Narcissistic Supply

Narcissistic Supply is the name given to the way Narcissists need attention. They feed on this attention. It's their drug of choice. And guess who gets to give that attention? Yes, you! (Well, anybody will do really, but you're there and available, and have been trained from birth for the job.)

Now, all of us love attention - of course we do! But the Narcissist takes this to an extreme level. She is an addict for it.

It can often work very well in the early years of a child's life. Children automatically adore their mothers and put them on a pedestal, and that suits narcissistic mothers perfectly, and provides them with copious amounts of their narcissistic supply.

The trouble starts when the child gets bigger, and starts getting a mind of her own. And even worse, starts wanting to live her own life.

My own mother said to me once, "The best years were when you were all small." I didn't think much of it then, but it chills me now. It was so indicative, if I had but realised it, of her narcissism and her need for narcissistic supply.

And now that I'm a mother myself and my own son is 13, I'm still thinking that every age has been the best yet, that every age has its own gifts. I don't think it was better when he was smaller and more biddable.

But then, I'm happy for my son to be his own person. I'm not looking for narcissistic supply.

The preferred type of narcissistic supply is adoration, admiration or approval.

But failing that, any sort of attention will do. Fear is an acceptable alternative. While you're fearing somebody you definitely paying attention to them. You're watching them and referring to them - lots of narcissistic supply there.

Engulfing mothers often use tactics such as emmeshing to keep their daughters with them, to keep them around as a source of this narcissistic supply. Part of the DONM journey is to extricate yourself from this.

Another trick they use to keep up their level of narcissistic supply is infantalisation.

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