To ask for your quotes from narcissistic mothers

[itsgoodtobehome]

Slightly tongue in cheek. My DM is a total narcissist which I'm mostly used to now, but every now and then she comes out with a new classic which makes even me wince.

So, next weekend, DM has invited me and DSis and our families for lunch to mark a family birthday. 9 of us in total, including kids. DM was telling me the other day what she was planning to serve for lunch. She mentioned a particular thing as a starter, which is quite an acquired taste. I know for a fact that my DDad and DH don't like it, and the 3 kids won't eat it. So basically 5 out of 9 guests don't like this dish. I told her this was a bit of a waste.
Her response: 'but I have planned this menu to look a certain way, and it won't look right if I don't make this dish'

So she is quite prepared to have most of her guests not eat something just so her menu 'looks good'. I give up. Has anyone else got batshit mothers who only think of themselves and nobody else?

My mother also told me that she found out she had been a victim of CSA when she uncovered the abuse I suffered at 3 years of age.
She said that happening to me was the worst thing that ever happened to her because she was forced to deal with her own abuse.
Except she was open with a lot of people about the abuse she endured as a child, even before I was born.
Fwiw she knew the man who abused me had been abusing children in his own family for years.

When he had been through the courts and found not guilty (he was 100% guilty! I remember)

She left his family member taking care of me, when I was abused again, infront of the family member.

When I told her years later, she told me it did not happen. Absolutely didn't happen, despite being able to give her details, could pinpoint the date, told her how bad I felt, and what happened after (it was my sisters first birthday, there was a carrot cake, with a bunny and carrots made out of icing. I didn't eat my dinner, I sat and picked at it, my throat was sore. My dinner was thrown in the sink which was full of water and the pans from cooking, my sisters dad got the plate out and tried to make me eat the food that was wet on the plate. As I cried he told my mum I'd been a shit all day, then they both tore into me. To this day, I do not eat any of the foods served on that day, and I can't have certain materials on me, or my kids, but it never happened)

Too many, but one that stands out. My DM literally did not respond during my labour (she volunteered to stay to 'help'). When I confronted her, the following was said:

Me: you literally did nothing, you just sat on your laptop playing a game and ignoring me while I was having contractions on a birthing ball in the same room as you.

DM: well I didn't know what to do, do you know how hard it was for me to watch you in the worst pain of your life. It was so hard.

That was the tip of the iceberg of that visit (of which I've tried to forget).

Reliving childhood trauma over which she didn't believe me inly to be told "how do you think it made me feel hearing that?"

"I love you but I don't like you!"

"I knew you'd lose the baby."

On asking why I was never praised " you've never done anything to make me proud."

On giving her a pair of diamond earrings for her 60th "it's no less than what I deserve......"

I can relate to that.

My mother was an enthusiastic spanker of my sister and I- right up to the teenage years, the last time she hot me I was 15 ( I slapped her back)
If it ever comes up in conversation she becomes upset and defensive, maintaining that she never lifted a finger to us, and tells us we are cruel to suggest it.

As a young teenager, a friend died in the run up to Christmas. I was absolutely gutted & tearful. Mum said 'don't be like that, it's nearly Christmas' 🙄
She also didn't want me to cut my hair short because I'd 'look butch'
She chose to have have private surgery on my birthday, so I spent the day traipsing to St Johns wood from Surrey. She could have easily booked the surgery at another time.

Thank you❤
I actually didn't realise any of it until recently.
I was always expected to be grateful for 'all he had done for me' and told I was the problem - unwanted, difficult, crazy.
That whole side of the family told me I was lucky because 'most fathers would have walked away,' and it was even suggested that I clean his house in exchange for living there.
It's only now, at 30, with therapy (that I initially sought out because I thought something was wrong with me), that I have started to be able to see things for what they are.
I'm so sorry for everyone who has had such awful experiences and know it takes a lot of strength to overcome

@YellowPlumbob 👏

Yep. The outright lies and denials and the outrage that you could even suggest they did such a thing. My mother was also very handy with the slaps too. She always called the violence, ‘discipline’ and I was always hit because she had lost control, not because my behaviour warranted it. She had an Irish knotty blackthorn stick called a shillelagh that was her weapon of choice. I was also struck well into my teens and like you, one day I struck back in self defence. Like any bully, she completely crumpled, started shaking and made out I had attacked her!

Lying was second nature to her. If I confronted her with facts, she would tell me I must have imagined it or I was trouble making. When the Savile/Harris stories hit the headlines she insisted that the victims were probably making it all up and they should be ‘ashamed’ to be accusing these men.

She liked to play these cruel games - she called them teasing fun - where she would like to convince me I was losing the plot. A previous boyfriend gave me a beautiful watch for my birthday which, for some reason, she disapproved of. One day the watch went missing in the house. I knew exactly where I kept it stored every night so I knew I hadn’t lost it outside. I hunted everywhere, but couldn’t find it. She kept telling me it must have fallen off my wrist when I was out. Months and months later for some reason I pulled the mattress off my bed and found it tucked right underneath. There was absolutely no way I put it there. When I confronted her she looked me straight in the face and told me I must have hidden it there myself.

My mum didn't talk to me for a week and said she wouldn't come to my wedding because I went to see the wedding venue with my now husband before I went to see it with her.

What? Did you think I was coming here to do all the childcare?

(*when I invited her to stay for a few days to spend meaningful time with her grandchildren. Her usual MO was to simply look at Facebook photos and never visit, despite living only just over an hour away)

My uncle (DM's BIL) died after a long battle with cancer. We were at my aunt's house helping preparing for the funeral. While his sons were looking through photos and reminiscing about the things they loved about him she, unable to handle someone else being the centre of attention, blurted out "he wasn't perfect you know." Later, when my aunt was stressed about finding people to do the readings at the service, I volunteered so that she would have one less thing on her plate. DM accused me of just wanting attention and trying to make it all about me. Projecting much?

When I was in my early 20s I had an unplanned pregnancy that ended in stillbirth at 33 weeks. I can't remember her exact words but it was something about how it was for the best because now my life wouldn't be ruined.

My father,the weak man he was used to say"I dont care what you do just dont upset your mother."..he knew. as we all did what an absolute shit of a woman she was/is.He covered for her all his life.
She diets I am fat She doesnt diet and I am wonderful.The cycle of meaness and abuse was relentless,everything dependant on what mood she was in that day,
She tells everyone how my son is only where he in life because of her. my lovely boy is only like he is because of me and he knows this too and bites back,she hates that, hates how close we are and how lovely our relationship is its like an never ending compertition and jealousy with her.. He saw it from an early age and plays it,he will always say isnt mum amazing I love her so much etc. He raises me up at every point and will take great pleasure in very gently but really pointedly putting her back in her box She knows deep down she will never win with him but my gosh she still tries. The last time she rubbished me and called me unfit to be his mother he said "oh not tht old chestnut again Gran,,change the record and actually laughed at her and said "mums perfect to me and i love her more than anything"I swear she winced.
She makes things up and believes them about how wonderful she is and how she was the best mother ever when infact she was a monster.
I feel nothing for her and its all about my self presevation, She is in her late 70s now and i see the end of the road and then I will be free.

"It's a shame you'll never be attractive like me". Not letting her know when I was going through treatment for breast cancer because I'd have had both a) (ie private) calls from her calling me an attention-seeking bitch and b) (publicly) her milking the attention of a suffering mother

‘If I hadn’t had you,I could have left your father and been fucking happy!’

said to me at least once a week from being small,never to my golden child brothers and they are ‘only together for the grandchildren’ now

out of 7 children,6 are mine-and none could give a flying fuck if their grandparents are together or not-it’s never said to my nephew-only mine (they choose to have contact with her but just roll their eyes at her)

ive spent my whole life feeling guilty that I exist and if I didn’t,then she could have left and been happy

My sil and myself have lost babies

‘I lost 3!come back to me when you’ve lost 3!your losses are not as bad as mine!’

I’ve lost 4 but that’s nothing at all-didn’t count-only her losses mean anything

my brother and sil where told they couldn’t have kids (they finally had my nephew) and when she started with the ‘oh,only my losses count’ my sil nearly took her throat out-I had to stand between them to stop sil really hurting her

wish I hadn’t bothered now

On the photos thing, there are none of me until my teens. Well there might have been the odd one but there are no baby photos other than one my grandmother took of me being held by my grandfather.

Mum claimed they didn't have a camera, but there are photos of my brother as a toddler and he's 2 years older than me.

Also yes to

Well X can do Y better than you.

I have some younger cousins who, as children, were incredibly bright, they are still very intelligent but I did get fed up being told what one of them could do on a computer and, "you could never do that"

Well there's a 16 year age gap, I couldn't program in scratch because scratch wasn't invented in 1980. I could set up a 3 dimensional array - something we know call a spreadsheet.

I did however beat her high score on frogger by programming it to give me extra points just for hopping up and down the bank.

OP

This thread is better than therapy.

It's also made me realise things could have been much worse.

You did nothing wrong. I got I in the neck once for offering to read the menu for my dad at a cafe in a seaside town I'd taken my parents out to for the afternoon. My dad had forgotten his glasses. Apparently me offering to read thr menu for him was me trying to humiliate him (read:her). God knows what was actually going on in her head, but rest assured it's never actually about us.

Fuck her and her fucking Christmas presents. Don't invite her for Christmas again.

Get your mum a lump of coal and have your Christmas with friends @cornycorncorn

This thread has resonated so much. My father was violent and controlling, and I have life long issues caused by my childhood and his abuse. I'm beginning to think my mother is worse, she let him do it, the thought of letting my kids live in fear is just horrifying.
she invents things that she blames me for. Example - family falling out between my siblings and a cousin. Cousin was completely at fault and owned it at the time as well as ever since, in fairness. She recently told me that I took my cousin's side and raged at me - I wasn't there or involved in it in any way. Bizarre behaviour.
one sibling is a drug addict that she thinks is a super hero, drives me insane. Sibling is also a narcissistic bully. I can't wait to get away from all of them. It's a complicated situation but I'm almost there.

My advice to some of you is to go non contact. It's not easy you'll probably need to block your phone, then when the letters start you'll need to bin them unopened. If she turns up at the door say you're calling the police. (My SIL Idea) then when she gets her friends ro phone you block them. They eventually run out of steam. It's not easy

@Fraaahnces I bloody wish. She then pulls the 'but I am your mother, I want to spend Christmas with my only grandchild, I'm a widow, wah waaaaaah wah'. Despite claiming to have many friends, she doesn't seem to be invited elsewhere... surprise surprise.

Bloody FOG.

I’ve blocked out most of what my mother said. I generally ignored her rubbish, about weight, my appearance, how rubbish I was, how brilliant my feckless brothers were.
Worst thing to do is to marry someone whose mother is exactly the same.

When DH and I had fertility problems - ‘but your brothers have children, why aren’t they enough’
When I did get pregnant- ‘but I don’t want more grandchildren’
Me taking medication with a glass of water - ‘are you stuffing your face again, I don’t know where you put it all’

Her favourite thing was to pretend to be coming down with something if anyone else was ill. DH was extremely unwell in hospital ‘but I think I’m getting a cold, why can’t you come visit me.’ Same when I had a severe chest infection ‘I think I might get really unwell this time’ (zero wrong with her). When FIL was at end of life care ‘the doctor didn’t even ask me about my cold’ (she didn’t have a cold).

one of DHs brothers has similar traits but it only seems to be directed at us, so we don’t speak much.

She wants me to go and see her.
She gave me HALf of a set of curtains... which she knows i like from my g mother.. if u want the other one .. you have to... no i never when to get it. No way.

Actually reading back my mother did the ‘I love you but I don’t like you thing’.

I do remember visiting home from uni. I got the train (my brothers got picked up!). I needed a lift to the station and my train left 5 minutes before she started work which was very near to the station. So we would need to leave a few minutes early for us both to be on time. Nope, couldn’t do that. That wasn’t the time she left.
so my dad drove me down an hour early to sit in the station. She rang me that night to complain I had ‘put her in that situation’.

When I asked if she noticed anything different about me (I had stopped smoking) "well you haven't lost any weight"

Said "everyone has one special day, one chance to shine; and this is mine" about my wedding day.

Went on holiday for three months soon after ex had walked out on me and our daughter. That was fine, but when I told her I was hurt that she hadn't called to see how we were doing she said "well I was having a good time".

Having a bit of a moan that ex had moved 400 miles away so I was left a lone parent she said "that doesn't really impact me"