The merging of the self with a narcissistic mother

I was not aware until I was an adult, how much I had merged with my mother in an unhealthy way. The truth is that it was a relationship without boundaries, mine that is. I had no idea where I began and where my mother left off. So when I actually started to look at my past and also my behaviour in the present, before I went no contact, I was shocked to see a most disturbing habit that I had formed.

I don't know if any other survivors of narcissist mothers have experienced this but I am sure I will not be alone in it. What it was that I did habitualy and unconsciously, was to never enjoy things myself as an individual. Whenever I was happy and having a good experience I would have that experience for my mother not myself. During the experience, whatever it was, I would only think of her and offer it to her, talk to her inside my head, so that she could enjoy it instead of me. It is hard to even describe it because it sounds so weird.

It was quite a revelation to realise that I had been doing this for a very long time, and also a great loss because I had never enjoyed many amazing experiences just for myself. When I began to see this, and experience in the present, what I was doing, it was a hard and truthful unveiling and one I knew I had to transform before I lost any more of my life to her.

You see I had spent all my childhood and as an adult trying to please my mother. I would do anything for her to make her happy because I felt she never was. I paid for her hair dressing, took her to the theatre, bought clothes, gave money, meals etc etc. Well why wouldn't you as a daughter, that's what daughters do. But this kind of realtionship is different. As a daughter of a narcissist mother one's own needs are not important. The needs of the NM must always come first. It is an exhausting battle one can never win.

I was saved form falling into the abyss of my mothers needs totally by my grandmother, my fathers mother, who loved me and gave me freedom to be a person in my own right. If not for this I do not know how I would have coped.

The problem was that once I stopped supplying my mothers narcissistic needs she began the abuse she had held back and kept under wraps for a while. That was when I went no contact.

Have you experienced this deep merging with your NM to the point I did, where you offered even your own enjoyment up for her.

Did you live some of your life experiences through her, for her?

Or did you find it hard to experience or feel anything?

No one realises the damage this kind of abuse does us. The legacy it leaves. Finding your self, self care and staying away from them so that you can grow away from their clutches helps to heal those deep wounds they left us. It takes a lifetime to untangle it all.

The longer you are away from them the more the ties break and start to weaken. We owe it to ourselves to unmerge, unchain and free ourselves from that past.