10 Signs of a Mother with Vulnerable Narcissism | Mother-Son Relationship

welcome to my scientifically informed insider look at mental health topics if you find this video to be interesting or helpful please like it and subscribe to my channel hello this is dr. grande today's question asks I can look at these signs of a mother with vulnerable narcissistic traits so I've looked at narcissism from the grandiose side but this is from the vulnerable side and this is specifically in the context of a mother-son relationship so answer this question by looking at the ten signs of a mother with vulnerable narcissistic traits and these will focus on narcissistic behaviors that would be directly observable by the son so I've talked about narcissism a number of times so I'm just going to briefly go over the construct to illustrate the differences between grandiose and vulnerable so with narcissism we see there's a tendency to be self-centered a sense of entitlement a need for admiration and a low score on agreeableness like one of the big five traits agreeableness we see that grandiose narcissism has characteristics like arrogance being self-confident having superficial charm being callous unemotional having externalize danga and being resistant to criticism vulnerable narcissism is quite a bit different it still has those common elements but it has other elements like being resentful having distrust for people having a lot of shame being defensive unforgiving having internalized anger and being hypersensitive to criticism so as we can see grandiose narcissism is quite a bit different than vulnerable and vulnerable looks a little bit like borderline personality pathology and some of those commonalities will be reflected in these signs so now moving to the ten signs when I use the term mother I'm referring to the mother with vulnerable narcissistic traits it's just easier to say mother so starting with sign number one the mother recognizes that there may be some areas that she needs to change this is a vague recognition she doesn't really understand the nature of narcissism she believes that the way she's been treated by other people is primarily responsible for her negative feelings we've referred to this as an external locus of control so she believes that her emotions are controlled by other people she doesn't believe that she can change internally she's likely to have comorbid conditions like depression and anxiety and this is because of the high neuroticism now we see that neuroticism is positively correlated to vulnerable narcissism it's actually the trait in the Big Five model that has the strongest connection to vulnerable narcissism it's somewhat likely due to this vague recognition the mother has that she has received some form of mental health counseling but not for narcissism but rather for the related conditions again like depression and anxiety moving to sign number two arguments start because the mother believes that she is a victim now the mother would not be typically dramatic or emotionally expressive but more passive aggressive in nature she can continue the argument for days weeks or months and this really stresses the importance of boundaries sometimes it's better just to walk away from an argument and not invest any energy in primarily she will direct her anger internally so she will suffer quite a bit when she has arguments with her son just because the anger is primarily directed internally doesn't mean that there's no externalize danker it's just a bit more subtle than compared to grandiose narcissism but the son will have much of a problem detecting it because the mother will keep increasing the expression of anger until the son picks up on it right so it starts at a low level again kind of subtle and she'll just keep moving until she gets the reaction that she's looking for moving to sign number three the mother is unforgiving this is what I refer to as the dark cloud of vulnerable narcissism the son didn't have to do anything wrong for the mother to be upset with him but if he does do something wrong it's held against him forever she ends up in the cycle where she says that she forgives the son but then she brings up whatever the action was again so that she can gain leverage in a way the bad acts of the son are like an investment to the mother they pay dividends to her on a regular basis so she doesn't really want to give them up it's one thing to give up say a hundred dollars and spend it on something to give it as a gift it's another thing to give up a hundred dollars worth stock shares that might pay dividends for many years to come again that's how she kind of thinks of it whatever the Sun has done that's bad this counterbalances the mother's bad acts at least in her mind signed number four the mother is relatively good at picking up deception and other people this is due to the neuroticism specifically the high level of negative emotions vulnerable narcissists pay attention to social and environmental cues where somebody is looking how they are dressed what type of expression they have on their face they do this because they're looking for threats but this vigilance combined with the high level of negative emotions actually makes the mother fairly effective at figuring out when somebody's lying grandiose narcissist are not good at this what does this mean for the son if he wants to deceive the mother like to get out doing something like if he makes an excuse for not going over to her house when she wanted him to go over there's a good chance she's gonna pick up on that lie and that eventually is gonna turn into an argument sign number five the mother believes that her status as the mother entitles her to being the only important person in the son's life she doesn't view the relationship as something that needs development or resources put into it for her it's automatic she's entitled to it she deserves it again without doing anything to earn it on a regular basis that status belongs to her she's particularly offended if the son enters into a long-term romantic relationship and starts to invest in that relationship with this partner and really any relationship that takes time away from the mother would be something that catches her attention sign number six the mother is vindictive in a subtle way say the son does something that the mother doesn't like like turns down invitation to see her she might casually mention that the son will be cut out of the will she might say something like if you don't need me why do you need my stuff but presented in a serious way like a matter-of-fact way she may give away one of son's possessions that was left in her house like if the son had toys or other property he left there when he moved out she may give those away to somebody else particularly if they had sentimental value and she will deliberately mention it and act surprised if the son reacts negatively to that information if the son has siblings the mother will point out how they care for her and appreciate her much more than the son does so she might say something like at least I did a good job of raising some of my children sign number seven the mother is insecure she predicts the son will abandon her now this of course overlaps with borderline personality pathology we see that symptom criterion for borderline frantic efforts to avoid abandonment here we see some efforts to avoid abandonment but they're not frantic they're not really desperate so this fear of abandonment isn't quite as pronounced with vulnerable narcissism we see the mother is particularly sensitive when the son talks about new friends or even hobbies that might take time away from her now this overlaps with that other side this is specifically around abandonment so we see kind of a few things get activated another part of this insecurity the mother looks to prevent loss like she doesn't want to lose the affection of the son the attention of the son this is a key difference between vulnerable and grandiose narcissism grandiose narcissist want to make gains they want to add to what they have they're not really worried about losing what they have a vulnerable narcissist is concerned with losing what they have sign number eight she says she wants a close relationship with the son but she contends that the son can't provide the emotional depth necessary to make that happen he's just not trying hard enough he doesn't love her enough or he loves somebody else and that's taken the place of the mother so she blames the son for her own narcissistic tennessee's in addition she has terrible listening skills she's shallow and impressionistic so when somebody's impressionistic they talk about different things without putting detail in this overlaps with histrionic Personality now all these things taken together makes it really difficult for the son to spend time with her and develop that relationship at some point the son realizes there's a limit to how functional and meaningful that relationship can be and he realizes that he's not at fault for that relationship being a disappointment to the mother moving to sign number nine the mother is unhappy with her life now we know that vulnerable narcissism is negatively correlated with life satisfaction so the higher the level of narcissism the lower the level of life satisfaction the mother is not happy with herself as a person she does not view herself as successful but she gets angry with other people if they view her as not successful this sense of being a failure is not something the mother admits she promotes herself to others as being competent and wonderful but internally in her thoughts and her feelings she views herself as a failure she wants her son to affirm her worth so she fishes for compliments now moving to sign number 10 this is the last sign of the mother with vulnerable narcissistic traits this is low trust the mother sees other people as threatening to her and this can make her appear cold and distant other people are trying to take something from her deceive her make her look foolish this is referred to as the hostile attribution bias and it has a strong association with vulnerable narcissism this is when somebody has a tendency to look at ambiguous situations as hostile so again we see the mother is suspicious that people hate her so she acts out Ana condescending an arrogant way and antagonize his people when those people act out against her because they've been antagonized she says that she knew they're out together right so there's this vicious cycle that forms and this can be maintained for a long time she may want the son to intervene to prove to her that he's on her side to stop associating with people she views his enemies and she may want the son to even confront these people for her and this is a situation that can get really unpleasant and potentially dangerous really quickly the mother may actually have a lot of power over the son she is manipulating him to do what she wants done and again this can become a situation that's not good for anybody so all these signs really stress the importance of boundaries I touched on that before the son at some point has to set healthy boundaries with the mother who has vulnerable narcissism I know whenever I talk about topics like narcissism there will be a variety of opinions please put any opinions and thoughts in the comment section they always generate a really interesting dialogue as always hope you found this description of narcissism would be interesting thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 176,290

Keywords: narcissistic mother, mother son relationship, son of a narcissist, vulnerable narcissism, covert narcissism, shame, anger, aggression, hypersensitivity, introverted, defensive, avoidant, anxious, depressed, socially awkward, neurotic, shy, manipulative, blame-shifting, gaslighting, self-esteem, FFM, big five personality traits, openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism

Id: UwMD2Fyosqw

Length: 11min 26sec (686 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 20 2020