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Narcissistic and toxic mothers are often injured in their childhood by their own stunted emotional development. In order to fully develop into a healthy adult, we need a very nurturing and emotionally validating environment. Toxic and narcissistic mothers often grow up without that nurturing. They have jumped through hoops and tailored themselves to others around them. They have been invited to be a part of mind games, lies and manipulation. They may have been told repeatedly that they weren’t wanted.

Narcissistic and toxic mothers can be very damaging to those around them. They have been often violated and hurt by others themselves. They see the world around them as being cruel, and so they take a defensive stance against others. They bore easily and struggle to keep their own emotions in check. For this reason, they seem to enjoy being in a constant state of drama in the relationships around them.

They are often experiencing great sadness, shame, guilt and depression in their inner core due to a lack of healing the things that had happened to them. They need others to save them from themselves. They need others to provide a constant state of interaction with them in order to distract them from the pain they are feeling inside. They have to project their pain onto others to share it because they cannot find healthy and meaningful ways in which to deal with it themselves.

Narcissistic and toxic mothers often try to be good mothers to their children in their own way. But they often miss the mark and fall deficient due to their inability to empathize and attune to their own child. They are overwrought and overwhelmed to the point that they are unable to drop everything and cater to the child. They don’t seek to engage and educate their child. They become too overprotective towards their child causing them a great inability to experience much of any growth in their own lives. They become possessive of their children
and spouse to the point that they treat them much like objects instead of people.

Toxic and narcissistic mothers often cause toxic and narcissistic children. Their negative interactions and their mistreatment of others encourages personality disorders in people who have to live with them and take their misdirected abuse. They can’t abuse the people who abused them, often because the person behind their abuse is narcissistic and toxic as well. They may still be dealing with a narcissistic or toxic parent and siblings themselves, leaving them little energy to tackle their own responsibilities due to the emotional drain that their family is causing them.

You can tell by the physical ailments that you are feeling that you have a toxic mother on your side. You may feel anxious or depressed. You may have panic attacks or post-traumatic stress disorder. You may feel an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach when you are around her. The hair might stand up on the back of your neck. You get emotionally drained and feel defensive when you are around her.

You may experience insomnia or may want to sleep all of the time. You may struggle with feeling blame, shame and doubt about your own parenting abilities and life skills. You may feel alienated and rejected by your parent(s), and crave a normal sense of being. You want them to be something that they will never be for you, and you wish that they would just be ‘normal’ for a change.

We will discuss many of the different signs that are present when you are dealing with a narcissistic mother and a toxic mother to help you better determine if the person in your life is narcissistic or toxic. You might be able to identify with some, while others on the list will not sound familiar to you at all. Not all narcissistic mothers or toxic mothers are created equal. Their behavior really is tailored to their victims and often has an element of the abuse that they were subjected to as children included because it is familiar to them.

1.    Narcissistic mothers use guilt trips to control the behaviors and actions of others. They will whine about not being invited to things, but act rudely or inconsiderately towards others when they are invited. They will chastise their adult children for not calling or returning calls daily or weekly, or they will force themselves into the homes of their adult children uninvited and unannounced.

2.    Narcissistic mothers are terrible gift givers. Narcissists purchase what they wanted to give to the another person as a gift. If the receiver asks for something specific, the narcissist will completely ignore the request and come up with reasons why they cannot oblige (“You won’t
use that anyway”, “That gift is impractical”). They will re-gift things from their home or only give another person thrift items as gifts, claiming that they should be accepted by the receiver for being of ‘sentimental value’, even though the gift receiver does not want the items.

3.    Toxic mothers favor some child(ren) while scapegoating another child. She allows her favored children to treat the scapegoated child poorly so that she continues to look like the perfect parent to the spouse and to those outside the family. When her children lash out crazily, she is then justified in the eyes of others to treat them poorly or punish them harshly. She talks herself up so that others don’t realize that she is the root cause of the chaotic behavior and disorientation that she caused in the other person. She never takes accountability for her role in causing a rebellious child despite being the one who mistreated the rebellious child for years prior to their breakdown.

4.    Narcissistic mothers often take their children to counseling or state agencies and ask the other person to ‘fix’ their scapegoat child. The child might exhibit traits of conduct disorders, ADHD, schizoid personality, avoidant personality, psychopathy and anti-social disorders. The child might turn to drugs and alcohol as a means to cope with their overprotective, abusive parent. They might steal or get into trouble with the law as a means to cope and a way to provide for themselves the things which their parent isn’t providing for them. They often try to run away, but are usually returned to the home. Authorities often cannot differentiate between the lies that are told from a narcissist or toxic mother, so they rarely take the side of the child or have the child be removed appropriately from their narcissistic parent.

5.    She causes personality disorders in her children as a result of her harsh and inconsistent parenting. Many personality disorders are caused by cold and aloof parenting versus nurturing parenting. OCPD, schizoid, avoidant, borderline, narcissistic, and anti-social personality disorders are all linked to bad mothers. These mothers are emotionally invalidating (use guilt trips to coerce their children into behaving, always telling the child to ‘suck it up’ instead of providing emotional support and teaching coping skills, rarely show hugs or affection to their children).

6.    Toxic mothers try to buy love instead of providing genuine guidance, support and empathy to her children. Most narcissistic mothers don’t know how to be empathetic or sympathetic. They are only concerned about how they feel inside, and only see the world as it revolves around them. They are unable to put themselves in the shoes of others or to view reality from another person’s point of view.
7.    A narcissistic mother will try to thwart her daughter’s relationship with other men if she is envious of her. She will go so far as encouraging the daughter’s boyfriend to break up with the daughter, sleeping with the daughter’s boyfriend, or trying to win his affection in some way. She will encourage the daughter to break up with a man if she feels her daughter is undeserving of the man’s affections or is jealous of the relationship. She will call her own daughter a s**t if she is envious of her daughter’s ability to obtain quality suitors. She will seek to compete with her daughter by dating or marrying men who are the same age that her daughter dates.

8.    If a toxic mother has jumped through hoops to embarrass their child in front of others as a punishment, they will put their own spin on the store and tell it over and over to other adults. They relish in the pain that they are causing their child in retelling their embarrassing story, and it will serve to break down the child’s self-confidence and self-esteem while continuously reminding them of the power she has over them.

9.    They are constantly seeking self-help books on how to ‘fix’ others, but they never seem to identify that they are often the root of the problem. They always feel as though others don’t like them and don’t accept them, but they can never seem to take accountability for their ill actions towards others.

10.    Toxic mothers often push your buttons, and then they will punish you when you become reactive to them doing so. In their mind, them exerting pressure on you is to make you bend to their will. How dare you become reactive, resentful or defiant to their efforts?

11.    They will never be satisfied with their looks or their intelligence. Even in late adulthood, they will seek education, dental improvements, plastic surgery and other forms of vanity improvements. They might still wear flashy clothing which are inappropriate for their body size and advanced age. They often dress like a 5-year-old, or they will revert to dressing like they did when they were teens due to their low self-esteem and their lack of self-confidence in who they are.

12.    They will constantly remind everyone around them that they are dying ‘soon’. They will have depression. They will be re-gifting things and donating things to others from inside their house. They will use this ‘dying’ excuse to treat others like dirt, and they will expect special attention from others because they will ‘die’ soon and ‘won’t you feel bad about not giving me xyz if I died tomorrow’? They never seem to come to grips with their own aging and their ailments, so they will complain endlessly about this to anyone who will listen. They have
wasted most of their life in a state of stress, depression and anxiety, and they are disgruntled at having done so. This makes them often bitter, jealous and resentful of others who seem to have everything that they don’t have.

13.    Narcissistic mothers will use others to manipulate someone if they don’t have the ability. If a narcissistic mother is unable to control her children, spouse or in-laws, she will invite her narcissistic acquaintances or family members to help her in her efforts. She knows the power of ‘ganging up’ on others and in embarrassing others in front of a crowd. She will do so deceptively by whining to her cohorts about the person who has ‘wronged’ her and by eliciting their help in bullying them. Most people will not be aware of the manipulation that is occurring by proxy. If they catch on, the narcissist will claim to know nothing. She will pull others into her efforts to convince the person who ‘wronged’ her that they are crazy to discredit their abilities to ‘call out’ the narcissist on her own ill behavior.

14.    She will be fussy and overbearing in the name of ‘taking care of you’. She will explain that she is doing things ‘for your own good’. She will claim to always know what is best for you and force this on you even though her help is not wanted, welcome or asked for. This includes breaking up your marriage and relationships with others so that she will always be the center of your universe. She will complain about your spouse or partner, try to elicit anger between you and your partner in subtle ways, and say or do things to push your partner’s boundaries. She will subtly seek to drive a wedge between the two of you that you won’t be aware of. Your spouse will feel the exertion of her power, but it will be so subtle that they won’t even be able to tell you what is wrong. But it is there, and they feel it, and they want to get as far away from the person who is causing those ill feelings in them as soon as possible.

15.    They will try to push your spouse’s buttons to get them to react. If they are successful, your spouse reacts and looks like a jerk. They relish in your spouse acting ‘crazy’, because this helps them to get in-between the two of you and pit you against each other. She might relish in you coming home crying to her about your divorce. She will love the attention that you and your children give her once your spouse is out of the picture.

16.    Narcissists can’t share. They are very possessive and materialistic. They are competitive with others grandparents, and even with the parents when they are trying to win affection from the grandchildren. They dislike sharing their child with their friends or their spouse. They hoard favorite things around them and seem to keep every little thing in the name of ‘sentimental value’, no matter how junky and old it is. They won’t lend their car out to others,
and how dare others ask her to do so. They throw tantrums when anything of their’s is ruined. They never let go that it was ruined, and whoever ruined it will be constantly reminded.

17.    A narcissistic mother won’t be responsive to her child’s needs. She will comfort herself before attending to feeding her child, playing with her child, or engaging her child in any meaningful way. She often ignores her child, and then becomes full of rage and nasty towards her child when the child ramps up their demands and throws tantrums.

18.    Narcissistic mothers compete with friends, relatives, and in-laws to try to remain the primary object of their children’s affection. She will try to outdo other people in realms of gift-giving, money donations and numbers of visits to her adult children and grandchildren. She will feel slighted by any hint that someone else has supplied more than she has to the people who serve to be her narcissistic supply. She will badmouth or find ways to push away the other support persons so that she is the primary object of her narcissistic supply’s affections.

19.    Toxic mothers are often severely depressed. They ruminate on their own thoughts and are often cold and distant as a result of ruminating and being disconnected emotionally from others around them. They are so caught up in themselves and their own problems that they don’t have much in the way of giving for another person in their life.

20.    Toxic mothers voice their negative opinions loudly regarding the partners that their adult children chooses to marry. They may take bets at the wedding, or openly tell others that they dislike their son-in-law or daughter-in-law. They will consistently try to drive a wedge in-between a married couple in order to elicit attention and affection from their sons or daughters. They will seek ways to pit the grandchildren against their parents in order to turn their affections towards her instead. They will badmouth the other parent in a divorce situation and cause parental alienation syndrome against the parent who divorced their adult child.

21.    Narcissistic mothers will always push the boundaries of others. They don’t leave when asked. They come and go as they please. They show up late or unprepared in order to inconvenience others and exert their independent actions.

22.    Narcissistic mothers often have ‘diarrhea of the mouth’. They run their mouths whenever there are others around who will listen to their ill opinions of others. They can never resist the urge to talk over others, and they rarely listen to another person’s opinion or point of view if it doesn’t agree with their own. They will get on their soapbox often and assert their values
and beliefs on others. They don’t sensor their displeasure with others. They blurt out whatever comes to their minds, oblivious to what affect it might have on another person. They will ignore other people’s compliments or try to act humble, but they will complain when others aren’t constantly reinforcing their view of themselves also.

23.    Narcissistic mothers never encourage autonomy in their children. They don’t respect their opinions. They never encourage them to seek out their own way in life. They never help them to learn problem-solving skills that they will need later in life. They seem to never actively listen to anyone else, unless it serves to collect information to hurt the person later.

24.    Toxic mothers are always around to ‘rescue’ their children, instead of teaching them problem solving skills the way that a normal mother would. This allows the mother to always derive pleasure and neediness from her relationship with the child. She is always rescuing the child, causing the child to feel indebted to the mother far into the child’s adulthood.

25.    She must constantly maintain the vision of perfection to her children. She ensures this by placing blame on any of her own mistakes onto the children or spouse. Her frail ego must always maintain other people’s perception that she is a flawless and perfect mother. She plays mind control on her children and omits information in order to maintain her children’s views that she is the perfect mother. She takes no accountability for any mistakes that she makes, and she discredits and destroys anyone around her who catches wind that she may not be as perfect as she seems. She puts down other people’s parenting skills consistently in order to inflate her own self-esteem as a mother. She does this despite proof that she was, in fact, a terrible parent. She seems to have no memory of any ill treatment or neglect that she imposed on her own children. Her memory only serves to keep tally of the things that she did positively in child-rearing, and she uses these events to keep her children’s affections well into adulthood.

26.    A toxic mother will try to make every effort appear as if everything positive was due to her efforts. She will complain to the children that their father hadn’t contributed to Christmas gifts while omitting the fact that he paid for the food, shelter and clothing. She will say she purchased all of the gifts and groceries while omitting the fact that her spouse gave her the money for buying these things. She will complain to the children that she was the sole caretaker of them, but thwart any efforts of the father to contribute to their lives in any meaningful way. She will claim that she was the one who purchased the school supplies while omitting the fact that the father had provided money for school clothing. All facts are skewed in favor of her being seen in a positive light.
27.    Narcissistic mothers often use sex to control the men in their lives. Sex is withheld as a punishment, and she is to be held on a pedestal if she finally gives him sex. She sees sex as the equivalent to love. He is easily replaceable with another man to act as father to her children, as she only sees him as a supplier instead of the relationship being a mutually reciprocal one. His money and affections are easily dispensed when she no longer needs him. If he doesn’t feed her ego, she finds someone else who does.

28.    The toxic mother consistently threatens to cut off her love from her children when they disagree or misbehave. This behavior is continued far into late adulthood. She threatens to ‘run away’, or reminds her children that she will die someday, or threatens her children that she might commit suicide. These threats are used to guilt the adult child into having constant contact with the mother due to their fears that she will perish if they avoid or ignore her.

29.    The narcissistic mother consistently reminds her children what she has sacrificed for them. This is done in order to guilt them into treating her specially. She feels that she is entitled to special treatment by the people that she gave birth to, and she feels entitled to destroy or harm them for this very reason. She feels as if she has the right to take away life that she gave to her children if they are not serving any purpose to her. These mothers will go so far as to have their own children committed or arrested for punishment in having their own opinions and wanting autonomy from her. Children and spouses who try to break away from her can be very maliciously attacked and punished. They are deserving of any harsh punishment that she can dish out to them, up to and including death.

30.    The toxic mother will provide monetary donations and financial relief to her adult children in order to promote a sort of emotional indebtedness. She does this to be seen as savior and to form a dependent relationship between her adult children and herself. She uses this ‘donation’ to guilt the adult child into bending to her requests on an ongoing basis. She will refuse to allow the child to pay off the money that was lent because she has essentially found a way to ‘buy’ their ongoing love by continuing to provide financially for them in the way that they provided when the child was still living under their roof. This is also done in the form of gift-giving of expensive gifts so that the adult child continues to visit with regularity in the anticipation of getting gifts every time they visit. Narcissists aren’t privy to having relationships based on mutual respect, reciprocity, emotional bonding and affection, so they must use money and things in order to maintain their relationships. They give no other reason for others to maintain a relationship with them that is mutual beneficial to either side, so money and objects are used to their advantage.
31.    The narcissistic mother always plays the ‘victim’ while secretly being the perpetrator. She views the world as being harsh and views others as being mean and inconsiderate towards her in their efforts to refuse to feed her hungry ego.

32.    She dislikes anyone who has the ability to ‘call her out’ on her ill behavior. She will try to sabotage a relationship between someone she wants a relationship with and someone who may expose her nasty behavior. If she feels threatened by someone her children have a relationship with, she will cut off the relationship between her children and that other person.

Let’s start with your spending habits. Don’t use credit cards for useless purchases. This includes purchases for things that you cannot afford and things that lose value over time. Always pay off your credit card balance in full every month. Spend less money than you earn. Don’t go out and purchase items that will sink you. Don’t commit yourself to making a monthly payment on something you can’t afford – this includes large mortgage
payments and car payments.

Focus on big ticket items. Be careful when buying a new home or car. These will be the largest purchases you will ever make in your life. Shop around and get the best deal that you can. By following this one simple step you can save thousands of dollars. Don’t concern yourself with tracking every penny you spend. You will get caught up in the minutia and forget to look at the big picture. Instead, focus saving big on those big ticket items. Cut down on large,recurring purchases. Only after doing this should you then focus on cutting down on those smaller items.

Spend money on those things that you really enjoy, not on those you don’t. As Ramit Sethi said best “live a rich life by spending EXTRAVAGANTLY on the things you love, and cut costs mercilessly on the things you don’t”.Think about your purchases before you make them. Take at least 60 seconds for smaller purchases, and up to 24 hours for larger purchases. Consider how you will feel about your purchase six months from now. Will you be glad you made it?

Pay off all of your high interest credit cards before you start saving. Interest rates will kill you, and you will be on the wrong side of the compounding interest effect. Start saving as soon as possible. If you start saving $100 a month when you are 18 and do that for only 10 years, then stop saving entirely, and let the cash grow until you are 60 you will have $234,654. However, if you wait until you are 28 to start saving you will have to save $132 a month for the next 32 years to reach that same amount by the time you are 60!

Save up at least six months of living expenses. This will be your rainy day fund. Once you reach this goal, continue to save and funnel your money into your investment accounts. You can reach these goals
by saving 20 percent of your income every month, at a minimum.
Budgets are not fun, but they get you where you need to go. A budget is a road map to saving, and helps you reach your goals much sooner. Use an excel spreadsheet, or a pen and paper, to create the
following simple budget:

Budgeting helps you understand spending habits, develops structure to help you save every month, and allows you to pivot and adjust your spending habits in order to reach your savings goals. You don’t have to limit yourself when it comes to your finances. If you feel like expenses have been cut back far enough, consider ways you can make more money. Watch less TV and spend less time surfing the web. Cut down on these time wasting activities and replace them with productive activities which will help you realize your financial goals. Continue to educate yourself. This could be through schooling, certifications, reading nonfiction books in your field, or by simply learning as much as possible at your current job and working to move up the ranks. Whatever you do, never stop learning.

Start a business on the side. This could be something you already know how to do. Provide a service to people and use your skills to help solve their problems and make their lives easier.

Network like crazy. Meet as many people as you can and provide value to everyone in your life and remember

Work on improving yourself every single day. You can do this by listening to podcasts, reading books, watching videos, and creating other healthy habits that help you get closer to your definite goal in life.

Make money work for you. Invest your money and let compounding interest do the heavy lifting for you. Plant your money tree now and enjoy the fruits when you are older. Max out all of your tax-advantaged savings accounts. This included 401(k)’s, IRA’s, SEP’s, and 529 plans. Always contribute to your 401(k) to get a full company match. Then contribute to your IRA up to the yearly limit. Save for retirement first. If you have any left over, contribute to your child’s college savings fund using a 529 plan. For a simple, hands-free investment experience, invest in lifecycle mutual funds. Choose a low-cost, target-date fund like Vanguard Target Retirement 2050 Fund.

Avoid actively managed mutual funds; these funds rarely beat the market. Not only that, but high fees will eat into your investment returns over a long period of time. You are better off choosing a lowcost index fund as described above. Set up automatic payments on all of your bills, especially your credit card bills. Have these automatic payments pay the entire balance of your credit card bills.

Set up automatic deposits on your retirement accounts in order to utilize the “pay yourself first” methodology. Deposit enough every month so that you will contribute the maximum amount to your
retirement account each year. Setting up automatic payments puts your bills and savings on cruise control, requiring minimal effort on your part. That’s it! Don’t stress about your finances. This isn’t difficult. If you put everything that you have just learned into action, you will be on your way to personal finance success.

One suggestion to ensure legitmacy of any deal is to ensure that the location actually exists and is not just a PO Box.

Do you jointly own a foreign bank account with parents or siblings? If you receive no income from a foreign bank account, do you still need to report the account to the Internal Revenue Service?

The United States is one of a handful of countries that requires its citizens and permanent residents to report worldwide income to the Internal Revenue Service. Failing to comply with disclosure requirements on its own carries civil and criminal penalties – up to 10 years in prison even.

A broad definition when it comes to the disclosure of foreign accounts

The Internal Revenue Code requires you to report any interest in a foreign account (this includes signatory authority) on a FBAR each year when the balance of the account exceeds a $10,000 threshold. This report is unique, because you file it with the Department of Treasury by the June 30 deadline each year.

A foreign bank does not usually issue the owner with a social security number on file a 1099-INT listing earned interest income like a domestic bank. Issues of ownership can thus be trickier on foreign bank accounts. Does this mean that everyone with any interest in a foreign account valued at over $10,000 needs to file a FBAR? Not necessarily, but if no one reports the account or income there could be trouble down the road.

When you have any interest in a foreign bank account, speaking with a tax attorney about your situation will ensure compliance.

Most expats have a bank account in their home country to manage financial commitments like property payments and school fees. You will also need a bank account in the country where you're living to cover things like rent, utilities and shopping. Expat allows you to link all your banking arrangements, giving you easy international access to your finances and a central home for your money.

We are puzzled at this post. The person states he believes that our services are illegal and that he already knows "a great deal" about  what we do - if that's the case then why contact us?   We occasionally have people call who are hoping we will help them break the law, or collect a huge sum left for them by a relative they never knew, and they are disappointed by our answers.   

Harbor certainly has more than one employee, our clients and partners can verify that.  Setting up offshore companies and accounts is perfectly legal, ask any attorney, CPA or the IRS itself.  And, virtually all Fortune 500 companies have offshore subsidiaries and accounts.  Google "apple offshore accounts" and you will see many pages of articles about US companies with offshore accounts.  

Harbor doesn't give, and has never given, tax advice.  If callers ask about taxes we actually refer them to tax attorneys who are able to give them tax advice and assist them with completing any required tax returns.   

Harbor has never been the subject of any investigation. And - once more the person's comments are puzzling - if Harbor or any of its principals or employees were being investigated by "private" investigators, how would this individual know?  

Lastly, Harbor doesn't recommend or sell securities or investments.  So the person's reference to "investing with us" is strange. 

Again, we are puzzled by this post and it is unfortunate that someone (whether an unhappy caller or competitor or otherwise) has attempted to smear our good name and reputation with an anonymous and nameless internet post. For a more accurate and trustworthy assessment of our business we would recommend reviewing our A+ rating with the Dallas Better Business Bureau.    

Thank you. 

Harbor Financial Services