Is my mom a narcissist?
Tagging this as NSFW since suicide is mentioned.
Anyway, I’m genuinely trying to figure this question out. To give some background on my mom, she had a terrible upbringing. Her father was an alcoholic, her mother was horribly depressed to the extent of having meltdowns where she’d throw glass cups at my mom and her dad before she eventually ended up killing herself. My mom was a kid at the time and received no help or counseling over it.
To make matters worse, my mom’s older sister ended up taking her in. The issue with this is that her sister absolutely hated her, and let her freak-ass husband around her. I won’t get into details over him, but I don’t use “freak” lightly in regard to this man. All and all, not an ideal start to her life. As she reminds me each and every time I try to bring up issues I have with her.
I am 27 years old and still live with my parents. I’m on good standing with them. We get along well, and I make sure to do my share of chores when I’m home from my job. Both my mom and dad love me, and I love them too. Their relationship started off rocky and I am proud they were able to mend it as much as they were able. Most days are good. Other days it’s really hard to be around my mom.
She refuses to seek out and commit to getting real mental help for herself. There have numerous times throughout my life that I have been witness to manic episodes where it is impossible to reason with her. She’ll just sit in her chair, stare daggers at the wall, and just say some of the most hateful shit I have ever heard come out of her mouth.
How much she hates my dad for how he acted when he drank, how my brother pretty much isn’t her son anymore since he got married, how much she hates one of my aunts ( which, honestly, fair). This doesn’t happen much, but sometimes on a normal day she’ll let some comments slip out and it makes me so angry and uncomfortable, and them gets mad at me if I show even the slightest inch of discomfort.
She thinks the while goddamn world is out to get her. I can’t look her in the eyes without her saying, “Why are you looking at my hair? I know it looks bad.” She’s been having trouble with her hair for I don’t know how many years, and it’s been twice that she’s come home from an appointment and said she felt like dying or killing herself. But she refuses help.
The last thing I will add is something that happened when I was 4-5 years old. This was in the height of my dad’s alcoholism. My mom and dad were arguing, screaming back and forth. My dad threw a pan across the kitchen, so in turn my mom went to the front door to start throwing all of our shoes at the wall. I was crying as I was witness to the full thing. Mom didn’t like this. She proceeded to get right in my face and scream, “YOU GONNA KEEP CRYING!?” I remember myself running away from her and cowering in my bedroom, and the memory doesn’t fail to make me both livid and sad. I’ve never brought this up to her.
This is more of a vent than a question, but my question remains. Is her using her own upbringing to downplay my grievances, and her refusing to get counseling despite the fact that she is depressed and emotionally sensitive, narcissism? Or is this something I should continue to try and empathize with even though I can feel myself eroding mentally and cannot see a solution in sight?