Trauma-informed therapy for adults who grew up with narcissistic mothers — because that little voice inside you that says “maybe it wasn’t that bad” deserves to be heard and responded to.
Have you ever noticed how your body tenses when someone asks how you’re feeling? Or how compliments can feel more uncomfortable than criticism because at least criticism feels familiar? Maybe you’ve spent so long scanning rooms for signs of disapproval that you forgot what it feels like to simply exist without performing.
Growing up with a narcissistic mother creates a particular kind of exhaustion—the bone-deep tiredness that comes from a childhood spent trying to be enough for someone who seemed threatened by your very light. It’s the confusion of loving someone who competed with you for attention, who made your achievements about her sacrifices, who taught you that your feelings only mattered when they mirrored hers.
What Your Nervous System Remembers
Before coming to therapy at Jim Brillon Therapy, you might notice your throat closing when you try to speak your truth. Your chest might feel tight when someone shows you unconditional kindness. That hypervigilance that kept you safe as a child—always watching, always adjusting, always anticipating—might still be running the show decades later.
After months of healing work together, something shifts. The constant tension in your shoulders begins to soften. You start to feel your feelings without immediately apologizing for them. That inner critic that sounds suspiciously like your mother’s voice? It doesn’t have to run the show anymore.
Clara’s Journey: Learning to Trust Her Own Voice
“I felt like a reflection, not a person,” Clara told me during one of our early sessions. At 38, she was successful by every external measure, yet felt hollow inside. Her mother had been both her harshest critic and biggest competitor—praising Clara’s sister while dismissing Clara’s accomplishments as “showing off” or “too much.” She could cut her to the quick with a word and a gesture.
Clara’s body held stress from decades of walking on eggshells. She’d learned to read micro-expressions, to anticipate needs before they were spoken, to make herself useful enough to earn scraps of approval. But she’d never learned to trust her own perceptions.
“I don’t even know who I am outside of her orbit,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Through our work together, Clara began to notice the difference between her authentic voice and the voice she’d learned to perform with. We explored what happened in her body when she spoke her truth versus when she said what she thought her mother wanted to hear. Slowly, carefully, she started to trust that her inner world mattered—not because it served someone else, but because it was hers. She learned how to establish limits, detach with love and protect her own energy.
“I used to think therapy was about fixing what was wrong with me,” Clara reflected months later. “Now I understand it’s about remembering I was never broken in the first place.”
The Invisible Wounds of Narcissistic Mothering
When your mother is a narcissist, love becomes conditional—a prize to be won through perfect behavior, useful compliance, or emotional invisibility. You learned that your sadness was “too dramatic,” your joy was “too much,” and your anger was “disrespectful.” So you learned to hide your inner world or reshape it to keep the peace. Everything in your relationship was transactional, and you’d developed a Role Self and healing fantasies.
The Patterns That Shaped Your Childhood
Maybe you were triangulated between your parents or pitted against your siblings. Perhaps your mother competed with you for your father’s attention, or made your milestones about her—your graduation became a testament to her sacrifice, your relationship became a threat to her centrality.
The person who was supposed to love you unconditionally felt threatened by your achievements, your relationships, your growing independence. Your privacy wasn’t respected. Your boundaries were routinely violated. Your developing sense of self became subject to her needs, her moods, her version of reality. She socially undermined you to others, and you know only the tip of the iceberg of it.
These aren’t just memories—they’re patterns that live in your nervous system, shaping how you move through the world today.
How Healing Actually Happens
In my practice, we don’t just talk about your childhood—we help your body learn new responses to old triggers. When you notice that familiar tightness in your chest during conflict, we pause and breathe together. When you catch yourself scanning for disapproval, we gently explore what’s happening beneath the surface.
Using EMDR to Reprocess Narcissistic Abuse
Some things live in the body long after the mind has moved on. That’s where approaches like EMDR can help—not to erase your past, but to give your nervous system new ways to respond when old wounds get activated. We reprocess traumatic memories, and install positive self beliefs to replace the internalized negative ones.
We practice feeling your feelings without immediately judging them or pushing them away. We explore what it means to set boundaries without guilt, to take up space without apology, to be imperfect and still worthy of love. We explore how to detach with love and to disengage from circular arguments, protecting your energy and self-esteem. We may explore patterns of attachment and how they affect your relationships.
This isn’t about forgiving your mother or understanding her childhood trauma. It’s about reclaiming your right to feel, to need, to exist without constantly making yourself smaller.
Why I Work Differently with Narcissistic Abuse Survivors
I understand that trust, including in one’s self, doesn’t come easily when the person who was supposed to protect you felt threatened by your light. In our sessions at Jim Brillon Therapy, we move at your pace. We notice what happens in your body when you speak certain truths. We practice sitting with uncomfortable feelings without immediately trying to fix or change them.
I don’t just listen—I help you feel safe in the silence, too. Here, you’re not performing healing or proving you’re “doing it right.” You’re simply allowed to be exactly where you are, feeling exactly what you feel, without judgment or pressure to be anywhere else.
Creating Safety in the Therapeutic Relationship
Some days, therapy might feel like learning a new language—the language of self-compassion, of boundaries, of relationships that don’t require you to shrink or perform. We take the time you need to trust that this space is truly yours.
When Everything Changes, Yet Nothing Changes
One of the most painful aspects of healing from narcissistic abuse is realizing that your mother may never change, may never acknowledge the harm, may never become the parent you needed. But here’s what I’ve witnessed time and again: when you stop waiting for her validation and start trusting your own experience, everything shifts.
You begin to notice the difference between people who celebrate your light and those who feel threatened by it. You start choosing relationships where you can be fully yourself without fear of retaliation. You discover that love doesn’t have to be earned—it can simply be received.
Your mother’s inability to see you clearly was never a reflection of your worth. It was a limitation of her capacity, not a verdict on your value.
A Different Kind of Relationship with Yourself
Healing from a narcissistic mother isn’t about becoming someone new—it’s about remembering who you were before you learned to hide. It’s about trusting your perceptions, honoring your needs, and believing that your inner world matters.
You don’t have to earn your way into wellness. You don’t have to perform recovery or prove you deserve care. The child in you who learned to walk on eggshells, who made themself useful to stay safe, who learned that love was something to be won—that child deserves the unconditional acceptance they never received.
You Don’t Have to Figure This Out Alone
If you’re reading this and recognizing yourself in these words, please know: you’re not imagining it. Your experience was real. Your pain matters. And healing is possible, even when it feels impossibly far away.
You were never the problem. You were a child who needed to be seen, not managed. That need doesn’t disappear—it just learns to find safer places to land.
Therapy can be that safer place—a space where you can explore who you are beyond the roles you learned to play, where you can practice trusting yourself, where you can slowly, gently, learn to come home to yourself.
If you’re ready to stop walking on eggshells and start trusting your own ground, I’m here. This journey toward reclaiming yourself doesn’t have to be walked alone.
Frequently Asked Questions About Healing from Narcissistic Mothers
How do I know if my mother was actually narcissistic or just difficult?
Narcissistic mothers consistently make everything about themselves—your achievements become their sacrifices, your struggles become their burdens. They compete with you, feel threatened by your independence, and can’t celebrate your successes without diminishing them. There are clearly identifiable criteria to determine narcissism. If you constantly walked on eggshells, if love felt conditional on perfect behavior, if your feelings only mattered when they matched hers—these are signs worth exploring in therapy.
Why do I still feel guilty even though I know she was wrong?
That guilt is misplaced, and is driven by your nervous system trying to protect the attachment bond that kept you safe as a child. It is a conditioned response. You learned that disagreeing with or separating from your mother meant danger—emotional withdrawal, rage, or abandonment. In therapy, I help you understand that this guilt isn’t evidence you’re doing something wrong; it’s an old alarm system that hasn’t learned you’re safe now.
Can I heal if my narcissistic mother is still in my life?
Yes, healing is possible whether you maintain contact, limit contact, or have no contact. The work isn’t about changing her—it’s about changing your internal responses and boundaries. I help you navigate whatever level of contact feels right for you, without judgment about what that should look like.
Will therapy make me hate my mother?
No, therapy helps you see the situation clearly—acknowledging both the love you might feel and the harm that was done. It will help you to learn to validate your own feelings, trust your own reality and your own original goodness. Many clients find that understanding the dynamics actually reduces their anger over time. You can recognize that your mother’s limitations caused harm without demonizing her or denying any positive aspects of your relationship.
How does EMDR specifically help with narcissistic abuse?
EMDR helps reprocess the memories of incidents where you learned that your needs didn’t matter, that love was conditional, that you had to perform to be valued. We might work with specific moments—being dismissed, criticized, or made responsible for her emotions. EMDR helps your nervous system understand that those experiences, while real, don’t define your worth today. And it helps us replace internalized negative identity messages with positive ones.
What if I’m becoming like my narcissistic mother?
This fear is incredibly common and actually shows self-awareness that narcissists typically lack. Many people with highly narcissistic people in their lives feel like they are losing their own empathy. What is happening is that you are sick and tired of it all, and you become reactive. The fact that you’re worried about it suggests you’re not becoming her. In therapy, we can explore these fears, identify any learned patterns you want to change, and develop healthier ways of relating that honor both your needs and others’.
Ready to stop walking on eggshells and reclaim your authentic self? Contact Jim Brillon Therapy to begin healing from narcissistic abuse and discovering who you really are.
