes about recovery from narcissistic victim syndrome and symptoms of C-PTSD on The Toolbox and has authored three books in the “Lemon Moms” series. Visit her author’s website here.
She is no longer a practicing Social Worker, Counselor, Program Manager, or Advocate.
This website is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy.
Narcissists love the silent treatment. It’s their secret weapon when they want to manipulate and hurt in a big way. Using the silent treatment is a way to inflict pain without causing visible evidence.
Research shows that when we ignore or exclude someone, it activates the same part of their brain as physical pain does. Narcissists instinctively know that this manipulative technique is extremely hurtful. It’s traumatic to those it’s inflicted upon (Eisenberger et al. 2004).
Because I write about narcissistic mothers, I’ll note here that a narcissistic mother gets her sense of self through her children. She needs to protect her self-image and her reputation as a loving, caring mother, so her children are a necessary part of her identity. This is why the silent treatment is so meaningful to her. To a narcissistic mother, when she uses the silent treatment, it’s as if she’s cutting off a very displeasing part of herself and, at the same time, understands how painful it feels to the person she’s shunning. I’ve heard others remark that my mother was the kind of person who would cut off her nose to spite her face. Win at any cost, right?
The silent treatment is a punishment that consists of “hurt and rescue.” It can continue for months or even years and is often used to teach a lesson or to manipulate behavior (Eisenberger et al. 2004). For those of us who’ve been subjected to this form of abuse, it kept us anxious by triggering our fear of abandonment. (Saeed, K. 2019).
When I was seventeen, I endured my mother’s silent treatment for a little over three months. She had given me the silent treatment before, and she would again, but this instance lasted the longest. For the entire three months, I was met with stony silence any time I attempted to interact with her. She would not make eye contact with me. There was no acknowledgment that I existed whatsoever.
I broke our silent relationship now and again, testing to see if she would respond, and each time I was met with cold rejection. The message was loud and clear that she was not finished punishing me, and my attempts were not going to have an effect. It was as if I was invisible. I remember needing affirmation from others that they could see me and that I existed. I felt like I was heading into insanity.
One day, as mysteriously as the silent treatment had started, it ended. When my mother broke the silence and spoke to me, it was some little unimportant phrase that had no real significance, but it indicated the shunning was over.
I couldn’t figure out what I had done to offend or anger my mother, to cause her to take such extreme action as the silent treatment. I spent an excessive amount of time obsessing about it, replaying scenarios and conversations repeatedly, looking for the cause. I never found it, and of course, we never discussed what happened. If I was supposed to learn a lesson, I never knew what it was. Maybe the whole thing was nothing more than a show of power, meant to demoralize and unsettle me. It remains a mystery to this day.
When a person is actively ignored, it causes such psychological and emotional anguish that it can actually be seen on brain scans (Pune Mirror 2019). The silent treatment triggers a fear of abandonment, which is very frightening, but for children like me who’d already been abandoned by one parent, it is unbearable. I was obsessed with thoughts like, “Who will take care of me?” “Will I ever matter?” “Will I ever be safe?” “Will anyone ever love me?”
The fear of abandonment causes anxiety, worry, sleep loss, and inability to concentrate. Imagine trying to learn in school or study for tests while being actively ignored and rejected by a parent. With every silent treatment, we go deeper into survival mode, and we can experience panic attacks, appetite loss, binge-eating, racing heartbeat, nightmares, depression, confusion, and obsessive thinking. With each, we learn to focus more on our mother’s behavior and her needs. We learn to provide what she needs and wants because we fear we’ll be emotionally or physically abandoned again. The need to please and appease her becomes overblown.
A narcissistic mom understands that she’ll get away with rejecting and shunning because, as children, we have no choice but to welcome her back when she decides to return to our lives. We need her, after all, and she knows it. When she’s ready to acknowledge us again, we’re so happy, aren’t we?
The narcissistic mom likes knowing how hurt we are by her silent treatment. Our pain demonstrates to her that she is all-powerful and can devastate us if and when she chooses. It’s a great form of narcissistic supply.
Every time we go through the silent treatment, we’re diminished. Each time we endure active ignoring, we question our self-worth. Our self-esteem and self-image are further eroded, and our fear of abandonment escalates. Despite our accomplishments, acknowledgments, or friendships, we find ourselves desperate for our mother’s approval, which is, of course, always out of reach. We may come close, but we never quite make it.
We eventually accept that we aren’t worthy of her love or attention. We settle for any crumbs of affection or attention we can get from her. We learn that we’re somehow inferior and will never be able to please her, although we should continue trying.
This repeated process is called “trauma bonding” and is another example of the powerful emotional bonds created between abuser and abused. Over time, trauma bonds become very resistant to change, contributing to the development of a codependent relationship.
Conscious awareness: Be aware and make conscious choices before acting. Self-awareness releases us from making impulsive and potentially damaging decisions.
Self-care: We are in control of ourselves and no one is responsible for us but us. We can only choose to focus on and be responsible for ourselves, our own thoughts, actions, and behavior. We can change ourselves with patience, persistence, and practice. When we take responsibility for getting our needs met, instead of waiting for someone to change or meet our needs for us, we are healing.
More resources to guide you in healing from childhood trauma, abuse, or neglect. Available on Amazon and wherever books are sold. (ebook, audiobook, hardcover, and paperback.)
Like these posts? Want them automatically delivered to your inbox twice monthly?
As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf has developed strong coping skills and healing strategies. She happily shares those insights with others who want to learn.
Her books and articles are the result of her education, knowledge, personal growth, and insight regarding her childhood experiences and subsequent recovery work.
Diane holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She has worked in numerous fields including domestic violence and abuse and is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer about family dysfunction. Currently, she writes about recovery from narcissistic victim syndrome and symptoms of C-PTSD on The Toolbox and has authored three books in the “Lemon Moms” series. Visit her author’s website here.
She is no longer a practicing Social Worker, Counselor, Program Manager, or Advocate.
This website is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy.
Narcissism is a personality disorder that’s diagnosed by qualified mental health practitioners. Narcissism often begins in childhood, and it occurs along a spectrum, meaning that for each individual, there are more and less severe forms of the disorder.
A study done in 2015, Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Diagnostic and Clinical Challenges, found that Grandiose and Vulnerable narcissism are the two main types of narcissism (Caligor, Levy, and Yeomans 2015). Each of these two types has its own set of traits and characteristics, and each has its own way of protecting its false self.
There are two subcategories of these types which distinguish how grandiose and vulnerable narcissists get their emotional and egotistical needs met, or in other words, get their narcissistic supply. These are the overt and covert subtypes of NPD (Milstead 2018).
Let’s take a look at each of these types and subtypes, and because I write about Maternal Narcissism, we’ll look specifically at how they present in narcissistic mothers.
“Grandiose” narcissism is the textbook type of narcissism that comes to mind when most people hear the term “narcissism.” It’s also known as high-functioning, exhibitionist, or classic narcissism. These narcissists are extroverted, dominant, and always seem to be pursuing power and prestige. They believe that they’re a step above everyone else, that they’re smarter, better-looking, and more powerful. Grandiose narcissists brag about themselves and will put down others as a way to raise their feelings of self-importance. They’re often rude, insensitive, and even cruel. They ignore, are unaware of, or don’t care about how their behavior affects others.
In the case of narcissistic mothers, they view their children as extensions of themselves rather than as people in their own right with thoughts, feelings, perceptions, goals, ideas, dreams, and desires of their own. For narcissistic moms, children are a means for obtaining admiration and validation. As we’ve seen, the false face behaves socially acceptably and imitates empathy. This makes narcissistic moms highly emotionally invested in perpetuating their false face. Keeping the false face frontward makes a narcissistic mother appear to be kind, compassionate, and empathetic. Her children will always be a means of gratifying and escalating this false self.
Vulnerable narcissism is the other type. These narcissists are also known as fragile, compensatory, self-effacing, or closet narcissists. They have the same characteristics as a grandiose narcissist, except they would rather stay behind the scenes instead of being in the spotlight.
Because they prefer to stay away from attention, they’re harder to recognize. They can go a long time before being discovered to be a narcissist. They’re often quiet, shy, or reserved, but they’re still emotionally demanding and draining for others to be around. Like grandiose narcissists, they feel entitled, but they’re also insecure. They can be generous with their time or money as a way of getting compliments, affirmation, or praise, but because of their self-doubt, they would rather associate with people whom they idealize. They choose to attach to talented, famous, or influential individuals to satisfy their need to feel special.
Like grandiose narcissists, vulnerable narcissists believe they’re faultless, and they get irritated when others fail to see their perfection. Their lives revolve around the task of convincing everyone of their greatness. They often present themselves as victims, regardless of the circumstances. They enjoy playing the victim role (I call it being a “poor me”) to get attention in the form of sympathy or pity.
Vulnerable narcissists are prone to depression, mainly because they think that their life doesn’t align with their ideas of what it should be or what they’re entitled to. This inconsistency may cause them to act impulsively without considering the consequences. For example, they may abruptly quit their job before finding another because the work or their coworkers or supervisors don’t match their expectations or fantasies.
Narcissism “subtypes” describe the method that grandiose or vulnerable narcissists use to get their emotional and egotistical needs met, known as “narcissistic supply.” If the way of getting their narcissistic supply is easy to spot, the individual is probably an overt narcissist.
While all narcissists will brag, take advantage of people, and speak negatively about others to make themselves look superior, overt narcissists will do these things in distinct, very noticeable ways. For example, overt narcissists attract attention to themselves directly in ways such as over-dressing, or dressing provocatively, talking too loudly, wearing attention-getting makeup, hairstyles, or accessories, or driving conspicuous vehicles. They require admiration, and if they don’t get it, they react with rage, ridicule, mockery, or humiliation. They like to use charm and flattery so people will like them although they’re arrogant, proud, and view others as insignificant or as competitors to conquer. They feel entitled and expect special treatment.
Covert narcissism, on the other hand, is subtle, and it can be tricky to identify. Covert narcissists are more cautious and reserved in the ways they get their supply.
If we find ourselves denying, minimizing, or making excuses for someone’s behavior, that’s a red flag. If you start feeling like a detective on the lookout for reasons to explain someone’s behavior, pay attention to that. They could be a covert narcissist.
Because of the reserved way that covert narcissists get their supply, it’s understandable that covert narcissistic moms get their supply mainly from their children. It’s about how her children make her appear as a mother. Whatever you do to make her look good in front of others is a form of supply for her. If you give her a gift, she’ll brag about it because receiving a gift from her child makes her appear to be a well-loved mother. When she gives you gifts, though, there are always “strings” attached. She can’t give for the sake of giving. She expects something in return, in the form of loyalty, emotional caretaking, secret-keeping, or admiration.
Taking care of her needs will be number one on her priority list, and her children’s needs will be further down. If you question her, she’ll assume you’re challenging her, and she’ll become defensive, maybe violent. She doesn’t respect your boundaries or your privacy. She’s totally at ease going into your personal space, looking in your purse, reading your diary, listening to your phone conversations, reading private mail and documents, and sharing your personal and private information with others. Because of this, you’ll feel a sense of shame in multiple areas, but you won’t realize that these behaviors are its source.
If your mom is a covert narcissist, you may sense that something isn’t “right” in your relationship, but you can’t quite “put your finger on it.” It could be the way she expresses herself, or that things she does or says confuse you. Sensing that something’s not adding up, but not being able to identify what it is can stir up feelings of anxiety and the desire to avoid her. If your mom is a narcissist, it can feel like she’s sucking the life right out of us; we may feel exhausted after spending time with her, and we don’t understand the reasons why.
As kids, if mom is a covert narcissist, we can’t exactly avoid her, so we’re likely to become hyperaware of her moods and behaviors instead. Our intuition, our gut feelings, alert us when something’s going on that we don’t comprehend. We know we need to be careful, and we may be sensing danger.
If your mother is a covert narcissist, your sense of self-preservation will more than likely intensify over time, causing you to become exceptionally alert and aware of your mother’s behavior. You might have ongoing feelings of uneasiness when you’re with her; it may feel like you’re not entirely emotionally or physically safe. Those of us who are children of covert narcissists may have started feeling distrustful of our mothers without having a concrete reason, and this can make us question our judgment. That’s the last thing we should do!
If there is no professional diagnosis, it doesn’t mean we imagine the problem or that something’s wrong with our perception. We’re sensing something that we can’t physically see or explain, but it’s still authentic. Our intuition is real. When it alerts us, we need to pay attention.
Covert narcissist traits make it difficult for others to see anything “wrong” with mom. Most of the time, there’s nothing concrete to point to. Sure, we have lots of examples of her strange and confusing behavior, and we can speak at length about her unusual way of thinking, perceiving, or expressing herself, including that she’s either the victim or the hero in any scenario. Without a broader context or the experience of living with her, it’s difficult for others to see that there’s something fundamentally inappropriate going on. The biggest reasons for going undetected as a narcissist, I think, are the use of the false public self combined with subtle forms of manipulation and mind games like gaslighting and triangulation. All of these make it very hard for others, who only see her false face, to recognize her as a narcissist.
A covert narcissist mother tends to employ passive-aggressive behavior: for example, sulking, giving backhanded compliments, using procrastination and withdrawal to avoid interaction or activity, and refusing to talk (Cherry 2019). They enjoy guilt-tripping and pushing responsibilities on us that aren’t ours. They also like causing conflict between us and others. She uses a manipulative tactic called “triangulation”: when one person manipulates the relationship between two other people by controlling the amount and type of communication they have. She controls the narrative, which generates rivalry between the two parties and acts as a way to “divide and conquer,” playing one person against the other. My mother thoroughly enjoyed this game. She did it with me as well as cousins, aunts, and friends. A therapist once called it “stirring the pot,” and I’ve held onto that analogy.
Triangulation is toxic, but you can learn to use techniques and tools to deal with it in a whole new and healthy way. For instance, you can start speaking directly to the other person in the triangle to remove your mother’s input. Get your information directly rather than from your mother and suggest that others do the same. At the time I learned how to handle triangulation, I was decisively starting to take my personal power back. I was no longer willing to accept lies or gaslighting, and I started speaking up for myself. That was the beginning of my recovery. It’s called “setting boundaries,” and I write more about that in later chapters.
A covert narcissist-mom also likes to use “exclusionary behaviors,” such as withholding affection and attention from us or temporarily withdrawing from our lives. Then she’ll shower a specific person with copious amounts of love and attention. When she does this, it can feel like a punch in the gut, like she’s punishing us. That’s because it’s exactly what she’s doing, and it’s deliberate. It gives her a rush of power and superiority.
She has no empathy and can’t understand how we feel, but she knows that at that moment, she’s in control and has the power to hurt us. When you feel excluded, it can become a great time to practice getting in touch with your emotions by becoming self-aware and practicing mindfulness. Validate yourself by acknowledging how her behavior makes you feel. Do you notice any patterns when she’s about to make you feel like an outsider? Is there a way to halt those patterns before they start? If not, then practice getting comfortable with being an outsider. When you’re excluded, practice controlling your emotions and recognizing your triggers. Think of your triggers as little suitcases that you need to unpack and examine the contents. You’ll be surprised at what you find.
When you’re ready, you’ll begin to apply a bit of loving detachment and set some boundaries around the exclusionary behavior. (You’ll learn more about detachment and boundary-setting in later chapters.)
Narcissists don’t feel a sense of remorse or conscience. They believe that everything they do is justified or is someone else’s fault. They don’t take responsibility for their actions, which makes them unable to feel guilt. To feel guilty, it’s necessary to feel empathy and remorse.
Guilt is a positive and healthy thing. It’s a form of cognitive dissonance, a way of holding a mirror up and seeing the discrepancy between “this is who you say you are, but this is what you did.” We feel guilty when “who we are” and “what we did” are not aligned. This misalignment causes us to feel guilt and empathy for the person we wronged. For example, if I believe I’m a gentle, kind, and loving person, and I make a cruel remark to someone, my perception of “who I am” no longer matches my behavior: “what I did.” A gentle, kind, and loving person would not intentionally say mean things. I would be motivated by feelings of guilt to apologize for my conduct. The cognitive dissonance that guilt provides drives us to atone for our inappropriate actions.
Feeling guilty, remorseful, or apologetic are beyond a narcissist’s capabilities. We will never get an apology from a narcissist-mom. Instead, we’ll get a weird version of an excuse where she justifies or defends what she did if she’s even willing to admit what she did. Or we may get the silent treatment until she feels she’s punished us sufficiently. It’s all so arbitrary, and somehow the message will always be that her actions were our fault.
With a covert narcissist-mom, her needs and emotions always come first, because they’re of utmost importance to her. Her children’s needs and feelings may or may not be relevant, depending on how she feels at the moment (about herself, about life, etc.). She sees everything as a competition, and nothing that has ever happened or will happen to her children could ever compare to what she has experienced. Her experiences are always more highly valued. This is known as “one-upmanship.”
When we’re around her, we’ll eventually develop an apprehension of saying or doing the wrong thing, and a feeling of “walking on eggshells” or tippy-toeing around her to avoid upsetting her, making her angry, or setting her off. We live with a genuine understanding that we’re not emotionally safe with her. She hijacks everything we say or do and makes it about herself. Anything we say or do that displeases her will be remembered, brought up, and held against us in the future, and so we try to avoid confrontation of any kind.
The result of this focus is that we start to feel responsible for her feelings and actions. We become her emotional guardians and caretakers even to the point that we allow her to isolate us from friends and family or to control whom we interact with.
We all need someone to talk to and share our problems with or bounce ideas off. Sharing with friends or family who aren’t familiar with toxic relationships, and specifically, narcissism can frustrate or hurt us even more. Others don’t know that they’re invalidating us or discounting our experiences. They only know our mother’s false face. That’s why I repeatedly suggest talking to a neutral party, like a counselor who understands this disorder.
If your mother is a covert narcissist, you might notice discrepancies between her words and her actions, meaning that they don’t match up. This can make you feel edgy (that “walking on eggshells” feeling), and being in this state of mind heightens your fight-or-flight response. The fight-or-flight mode causes a sudden and quick hormone release that activates the body’s ability to deal with danger or threats. Adrenaline and noradrenaline are two of the hormones released during the fight-or-flight response; they increase blood pressure, heart, and breathing rate. We’ll talk more about the fight-or-flight response and what it does in later chapters. In the meantime, just know that mixed messages contribute to feelings of being on high-alert, edginess, and confusion.
A narcissistic mom’s mixed messages are a type of communication where one party sends conflicting information to another, either verbally or nonverbally.
Mixed messages come in various packages:
What she says conflicts with what she previously said.
What she does conflicts with what she previously did.
What she says conflicts with what she does.
What she says conflicts with her facial expressions or body language.
An example of “words not matching facial expression/body language” would be when mom says she’s happy to see you, but she frowns, and her tone of voice is sarcastic. This would be confusing because of the conflicting information you’re getting: “happy” means that a person’s face would show joy, usually by smiling. A happy person would not frown. “Sarcasm” is used to mock or convey contempt. It’s used to inflict pain and is often described as wounding.
Do you see how these mixed messages can cause feelings of confusion? In this example, an empowering response would be: “I’m confused. You say you’re happy to see me, yet you look so ______ (angry, sad, depressed, etc.) I don’t get it. What’s going on?” This response puts the confusion back on her. It informs her that you’re aware of what she’s doing, and it sets the expectation for her to clarify her communication. It signals that you’re not going to tolerate that kind of behavior any longer. It’s empowering because you don’t have to accept the confusion or ruminate over it anymore.
An example of “words not matching actions” would be when mom brags about how caring and empathetic she is, but you haven’t seen any evidence of this. There’s a term for this behavior; it’s called virtue signaling. When a person indeed possesses a character trait, they don’t have to announce or advertise it. They simply live it, and people notice. Covert narcissists want us to believe what they tell us about themselves, instead of what we see for ourselves. I view this as another form of gaslighting.
Tools:
Conscious awareness: Be aware and make conscious choices before acting. Self-awareness releases us from making impulsive and potentially damaging decisions.
Self-care: We can only choose to focus on and be responsible for ourselves, our own thoughts, actions, and behavior. The good news is that we can change ourselves with patience, persistence, and practice. We can take responsibility for getting our needs met, instead of waiting for someone to change or meet our needs for us. We are in control of ourselves and no one is responsible for us but us.
More resources to guide you in healing from childhood trauma, abuse, or neglect. Available on Amazon and wherever books are sold. (ebook, audiobook, hardcover, and paperback.)
Like these posts? Want them automatically delivered to your inbox twice monthly?
As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf has developed strong coping skills and healing strategies. She happily shares those insights with others who want to learn.
Her books and articles are the result of her education, knowledge, personal growth, and insight regarding her childhood experiences and subsequent recovery work.
Diane holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She has worked in numerous fields including domestic violence and abuse and is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer about family dysfunction. Currently, she writes about recovery from narcissistic victim syndrome and symptoms of C-PTSD on The Toolbox and has authored three books in the “Lemon Moms” series. Visit her author’s website here.
She is no longer a practicing Social Worker, Counselor, Program Manager, or Advocate.
This website is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy.
Using Affirmations to Heal Narcissistic Abuse Syndrome
When we grew up in dysfunction, especially in narcissistic homes, we couldn’t do anything right. Whether intentional or not, if we had a narcissistic mother, her “ emotional daggers” hurt us deeply. Long after we left home, that cruel, critical voice stayed with us inside.
We may have tried convincing ourselves that we were over-reacting, that she didn’t mean any harm, or that it never even happened. Denying the reality of our childhood and allowing emotional wounds to remain unaddressed and unhealed leaves us unable to face life’s challenges in an adult manner. Our unhealed triggers and our wounded inner child keep us stuck, perceiving, feeling, and responding like a frightened child.
When we’ve done the work and progressed through the stages of Narcissism Awareness Grief to arrive at Acceptance, it feels as if a burden has been lifted. Suddenly we can see clearly. We are finally able to face ourselves and confront the reality of our past fully. It is as if blinders have been removed from our eyes; we can see our past; where we came from, who we were, who we are, and who we can be. And we’re not afraid or threatened by it. We have a sense of understanding and a new feeling of personal power. We know what to do, and we know we’ll be OK.
We feel a sense of gratitude for allowing ourselves to question those unsupportive inner voices and challenge them. Now, we no longer feel the need to push them away. Now, we can sit with them and observe. And as we watch, we see our story unfold. We write and talk about it. We acknowledge the courageous little child we were, faced with a childhood full of confusion, doubt, and shame, and we feel compassion for ourselves.
Healing Affirmations can help each stage of Narcissism, Awareness Grief, and afterward, set boundaries and replace codependent thinking and behavior with healthy ones.
What are Affirmations?
An affirmation is a simple positive statement made in the present tense. It impacts the conscious and the subconscious minds. By believing in a particular thought and saying it regularly, you begin to attract more positivity and higher vibrational people and things into your life.
The Law of Attraction is a viewpoint proposing that thinking positive thoughts bring about positive results, and negative thoughts bring negative ones. The theory is based on the belief that thoughts are a form of energy. So, positive thoughts attract positive energy; positivity, and success in health, finances, relationships, etc. As the “Law of Attraction” states, “like attracts like.”
“Healing” affirmations are positive statements about your well-being. They are based on the belief that your thoughts influence your physical and emotional health. The best news is that you don’t have to be sick to use healing affirmations!
Saying your affirmations to yourself is all about becoming your “authentic self.” You are more easily able to connect with your authentic self when your vibration is high. When we are not vibrating highly, unhealthy, unsupportive inner dialogue can remain our default way of life.
Positive affirmations work best when they are highly personal. They are a self-talk approach that creates a motivating outlook on life. Affirmations help you elevate your emotional vibration when you’re in a lower vibrational pattern feeling emotions like fear, worry, anxiety, doubt, or powerlessness. Using positive affirmations is one of the quickest ways you can raise your vibration. They are a powerful tool for manifestation and can lift your attitude at the same time.
As you continue to use your affirmations, your vibration will increase, and you’ll notice you feel lighter, happier, and more peaceful. You’ll begin to attain your goals, fulfill your desires, and attract the people and experiences you want.
How Affirmations Work
Affirmations remind us of who we are and who we want to be. They help us to create our most authentic selves and connect us with our higher selves.
The journey out of codependency means finding ourselves, discovering our true selves, our authentic selves, for the first time. When we are caught up in codependent behaviors, we don’t have an authentic self. In his book “Codependency, An Emerging Issue,” Robert Subby says that it results from household rules preventing the “open expression” of feelings. (Pompano Beach, FL, Health Communications Inc.,1984, pp. 34-44)
Listen to your intuition, and your inner voice before you begin writing affirmations. Let your inner compass direct the course of your life. What is your inner voice telling you? What do you need to work on? When we use affirmations, we honor ourselves, listening to our intuition and higher power to become our authentic selves.
Allow the journey to begin because you love yourself.
The Power of Optimism
Affirmations are written and designed to promote an optimistic mindset. Optimism is a powerful attitude! Affirmations have been shown to help reduce the tendency to dwell on negative experiences (Wiesenfeld et al., 2001.)
When we replace negative thoughts with positive statements, we create a whole new hopeful and flexible narrative around “who we are” and what we can accomplish.
There are three main ideas underlying self-affirmation theory, and correctly written affirmations work according to this theory:
First, by using positive affirmations, we can change our self-identity. Affirmations reinforce our newly created self-narrative; that we are flexible, moral, and capable of adapting to different conditions (Cohen & Sherman, 2014.)
Instead of viewing ourselves in a “fixed” or rigid way, for example, as “lazy” or “selfish,” when we are flexible, we can see ourselves as much more. We can adopt a wider range of “identities” and roles, which means we can define things like “success” differently. This means that we can view the various aspects of ourselves as positive and adapt to different situations more easily (Aronson, 1969.)
Second, self-affirmation theory maintains that self-identity is not about being exceptional, perfect, or excellent (Cohen & Sherman, 2014). Instead, to be moral, flexible, and good, we need to be competent and adequate in areas that we value (Steele, 1988.)
Third, we maintain our self-integrity by behaving in ways that genuinely deserve acknowledgment and praise. This means that we say an affirmation because we want to live that particular personal value.
What the Research Indicates
Affirmation research focuses on how individuals adapt to information or experiences that threaten their self-image. Claude Steele, a social psychologist and emeritus professor at Stanford University, promoted self-affirmation theory in the late 1980s (Steele, C. M. 1988, Cohen, G. L., & Sherman, D. K. 2007). Today, self-affirmation theory remains well-studied throughout social psychological research (Sherman, D. K., & Cohen, G. L., McQueen, A., & Klein, W. M. 2006).
Using self-affirmations can help us cope with threats or stress and can be beneficial for improving academic performance, health, and well-being. (Cohen, G. L., & Sherman, D. K. 2014).
Self-affirmation theory has led to research in neuroscience, investigating whether we can “see” how the brain changes using imaging technology when using positive affirmations.
MRI evidence suggests that specific neural pathways increase when we speak our affirmations (Cascio et al., 2016). The “ventromedial prefrontal cortex,” involved in positive valuation and self-related information processing, becomes more active when we speak positively about our values (Falk et al., 2015; Cascio et al., 2016).
Falk and her colleagues focused on how we process information about ourselves. They found that when we practice positive affirmations, we’re more able to perceive “otherwise-threatening information as more self-relevant and valuable” (2015: 1979). This can have several benefits.
Evidence suggests that using positive self-affirmations is beneficial. Here are six examples from the experiential research:
Positive affirmations have been shown to decrease health-related stress (Sherman et al., 2009; Critcher & Dunning, 2015.)
Positive affirmations have been used effectively in Positive Psychology Interventions (scientific tools and strategies used for increasing happiness, wellbeing, positive thinking, and emotions, (Keyes, Fredrickson, & Park, 2012.)
Positive affirmation may help change the perception of otherwise “threatening” messages (Logel & Cohen, 2012.)
Positive affirmation can help us set our intention to change for the better (Harris et al., 2007) and eat more fruit and vegetables (Epton & Harris, 2008.)
Positive affirmations have been positively linked to academic achievement by lessening GPA decline in students who feel left out at college (Layous et al., 2017.)
Positive affirmation has been demonstrated to lower stress (Koole et al., 1999; Weisenfeld et al., 2001.)
The Benefits
As we’ve seen, positive affirmations can provide health benefits by helping us to respond in a less defensive or resistant way when we perceive real or imagined threats. One study found that when using affirmations, smokers responded less dismissively to graphic cigarette packet warnings and conveyed the intention to change their behavior (Harris et al., 2007).
But more generally, using affirmations allows us to create an adaptive, broader self-concept, making us more resilient to life’s struggles. Whether it’s social pressure, health, or healing our trauma, a broader self-concept is an extremely helpful tool.
Mindfulness
When implementing any change, to be successful, you must be aware of the change you want to make throughout the day, every day. You must intentionally commit to making the change daily. We’ll talk more about intentions and intentionality later.
What do you want to change about yourself? Do you have characteristics that you criticize, judge, and scorn? Maybe you have habits or perceived shortcomings that you’d like to give up? Is there an aspect of your life that you want to develop? Your answers to questions like these can give you ideas about the kind of positive affirmations you could use.
Thoughts Become Things
Our subconscious minds accept repeated affirmations as truth, even when the affirmations are negative. Become aware of your negative thoughts.
We want to use positive affirmations to change the way we think. If they’re created with a high vibrational frequency, we are more able to attract the things we’ve always wanted but believed we couldn’t have.
But if you don’t write your affirmations correctly, it can be an absolute waste of time. The key to writing successful affirmations to achieve the life you want is to be confident that what you are saying will actually happen.
When you’ve learned how to write and use affirmations correctly, you can start manifesting your goals. It takes some practice and a bit of trial and error to figure out what works.
Short, Clear, Concrete, Positive and Present Tense
Affirmations that work the best are short, clear, concrete, positive, and in the present tense.
Use only a few words in your affirmations to make them easier to remember. To accomplish this, begin with a short phrase like:
I am…
I easily…
I joyfully…
I clearly see, hear, do…
I excitedly…
I look forward with joy to…
I look forward to the opportunity that______provides for______.
Your affirmations should be authentic, meaning that they feel doable and true. Our quantum self (our “self” at the molecular level) recognizes the truth contained within our affirmations.
The above affirmational statements are concrete. They are solid, assertive, for a reason. If you use words like “I feel,” it implies that your affirmation is temporary because feelings are temporary. Do you ever feel confident when you wear a certain item of clothing? What happens when you take it off? Do you see what I mean? The feeling of confidence may decrease or disappear altogether. When you say “I am,” it implies that it’s permanent, no matter the time, place, or situation. It says that you OWN IT.
Know What You Want
What is it that you want to achieve? What do you want to change about yourself?
Ask yourself questions to find a concrete answer to include in your affirmations. For instance:
“How can I _______________?” vs. “I can’t because ___________. “
Do you see the difference between these two approaches? Asking questions prompts your mind to start looking for concrete answers, consciously and unconsciously. Asking questions opens up possibilities. When you tell yourself you can’t, it stops your mind from considering solutions. It prevents new ideas from forming. You can see how this would not be a good approach for trying to change your thoughts, beliefs, and mindset. So ask the questions and write your answers. Write the first thing that comes to mind without censoring or editing. I recommend this because the first answer often comes from our higher self or intuition, and is the purest, and often a most concrete form of your answer.
Think about the goals you want to achieve, then write short statements that resonate with you.
Write them as if the desired outcome has already happened.
For more information on how to use Healing Affirmations to heal emotional abuse, read book #3 in the Lemon Moms Series, Life-Altering Affirmations: Change Your Self-talk, Change YourSELF, available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.
More resources to guide you in healing from childhood trauma, abuse, or neglect. Available on Amazon and wherever books are sold. (ebook, audiobook, hardcover, and paperback.)
Like these posts? Want them automatically delivered to your inbox twice monthly?
As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf has developed strong coping skills and healing strategies. She happily shares those insights with others who want to learn.
Her books and articles are the result of her education, knowledge, personal growth, and insight regarding her childhood experiences and subsequent recovery work.
Diane holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She has worked in numerous fields including domestic violence and abuse and is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer about family dysfunction. Currently, she writes about recovery from narcissistic victim syndrome and symptoms of C-PTSD on The Toolbox and has authored three books in the “Lemon Moms” series. Visit her author’s website here.
She is no longer a practicing Social Worker, Counselor, Program Manager, or Advocate.
This website is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy.
Mother’s Day is coming. If your relationship with your mother is typically full of pain and heartache, this article is for you.
Why Mother’s Day Sucks for Adult Children of Narcissists
Every April, TV commercials begin urging us to remember our mothers on Mothers Day, the second Sunday in May. They often portray sweet, heartwarming, sentimental interactions between mothers and their children. Watching those commercials has always been difficult for me because I longed for those kinds of interactions my entire life. Sometimes I cried when I watched them, so painful was the contrast between them and the relationship that I had with my own mother.
American culture promotes motherhood as a saintly paradigm; that mother-love is instinctual, unconditional, and spontaneous; and that all women can be loving, empathetic, nurturing mothers. Believing these inaccuracies can harm an unloved child’s spirit, keeping him or her in a state of confusion and self-doubt (“cognitive dissonance.”)
An emotionally healthy mother’s love is a powerful, constant theme throughout her children’s lives and memories; her kindness, compassion, validation, and the loving bond that they share. For those of us who don’t have that kind of mom, or that kind of relationship, or those kinds of memories, we watch others who do, and we wonder what is wrong with us. We try, but we can’t figure out why we are so unlovable. Because surely if our mothers can’t love us, it must be our fault. We must be unlovable, right?
But, the fact is, for human beings, mothering is a learned behavior; there’s a spectrum of maternal behaviors, from healthy to toxic. Acknowledging this may be helpful when thinking about Mother’s Day.
If your mother is self-important, seeks admiration, believes she’s superior, lacks empathy, manipulates and uses her children, puts others down, is hypersensitive to criticism, or believes she deserves special treatment, she may be on the narcissism spectrum. If she is, you will likely experience mixed feelings about Mother’s Day. Daughters and sons of narcissistic mothers are out there and think they’re alone. You’re not alone.
In my unhealed past, I used to spend a huge amount of emotional energy just selecting a card. These days, there is awareness and sensitivity regarding family dysfunction and the fact that not all mothers are loving and kind. It’s easier now to find a more realistic card sentiment. But in the past, I had great difficulty finding a card that wasn’t over-the-top: “Happy Mothers Day to the Greatest Mother of All Time!” or “Happy Mother’s Day to the Mother of the Year!” Seriously. They all felt like lies. While I dealt with that, other adult children of narcissists dealt with questions like: “Should I even send a card?” “Should I call her?” “Should I see her?” “Should I ignore the day?” “What should I do?”
Like other adult children of narcissists at this time of year, I was triggered by memories of an unloving, emotionally detached, uninvolved, neglectful and intentionally cruel mother. I also found myself envious of anyone who had a caring, loving mother, or who looked forward to spending mothers day with her. Every year, I experienced pain and turmoil because I was deeply codependent, and living in a state of denial about my maternal relationship. Every Mother’s Day, I was forced to face the reality of it in all its stark ugliness and demoralizing humiliation. At one point, I was actually a mother myself, yet still focused on making this day all about my own mother. I wasn’t able to enjoy what the day meant for me as a mother. Eventually I realized that something needed to change so I could experience the day in a whole new, healthy way.
Confusion and Cognitive Dissonance
If you are an empathetic person, you are naturally sensitive to others’ emotional needs. Trying to understand that narcissists don’t have this ability is difficult to understand or believe.
When our need for love and connection with our mothers is not met, we often blame ourselves. As children, we never thought there was something wrong with our mothers. Instead, we began forming beliefs that we were not good enough, and that we didn’t matter.
As adults, we took those beliefs with us and we keep returning to that parent, again and again, hoping and wishing that it will be different this time. We focus on gaining her approval, validation, acceptance, and love. We jump through any hoop she offers. And, as adults, if we’re still attempting to please our narcissistic moms, we’re putting ourselves in a no-win situation. Our failure to satisfy her will trigger more pain and confusion, and a continuation of the “not-good-enough’s” and “we-don’t-matter’s.
At some point, we may begin to entertain the idea that the problem is not us, and we might suspect it could be her. We may feel guilty for having these thoughts, yet, it’s something we need to consider.
There’s a Name For It
When I decided to actively pursue healing and personal growth, a therapist presented the idea that my mother may have an undiagnosed and untreated mental illness, most likely a personality disorder. This was exciting and validating news for me because I had entertained that idea for awhile. As I came to grasp the impact that my mother’s probable mental illness had on me, I felt a gamut of conflicting emotions.
“Narcissism Awareness Grief” (NAG) is a condition coined by Dr. Christine Hammond, a Licensed Mental Health Counselor who works with exhausted women and their families. She teaches that the loss of a mother’s love, warmth, interest, and connection is a momentous one that must be consciously grieved.
Narcissism Awareness Grief acknowledges these losses and recognizes that our mothers’ narcissistic traits have negatively impacted us. We can then begin to come to terms with how they have impacted us. Through this acknowledgment, we can break through the coping mechanism of denial and start working through the six stages of grief, to finally arrive at the final phase: Acceptance. When you fully understand and accept that you cannot change or control your mother’s perception of you, the ball is truly in your court. It’s from the point of Acceptance that your life can and will change.
Your mother does not need a diagnosis for you to determine your relationship is unhealthy. If it is, you can do something about it.
I remember very clearly what it was like to experience Narcissism Awareness Grief. As I slowly woke up to see the effects that my mother’s narcissistic traits had on me, I felt a mixture of shock, denial, disbelief, and a sense of overwhelming sadness. You see, when we discover that the traumatic lifestyle we’ve endured as children has an actual name, Narcissism Awareness Grief, it’s a massive relief. There’s an initial rush of validation, and we suddenly realize that we’re not alone, that we’re not crazy, and that we haven’t imagined any of it. Narcissistic trauma and abuse are real things, and we can recover from them. There is nothing—and there never was—anything inherently wrong with us, as we may have been led to believe.
Going No Contact, or Not
Many experts say when it comes to relationships with narcissists, that you have two choices: live on their terms (focusing on them, chasing after their withheld love, acceptance, and affection) or go “no contact.”
But here’s the rub: when a mother and adult child relationship fails, it’s the adult child who’s commonly believed to be responsible for the breach. Cultural opinions like these can keep an unloved daughter or son stuck in the place they’ve been since childhood—knowing that something’s wrong, blaming themselves, and wondering who will be able to love them if their own mother can’t. Going “no contact,” for me, felt like an “either/or” choice, having no flexibility, and was a “point of no return.” And it didn’t feel good.
I’ve never been a big fan of black and white thinking. I like seeing all the shades of gray. So, I created a third option for myself. I learned how to identify complex trauma symptoms, refuse the gaslighting, heal my c-ptsd symptoms, remove the drama from our relationship, set enforceable boundaries, shut down manipulation, and upgrade my communication style.
I still have a relationship with my mother, but it’s changed significantly. I no longer focus on what she does, says, or expects, and as a result, I no longer fee humiliated, unloved, invalidated, and rejected. The difference is that our relationship is on my terms now.
If you’re interested in how I did this, I wrote a book about it, called “Lemon Moms: A Guide to Understand and Survive Maternal Narcissism.”
In the meantime…
So, what can we adult children of maternal narcissists do to feel better about Mother’s Day this year?
Here are some suggestions that may help:
Remember, it’s a day, and like most days, you can make it what you want.
Question the card. Search for a generic Mother’s Day card, if you want to send a card at all. Giving a card that says “Best Mom in the World” is an act of denial. The first step to healing is admitting that you grew up in a dysfunctional home. NO MORE DENIAL. It takes courage not to buy that lying card.
Eliminate expectations. You can’t be disappointed if you don’t expect anything to be different this year. Learn to drop expectations.
Make new traditions. Do the day differently. Celebrate yourself! Do something you enjoy, whether solo, with a friend, significant other, or your children. YOU get to determine how you will spend your time on this day.
Feel and express your feelings. Give yourself permission to feel and express whatever you’re feeling. Give yourself space to cry, be angry, feel unloved, or grieve. Acknowledge that you have reason to feel these emotions, and validate your childhood memories. Start writing it all down in a journal to get it out in a healthy way.
Shift the focus. Practice gratitude, speak healing affirmations, or do something wonderful for someone else.
Make an appointment. If Mother’s Day annually triggers anxiety or depression, give yourself the gift of scheduled time with a professional to start or continue the healing process.
Seek support. Find support groups in your area or online. Talking with others who understand narcissism dynamics can help in your healing journey. And as always, don’t try to explain it to those who don’t. Other’s who don’t understand narcissism, or haven’t gone through Narcissism Awareness Grief and healed their own wounds, may unknowingly invalidate you, causing further trauma.
Express gratitude to mothers you know who are loving and kind. Honor other women who may have given you motherly love, perhaps a grandmother, aunt, co-worker, or friend.
If you are a mother, think about your values and work to end the legacy of one-sided love. Acknowledge and be grateful for your ability to love.
Start working a recovery program so you don’t pass the legacy down to your children. If you are working on your recovery, good for you! Do the work!
On Mother’s Day, let’s honor the mothers who have given their children the gifts of love and nurturing. At the same time, let’s acknowledge the truths of the daughters and sons of the mothers who did not fit the upheld, saintly mother stereotype. And let’s applaud the mothers who are working a recovery program to change their family legacy of narcissistic abuse.
References:
McBride, K. (2012, April 9). When Mother’s Day Hurts. Psychology Today. Retrieved April 21, 2021, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-legacy-distorted-love/201204/when-mother-s-day-hurts.
Hammond, C. (2019, June 29). What is narcissism awareness grief (NAG)? Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https://pro.psychcentral.com/exhausted-woman/2018/07/what-is-narissism-awareness-grief-nag/.
More resources to guide you in healing from childhood trauma, abuse, or neglect. Available on Amazon and wherever books are sold. (ebook, audiobook, hardcover, and paperback.)
Like these posts? Want them automatically delivered to your inbox twice monthly?
As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf has developed strong coping skills and healing strategies. She happily shares those insights with others who want to learn.
Her books and articles are the result of her education, knowledge, personal growth, and insight regarding her childhood experiences and subsequent recovery work.
Diane holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She has worked in numerous fields including domestic violence and abuse and is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer about family dysfunction. Currently, she writes about recovery from narcissistic victim syndrome and symptoms of C-PTSD on The Toolbox and has authored three books in the “Lemon Moms” series. Visit her author’s website here.
She is no longer a practicing Social Worker, Counselor, Program Manager, or Advocate.
This website is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy.
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