How to cope with a mother with narcissistic personality disorder?

We all deal with and heal from traumatic events differently. There isn’t only one way to overcome being raised by a mother with narcissistic personality disorder. That said, there are several techniques you can utilise to begin the healing process.

Online cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and online dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT) are both excellent therapy methods that help many people deal with the effects of having been raised by a toxic parent with NPD. These therapies are gentle, yet strong and effective.

Some of the ways you can take action and begin healing include:

• Acknowledging that your mother’s actions harmed you

• Letting your feelings out

• Connecting with supportive people

• Working with good mentors

• Practicing self-care and learning to love yourself

• Establishing new healthy relationship boundaries with your mother

• Learning to genuinely forgive.

Ever since the pandemic started, and to this day, my husband seems to have developed an intense fear around getting Covid, and now he obsessively cleans everything. Is this OCD, or just normal anxiety about the pandemic? If it’s OCD, how can I help him?

It would be difficult to know whether or not he is struggling with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) without conducting an actual psychological evaluation from a mental health professional. OCD is a psychological disorder brought on by anxiety, intense stress or fear which produces behaviours that are both obsessive and compulsive. OCD symptoms are generally brought on gradually over the course of years, but are heightened during times of intense stress. It sounds like your husband’s behaviour is likely a result of the pandemic – it’s likely a common reaction to the changes we have had to make in order to adapt from this pandemic. The pandemic came on fairly quickly, and left many of us feeling a loss of control. In your husband’s case, wanting to keep things clean is completely understandable, given our current circumstances. If you can talk to your husband and help him rationalise, it will likely get better on its own. If he can control those thoughts or think about them logically, it’s probably not OCD. If he cannot control them, or they take up at least an hour or more of his day, or cause problems with his work or routine, he might find it helpful to explore seeking professional help.