It takes a world of courage to go no contact with your narcissistic mother. For a long time, you see her as 'Mom.' You aren't supposed to not have a relationship with your mom, right? Wrong.
If she's toxic, you have to do what you can to stay sane and healthy. If that means going no contact, then that's what you do.
I had a client tell me she cried for three days before blocking her mother's number. Then she woke up on day four feeling lighter than she had in years.
Don't expect her to stay quiet though. She will make your life hell in as many ways as she can in order to punish you and regain control, especially by doing the following 11 things to you.
1 Yes, she is upset!
Any narcissistic mother will be upset that her child has chosen to go no contact with her, and it really has nothing to do with how much she loves you, or will miss you.
Healthy moms would, but a narcissistic mother will miss only your supply; what you bring to the table to fuel her. You were her audience. When she wanted to take her moods out on someone, she picked you.
You took it all, and now you're taking that away from her and she has nobody to replace you.
And that panic? It's not maternal. It's logistical. She's already scrambling to work out who she'll unload on now that her favourite emotional dumping ground has walked away.
You being gone in the blink of an eye will cause her to react, and not in a good way. That's why I think it's important to teach you that if your own mother has done any of these things, this isn't personal, this is personality.
2 Your phone goes off nonstop
First off, you will experience the age-old predictable calls, texts, emails, social media tags or comments; whatever it takes for your narcissistic mother to get your attention. They will be constant, too.
She wants to get a reaction from you, because that's what she's lived off for the past goodness knows how long. If she has little pride, she will beg you to come back or talk, telling you she loves you.
If she has too much of that, she will go straight in for the kill:
After all I've done for you, this is how you treat me.
And the messages come in waves. Ten in an hour, then silence for a day, then a fresh round at midnight when she knows you're tired and softer.
How dare you? Who do you think you are? You are breaking this family apart! At some point, she wants to trigger you. At some point, she wants you to snap back.
I ask you not to give her what she wants, because that will be like handing all the control and power over to her.
3 The flying monkeys come to play
Out of the blue, you'll get calls from your aunt who never calls. Your cousin sends you this long text about how families should always remain loyal to each other. People reach out on your narcissistic mother's behalf, and you sigh.
Is this what your life is now going to resemble? You're being guilt tripped on the daily, and it's no fun. This wasn't what freedom should feel like.
Your toxic mom has been on the phone, trying to get as many recruits as she can to do her dirty work for her. She's involving everyone, blaming you and making out that you're the problem.
She builds an army to reach out to you because it's something she's unable to do herself. You'll be surprised how many people actually buy this.
See also 5 Creepy Things Every Narcissist Hides Somewhere in Their HouseOne cousin messaged mine with, "She's your mother, at the end of the day." As if biology cancels out years of harm. It doesn't. It never has.
4 The victim mode gets switched on, full volume
I didn't do anything wrong. I tried all I could to be there. I have no idea why this is happening. My child has always been difficult. I think she's been brainwashed to hate me. It's never your narcissistic mother's fault.
The real problem is that she isn't being honest about what actually happened, and how she's treated you all these years. You don't get a chance to speak up, you just automatically get pushed into the corner of blame, and that's where she wants to keep you.
And she'll perform this for anyone who'll listen. Aunts, neighbours, the woman at the post office. By the time you show up, everyone already thinks you're the villain.
5 She starts showing up everywhere
Everywhere you go, there she will be. She wants to bump into you so you feel confused and frazzled, and end up caving in and talking to her.
She wants to get you to a point where she is in control, and she will stop at nothing to make her appearances get you to a place of discomfort.
The grocery store. The gym parking lot. Your friend's coffee shop. Suddenly she's just "passing through," and she's got that soft, worried face on.
I am your mother. I am allowed to check you're okay. I was worried about you. It's those boundaries again, right?
6 The grand gesture comes, and so does the waiting
Flowers sent, handwritten letters. If they don't work, she will reach out to your spouse, claiming that she is a victim and sending grand gestures to you both.
One client of mine had her mother turn up on the doorstep with a hamper and a card signed by every aunt in the family. Group pressure, dressed up as love.
She wants everything to go back to normal, but this is the part of the cycle that you need to break because otherwise things will revert right back to how they were. Remember why you went no contact!
7 She love-bombs the grandkids
I know someone who went no contact with her narcissistic mother, and she told me how her toxic mom used to send large sums of money in the mail for her child's birthday.
It was cash, and every year she was stuck with the problem of sending it back (which meant contact), or accepting it (a reason for her toxic mom to tell everyone, "She takes my money but doesn't let me see my grandchild").
She decided on putting it into an ISA and not saying who it was from, just that it was money saved over time. Gifts would be sent in the mail as they got older, directly addressed to them, and they'd open them.
If it weren't for their mother's honesty about how much trouble their grandmother had caused over the years, those kids would have fallen for it. Some do, and that's where conflict and triangulation starts.
These are ways narcissists try to get their foot back in the door, and a lot of the time it sadly works.
The gift is never really a gift. It's a message that says, "Look how generous I am, look what your mother is keeping from you." Grandkids can't read that subtext.
8 The smear campaign begins
Oh boy, can it get nasty? Yes! Smear campaigns were never designed to be a good thing, and for the victim, the child of this narcissistic mother, this is no exception. I don't know how we're related. She's been so unkind to me.
I've done nothing but help and support him. This is what I get. I cannot believe I gave birth to somebody so insensitive. They need help. It will go on and on, and the aim is to completely shred their own child's reputation to pieces.
It works, and people distance themselves, which can be hard for anyone to be on the receiving end of.
The saddest part? The people who distance themselves usually never come to ask you your side. They just take her word and quietly drop away.
9 Expect a sibling fallout…
Always. The golden child vs. the scapegoat will begin conflict proceedings from an early age. The golden child will resent and envy the scapegoat's ability and courage to speak their mind, be a genuinely empathetic person, and to not be afraid to stand up to the narcissist.
The scapegoat will respond to the golden child's largely favorited treatment and try harder to be loved and seen by their narcissistic mom, to no avail.
Eventually, caused by the narcissistic mother when you go no contact, she will get her revenge by pulling something easy out of her hat; triangulating you and your sibling for good.
Expect more severed lines here, as you through no choice of your own have to then put up with your sibling choosing no contact in defense of your narcissistic mother. I wish I was kidding, but I'm not. This is real life for many.
One client told me her brother sent a single message after she went no contact with their mother: "You've broken her heart. Don't contact me again." That was three years ago.
10 The guilt gifts start rolling in on holidays
You've been no contact for a few months, and then December hits. Or your birthday. Or Easter. And suddenly there's a parcel on your doorstep.
It's never a small thing either. It's the expensive candle you once mentioned. It's a card with your childhood nickname on it. It's a gift voucher for that store you liked when you were sixteen, because she wants you to know she remembers.
And of course, she's telling everybody about it. "I sent her something lovely and she didn't even say thank you." Now you're the ungrateful daughter who rejects her mother's kindness at Christmas.
The gifts aren't gifts. They're a paper trail. Proof she "tried." Ammunition for the next family gathering you're not at.
I had someone tell me once she got a hamper the size of a small child on her doorstep, three months into no contact, with a note that just said "thinking of you always." She cried on the kitchen floor.
Not because she missed her mother, but because she knew exactly what that hamper was doing.
See also 8 Creepy Bedtime Habits That Only a Narcissist Would Have11 She rewrites your childhood in real time
Suddenly, your entire upbringing looks nothing like what you actually lived through.
She's on the phone to your aunt saying, "I don't know what happened, I gave that child everything." To your cousin it's, "She was always so difficult, even as a toddler." To her friends at church, "I sacrificed my whole life for her."
And you sit there reading the messages back to yourself thinking, wait, that isn't what happened. That isn't even close to what happened.
This is one of the cruelest parts of going no contact with a narcissistic mother. She doesn't just accept your absence, she uses it to build a whole new version of history where she's the wounded saint and you're the ungrateful daughter who abandoned her for no reason.
I had a woman message me last month, she said her mother had told the entire extended family that she'd "gone off the rails" and needed prayer. She hadn't gone off anything. She'd just stopped answering the phone.
That's the whole crime. Silence.
