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?

Yes the thing about qualifications! Anything I achieved was never congratulated because it would make me big headed and it must have been easy if I got it. I'm academic but I also work hard.

So in her attempt to once again not work she signed up for 2 GCSEs. She failed both miserably but of course she didnt share that. Not getting those qualifications demonstrated that she wasnt clever, they were not easy and that it was never a lack of opportunities that meant she didnt achieve what she thought was her world class potential.

Any boyfriend I had she automatically absolutely hated and then was delighted when it fell apart. She was the original poison pen letter writer.

She wanted me broke with no one to care about me. Who wishes that for their child?

I just cannot forgive her.

Wow this thread is so enlightening.
The whole gift thing is bonkers too.
My DM will buy something that is a little insulting- like a new toilet seat
I got at christmas, or a tube of handcream that clearly says " For the relief of skin that shows noticable signs of ageing.
And she buys things
because she likes them, not because
she thinks I like them.
My DM is really into cutsie animals, wide eyed kittens and fluffy bunnies- so she will
but me a print of cute furry animals-
I dislike
anything cutsie.
She wears a bubblegum pink lipstick, so she bought one for my birthday. I rarely wear lipstick and if I do it wouldn't be bubblegum pink.
I run a small but thriving and successful busines from home.
One day looking at the stack of packages I was wrapping to post, she said " This is amazing- there is only one person to thank for all this success- your father. You would be nowhere without him"
I mean FFs my father has been dead for 40 years- how can we give him credit for my
business. I thought she was about to give me a compliment- but I should have known better.

Yep @speakout i even relate to the lipstick. I don’t wear it either. She insists I should (like her). Nice bold colour, just like her.

Truth is my lips are really not my best feature (they are hers). Lipstick (bar the mildest stain) rarely suits me! Otoh eye makeup looks great on me (less so on her). As a younger person, if I went to town on my lips AND eyes, I looked like a painted doll! And these days it’s still not me. So no thanks.

ps of course you have her husband to thank! And by extension her, for wisdom of choice.

@user1471538283 my mother assumed we would pass everything, to the highest standard, absolutely assumed it. Yet… when she did a degree as a mature student, she bombed. Still, that was our fault. (I do agree it must have been hard to do a degree and have a family. But did she really have to blame us? Why yes, of course!)

Having children has been enlightening since I always thought I was the cause of all her problems. Now I see how I (& most people here on MN) really want their children to be happy/ok and feel loved! Anything that goes wrong in my life is simply not the fault of my children! I’m the adult here!

btw @speakout the thing about hanging your sons knickers out. CREEPY! like you I’ve never left my children with her. On the SINGLE occasion she saw my son get ready for a bath (at her house), she commented on the size of his penis (smaller than her own son’s). She then proceeded to tell me that she thought he had a big problem with his testicles (undescended). That I needed to get this tested, lest lifelong issues. Argh!

He was a baby, I still trusted her. I took him to the gp and for hospital tests. Really upsetting. Nothing was wrong. When I told her he was fine despite what she told me, she barefaced denied she had ever started the idea!

If she were a nice mum you’d think (know) she was only helping…

I feel I have found my tribe here!
My mother was quick to anger and readily hit us by way of a punishment.
I have vivid recollections being spanked as a child, often for the slightest of reasons- she would often use a paddle hairbrush.
I have talked to my sister about it, and she confirms that my mother would hit or spank too.
DM and I were having a conversation lately, and the subject of spanking came up- she had read an article about spanking and the law.
She then said that parents who smack their child are bullies.
I asked her if she remembers spanking us as children- she became angry and denied it.
I said I understood- many parents back then did smack their children, it was much more acceptable than it is nowadays.
But my mother stood her ground- she absolutely never smacked us.
She became upset and angry, saying I was despicable for making up such dreadful stories " And to your OWN mother!"
For the most part I grey rock, because so many subjects seem to hit a nerve or make her angry.

Erm @speakout our mothers are carbon copies… we had the wooden spoon. But no matter, she only threatened that (loudly rattling kitchen drawer before thundering up to our bedrooms or wherever we were). Her preferred MO was to violently shake (me, at least - my siblings were a decade older and haven’t asked them).

YET she only threatened the wooden spoon, that’s all. She knew she didn’t mean it, it was only in jest (so she said to me as an adult.)

she was bloody scary. Also as a preschooler she used to pull this face at me when angry. All monstrous teeth - hard to explain - like an angry grimace, showing all lower teeth if you can imagine that. She wld put her face right up close to mine and growl. An older child would perhaps laugh but I found it terrifying. Why the fuck would you do that to a preschool child?

But yes. Her children meant everything to her. She was a loving mother. Mother of the century actually.

Oh one last thing. In my memory, not a day went by without ranting scary screaming from her. She was (is) such an angry person. I assumed everyone’s parents screamed daily like that.

At one point I wondered why i didn’t hear the other mums’ screaming (we lived on a cul de sac - lots of other kids). I figured the only reason I didn’t hear it was because windows were sound proof…

she later told me she liked screaming because her own parents didn’t (step dad and mum) because they were so repressed. Ie justifying it as though evolved behaviour!
in fact it was entirely anxiety inducing and to this day I am jumpy…

I got induced with my youngest son as I'm an older mum I was given the date a month before at one of my midwife appointments . My mum said oh sorry I won't be able to visit I'm not changing my hair appointment
She knew how long and that is lost many babies before . But no her hair appointment was more important!
I lost 10 babies between having my eldest and my youngest and she said it was for the best as my eldest ds would be insanely jealous . He's not he's the best big brother

At my late brother furneral, died studdenly in his 40s. Standing talking to my sister, myself and our 4 children. "Why couldn't you or your sister have died instead?"

I've heard that before. I'm so sorry 😞

Some of these make me blood run cold. They are heartless and soulless. They get off on it.

That is another thing they have in common! Denying the past, reinventing and controlling the narrative.

I agree, and it can be terribly manipulative.
My DM acts like a sweet kitten around her church friends, puts on the "Munchausen walk" coming out of church flanked on two sides by other church members, frail, limping.
I or OH wait in the car and can see the sharp glances towards us wondering why we wait in the car park and not help her out of the door.
It is so uncomfortable- but I cannot collude with her narcissitic victim role.
As soon as the churc is out of sight the limp goes, her back straightens she speeds up her pace.
Her fellow worshippers have told me how lucky I am to have such a kind sweet mother.
Thankfully they don't have to hear what she thinks of them- fat, ugly, proud, too posh, not posh enough.

@speakout The Munchausen Walk! Thank you for that - bloody brilliant and made me chuckle. I can totally picture it too.
My mother’s version involved ‘feeling faint’ and ‘chest pains/heart attack’ Usually when she wasn’t getting her own way or she was getting close to be rumbled by someone. She tried it so often with me that I used to tell her I’ll call an ambulance then. Funny, that always seemed to bring around a rapid recovery.

@user1471538283 Nailed it in a nutshell.

Denying the past - even when there were other witnesses. Accusing the subject of lying or imagining what happened. Sometimes so convincingly that I’ve even doubted my own sanity.

Reinventing and controlling the narrative - usually to put herself in the best light and put others in the shadows. Told stories that were whopping and blatant lies either to me or others and even tried to include me as a party to the imagined event. Entirely disinterested in anyone/anything else unless she could bring herself into the story.

@Body Yes, the in your face screaming when I was a child too. The mad eyes and so close I could feel her spit on my face. Easy to do to a small defenceless person. She wouldn’t have dared do it to another adult, partly because she was a coward and partly because it would have ruined her outside image.

For some reason, she used to wash my hair over the washing up bowl in the kitchen and always unnecessarily forced my face forward into the bowl full of water when she was rinsing the shampoo. Even now I have a horror of drowning or potentially inhaling water. I become anxious if it’s portrayed in a film and am not keen even to put my face underwater whilst swimming.

These connections are so powerful JohnPrescottsPyjamas just so dreadful reading about the hairwash thing.
Hair seems a common theme. My mother would call me when she was in a foul mood.
I dreaded it- she would rip through my long curly hair with a hard comb fiercely and with vigour.- all the while telling me not to be a cry baby. She often said my hair was like a pile of dirty rat tails. My hair would be torn out in great clumps. I still struggle going to the hairdressers.

But like so many posters on this supportive thread it is through my mother that I learned how not to parent.
My DD enjoyed long hair, and yes would sometimes get into a tangle.
I would always take care to be gentle, take time, spray conditioner, tangle teasers. A "hair appointment" as we called it - a time to chat, sing or listen to music while I teased out knots- with patience, a gentle touch and affirmations.
Even now at 22 my DD loves me washing or styling her hair.

Oh crikey that’s quite chilling about the hair. I too have curly hair, quite wild (unlike her thin and poker straight hair, which she daily teased with a hot tong and hairspray to make bigger!). On my hair, She never once used conditioner which meant it really hurt to brush, and I had to rely on her to comb it (yes, with a comb). It was only as a teenager that I learnt about (paddle) hairbrushes or conditioner. She also cut my hair into a boyish cut twice by the age of 5 - removing all the beautiful ringlets. She also always got soap in my eyes when washing hair (lying back in bath). I mean, this is such an insignificant thing for me (not memorable next to her shouting or drinking) and not at all like the horrific hair stories you tell above @JohnPrescottsPyjamas and @speakout
but so odd that it reoccurs with you too.

im so sorry to read your story @Dryadia and @sleepismyhobby
and yes, you nailed it @user1471538283

There must be a hair theme I had lovely hair up till I starts school then I got cut really short . It didn't help I have a double crown so It stuck out in ever angle.
She used to make me wear my older brothers hand me downs so I always got mistaken for a boy which I used to cry about, she thought it was funny.
Also she would was my hair in the kitchen sink with constant dunking of the hard.
Then dry it with the hairdryer in a very hot setting . If I complained I'd get a Wack on the head with a prickly brush

I have some about the important of image. I went to see her once, early in a pregnancy where I had terrible morning sickness. When she opened her front door, she exclaimed “Oh you look terrible!!”. I replied, yes, I’m being sick all the time and I really don’t feel very well.

She said, in very disapproving tone: “Well, that’s NO excuse not to have make up on. Go upstairs (where her make up bag was) and put some lipstick on”.

I actually did it. The “you look terrible” wasn’t concern for me, it was an admonishment about my appearance.

When my twins were born, she offered to wash their clothes for me to help. Sounds like a lovely offer. However, out of all the things I had to do, it wasn’t the most helpful one as it actually didn’t take me long to put their baby grows on wash and dry, no need to iron.

I said to her “Thank you for offering, it would help me more at the moment if you could do DS’s school uniform once a week”. She replied “Oh no, I don’t fancy that, I want to do the baby clothes”.

What she wanted was to tell everyone she was washing the baby clothes (she came over when the health visitor was there, dropped it in conversation whilst making a show of tidying up, and got praised for helping me). She also hung them on her line and put it up really high - no doubt so the neighbours could see how helpful she was.

I don’t think most people would understand if I told them those stories, they might think 🤔 was being a bit silly - but I think people on here will understand. Behind the scenes actual “help”… doesn’t happen. But if it looks good to others = important.

She also kept asking to take my baby twins out for a walk. They had been born a bit early. It was winter, it was cold and it was windy. They had a pushchair with big hoods that pulled right down. I saw her putting the hoods up and told her they need to stay down to keep the wind off them. She put them up but made one of her faces.

I looked out the upstairs window after they left. Soon as she was a little way down the road, I saw her stop and push the hoods all the way up.

I mean, what was the point of her taking cute baby twins out if no-one could SEE them, after all?! Again, no real desire to ‘help’ me or to care for their well-being, just to gain attention. 😕

YellowHouze I hear you! Even the baby clothes thing.
My mother would visit when I had newborns to "help", that usually involved her sitting with a sleeping baby in her arms ( even though the infants would sleep contentedly in their moses basket) while she barked requests for tea, sandwiches, remote control etc.
And then tell her friends how I was relying on her help because I was not coping.

And fuck yes to being critical of someone not looking their best when unwell.
My second baby was only a week old while I nipped to the pharmacy. Sore, still bleeding, breasts leaking milk everywhere- I scraped back my hair and nipped into Boots.
Apparently I was spotted by one of her friends.
My mother told me the next day- Mrs P saw you yesterday in town, she said you look terrible, a real mess.
FFS, I had given birth just 6 days prior, but the real issue was why my mother saw fit to pass on that information and how that was in anyway helpful.
I asked her why she chose to pass on the comment, but of course it was " I am just telling you what someone said, it's not my fault you look so bad. Anyway in my day we were kept in hospital for a full two weeks for rest- I was positively glowing after my babies were born"

I despise these mothers with every new post! Solidarity.

@YellowHouze i think this is a massive part of the problem: “don’t think most people would understand if I told them those stories, they might think 🤔 was being a bit silly”
And if you told them, they might not just think but SAY. And your darling mother would SAY it too. I’ve had the “but it’s your mother”. Even from my lovely SIL who is a mental health nurse. So I rarely share any of this.

Clothes, hair, looks. I realise now how much my mother was in some sort of bizarre competition with us girls. I always had those stupid hand me downs (boys too) as an under 10. Can’t say that bothered me too much, apart from when the clothes were clearly all wrong.

But I hated the absolutely crap clothes as a senior school kid (ie her cast-offs, even my bloody grandmothers!)… yet she had all the latest clothes. If I complained (she gave me NO pocket money, and anyway she didn’t let me go shopping with mates, so I relied on her) she admonished me for my lack of experimentation (!). Surprised I had any mates. Thank god for school uniform. Suffice to say, I couldn’t socialise in the eve either, since I had nothing to wear! Then again, she didn’t want me going out, end of. (She classed it in terms of her being “over protective”)

ref the hair. Thinking on it, it did induce anxiety in me as a smaller kid. She used her own fine tooth long comb on my wild and thick hair. When I tried to use it, as a primary age child aiming for more independence, it resulted in just one massive yanky tangle. So I felt obligated to her to sort out my hair. Everything was about keeping me “dependent” upon her. Control, not love. Plus, a chance to say/demonstrate to my father and all of us, how much she did for us. It could have been lovely. The sort of hair ritual that @speakout mentions with her daughters, that some (many?) of our friends must have had with their mums, that we do with our kids now. but it wasn’t.

about the baby twins… oh hell. I can just imagine. My mother thankfully loves 200 miles away. She used to offer to have my eldest at hers, and then complain I didn’t let her help. But honestly I did not trust her (she wasn’t drinking when he was a baby as far as I know, but I didn’t want her toxic influence on him). Any “help” she did give me was so similar to what you and @speakout describe. Eg as per the ONE occasion she helped with his bath, when I was visiting her place, which led to her claiming he had big medical problems with his body! Or when she joined us for eldest’s first birthday (a little event at home, just us two parents, son, jolly) she stood in the corner reciting poetry about being all alone (!! focus wasn’t on her). She also told me off repetitively that day about the (keep this for life) present we had got him (a cool wooden car). But it was too expensive! So ugly! How could we?. What a bitch. It still remains a big part of my memory of my first boy’s special first birthday.

@speakout about looks, post birth. i remember her pointing at and then prodding my sisters stomach after she had given birth. My sister had been anorexic as a teen. Not great. But of course, it needs to be said, and best it comes from a loving mother. Yes?She also bought me a bizarre snakeskin type dress after I gave birth. WTAF. At the time, I was so sleep deprived, I thought she was being kind.

Can you think of any positive instances with your mother? A therapist once asked me that. Yes, I can. I remember watching black and white movies with her sometimes. In real life, I aim to be positive. But I think the trouble is, these memories are immediately superseded by violent or ugly and emotionally awful memories. these are the thousand little cuts. sometimes not little!

On their own, each one can (sometimes) sounds minor. Of course, some of the cuts are massive bleeding wounds, even when the mother rewrites. And boy do they rewrite! This thread IS a balm, since I feel like between us, we are all putting these cuts together. Shining a light on those nutcase psychopaths!!

Ps I know this isn’t the done thing, but I thought I’d just quote you something I’ve just read on another thread, about a 20 year old who doesn’t have any male attention and her mum wants to know why (below is pasted someone’s response).

Can any of you imagine having a caring mother like that? I got absolutely loads of male attention, but didn’t act on it because my self esteem was IN THE TOILET. As indeed was my head quite a lot (severe eating disorders, caused entirely by my mother. The stress of her drinking and the way she constantly body-shamed me).

She also told me (ordered me) to have no sex before marriage too. I wasn’t allowed any boyfriends as a teen living at home (then again, I rarely allowed out!). At uni, my entire 3 years were spent tending an ED so I didn’t have boyfriends then either. Plus, it would have been wrong. She always said she had been so virtuous herself. No boyfriends, apart from two she held hand with. (This was pre pill so I believed her.) Only in my late 30s did she tell me (during a howling rant) that she’d had an abortion before marriage!

anyway, just as a reminder of what other people experienced with their mums… and with a mum like this, of course you’d defend “mums”… she sounds great. quoting from the other thread where the mum is trying to help (imagine that!) her 20 year old (6 ft tall) daughter:

”This was me. I knew I was pretty at the time but couldn't understand why nobody was ever interested in me.

My mum could see what was happening and explained that my friends all had a kind of sex appeal that I didn't have. They had model figures, had long hair, walked with a kind of confidence I didn't have, wore clothes that I couldn't ba e got away with wearing and just general had much more sex appeal than me. She said that I had a kind of classic beauty instead that would stand me good stead as I got older. I can't judge one way or another whether my mother was right about her perception of my looks, but the older I got, the more male attention I got for sure. I'm now happily married so it all worked out.

It's frustrating at the time, but her time will come when boys her age will grow up and see her differently. In the meantime, she should just get on with enjoying her life unencumbered and make sure that she doesn't lower her standards due to loneliness. My mother gave me an incredibly positive internal dialogue that gave me a great source of strength in those intermittent years.”

Sorry that previous message was a bit confusing! The quote is at the very end!

I can relate to much of this but felt compelled to add to the gifts thing. My birthday is after Christmas and every year I get something from the sale bin at M&S. I have had
A sportsbra in the wrong size
A mini backpack
Many scarves (I never wear scarves)
etc

I am sitting here with tears in my eyes as I catch up with this thread.
So many sad and painful stories, but so validating to realise I am not alone.
This is also bringing up painful memories.
My mother would not allow me to wear short sleeved shirts
or shorts- even in the summer- she said the skinniness of my arms and legs were and embarrassment to her, that people may think she doen't feed me properly. So even in baking sun I had to endure long sleeves- PE was a nightmare for me as I had to expose my "skeleton legs" ( as she called them).
I wasn't allowed to wear yellow because it made me look ill- I couldn't wear red because it made me "look like a harlot" I was 6 FFS. I use to tell people
friend's parents that I looked like a harlot if I wore red- I can no clue what the word harlot even meant.
Body I am glad you have had some therapy, like you my self esteem was in the toilet, and my early adulthood saw me married young and tolerate serious
physical and sexual abuse. Because that's what I thought life was about, and what I deserved.
I have been on a healing journey for a long time, still a work in progress, I hope everyone who has felt pain from a narcissist mother finds healing.

@speakout 💐
I only had a bit of therapy when pregnant, so scared was I of the concept of “mother”. Then more recently the PTSD therapy.

Like many of the comrades ;-) on here, I was parentified and spent all my life as my mothers therapist, aiming to solve all her problems - so sort of never really thought I needed one! However, the therapy was enlightening. Esp when she asked where my father had been in all this (we were talking about her alcoholism when I was a teenager).

a harlot at six! What is this madness!! Fwiw I have a strong memory of being six and my mum telling me not to lean on my wrist since that would create WRINKLES!!!

They were SO lookist, aside from their clearly weird link with VIRTUE (hence the harlot thing, or the no sex before marriage thing in my case - I was born in the 70s, so virtually no one followed that rule!!)

Like you, unsurprisingly, I had an an awful first relationship (in my 20s). Of course I had to be with him since I’d slept with him.. and no sex before marriage. Not physically abusive, but he was horribly emotionally abusive and disdainful of me.

In retrospect I also realise my ED “chose” him - such was his lack of interest in me, I could get away with being ill. His attitude to me also felt familiar, of course.

i am also very sad to hear about your little childhood body being called “skeletal” , forced into clothes. I cannot imagine ever being so foul to a child, let alone my own!

not sure if narcissistic but my mother about my DBro who has gone NC with her and my DF.

''how would you feel if you cared for and nourished your baby all their life and then one day they turned around and treat you like this out of the blue?!''

she said after being on his back for years doing ''everything wrong'', being an alcoholic, hers and my DFs drunken rages and toxicity.
Yet she is distraught and wonders what has she done to him to deserve such ''horrible treatment'' from him i.e. him just not talking to them or wanting to accept birthday cash and other attempts at reconciling without actually admitting any fault.

“Out of the blue” … no hope really. Good for your brother!