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?

Thanks for the supportive messages guys, this was actually over a decade ago so I'm ok now (fingers crossed) and thus did spur me to go VERY low contact with her.

Now she just sends occasional fb messages complaining of illnesses (specifically the same ones my wonderful DSM is currently suffering from - but worse of course) ranting about her ungrateful son (he's NC) and telling me how glad she is that 'our relationship isn't like that'. I roll my eyes and continue with my day...

oh and like so many others, I could never, ever talk to her about anything worrying me. And worth saying, that most - if not in fact all - of my worries were caused by her.

The glee that @QuizzlyBear mentions. With respect to eating disorders, she just loved that I was thin (I was painfully thin, and yes, it hurt). Loved it. This followed a “disgusting fat” stage as a sixth former (in fact, looking at pics, I wasn’t especially fat, maybe a bit plump - at over nine stone).

She never once asked if I was ok. of course not. And I was most definitely not ok, sometimes I’d wonder if I’d wake up the next morning I felt so ill. The only time she “asked” about it was when she shouted (screamed) up at me from downstairs (I was upstairs) and angrily shouted “are you bulimic?” (I think she had been cleaning the loo, she was very house proud.) Of course, I shouted back down an indignant NO. At the time I was making myself sick about 10 times a day. I really could have done with some support. When I read concerned posts on here, about children with ED, they really give me pause for thought. Those posters are normal, caring parents. NPD parents are not the norm, even tho they pretend they are the best.

She once described herself as a “carer”, when someone asked her to define herself. she truly believed this, as far as I can tell. It is this black/white switch that is so hard for us NPD kids.

Good for you. Oh yes, competitive illness! My lovely Mil had a hip op that put her in a wheelchair. My mum told me how she had hurt her finger. In same category apparently. I do think they THINK they are being empathetic by telling their story? Obvs NPD folk have an empathy bypass. This is one of the most serious parts of it.
I’ve also not seen her since covid, jan 2020, it’s been very good for me going so low contact. I do call her now and again. My sister has gone total NC since dad died in 2017 (she quickened his demise). I do still worry about her. Nuts I know. It would be easier if she just died. She doesn’t like life anyway and has spent the past 40 years (maybe more, who knows) not quite killing herself with alcohol and pills.

My DM played up something chronic when my DF was dying and at his funeral. They had been divorced nearly 20 years.

When he was dying I rang her to let her know and her answer to it was she would come up by bus. She sounded absolutely delighted. But then of course I would have to sort out someone or me to pick her up. Great detail, at length about her and what she was bringing and the timings. That she had told people. As if I had the bandwidth to cope with this being about her?

Even after he was gone she thought she should come up and again about being picked up and all that and my looking after her.

At the funeral I avoided her like the plague. Even if she had in a human moment wanted to comfort me she had opportunity privately but wanted it to be so public. But she never had before so what was the point? Clearly her sympathy did not extend to sending me a card or some flowers or saying something nice about him. Even though I was a mess.

She babied herself constantly and I was sick, even when I was very young, of being her parent. She referred to herself as a "girl" until she was 50.

So this is her legacy. To be remembered with hate.

This resounds so much with me. My mother always thought of herself as a "litte girl"- she still does even in her 80s.
She asks the GP if she has been a " good girl" and if she will get a "gold star".

My father became terminally ill when I was 12 and she hid her head under a cushion- leaving me to deal with contacting emergency services,ambulance crews, intensive care staff.
I get that must have been hard for her- but I was only 12- totally out of my depth, but having to be the sensible one- I was parentified far too early.
When he died a few years later- again it was all about her, "becoming a widow" no recognition of the fact I has lost my dad and may have feelings too.
Having a narc parent is very unpleasant.

Oh Christ @speakout - to the child you were, you poor poor thing, so young!!! Disgraceful. Shameful. Such a hard thing for a CHILD to deal with. I can just imagine the hiding under the cushion.

@user ug, it’s always about them isn’t it.

when her mother died (Ie my grandmother) she made it all about “my mother” dying. I was a kid and used to spend whole summers with my grandmother (itself interesting, on reflection). Apparently her grief was all that mattered, it was ALL ABOUT HER. And we had to tip toe around and support her.

Then, when my dad died, it was all about “my husband” dying. Again, Zero empathy to how I might be feeling. Despite the fact that she had multiple affairs, hurt my dad physically towards the end, left me to care for him in his dying days.

the little girl thing. Oooooo yes. She also always banged on about how YOUNG she looked for her age too. is this also a NPD thing??

Definite competition with us girls too — a desire in her to look much better than us. so we always had deeply unfashionable clothes while she looked great, with the latest fashion and lots of clothes for herself. She claimed this was because she was caring and giving us sensible things that “the teachers” would approve of — in reality the clothes were clean, good quality, but usually hand-me-downs and absolutely not what i would have chosen. Fine as an under ten, potential social suicide as a teenager, Ug! My poor sister had THE ugliest glasses too.

in the case of the clothes/specs, this is so minor on its own (even if major to the teen!) but it’s one of those “death by a thousand cuts” things. I just got on with it at the time but I didn’t like it, and now I have teens, I’d never ever subject them to such nonsense.

I constantly worried as a child, it all adds up. In my case her alcoholism was the real worry of course, and the constant suicidal ideation. But yes, seems there are many similar things these NPDs do. Very unpleasant having one as a parent, as you say @speakout 💐

I ca so relate to your experiences- sending solidarity and hope you are healing.
I hear what you say about the death of your grandmother- and the inability of your mother to recognise the pain of you and others.
Same with my father- it was all about her losing her husband- no recognition of the fact I had lost a dad. It really stings doesn't it.
In my early 20s my husband developed cancer- my mother went to pieces. I know she despised my OH, but she spent months demanding attention from her friends, even from me because she had " cancer in the family"
Yes to the competition thing too.
I was a naturally slim child, but my mother told me my arms and legs looked like a skeleton, so even in the warmest weather I had to wear long sleeves and trousers. In my early teens most of my clothes were my mother's cast offs- usually too big and I was very embarrassed to wear them.
It is very hard to have an unsupportive and critical mother.

When my father was dying he was Adam his ex my mother was not to know. The three of the children went to great lengths to ensure she didn't find out. His family came up, saw our cousinas, uncles and aunts for the first time in decades. Mother had snubbed them. Was a lovely service and wake. .

Rheee months later mother found out, she went crazy in the nastiest way. Was there any money for her??

.

Yes! This ‘little girl’ thing. My mother used that one too. She would used to do this little play act of being a bit ditzy and fluffy to get people running around after her. “Oh silly me. You’re such a handsome young man. I’m sure you don’t mind helping me to do XYZ. You’re SO clever” etc etc. when behind the scenes she was very calculating and hard nosed.

To get her own way or to get out of things, she could turn on the tears at the drop of a hat or feign illness. I was wise to this having seen her do it so often over the years but of course, those that didn’t know her would fuss around her and back track immediately. I never quite worked out how she managed to spontaneously squeeze the tears out too! Before you knew it, they’d be rolling down her cheeks as she dabbed them delicately with her hankie. No red puffy eyes like the rest of us either!

Oh @JohnPrescottsPyjamas they thought they were so unique, and special, but clearly all used the same play book!

Oh yes. My mother was an amazing actress. Turned on the tears too.

She even explained to me what she was doing, several times, when we were abroad (I was a young child) and she was trying to get her way over officialdom e.g. to get to front of queue in foreign airport/to deal with the fact she didn’t have the right stamp or etc etc. (we travelled a lot owing to my dads work.) Cue wailing, tears, breakdown. It worked! Those poor officials used to jump for her! I remember it. 1970s/80s. I’m sure it wouldn’t work so well now, but that was back in the day.

Thanks for the solidarity @speakout About clothes (actually, about almost everything she did!) she also expected me to be GRATEFUL. (Yes the clothes were “good quality” but wrong size, wrong colouring for me and also, unfashionable!, including old mum clothes!) Then she’s complain I hid away and didn’t make the most of myself, or didn’t experiment enough (like her). But like I say, clothes were just one very small part of it, and mentioned alone it does make me sound ungrateful or petty, and an outsider would not get it!

Grateful. That was the added kicker. The emphasis was always on how <insert superlative word> they were/what they did for us. Madonna. It made it very confusing.

talking of the Madonna , is there a religious component here too? She was born a Catholic. I doubt too much of a link since my sister is today a mini narc, too, but wasn’t raised in a religion. However I do think my mum had a lot of Catholic guilt. A wish to appear saintly?

sorry to hear your story @justasking111 . Ug!

Some of the mothers on this thread are absolutely evil. My mum is nowhere near as bad but she can be quite narcissistic. She’s worse at some times than others. I’ve noticed she gets more nasty if I’m ill. When my dd3 was born, she said she didn’t love her and if I remind her of this she says it never happened.

@MondaysChild7 my mother is nowhere near as bad as some of these mothers either!

And yet because it's all so subtle and all of the relatives including family of origin and wider family look at her and think butter wouldn't melt, it's been extremely de-railing. It did make me feel crazy at one point. My whole family think I am mad but I know I'm not!

My mother's trigger is what she perceives to be weakness. So if I say to her that she hurt me, she instantly martyrs up, turns it around, attacks me, gives me the silent treatment, smears me to the relatives for not talking to her because there is only one perspective in her mind! so she can give you the silent treatment but not even acknowledge that that's what it is that's going on. she thinks she's protecting herself from my perspective which is an aggression...... because of course there is one perspective.

She also hates illness or tiredness or any kind of low mood. If you get bad news you can't just sit and digest it for 72 hours. You're instantly jollied up. Used to drive me mad when I was a teenager. I remember saying as a teenager, just let me be sad for a day! Like, I had the faith that I'd be sad for a day and then bounce back, but I don't think she had that faith, she thought I'd spiral down.

That sounds really obviously bad when I type it but if I reflect back her rosy view of herself as perfect then she is ok apart from hurtful thoughtlessness caused by just not really having the empathy.

To @J0y she used to call me mad. Also the butter wouldn’t melt thing.

But: have faith. They reveal themselves finally. Or at least my mum did. Now she’s elderly a huge number of people are wise to her. Including her lovely (super Christian) neighbour who really didn’t get it and advised me (10 years ago) after some issue that “we just need to love <insert my mothers name>“. Poor suffering mother who is just so sad that her husband is now elderly (dad a decade older) and she can’t cope because she loves him so. I don’t honestly think “love” is an emotion my mother has. Lovely neighbour hates my mother now since my mother started to lean/leach on her.

for decades, it felt like only I saw my mother for who she was. Because she treated me as her punching bag. When I finally asked her to treat me like my brother (golden boy), weirdly she did. I mean it was really weird. Like she had multiple personalities and suddenly I saw the “nice side” of her that others saw. At that point she started “punching” others. It was really odd. But vindicating. Since (once I withdrew from
her game) others saw her for what she was. So so odd. You do question your sanity when it’s just happening to you, so im
glad she’s revealed herself finally!

tho as a pp said much earlier, once you start talking to others you also discover quite a few already saw her for who she is. They were just too polite to say anything. This can come out only after the person has died.

That's an interesting way of approaching it. To ask her to treat you like golden boy. I have a golden boy brother too who also thinks I'm mad. But he's never had any never character attributes projected on to him, he's never had to object to that, never been labelled sensitive or angry for having to object to a label.

I think the reason my mother acts like a cross examining barrister hired to prove I am mad while everybody else gets charm and a smile is because she's a desperate desperate people pleaser, but she doesn't accept that I am a separate person so she NEVER tries to please me, no point, she has tried to use me to please others though. Pleasing me doesn't validate her.

I don't know if she will ever reveal herself because she genuinely is a pleaser to every soul on earth except ME. I am shamed, blamed, rejected, stonewalled, manipulated. Just me.

One of the things she's accused me of is entitlement (I did take money from my parents for my house and I was so grateful and expressed that gratitude often, sincerely, frequently and willingly) but it's so weird, the entitlement is all hers, and she cannot see it, just a complete entitlement on her part to TELL ME WHO I AM and I am the part she wrote for me and she is furious if I dare to go off her script by saying nope, I'm not mad/insane/entitled.

I had to learn to un-enmesh from my mother but how do you get your mother to un-enmesh from you? No contact isn't enough. She still feels outraged that I have not been manipulated.

To give examples of when my mother tried to use me to save face/people pleasing generally.

Once she said to my cousin ''Joy was wondering when you and Fiona were getting married''. I said ''I wasn't wondering that''. Everybody looked at her and she said ''joy! you said that in the car, on the way here, you asked that very question!''. There was such anger in her voice that I had lied......... hmm

Another time, only a few years ago, a woman she knows but who I do not know at all was trying to hug me. I felt uncomfortable and removed her from around me. The woman looked a bit rejected which made my mother feel terrible I guess but then my mother said to her ''Joy is single and doesn't like being touched, she has issues''. She said that! Just to make a virtual stranger feel better about having weirdly hugged me even when I wasn't not giving out hug me signals. Never mind how i felt being labelled a touch-phobic with attachment issues

@Body You’re right, there does seem to be a religious angle to this too. My mother was from a strict Catholic background and I also used to put a lot of her drama down to a guilt thing too and I certainly recognise the need in her to appear saintly to others as well. I used to have a tasteless joke with DH that she was like the Mafia. She was horrific all week but without fail went to mass on a Sunday, went to confession, absolved herself of all sin in order to start each week with a clean page - then proceed to be just as wicked again.

Clothes definitely! She used to want to control absolutely everything I wore. I was always dressed like a doll, not a child. I had thick straight hair but she insisted I had to have curls so I had to wear really uncomfortable rollers every night, which proved pointless as the ringlets usually dropped out by mid morning. She was dark haired but I was very fair and she used to regulary tell me how glad she was that she didn’t have blonde hair like me too.

She would never refuse anything free - despite us being financially comfortable - and maybe I’m weird, but this particular incident has always bothered me throughout my life. She had a spinster friend with an elderly mother who was housebound and slept downstairs. A new mattress had bought for the mother but after a week or so, she died on it. Within a day, I suddenly had a new mattress on my bed. Even as a child, I put two and two together and said I didn’t want it as I suspected it had been the old lady’s one. Mother turned me and said she couldn’t believe that I would even think such a thing and did I really imagine that she was the sort of person who would give me a dead person’s mattress? Er, yes you certainly would mother…

oh that makes me laugh! the mafioso going to mass on Sunday. Appearances are everything. Appearing perfect is what makes my mum happy and I inherited that, initially, untill at about 33 I had an epiphany where I realised I had prioritised appearing to be happy over being happy. That in fact, the two were so interwoven for me that appearing to be happy did give me some happiness. Had a lot to start unravelling.

@J0y to get her to unmesh from you, maybe specifically ask her to treat you like your brother?! See what happens? In my case, I was on the phone, as usual acting as her psychiatrist. But in return she was ranting, wailing, and being foul to me. I snapped. I had small kids. A job. I had had enough.

I said: what would you be asking/saying to brother right now? She went really quiet, as tho I’d told off a little girl (emotionally narcs are like toddlers), and she said “I’d ask him how he is”. (Never in my entire life had she asked me how I was!) so I said “ask me that”. So she did. Then I said “what would you reply to him now?” And we had a his weird almost “teaching” conversation where I may have become him in her mind.

Whatever, This set in motion a change that negatively impacted lots of other people since she moved her wrath from me to them. I was always a protector (parentified of course so I worried about these others). But lots of others can cope. You coped alone after all, all these years!

interestingly, my mother also always describes herself as a people pleaser.

Like you, she also labelled me in ways I don’t/didn’t agree with. Eg even as a kid I remember thinking im not sure I am as stupid as you say! she would also tell me how I was argumentative, stubborn, mad, etc etc. actually, all of these things apply precisely to her!

in reality, I had very non argumentative and peaceful relationships with everyone else! But I felt myself argumentative, rude, horrible, stubborn, etc since she told me I was.

you trust your mum, especially when you are a kid. that’s the point of parents! They are there to look after and protect you. You’ve done well unmeshing yourself. They have no boundaries!!

@JohnPrescottsPyjamas oh Christ yes! I had ribbons and dresses as a child. I was a Tom boy in my head. Or maybe just a regular child who doesn’t want to wear stupid dresses!!!! But we must be grateful.

im also the opposite colour to her. My father is from India. She constantly told me to stay out of the sun. She was utterly racist against me. Why she married a forrin man I do not know. And yet she would constantly sunbathe so she could tan.

She just loved being blonde and admired by “all” the dark haired people from his land (Asian sub continent folk, I hate to say it, often apply a hierarchy of skin tones, linked to beauty, with darkest skin at the bottom, pale Brahmins at top; “wheaten skin” like mine when it’s winter, puke, was good. But no tanning!) My propensity to tan, my very dark eyes and hair were an affront!* Maybe you and I should have swapped mothers, haha.

• though she loved boasting about us to everyone. I used to get so embarrassed in the primary school playground when she’d big us all up to the other mums. How marvellous we are. All out achievements (which on reflection were many: we played instruments, were delightfully behaved, good kids, ballet, high grades, blah blah blah ). She was the type to write awful boasting round robin Xmas cards! But to my face: I was mad, disgusting, thick etc.

Ps @J0y yes my mum
makes up complete lies like this. They are bold and believable. My jaw has dropped at some of them! Complete lies. Where I look
bas, as with you. Even those v close to her, eg my dad, simply believed them all. Until she turned against him. I think it’s because most people don’t tell such constant petty or big lies, and with such conviction. I know I don’t!

Actually, @J0y on reflection, I now look like I’m contradicting myself (first message said she boasted to others, my second message said she lied to make me look bad). But her lies weren’t to make me look bad per se., but to make herself look good. However, the result could be that I looked bad since it seemed like I was the liar/was blaming her for things she hadn’t done.

Eg about 10 years ago she said she thought there was something wrong with my toddler son. I trusted her (before I realised her game). This sent me into a tailspin of tests. When all was fine, she denied having been the one who had ever started the idea! It was 100% her. My father gave me a card saying he was so glad DGS was well, that my worries were over. But the whole thing had been started by her! When I said this to my dad, in her presence, after he gave me the card, she bold faced denied it all. Just one recentish example of a lie. But there are so so many. She is one big lie.

@JohnPrescottsPyjamas my mother absolutely adores confessional. And she isn't even a Catholic. But she'll find a priest to confess to every so often and then go about her merry way. I never quite understood what part of "go and sin no more" she did not understand as she never seemed to me to make the slightest effort to mend her ways.

The weird thing is that she has no particular desire to appear saintly. One of the things that appeals about her to other people is her apparent liberality. She'll always encourage others to have a drink or a fag or an affair.

The clothing thing is weird, too. I always felt like a doll, although the clothes I got were absolutely hideous. My sister got brilliant clothes and her hair was lovely and mother could really go to town with her. I was given frumpy, beige stuff that was good quality but more suitable for my grandmother. Even now she loves to give clothing to my sister and me. It's always decent quality but never fits properly and is never something we would buy for ourselves.

I find this thread absolutely fascinating because there are so many similarities in our experiences.

I think living with contradiction is part of the disorder, or maybe it’s part of the perpetual lying? You think you’ve got their behaviour sussed, then they change tack completely and throw you off guard. It seems to enable them to find your weak spot because you’re unprepared.

My mother would very convincingly tell others that me and her had a very close loving relationship. She outwardly boast about my achievements and those of my children yet to my face be very dismissive or completely disinterested. I lost count of the times over the years she asked what my DDs degree was in, but was so indifferent and clearly not listening when she was told. It was in English FFS, so hardly difficult to recall. I worked for years as a TA but she insisted on telling people I was a class teacher. She certainly knew the difference in the roles as she told me on several occasions what I did was ‘a waste of time and money’

She would suddenly be very generous but I quickly learnt any gifts always resulted in payback time. It might be an expected return present of equal or greater value but was more often an emotional debt that I was expected to repay. Everything given was ‘conditional’
“Because I bought you XYZ, I thought you might visit me more often’ but then, “You’ve only come to visit because you’re hoping I might give you more!”
If I thanked her profusely - as was always expected - she would have to say, “You see. I’m not such a bad mother after all” as though a material item made up for all the emotional abuse.

@JohnPrescottsPyjamas are you NC?