05/10/2025                                                                            
                                    
                                    
                                                                        
                                        A narcissistic mother doesn’t raise children; she molds extensions of herself. Your feelings don’t matter, your needs are inconvenient, and your individuality is treated as rebellion. Her version of “love” is performance-based—you are rewarded when you make her look good and punished when you remind her that you are your own person.  
With her, affection feels like a transaction. Approval comes only when it benefits her image, and silence comes when you fail to serve her narrative. She thrives on control—dictating what you wear, how you act, who you trust, and even how you think. If you resist, you’re branded ungrateful. If you obey, you’re never quite “enough.”  
The most painful part is the gaslighting. She convinces you that her cruelty is “just tough love,” that her jealousy is “protection,” and that your hurt is “overreacting.” Slowly, you begin to doubt your own reality, questioning whether you’re the problem when all along, you were simply surviving.  
Growing up this way leaves scars—deep ones. You struggle to trust, to feel worthy, to believe in unconditional love. But here’s the truth: her inability to love you fully was never proof of your inadequacy. It was proof of her wounds, her emptiness, her need to control what she could not heal within herself.  
Breaking free doesn’t mean hating her. It means refusing to sacrifice yourself on the altar of her approval. Healing is choosing to rebuild your voice, your boundaries, and your worth outside of her shadow. You are not defined by her criticism or her denial—you are defined by the strength it takes to unlearn her version of love and create your own.  
You were never born to be her mirror. You were born to be yourself.