Why a Narcissistic Mother Wants You to Feel Alone & 4 Steps to Deal with it

Hello and welcome to this new episode of Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers podcast. I am Mathilde and I'm your host. I'm an inner transformation mentor, supporting women in healing mother wounds through women's circles and through the one-on-one 10 weeks program. To know more about these offerings, check out my website, womenreclaimingtheirfullness.me. And also all the links that you may need are in the description of the episode. And for today, I want to talk about one of the main sources of suffering for Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers and that is the feeling of being alone in what we are experiencing. One of the most recurrent gratitude messages I receive from listeners is often along these lines. Thank you for what you do. Listening to your podcast helped me realize I am not alone. I get these words sent to me so much and I am so grateful to receive these words from you. It always warms my heart to hear the podcast is helping you feel less alone. And the reason why I know how precious those words are is because I know the feeling of really believing I was alone all too well. I felt alone most of my life. I felt like I was the only one going through what I was going through. And I felt like there was no one I could talk to about it without being completely misunderstood or severely judged. And it is a feeling I still work within myself every day. When things get tough, loneliness can kick in. The abandonment won't get triggered. And I practice consciously reminding myself that I'm not alone. Among other things I'm going to share with you in a moment because today that's what we're talking about. Why a narcissistic mother wants you to feel alone and how to deal with. So I'm going to give you four steps on how to deal with it. But for now I want to share with you something that happens in the women's circles all the time. And this is really important. So what happens is this. Someone shares an experience they're having or something their mother used to do as they were a child or something she still does something that's hurtful and challenging. And the next thing that happens every single time without fail is that everyone else is sharing how they too have been experiencing the very same. And the result of that is that you participate into this and going through this experience, feel seen, safe from other's judgments, understood and supported in your experience. And you get the validation you never received before. Definitely not from your mother. And I find this is one of the most healing aspects of the women's circles. Sitting together and sharing with women who have been through the same and who truly get how you're feeling. And why I know this is so, so precious is because I didn't have any of this in my journey, in my healing journey. I did eventually find women's circles, but they were never actually women's circles purposely created to heal mother ones and to work with daughters of narcissistic mothers. There were women's circles that had other purposes, or maybe they were very generic women's circles. So they still had an immense value for me. And I found them extremely helpful. And I am very grateful to having found some of the amazing containers I've been blessed to be in. But I knew the importance of a space that had to be dedicated to this specific aspect, because this feeling of being alone and being the only one that experiences whatever it is that you're experiencing, which I get it, because it's been the same. It's really challenging. And we're going to go into a little bit more details in a moment. But let me ask you first, how often do you feel completely alone? How often do you wonder if you are the only one experiencing something regarding your narcissistic mother? Sort of along these lines, are you the only one getting hurtful messages? Are you the only one being told every year on your birthday some version of how much of a sacrifice was to bring you into this world? Are you the only one being repeatedly told how much of a disappointment you are? Are you the only one getting punished for ridiculous things, such as not calling or calling too often or whatever? Are you the only one being called in the middle of the night only to get abused or get crazy requests? Are you the only one being labeled the black sheep in the family, the bad daughter, the one that no one wants to talk to? Are you the only one feeling constantly guilty and anxious or ashamed or angry? This list is infinite. And the answer is always the same. No, you are not. You are not the only one going through any of that. You're not the only one feeling how you feel. You're not the only one experiencing what you're experiencing. Let's do a little exercise. Take a moment to think about one thing you feel. You must be the only one who has actually experienced it or suffered it. Think about one thing that you're like, I'm sure that this one is one thing. I'm the only one that has been through this. Have you got one? Without even knowing what it is, and you're absolutely welcome to share it with me in the comments or via email, the email is in the description of the video, of the episode, as always. But I can tell you without even knowing what it is that you are not alone in that. I am talking to women all the time who send me messages and emails and who contact me and who work the site, choose to work with me and all of that. And I have heard so many, so many different experiences and never there was one that was like, oh, well, definitely, you are the only person that has experienced that. You are so alone in that. Never. Never once. Never once. And for all those people around you who judge you and don't understand you, there are plenty of others who can get exactly how you feel because they have been through the same. Me included. I really get how you feel. I've been through a lot with my mother, with my family, with my family in law, with like being plenty of narcissists going around here. So I really get you. But why is the feeling of loneliness a constant thing with daughters of narcissistic mothers? Because that's the thing, like there isn't one woman that I'm talking to. And again, me included, that doesn't feel alone in this until that is they then find the women's circle or maybe even in the one-on-one work when they start relating to someone else finally that has experienced the same things. But up until that point, there is this constant thing of feeling alone. And why is that? So there's four reasons to this that I want to speak to briefly, but then number four is the one that we're going to talk a little bit more about to stick with me. So the first reason is socially and culturally, it is still a difficult topic when we are speaking about having received abuse from our mothers. In the worst cases, it is considered being a very bad daughter to speak ill of your mother or to complain about your mother's behavior in any way. And in the best case scenarios, you are told things like, after all, she's your mother, you should forgive, you should be grateful she brought you into this world, you should accept her for what she is because she is your mother. Like this sacred figure that we cannot speak objectively about, we only can say good things about. It remains a taboo topic, often not accepted. And so we feel the fear of sharing. And this can happen also in spaces that should be safe, like in some cases, I have experienced it myself. And I've also had clients experience in this that in some spaces like in some kinds of therapies or in some circles in some places that are supposedly safe. Actually, when you start talking about having this kind of relationship with your mother and having been through abuse because of your mother, it's frowned upon. And it's like a taboo topic, or you're told that you have to accept and forgive way too soon. So that's one reason that kind of goes into the second reason, most people will try to hide such experiences, because of the fact that is socially and culturally very often not accepted. So we try to hide it for the exact same reason that we're doing it. So other people will try to hide it for the same fear of judgment that has you not sharing it with other people, or fear of being labeled a bad person or fear of being misunderstood. So if you don't find a lot of people in on your daily sort of activities, you know, maybe on your workplace or, or like amongst your friends that speak freely about this doesn't mean that you are the only person that is experiencing problems with your mother is that a lot of people don't want to talk about it for the same fears that you have. They're looking at you thinking I'm not going to share this with her because she's going to judge me the same way that you're looking at them thinking the same. And so what happens is that no one talks about it and everyone on the inside is feeling alone. And also this fear can also keep people in denial. So I have met in not only not actually in my work, because people that come to me for this work, they are accepting the fact that the mother is a narcissist. So there's issues there anyways. But I have met people in my everyday life that describe their mothers doing horrible things only then to say, Oh, my mother was amazing. And she was an amazing person for me growing up. And I'm like, there's a very strong discord between what you just shared about your mother and how you're talking about her now. So there's like a denial of accepting that there is an abuse there happening. The third reason that this feeling of loneliness is quite a constant among daughters of narcissistic mothers is that being the feeling of being alone in the world is a natural consequence of physical and emotional neglect and the abandonment wound that comes from that. And having had a narcissistic mother, many of us have been somehow neglected. And the attachment has been taken away from us in some way. Or there was conditional conditions to the attachment, conditional love, very, very conditional. So there's an abandonment wound there. And it is a coping strategy to that wound. How so? In a few words, it's easier to believe you are you are alone than it is to feel the pain of being abandoned again. So if as a child you've experienced the pain of being neglected and abandoned conditions being put to the attachment, that's very painful. So a coping strategy is it's easier to feel alone than to actually trust someone to stay with you and be with you and understand you only to then be abandoned again. Does that make sense? So where it's easier? That's the coping strategy. It's perceived as easier and it makes sense. And these, I mean, I could talk about these only this topic for an entire episode on his own. So if you feel like you'd like me to go deeper on this topic, specific, reach out, let me know. Ask your questions, send me an email at [email protected]. And we can go deeper into this. But now for the fourth reason. So the one that is the central topic of this episode. A narcissistic mother wants you to feel alone. That is one of the reasons why so many daughters of narcissistic mothers feel alone. On top of all the other things. A narcissistic mother wants you to feel alone. And why would she want such a thing? Because when you feel alone, you feel weaker. And you become easier to control. A narcissistic mother wants to be needed and wants to control you to feel her own tank. So if you feel alone, it's a lot easier for her to achieve all that. If you believe her when she tells you how the world works, when she tells you what reality is, how she's the only one who knows you, and so on. The more you believe that, the easier it is to keep the control over you. The more you fear sharing with others, the more you feel alone, the more she can keep the public show of perfection going, you know, the way narcissists never want things to come out to the closet. They do things behind closed doors, but when they're in public, they're like butter, wooden melt. So in order for her to do that, she has to keep you from talking to other people. Otherwise, the monsters do come out of the closet and then that's not good for her. So she can control you better the more you feel alone. So she's going to do whatever to fuel that, to make sure you feel more alone. If you come home saying that you don't feel understood, she'll tell you, yes, you're right, you're not feeling understood because no one understands you. If you are trying to say anything that expressing your pain for that, she will put fuel on the fire so that you're going to feel less and less alone or maybe incapable. That's just the way you are. You're not capable to have social interactions. Oh, that's just the way you are. You're not capable of having friends or don't mind them. You only need me to be your friend. Anyone else doesn't matter because they're only going to judge you or they're only going to treat you bad or whatever. She's going to have her own version of putting fuel on the fire, making you feel more and more alone. And this can actually remain even when you go on a contact. That feeling of being alone in the world can still be there, even no contact. And sometimes it can even get worse after going no contact actually, because although you had a toxic matter that you were in contact with, you had something that was familiar, hurtful but familiar when you go on a contact that comes, that that goes missing, that's not there anymore. Now there is a grief. And so that feeling of loneliness, it was there before that can actually get a little bit, can spike up a little bit. So just to have awareness of that. So by fueling the feeling of loneliness within you and our statistic mother fuels the natural craving for the attachment that she dangles in front of you in various forms to manipulate you and to get what she wants. She just puts her attachment in front of you, that conditional love and goes, if you behave this way, if you do this for me, if you act in your role, the one that I've trained you to be, since you were a child, if you do all of this, then I love you, then I'm going to leave you money, then I'm going to pay for your trip, then I'm going to tell you that you're great, do whatever, give you the validation that you're looking for, all dangled in front of you. And the more you feel alone, the easier it is for her to do that. So how can you deal with all this? How can you, how do we deal with all of this? I'm going to share with you four steps that I found work really well for healing from the constant feeling of loneliness in your life, that's something that has worked for me, and it does work when I work with clients. So I want to share it with you today. So the first step is the awareness of the mechanism, which is what you're learning here, here by listening to this episode already, you're gaining awareness on how this works. You're not a lonely person, is not true that you're alone, but there is a mechanism behind it. There's cultural circumstances, there is the fact that it's a taboo topic, there is a coping strategy, like kind of like a trauma response in the system, and also there is a narcissistic mother that wants you to feel alone, and that has done anything in her power since you were a small child to train you to get to this point where you're actually feeling alone, like you can't share with anyone. So when you're aware of all of this, you can understand, you start understanding that you're not alone. And it's what I was saying earlier, when I go into that trigger response, I need to consciously remind myself that I'm not alone. And I know that this is just a concept and it can sound like or an affirmation. It's not what I'm talking about. I don't really, I don't want to go into the whole affirmations topic right now. It's more a reminder is a conscious practice of reminding the system that it's okay that you're feeling like this, but actually, it's not true. You are not alone. That comes from what you've been trained to believe. It comes from a coping strategy. It comes from that cultural and social pressure, but it's not actually a reality. So it is important, even though it feels at the beginning like just a concept, and even though there can be parts of you that really reject that and feel like, Oh, no, but it is true, I am completely alone. And those parts really want to argue. They do want to argue very, very strongly. I know it because I've been through it. They really want to argue. And that's okay. But it is important to keep reminding yourself of this. Even when you feel completely alone, you are not alone. And if that happens, and if this episode is helping you, when you feel that feeling of loneliness coming on strong, and putting you down and making you feel low, put on this episode, listen to it again. Use it as that reminder that tells you that you are not alone, because you're not. There's this week, there were like 1700 listens only on this podcast. All of those women are experiencing similar things to what you're experiencing. And they would understand you when you're, if you were to share with them what you're feeling. So you're not alone. You're very much not alone. The second step is practicing acceptance for the part of you that feels alone. That's important. That inner child part in you who felt neglected or abandoned, and she still feels alone, needs you to accept her. Because if we want to fight it, and reject it, and be, and shame it, then that's not going to work. That's going to be very hurtful. So remind yourself you're not alone, but also accept that part of you that feels like that. You're not bad. You're not broken or wrong for feeling that feeling of loneliness. There is no shame in that. You know now where it comes from. And there is no shame in that. The third, the third step, it's deepening the connection with yourself. Because ultimately, you're never alone because you always have yourself with you. And this sounds really cliche and very cheesy too, but it is true. You are your best friend. And it's a practice. It's something to be learned. I definitely did not know how to do that a few years ago. Actually, I think I was my worst enemy rather than my best friend, to be honest. But it's something that can be learned and practiced. And also, you always have companions with you, such as your breath. Your breath is always there. And your breath is like the best companion, the best partner, the best friend. It's never pushy. It's never forcing you to do something you don't want to do. It's never judging you for breathing too shallow or too deep or whatever. Your breath is just your breath. And it's there with you every moment of every day. You wouldn't be alive if it wasn't. So we can't argue with that. So your breath is always there with you. Your touch is always there with you, like, you know, a hand on the shoulder, a hand on your heart, your arms around you to hug yourself. That's always available. And that's there. And our nervous system can't tell the difference. Can't tell the difference if it's someone else hugging you or if it's yourself. It's the same feeling of safety that gets gently brought back into the system. And so that's a practice as well. The earth underneath you, it's always there. She's there. She's moving. She's not going anywhere. She's under your feet. She's holding you all the time. And again, when we bring attention to it, our nervous system can't tell the difference if it's like your mother's embrace or if it's the earth holding you. It's a safe, safe embrace no matter what. So even if you've never, like me, never experienced a warm embrace from your own mother, you can experience that from the earth anytime you want, like literally lying on your bed and feeling that that bed is the earth underneath you holding you up and just breathing that in. Very simple. It sounds very, very simple. And yes, it is an incredibly potent practice. And then whatever your beliefs are, the infinite presence of source, energy is always with you or the energy of the divine, whatever spiritual belief you're following, that's always there with you. So deepen the connection with yourself and with the companions that are available to you that are not depending on other people. They're all always there and safe always for you. And the fourth step is find a tribe. Find a tribe. Find people you can feel safe to share with people who can understand your experience and how you feel. As I said earlier, the most amazing healing happens when in the women's circles I'm running, women share their experience and all of a sudden everyone else is like, "Yes, me too. I've had that. I've had that. I've had that." And that's where most of the healing actually happens there without even having to go into anything deeper than that. It seems really simple. But when it's run like that, when it's a non-judgmental space and it's very, very safe, that's where the healing really happens. If you want to know more about the Reclaim Your Fulness Women's Circles, after you've heard this, you're welcome to check the website womenreclaimingtheirfullness.me. There's a page for the women's circles and you can check them out. And if you have any other space like that that you would feel called to join, do that. It doesn't have to be my women's circle. Whatever space that feels like that, whatever tribe that resonates with your heart, and you know you're going to feel safe and you're going to be able to share safely and be seen and supported, that's really, really important. And it's going to really help with that crushing feeling of loneliness that you may be feeling most of the time. Now if you're afraid of entering a space with other women, like a lot of the people that contact me are, and like I definitely was when I entered the first women's circle I entered, I want you to know that you're not alone in that either, actually. As I said, a lot of women feel like that. Every member actually of the women's circles that I have at the moment will tell you if they're asked how scared they were at the start. They all came in scared, all of them. Some have told me how they were thinking about not even showing up for the application call until the very last minute. And I'm sure that sometimes when someone doesn't show up for the application call that's what it is. It's scary as hell to be in a space with other women after being, having been brought up by a woman that put you down and made you feel horribly and traumatized you for your entire childhood. I get that. I really get that and I was so scared, so scared when I entered the first place. And sometimes actually I was right to be scared and the people there were horrible so when I got out really quickly and other times actually my fears were just my fears and the people that were there were amazing and a lot of healing happened there for me. So you're not alone. And remember that no one feels confident at the start of a new experience. Confidence is built by going at something one step at the time. To become confident you need to start with courage, the strength of your heart, which I know you have because you're here listening to this today. Because you have been through a lot and yet you're still here seeking ways to reclaim your life. That is courage. That is courage. You're not giving up and that is courage. It takes courage not to give up. So you do have courage to take that first step because you don't need the full courage for the whole journey ahead. You don't need to see how the whole journey is going to be. You know you sign up to a women's circle, you only need courage for the first step. If it's in my case, if you're joining my women's circle, the one that I lead, all you need is the courage to show up on the application call. Actually first of all to book it. Book the application call, the free application call. Then you need the courage for the next step which is showing up at the call. And then and then and then and then one step at the time. You don't need the courage for the entire journey at the very beginning of it. But all the while taking the next step and the next step and the next step, you're building confidence. You're building that confidence that you do not feel like you have right now with each step. And if you would like to go deeper into this topic, the whole courage versus confidence, I do speak a lot about it in episode 16. Three ways an narcissistic mother destroys your confidence, which is a provocative title because your narcissistic mother doesn't actually destroy your confidence. And in that episode, I explain exactly why and how. And I speak very much about this courage versus confidence, which is quite a key point. So episode 16 would be my invitation for you to go listen to this if you're interested in this topic. But to conclude this episode, the bottom line is you're not alone. And I know you feel alone a lot at the times, but you're not alone. And you absolutely have what it takes to overcome the pain you've been through and to reclaim your life one step at the time. And so the four steps is like become aware of the mechanism and remind yourself you're not alone. Practice acceptance for the part of you that feels alone. Defend the connection with yourself and your companions, the safe companions such as breath, touch, the earth, the divine, whatever your beliefs are, and find the tribe. Find the women's circle, find the space where you can speak and you can express and you can share safely your experience. And that will help enormously in supporting you through that feeling of loneliness that is not pleasant. It's not. And if you want to defend this topic a little bit more, you can also listen to episode 15, two pillars of healing from loneliness resulting from maternal narcissism. So that's another episode in which I talk about this topic from a slightly different land and so that can bring even more details to this for you. And with that, I'm going to send you wishes for a wonderful week ahead, lots of love. And if you are interested in joining the women's circles or you wanted to know more, again, women reclaiming their fullness.me is the website and all the links are in the description of this episode for you. And also my email address is there if you want to reach out and if you want to share with me your experience or ask any questions. So with that, lots of love and bye for now.