Damages from being raised by a mother who has Covert Narcissistic and Machiavellian traits.

I am a codependent in recovery. I realized that my mother has a lot of covert narcissistic traits. Although she might not be a full-fledged covert narcissist, my therapist calls her a Machiavellian personality.

She’s very self-centric. She can be very exploitative, has very low or almost no empathy, and is definitely an emotionally unsafe person.

So it was only through therapy that I realized the damage that I incurred because of her. And this was so important for me because I always encountered the same kind of people in my life who exploited me emotionally. They emotionally destroyed me to the extent that I lost my sense of self, my routine was disrupted, my mental peace was disrupted, my self-esteem and self-worth were eroded, and I entered a very, very dark place. I almost collapsed. So it was only then, in therapy, that I realized that the behaviours I thought were normal were actually damaging and harmful. I thought that was love, and I thought that was how relationships were. But unfortunately, they were all red flags any normal person would notice and ignore, and not even be friends with such people. But I would entertain them, welcome them into my life, and even my long-term boyfriend was one of them.

These are the damages I realised.

1. My mum used me as a punching bag to dump all her emotions, from her anxiety to her paranoia, to her fear, to her disdain, to her depression, to her suicidal thoughts, ever since I was six years old. She would constantly dump all her emotions and take them out on me. I thought that was called love. I thought that was called holding space for our loved ones.

The damage that this caused me in the real world was that I attracted energy vampires, mentally disordered people, and personality-disordered people who would just dump and unload all their emotions on me, and I ended up carrying the whole emotional baggage of other people.

2. My mum would project onto me. She would constantly project all her insecurities and everything onto me, and I became the emotional scapegoat.

I attracted friends who were always very insecure, and they always made me the emotional scapegoat. I had low self-esteem because of my trauma, and I thought their projections onto me were true, and I would sit and think and try to fix myself. It was only then that I realized they were just projecting all their rubbish onto me.

3. My mum would deliberately withhold recognition. She would never give me recognition for all the good things that I did for her. She would make me do all the emotional labour. I never knew that she was withholding recognition as a way to control me so that I would keep chasing her for validation. This ended up with me always running after her for love and approval.

The damage that this caused me in the real world was that I chased people for love, thinking that love had to be earned, that love was something I had to work hard for. I ended up with a toxic partner who would make me work so hard for love, and he would give me breadcrumbs. I was so emotionally starved that I thought the breadcrumbs were a big deal, when actually they were not even the bare minimum.

4. My mum would always nitpick at me, constantly criticize me for every single small thing. This created so much frustration and irritation in me, but I never knew it because my mind didn’t bring it to my conscious awareness. In my body, I always felt it, but I never knew why I felt that way.

I never knew that when someone nitpicks you, you have to set a boundary. I would tolerate and tolerate. I ended up attracting friends who would nitpick and criticise me and basically just make me feel like I’m not good enough, just so they could make themselves feel better. My long-term boyfriend did that to me for more than 10 years, and I didn’t even realise it until I saw the damage my mother left in me.

5. My mum would play with my emotions. She would always threaten to abandon me emotionally, say things like she’s not going to be there for me, that she’s probably just going to die, and use the silent treatment to punish me. She would always say things to cause me to react emotionally. It would end up with me having to chase her and beg her to forgive me. She would guilt-trip me all the time and put me in a position where I would do things for her out of fear and compulsion, more than love.

But I wrongly mistook that for love, so I ended up with people who would guilt-trip me and exploit me.

6. Next, she would constantly be chaotic and erratic, but I never knew that was chaotic and erratic. I thought someone being chaotic was normal. That was my trauma speaking. So part of my trauma response was attracting people who were unstable, chaotic, erratic, and volatile, and I thought that was normal and that I had to stabilize them by giving my emotions to them.

So I attracted so many energy vampires who would just suck the life and blood out of me that my soul was drained.

Lastly, my mum always needed me to constantly rescue her and clean up her mess. She would do things impulsively, and then I would have to come and rescue her, and that’s where my saviour mindset developed.

Because I always tried to fix my mum and her issues, I ended up with friends, and especially a partner, whom I was always trying to fix, to the point of burnout and exhaustion.

I’m so happy that I finally know what damage my trauma did and why I was responding the way I was to people in life, because I realized that was my trauma response.

So now that I know what is harmful and what the red flags are, I filter out people who exhibit all these qualities because I now know these are emotionally unsafe people. I try to heal so that I feel more deserving of good people in my life and can attract people who are healthy, nourishing, emotionally safe, and who will help me grow, not people who will further hurt and damage me.