Check, check, not check

Check out this article/interview in Elle by Virginia Vitzhum:

Were you blessed with a narcissistic mother-- one who constantly criticized you, competed with you, and habituated you to self-loathing? Welcome to the club, says therapist Karyl McBride--and it's high time that you faced it and dealt with it.

As I read the article, some things resonated, others not so much. I'd not diagnose mom with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).

Although...

"According to Denver-based therapist Karyl McBride, author of Will I Ever Be Good Enough? Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers, an NPD mother treats her children—daughters, especially—as extensions of herself, trampling recklessly over their psychic boundaries. She casts her daughter as an understudy or co-diva or successor and then judges her performance as harshly as the mother imagines she herself is judged. She projects onto her daughter her own issues with beauty, seductiveness, and appearance, as well as with success in relationships and careers."

That one is awfully close to home. But McBride "contends that narcissism is a “spectrum disorder” of widely varying intensity and that most people have some tendencies toward it."

Then, on McBride's diagnostic checklist is, “When you discuss your feelings with your mother, does she or did she try to top the feelings with her own?” Check.

"The classic sins of the n-mother include constant criticism, ignoring or minimizing her daughter's feelings, and worrying about how the family looks to outsiders." Check, check, not check.

Interesting stuff, though.