Have you been asking yourself “What is a narcissistic mother?” or “What is a narcissistic parent?” or “Is my mom a narcissist?” If you are wondering about the relationships of narcissistic mothers and their daughters, as well as the impact of having a narcissistic mother, this article will answer your questions. I share here my personal story of being the scapegoat daughter of a narcissistic mother. I also wrote a separate article about the daughters of narcissistic mothers. Watch my videos about toxic mother’s damage in my YouTube playlist called “narcissistic mother.”

Narcissistic Mother FAQs

I am almost 38 years old. My Birthday is in 13 days, on January 18th, 2021. For 25 years, I lived with my narcissistic mother who was evil, cruel, angry, violent, manipulative, disrespectful, abusive, and hateful. She demanded that I perform at all times to earn her approval. I never knew unconditional love. My mother molested me when I was five. She tried to kill me multiple times. She taught me to prostitute my body for money. She attacked me physically repeatedly over the years. She sprayed me with poison. She caused many physical injuries, but the psychological wounds are lasting for decades. God rescued me in 2008.

After graduating from multiple universities, for the last almost 13 years, I’ve lived in America where I married and divorced three times within one decade: between the ages of 24 and 34. In the past few years, I’ve been single and celibate, living by myself in a peaceful safe home on the river, developing new habits to care for myself in every aspect of my being, and enjoying God’s peace while discovering genuine joy in life. At 37, I have the best health and am addictions-free. Narcissistic abuse recovery took many years, but God is a miracle worker!

My path has been a journey of unpacking and healing the chronic trauma inflicted on me by my narcissistic mother. Today, I share everything I’ve learned to help other women heal.

God has saved me from suicide more than once. And He called me to start a Christian ministry, Online Discipleship For Women, to help alleviate suicide among women globally by sharing hope in Christ. Specifically, I’m here to help women like me – the scapegoat daughters of narcissistic mothers. Let me answer your most commonly asked questions about narcissistic mothers and their daughters.

Recommended Readings:

1. Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers
2. Narcissistic Mother
3. Narcissistic Abuse Recovery
4. Things Narcissistic Mothers Say
5. Narcissistic Mother-Daughter Relationship
6. An Open Letter To My Narcissistic Mother
7. What Does Narcissistic Abuse Feel Like?
8. A Daughter’s Story of One Hell of a Narcissistic Mother

How To Tell If My Mom Is a Narcissist

I am going to share with you two poems that describe the behaviors of narcissistic mothers and the characteristics of daughters of narcissistic mothers. If you see yourself and your mother in the poems I’m about to share, then you’ll be able to tell if your mom is a narcissist. The spiritual poems about daughters of narcissistic mothers I am about to share are autobiographical and based on my own life experiences, drama, trauma, pain, suffering, confusion, and three-decade long struggles.

"Narcissistic Mother"


A Narcissistic Mother is egotistical and incapable of love or compassion.

She is self-centered and only for herself does she experience any genuine passion. 

She is a caregiver who treats her daughter as if the child’s aim were to be of service.

She deliberately persuades her daughter that she’s unloved, undeserving, unwanted, and worthless.


A Narcissistic Mother is one moment raging and next moment she is smiling.

She behaves unpredictably; her goal is to win people’s compliments and admiring. 

She has an enmeshed relationship with her daughter where her child’s needs don’t even exist.

If she decides to appear nice, she is pleasant, but in a split of a second, she’s violent and pissed. 


She uses her daughter to fuel her ego or get some money;  that’s pretty much it.

And of course, her true motives she would never openly to anyone admit.

A Narcissistic Mother sucks the life out her daughter and says straightforwardly: “I just want you dead!”

Her daughter ends up with a long-lasting emotional trauma and a life of deep healing ahead. 


10/6/18 © Anna Szabo, JD, MBA

"Narcissistic Mother Hates Her Daughter" 
 
Narcissistic mother inherently hates her daughter’s guts.
She sees her as another woman, of whom she’s envious and jealous.
She might be nice to people, even kissing others’ butts,
But to her daughter she is never good or  kind or simply zealous. 
 
Her only goal is to destroy her daughter permanently.
She’s filled with hatred, animosity, and ill will.
She says “I want you dead!” to her descendant personally.
She tries tenaciously her child to harm or kill. 
 
7/17/19 © Anna Szabo, JD, MBA 

How Does It Feel To Be Raised by a Narcissistic Mother?

There are many signs you were raised by a narcissistic mother, and the most important ones relate to how you feel. The things narcissistic mothers do are indescribable and incomprehensible. How you feel today as an adult I can tell you without ever meeting you: you have Complex PTSD from all the chronic trauma, you experience flashbacks from the past, you struggle with anxiety and panic attacks, and you suffer from episodes of depression, even though you refuse to admit it and you might actually be a very functional high achiever who is trapped in toxic positivity, covering up true feelings with the maniac happiness illusion. Did I guess right? Let me know in the comments below.

Here’s how you felt being raised by a narcissist mom.

1. Terrified
2. Ashamed
3. Manipulated
4. Betrayed
5. Gaslighted
6. Guilty
7. Discarded
8. Lonely
9. Traumatized
10. Overwhelmed
11. Crazy
12. Hurt
13. Doubtful
14. Confused
15. Deceived
16. Hopeless
17. Powerless
18. Trapped
19. Desperate
20. Abandoned
21. Insecure
22. Unsafe
23. Panicky
24. Smothered
25. Suicidal

How Chronic Childhood Abuse Made Me Feel

Now that you know the 25 signs you were raised by a narcissistic mother, I will share how I felt being the scapegoat daughter of a narcissistic mother. How chronic childhood abuse made me feel matters because it influenced my personality, formed my psyche, and built my future, which today is my present. To understand the impact of having a narcissistic mother on me personally and how I felt growing up, I had to look at every piece of my painful and ugly life puzzle and see a purpose in all that pain to discover its beauty.

I had to put my life puzzle together, which took 6.5 years. If you want to know the details of how I felt being raised by a narcissistic mother in an abusive household, enduring abuse every day, as a fully human woman, I’m finally ready to share this very intimate part of my soul. What I want you to ultimately do is use this article as a template for exploring your own trauma and understanding its impact on your life.

Here’s how childhood abuse made me feel.

• Terrified. I felt very scared all the time, walking on eggshells around my narcissistic mother who scolded, berated, taunted, assaulted, tormented, and tortured me. I dealt with terror by deploying my vivid imagination. Here’s what I used to imagine as a little kid to find at least some kind of safe place, even though it was in my imagination. There was a green forest in my bedroom behind a secret door under the rug, which covered my bed and the wall next to it. The door led into a safe secret kingdom, where I could escape if things got really bad. I also used to write fairytales to keep up my hope for a better future. That was the early season of my life when I became obsessed with the happily-ever-after. In my 30s I had to face the reality of life, specifically my life, and let go of my childlike illusions of the perfect happiness someday. “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” – 1 Corinthians 13:11. Today, I accept and appreciate life for what it is. My new perspective liberated me from both the happiness illusion and the free-floating terror. I have peace and joy. I also feel sorrow and sadness. I am fully human. My hope comes from God today instead of the secret green forest, but I’m grateful for the little girl who invented a safe imaginary heaven to encourage herself and who persevered through years of abuse all alone.

• Overwhelmed. I felt trapped, dehumanized, robbed of my dignity and sanity, disembodied, fearful, ashamed, shuttered, abandoned, betrayed, helpless, confused, worthless, lonely, desperate, collapsed, powerless, angry, broken, and, at or about 12 years old, I began feeling dissociated and numb. I simply detached. I felt overwhelmed. I anticipated rejection, ridicule, and reprimanding. I was sorrowed by the ever-present subconscious understanding that I was not loved, not wanted, not acknowledged, not accepted, not cherished, not treasured, and not protected. I was not safe. I did not matter. I anticipated chaos, abuse, and deprivation. Chronic narcissistic gaslighting, projection, manipulation, and the silent treatment left me feeling devastated, insecure, and without a consistent reliable identity. I was always asking “Who am I?” I felt constantly humiliated, devalued, endangered, smothered, and disregarded. I felt demoralized and useless. Yet, I refused to consciously believe that my mom was an evil monster who genuinely hated me. Instead, I concluded that I was bad and deserved my mom’s treatment. 

• Creative. I have struggled to choose between two words “dissociative” and “creative.” The truth is that because of the chronic childhood abuse, I was feeling dissociative but that allowed me to also feel and be creative. I dissociated severely and was “in my head” a lot. It was why I became so creative. Creativity was a tool I used as a child to escape my painful reality and avoid being psychologically crushed. I made things up in my mind, and today I’m living my dreams, which were created back then when I was just a little innocent but very scared Russian girl. I survived abuse by escaping into writing, poetry, theater, reading, and humor. I wrote stories starting as early as elementary school. My mom destroyed my belief in myself and I trashed the little journal where I captured those stories, which I mourn still. Yet, writing those creative stories helped me cope with stress and abuse. At five years old, I was already reading and memorizing poetry. I actually still have those Russian children’s poetry books with me here in America. But the amazing thing is that I still remember and often recite tose poems from 22 years ago. I’m 37. Memorizing poems about sweet and loving mothers and grandmothers and then reciting the poetry actually helped me imagine myself having a loving mother and grandmother. I was healing. In kindergarten, school, college, and university, I was involved in theater and played many roles: from a snowflake and a snow queen to a scary witch and Tatyana from “Onegin” by Pushkin. Also, I played on large stages with my KVN team, which is a very popular Russian club “of the jolly and the clever.” I loved it very much. Finally, and most importantly, both my dissociation and creativity helped instill in me my love for books. I read 22 new books this year, and I plan to share about them on my blog called “12 Books in 12 Months.” Reading volumes of books helped me escape my abusive family-world and visit other interesting worlds. I was very interested in self-help, public speaking, autobiographies, and books about happily-ever-after.

How Having a Narcissistic Mother Impacted Me

My mother had a significantly negative impact on my psyche and my adult life. I am about to tell you about the daughters of narcissistic mothers and romantic relationships. I was married three times, and every time, I was lured and deceived by the manipulative predators who targeted me online. I was an easy target since I had no boundaries. Also, I was an easy target because I was desperate for love.

The story of my chronic childhood abuse by my narcissistic mother led me into the hands of a predator here in America. We met online, and he brought me to America after we traveled the world together. Yes, I am a mail-ordered bride. My first husband Mark, who visited me several times in Russia, lied about everything, but I wasn’t able to discern because I was in a habit of dissociating from reality and myself. I ended up enslaved and abused in a foreign country without speaking any English in 2008b and 2009. My domestic violence situation continued for eight months, and I had a total of four police reports against Mark.

After the Dunwoody Police Department conducted a rescue operation and took me away to a shelter for battered women, I was referred to a therapist. Immediately after hearing and seeing what happened to me, the therapist began asking about my relationship with my mother. It is very common for daughters of narcissistic mothers and romantic relationships they pursue to end up in domestic abuse.

I wasn’t able at the time to either see the link between my abusive mother and my abusive husband or find the words to describe the torment, torture, and terror I lived through for 25 years raised by a narcissistic mother. So, I quit therapy. 

In the next five years, coping with life by using my sharp skills of maniac happiness and toxic positivity, thanks to my excellent ability to dissociate, I taught myself English, graduated from Georgia State University with MBA and a 3.74 GPA, published an award-winning book about goal-setting, and built a career in marketing.

With that, I was brainwashed by another predator who targeted me online and persuaded me to marry him, which I did. Philip was so caught up in a web of endless lies that he himself forgot to remember all of them. One evening, in December of 2013, he became physically abusive with me, and the next morning, I left him forever.

I wanted to figure out why I was literally re-creating my childhood environment in my adult life again and again… I just didn’t know how to go about figuring myself out. So, I drank a lot of alcohol and slept around to self-soothe and dissociate from my pain. In 2014, I continued building my life and career, only I was already running low on the fuel of toxic positivity and dissociation, so I hit the rock bottom with my addictions by the Spring. In April of 2014, I fell on my knees, prayed, invited Jesus into my heart, and fully surrendered my life to God.

I began attending therapy.

Of course, after hearing about my situation, the therapist wanted to talk about my mother and my childhood trauma, which I told her I personally considered “emotional suicide.” So, just like in 2009, I quit therapy, unwilling and unable to access my traumatic memories. It was too much for me to handle at the time, and I had no coping skills to remain safe in my body and grounded in my present.

However, gently and slowly, led by God, I received several books from him as a gift and began doing the hard internal work of narcissistic abuse recovery on my own. The first step for me was to face aloneness, which I feared tremendously since I always had to hide from myself. During that time, I took myself off of the dating market for 600 days, committed to 365 days of holidays alone at home, and began hosting Christian small groups in my home, which were focused on studying and discussing workbooks about childhood trauma.

That was the beginning of my re-attachment to my life, my reality, my mind, my body, and my psyche.

In the midst of that work, 600 days into my no-dating journey, another predator, who had targeted me through social media for 11 months, lured me very cleverly and eloquently into his deception trap, and I married him on May 14th, 2016.

It was my third and final marriage.

My third husband Michel was the exact clone of my narcissistic mother. Our marriage was the exact scenario of how my relationship with my narcissistic mother unfolded.

I felt devasted, devalued, and discarded so I became depressed and suicidal. Michel’s cruelty was exactly what I endured from my mother. Not only was it in itself traumatic but it also triggered all the terror of my childhood trauma.

Married to Michel, I had to be supervised by two counselors: a Biblical counselor and a trauma counselor. Michel and I were divorced in 2017, and I continued my journey of trauma healing, only my trauma was multiplied and compounded after Michel’s abuse. Once I processed my recent trauma endured as an adult, in 2019, I was finally ready to face my well-hidden and very scary childhood trauma.

The hardest work ever has been the work I’ve been doing in 2020. I finally examined, understood, and embraced my story of being the scapegoat daughter of a narcissistic mother.

I can see my life for what it is, and I feel whole.

After 6.5 years of hard work, I found the courage to face my story without any pretenses, addictions, or hiding behind toxic positivity. I gathered up tremendous willpower to explore my scary feelings, and I discovered the right words to describe what I have lived through. Now, I am here to help you understand and heal your narcissistic mother trauma. With God, all things are possible!

Anna Szabo

Anna Szabo is the founder of Online Discipleship For Women, a Christian ministry committed to helping alleviate suicide among women globally by sharing hope in Christ. Anna teaches how to create a joyful life by embracing God’s word based on her six pillars of joyful living: faith, food, fitness, finances, felicity, and fortitude. She is a Christian speaker, YouTuber, artist, poet, and blogger who created 2,000,000 words of Gospel-focused content to encourage and empower you. Donate to show your support.