The Shame of Growing Up with a Narcissistic Mother | Dear Tim Series — Letter from "Annie"

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]I still struggle to believe that anyone could love me. I'm very alert to potential manipulation and often assume people aren't being fully honest with me. I would love to be in a healthy relationship someday, but I'm afraid that my lack of trust will push someone good away. If my own mother couldn't love me unconditionally, it's hard to imagine anyone else truly can. How do I learn to trust in a relationship without constantly assuming that people are using me? Well, welcome to another episode of Letters to Tim. We started this a few months ago and we weren't sure what kind of response we would get.

[00:00:39]We had just received a number of letters asking me to respond to them and we weren't sure how many people would be interested or how many it would help.

[00:00:49]So, we decided to do four and give it a try. And we were quite overwhelmed and pleased with the response.

[00:00:57]And so, based on that, we decided that we would do a few more letters. And we want you to know up front that since we've done the the first four, we've got many more requests that I respond to letters and that people have given me permission to read their letters and respond to it in this very public way.

[00:01:18]What we also realize is that I feel very much at a disadvantage when I respond to letters because if I was in a counseling session, I would hear a person basically read their letter to me, tell their story, but then I would begin asking questions and exploring just to make sure I was understanding it properly, that I was getting all the factors, that they were seeing some things that maybe they weren't seeing. And so there would be a process of discovery to make sure that we were seeing this accurately. So this was going to get accurately diagnosed because the more accurate you see a issue and the underlying issues the more accurately and better you can help a person and so I don't have that privilege and I have to take kind of years of experience and and try to make some assumptions that I hope are accurate and fill in the blanks that I hope are accurate. And so I want to read a letter today from Annie. A letter that is very common to many many people and I hope that it helps you. So it goes like this. Dear Tim, your videos have helped me tremendously especially in understanding how central shame has been in my life. And we hear this from many people. I'm in my early 50s and until this past year, I spent most of my life people pleasing and have little sense of boundaries. Growing up, boundaries were not allowed. My father was mostly passive and used humor to deflect tension while my mother dominated our family dynamic. If I showed vulnerability or disagreed with her, she would mock me or ignore me. If I showed vulnerability or disagreed with her, she would mock me or ignore me. I already felt different because I was adopted and she told me at a young age that she could never love me unconditionally and that I should look elsewhere for that kind of love. I was about eight when she said this. She also expressed disappointment about aspects of who I was and I learned early on that it wasn't safe to share my feelings or be myself. Over time, I stopped trying and focused on becoming whatever she wanted me to be. This pattern followed me into adulthood. Friendships with women often didn't last, and I experienced two marriages where I felt emotionally sidelined. I often felt valued more for what I provided or for physical closeness than for who I was as a person.

[00:04:01]After decades of feeling disconnected from myself and believing something was fundamentally wrong with me, I now find it very hard to trust anyone to love me simply for who I am rather than for what I can do for them. I've grown in self-compassion and can honestly say I love myself more than ever. I'm proud that I love my children unconditionally and know what that kind of love looks like. And yet I still struggle to believe that anyone could love me in that same way. I'm very alert to potential manipulation and often assume people aren't being fully honest with me. I would love to be in a healthy relationship someday, but I'm afraid that my lack of trust will push someone good away. If my own mother couldn't love me unconditionally, it's hard to imagine anyone else truly can. I worry that people only care about me based on what I offer. And I don't know how to tell whether someone is genuine or just wearing a mask. My question is this. How do I learn to trust in a relationship without constantly assuming that people are using me? and Annie, thank you for being willing to share this and have me respond to it because I hear stories similar to this regularly. So, let me just see if I can outline what I would say are key issues in your stories. I think first of all, what I see in your family dynamic is you had a narcissistic and a father that learned how to fawn and they enabled. They didn't stand up to your mother. That would cause too much conflict. So, they learned to conform and that was in passive ways by being funny, by deflecting. But it was your mother that kind of controlled the family dynamic. She was the leader within that dynamic and was quite narcissistic.

[00:06:07]And what begins to be evident to me is that she didn't really care about your needs. She thought the way for you to grow up and be a good person and to have a good relationship with her and to have a healthy family was that you had to change. You had to conform. She didn't have to change. She was going to be who she was going to be. And she didn't realize that she needed to learn how to love you unconditionally. She needed to learn how to meet your needs. That didn't come into her thinking. It was that you had to come to accept that you weren't going to get loved by her unconditionally. You had to come to accept that you're the problem if you have a personality that thing that she doesn't like. She wasn't willing to honestly look at herself. She put everything on to you. And as a child, you accept that that must be the truth.

[00:07:02]And so, because dad went along with it, well, then that even confirms that that must be the truth. But what I want you to see is that all of those things that she did and said and how dad then responded and conformed to that sent you shame messages that you weren't good enough the way you were that you had to earn love that your personality was unacceptable that you had to con wear masks that you had to become something else in order to be loved and so I think it's important to see that your mother I don't think was capable because of whatever her past is of loving you unconditionally, of connecting with you.

[00:07:46]So, I'm not sure the reasons why she adopted you, but there seems to be something in her her deep issues that she was unwilling to look at that made her incapable of being the mother to you that you needed. That is just so very tragic. to me for you. There's going to be a time of grieving, grieving the childhood, the mother that you didn't have, that you should have had. Um, and and and that's a painful time and most people go through that in their healing journey.

[00:08:24]But the second thing that I want you to see is that that little child who was being told your personality is not good enough. You're never going to be loved unconditionally.

[00:08:33]There were a lot of dynamics there that were unsafe for that child. And so you had to adapt in order to survive. So that child was in survival mode. They were trying to get love. They were trying to get respect. They were trying to get their needs met. And so they were doing the dance to try to get that to happen. And we call that fawning. So you can't be authentic. You have to become whatever your mother wants you to be.

[00:08:59]Then hopefully you'll earn mom's respect and love and she'll meet your needs. You have to gain value not based on who you are but based on what you do. And so you have to now earn love and respect. You can't just have love and respect because of who you are. And what always happens within that process is that you abandon yourself. You become less and less authentic. You become smaller and smaller. Your needs don't matter.

[00:09:32]Everybody else's needs matter more. You must be what they want you to be. And you must be what they want you to be.

[00:09:38]Even if it goes against your gut, even if it goes against your personality, your your values. And so you find yourself in this abandoning of self, disconnecting from self phase. But more than that, you're being hurt. you're being your needs aren't being met and and so the people that you are trusting to care for you to connect with you to meet your needs aren't doing that and so you're losing your ability to trust people and at some point you just stop trusting people so that gradual process is taking place within that child. I just want to say one word about the adoption because many of the people I've worked with over the years have been adopted and a lot of people go, "Oh, I was adopted into a new into a really good family. I don't think my adoption affected me negatively." And what I want you to see is that they are looking at adoption from their thinking brain perspective, from their cognitive place.

[00:10:44]What is important to understand with adoption is it happens preverbally. It happens outside of the conscious brain.

[00:10:52]It happens where their nervous system through the neurosception, the deep neurosception that takes place in the subconscious.

[00:11:03]It is drawing conclusions. It is responding.

[00:11:07]That's what you have to listen to. And what happens to a a child who's adopted even though they might be adopted into a good home is that deep in their neurosception in their nervous system they have developed a belief that somebody doesn't want me. I'm not good enough. I am abandoned.

[00:11:29]And it at a preverbal stage of life already sets the nervous system in a belief system that's quite negative. and it already sets the nervous system on high alert and danger around relationships.

[00:11:46]So it's really important to look at adoption not from that cognitive logical place but from that infant's neurosception.

[00:11:57]So that's just key issues to me. So you got shame that led to fawning because of a narcissistic mother and what she did and said. But how do you begin to heal that? I think it's important to understand there's people that have fawned to survive.

[00:12:18]Once they want to stop fonding, they find themselves in a double bind. So as soon as I go to change, all of a sudden I feel panic. All of a sudden I go, "Oh, this isn't right. This this feels wrong." And so they're caught. I don't want to stay where I am, but I I'm afraid to go where I should go to be healthy. And so they there's this double bind. And so what you have with the fawning double bind is I only got value by performing. But now if I go to saying I'm not going to perform if people don't like me just the way I am. That's on them. That creates a panic because what happens now if nobody likes me? What happens if nobody gives me attention? I have to earn attention. And so you feel this internal tension. And then love is conditional. What happens if I go to there's people out there that love unconditionally? I need to find them.

[00:13:11]That creates panic and anxiety. But and so that's a double bind. I can't I haven't I've gone through life not being able to trust people. What happens if I now gradually begin to trust people?

[00:13:24]That creates a panic because uhoh, they might let me down. So if something in me wants to sabotage all of those things.

[00:13:32]So what I want you to understand is your limbic brain when you have had a a default setting a normal for so many years that is unhealthy that is in survival fawning not trusting having unconditional love. As soon as you try to go to a healthier place to your nervous system it doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel normal. It feels wrong and so your nervous system feels stressed because of that. It feels uncomfortable.

[00:14:05]But understand that that's a temporary transition from an old default setting that was unhealthy to a new default setting that's healthy because I'm with safe people I can connect with. Also understand that as I move to that new setting, it's going to trigger my limbic brain. It's going to trigger danger, the emotional part of my brain, the survival part of my brain. And that when that gets triggered is going to want to pull me into old defensive patterns. Uh-oh, I'm in danger. I need to avoid. I need to shut down. I need to font. And so what you have to realize is that when my limbic brain gets triggered, it's pulling me to old survival tools that I've done for years that really aren't working anymore. I need to regulate my liyic brain. I need to get grounded and get back into my cortex, my wise brain, and go, "No, this is healthy behavior.

[00:15:10]It might feel uncomfortable. It might feel wrong, but I am going to choose to do it because I know it's the right thing to do. As you do that, you will begin to get more comfortable. You will not feel as stressed, and pretty soon it will be your normal. The next key thing is so much of your life that came out of living with a narcissist, being adopted is all about you got shame message after shame message after shame message that you weren't good enough, that you were abandoned, all of those things. So the healing of shame is going to be a critical piece of healing your trauma. I would say it's true for most people, but in your case, it's especially true. But understand that healing isn't some little magic quick fix. This there's so many layers to this onion. There's so many layers of shame that you're probably not even aware of yet. And so be prepared for just a very gradual slow journey of growing in awareness of core beliefs about yourself that are actually lies that you're not good enough. You have to earn love. You have to earn respect in relationships.

[00:16:28]You have to be what other people want.

[00:16:30]You can't set boundaries. You can't express your needs. All of those things.

[00:16:35]That is layer after layer of shame. And so I would really encourage you to take a course like our lift course where we really focus in on this shame issue because it is so massive for people and such a key part of their healing because I think you will just see so many lifechanging things besides just healing the past trauma that come out of that.

[00:17:03]So the third thing and I've already referred to it is this is the process of moving from your lyic brain to your cortex to retraining your nervous system. This is really what this is all about. That is not an easy journey because your default setting has been the way it in survival mode for years and for many years it seemed to be working but now it's not. And so to go and retrain something that you've got thousands of default programs in your subconscious brain that you're not even aware are operating and now you want to retrain that. That does not happen overnight. And then when those programs get triggered, those wounds get triggered, you jump into your liyic brain in a nancond with tremendous power with cortisol induced turbocharge and you have to try to learn to stop that and control that.

[00:18:04]That is a huge challenge and it doesn't happen easily or automatically, but it's possible. And so be prepared to continue to get tools that help you gradually gain more and more mastery and ability in regulating your lyic brain and getting into your cortex and getting into your ventro system. Two other things that I would like to say to you and that is number one part of fawning was abandoning yourself.

[00:18:39]So you don't listen to your needs. You don't listen to your gut. You don't listen to your body, to your emotions.

[00:18:45]You're attuned to everybody else, not to yourself. In order to survive, you better be have a radar that's attuned to everybody else because your needs don't really matter right now except staying alive. And so, you've abandoned yourself to some degree. And so a key part of healing is learning to listen to yourself, learning to listen to your gut, your body, your emotions. And I encourage you just to develop some daily routines where several times a day you stop and go, what am I feeling in my body? What am I feeling in my emotions?

[00:19:23]What am I feeling in my gut? That's going to be an important step in beginning to learn to connect with yourself again.

[00:19:33]And that's going to have a lot of healing for you. And finally, what you've asked is finding safe people. I think the danger for many people is to think that you can go somewhere and there's a checklist and you go, "Okay, that's a safe people, a safe person. I will just trust them 100%."

[00:19:56]That's not how it works. It's not an instant all or nothing process.

[00:20:02]It's a gradual go with the flow, adjust as you go process. So you meet somebody, you go, I think my gut's saying, so far okay, but I know my gut's still not as well tuned as it should be because it's been shut down so long. But I'm going to have some clear boundaries where this is just going to be a very superficial friendship and get to know them a little bit and then interact with them a little bit and then maybe trust them to do one thing for me a bit. See how they do. And as I get to know them, do I see disrespect in them? Do I see anger issues in them? What do I see about their how they treat their family, their friends, their other people in their life, how they approach work, how they approach their appearance. I'm looking at all of those things and I'm gradually going, okay, this is either not a very healthy person or this is somebody that wow, I I think there's some work that they've done on themsel here. Then I watch what happens when something triggers them and they get very upset.

[00:21:11]They get stressed out, they get hurt, do they fly off the handle, do they lash out or how do they process that? So gradually gradually I am going through situation after situation and learning about them and deciding do I want this relationship to go deeper or does this where we need to kind of say let's just stop here and remain casual friends.

[00:21:38]That's fine. I don't need that to go further. I will find somebody else and go through the same process until I find somebody that is trustworthy. Now, you go through that and that can feel kind of overwhelming and discouraging, but it's worth it. But as you begin to find a healthier person, the long longer you're in it and the deeper the relationship goes, there's part of your old programming that is being triggered by fear that says, uhoh, the deeper this relationship gets, the more authentic you're going to be.

[00:22:16]They're going to see the real you, and they're going to reject you and abandon you. So, let's sabotage the relationship. Instead of giving into deeper trust, let's get out.

[00:22:28]That is the old nervous system in survival mode saying, I'm going to pull you to a survival place instead of to a healing healthy place. And that's where you have to get to your cortex, be aware of what's going on, be curious about it. Why is this happening? And say, you know what? I am going to take a risk here, a small risk, but I will trust this in a little bit, a little way, and see how it goes. If it doesn't go well, then I can back out. If it goes well, I'll be glad because I've developed a deeper relationship. So, that is the very gradual process. And that can take a year or more to go through in working towards a friend. And it may take you 10 people before you find somebody that you're really able to go to deeper and deeper connection with.

[00:23:27]So I hope that you see that this is not some slick advice that you can do in a day or a week. This is advice that requires months and years of implementation because it's a slow process. There's a lot of factors here.

[00:23:44]And so start with healing the shame and once you do that then you can worry about relationships. Get yourself to a healthier place first. Do the work on yourself first before you enter into the relationships. So Annie, I hope that helps. Thank you again for your letter and thank you for all who are watching.

[00:24:07]If this was helpful for you, please like, subscribe, share, comment. We really appreciate it. Thank you.