To ask what you’d call this behaviour?

[LBirch02]

Immature? Narc?

I was 13 when this happened - it’s about my mum who’d have been 54 at the time.

It was a school night - a Tuesday I think - sort of midweek anyway. My mum cooked a dish which was savoury but had a sweet sauce - something that seemed very similar to Duck a l’orange but I think it was pork.
Anyway, the dish wasn’t a success - I couldn’t finish it.
This seemed to affect my mum very badly. I was sitting in the back room but i could hear Dad trying to placate my mum literally all evening in the front room.
My mum was at the time 54 but because she’d cooked a meal ‘wrong’ she went into quite a negative emotional state all evening where Dad was saying repeatedly “carol (not real name) don’t worry the orange in the sauce was a bit too strong that’s all” - all evening to try , as I say to placate her. AIBU to think this is a little unusual and immature for a woman of 54? They wouldn’t want constant placating, surely?

Unless this was the norm I'd think nothing more of it. Maybe she was feeling tired or sensitive. Maybe your dad had said something insensitive. Who knows? Unless theres more to the story it's no big deal and it certainly doesn't sound either immature or narcissistic.

If this was a one off event I'd imagine your mum probably was tired, maybe emotional, and felt sad that (as she saw it) she's tried to make a nice meal that hadn't turned out well. Surely many of us have been there?!

I think you may need to get some counselling, you post a lot of things like this trying to gather evidence of narcissistic behaviour etc. Can’t be easy to be constantly digging around in your past and intently looking at these examples.

FWIW no, as a one off it’s hardly damaging narc behaviour and I think it’s weird to be navel grazing at it all these years later.

It is very difficult to comment on an isolated incident as you are describing it. I was wondering if, given her age, she may have been menopausal?

Hmm, 54. Is it at all possible that menopause hormones might be involved, rather than narc?

Sometimes as a dm the straw that broke the camel's back makes us behave somewhat irrational.. Could your dm have had something serious going on at that time? Health issue perhaps?

Thanks for all your responses ! Yes could have been menopausal with hindsight

I wouldn't say immature. It is possible she was dealing with mental health issues at the time which caused her to focus excessively on this incident.

Why are you so keen to portray your mother as narcissistic? Nothing here is anything more than someone feeling sensitive. Honestly, mothers apparently have to be saints to escape the 'narc' label on here.

HirplesWithHaggis
I was going to say the same. I’m 54 and can empathise.
The next day she probably felt embarrassed at how she acted. I cried for hours a few months ago, can’t remember why but at the time my emotions were raging

Sounds like you’re reading way too much into the situation. Your mum was probably just having a bad day and was a bit upset that the meal hadn’t gone to plan.

I hope when my kids are older then don’t pick over every emotional reaction I’ve ever had at the end of a long and exhausting day! Hopefully when they’re older they’ll appreciate that I was, and am, only human, with faults and imperfections like everyone else.

Or maybe your dad said something quite insensitive abouy the meal, and it was the reaction to that, not to your behaviour.
I know some people who have this real talent of saying incredibly hurtful things - not snowflake level hurtful, but really twisting it - and then - whaaaat? I just meant a, b, c.

It's called the menopause. My sympathy is with "Carol"

She might have had a shit day, been pre-menstrual or in menopause so hormonal, she may have had something awful going on & been fixated on a minor thing to avoid dealing with the bigger thing. Quite often the thing that either is the straw that breaks the camels back or the tiny incident that becomes the focus of an argument or a tearful breakdown is nothing to do with the actual problem. You were a child so perhaps she wasn’t sharing whatever that was actually going on.

It’s very odd that you remember this so vividly years later when it sounds so minor. In answer to the OP though - no, not immature or narc unless there’s a lot more to it, just sounds like a bad day & a supportive and understanding husband!?

Why is something so ordinary and banal from your childhood bothering you now OP?

It doesn't sound particularly well balanced but I wouldn't describe it as narcissistic.

My mother has NPD (diagnosed) and the issue for her is that she cannot accept that she has every done anything that is not perfect (can't apologise, scapegoats and blames others). If my mother were upset about me not eating my dinner it would have involved a lot of name-calling and finger-pointing at the people who didn't appreciate her talents not fretting over where or why she had gone 'wrong'.

Because narcissists don't believe they are ever wrong.

So, for e.g. I'd have been interrogated about what else I'd eaten that day, accused of 'stuffing myself earlier' even if I hadn't. Been told that I am unsophisticated and do not appreciate fine food. Maybe some anger or having pocket money taken away because even if I hadn't stuffed myself on sweets earlier she'd have decided that that was the problem.

And so on.

This post is making me worry about what my kids are going to post in 30 years! Sounds like she was having a bad day and your dad was being lovely and helping her though it. Not immature, she was just down.

I think it’s more strange that you’re still analysing it all these years later, to be honest.

I suppose it makes a change from pregnancy posts. But it’s still a bit strange, that a minor event from years back is being picked over in this way on a Friday evening.

I'd say menopause too. I spent 10 minutes crying the other day because I couldn't find the butter knife. It had been a bad day at work as well so straw / camel's back.

I could cry sometimes when I've worked really hard making a decent cooked dinner and my children moan, whinge and won't even try it. DH and I have both got cross but when hormonal I've got emotional, I hope they don't analyse my behaviour as narcissistic or immature when they're grown up!

It's a thankless task caring for family sometimes!

Pumpkintopf

I consider myself fairly steady. I don’t cry easily as I’ve no time to.

I remember trying so hard with a requested special meal.

I thought it was lovely. Then I got a few silly criticisms. On top of being tired, menopausal, dealing with shite at work, etc that was the thing that tipped me over the edge.

That and it would have been better with peas.

Difficult to comment without knowing if there were other examples. My mum for example used to have tantrums on the floor - real proper ones where she kicked and screamed. Sometimes this was because I hadn't said 'hello' quick enough when she came in .

Menopause.

Poor woman.

@SheldonesqueTheBstard precisely!