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?

Body so sad hearing the hurt you have been caused. You have courage in speaking out- helping others too. Those of us who have been parentified know the lifelong impact it can cause.
I can relate to the "wrinkle" story- things like this can cause extreme fear in a child.
My mother told me that if I sat too close to the coal fire the marrow in my spine would melt and I would need to use a wheelchair.

My father would shave at the kitchen sink using an old fashioned shaving brush and cake of shaving soap in a wooden bowl. I would watch him shave- as a 5 year old it was fascinating to watch.
One morning he left the brush and soap by the sink- not the razor that was out away on a high shelf.
I decided to have a go and lathered up the brush and starting foaming my face.
My mother bolted in fright and screamed at me telling me I would grow a beard because I had used my father's shaving brush. That beard hormones left on the brush would get into my skin and start hair to grow.
She forced me to scrub my face with a Brillo pad ( steel wool) to get rid of the hormones, I was crying with fear and discomfort as she told be to scrub harder, and my skin was raw and red when she allowed me to finish.

I could go on, I have dozens of such episodes and bad memories- it would take up the whole thread.

One thing I have been doing a great deal is working wih my inner child on my own and guided by a therapist.
It is possible to support your child self, bring some positive energy to difficult times, and as a result give me healing in the here and now.
A hard journey, but I am slowly healing.

I was raised by my dad from the age of six - my mother lived at minimum of 60 miles away for the rest of my childhood and adolescence. When I got my PhD she said "intelligence is passed on by the mother"

@speakout 💐 & solidarity. I also have the face scrubbing story — albeit not with wire wool, Christalive. She used a dish sponge on me. She also forbade me to sit on the floor (piles) or to go out in bare feet (worms). I mean, did they think they were actually being caring? She was / is definitely incredibly neurotic. She may have thought she was only trying to keep us safe. Again, childhood trauma I think.

@tresleches but of course, there IS a correlation between maternal education levels and children’s outcomes. OF COURSE your PhD is because of her. How could anyone imagine otherwise? …Gas lighting 101.

@body @speakout

Yes, yes, yes to the fixation on sex too.

My mother was obsessed - literally - with ‘unmarried mothers’ as she called them. I grew up in the late 60s and we had a ‘home’ as she called it, for these young women close by. She could resist commenting on seeing them out with their prams and how I mustn’t ever end up like one of them. ‘Soiled goods’ was one of her favourite expressions. “A man doesn’t want soiled goods” FFS!

My uncle married a woman who had a child from a previous relationship and he brought him up as his own. Absolutely no differentiation between their subsequent children - as it should be. My mother went on and on about how lucky his wife was that her brother was willing to take on another man’s child.

The irony was; I left my first emotionally abuse husband and started a relationship with my DH before I was divorced. She tried to encourage me to return and ‘have a baby’ because I was bored apparently. I didn’t, and fell pregnant with my current DH before my divorce was finalised. She was absolutely horrified and tried to tell me he would leave me once ‘he’d satisfied his loins’ and that I was a ‘whore with no self respect’ He didn’t and we’re still together 30 years later. I subsequently found out she was 7 months pregnant with me when she married my dad and had left her previous husband for him. Not that it mattered, but that she gave me absolute shit for doing virtually the same.

Wowzers @JohnPrescottsPyjamas eerie how similar!

My mum taught at a Roman Catholic school (with nuns) & I recall that when I was about 13, a girl at her school got pregnant (aged maybe 14). My mother went on to me about how disgusting she was. Even at that age, I remember thinking it odd (Ie two faced!) that, after this rant, she actually visited the girl at her house with a present.

Of course she did! How kind and saintly she looked.

I heard the soiled goods thing too. What’s so odd are the lies: they had BOTH done those things they claimed to despise (as above, mine had a back street abortion before marriage). Really, if she’d just been honest! Said she’d got into trouble, didn’t want me to repeat her mistakes, it wld actually have been so HELPFUL! Or even if she cldnt tell me, out of shame or whatever, simply ensured I knew the risks, or ensured I knew of solutions available, healthy sex ed. I was a teen in the 80s-90s…

I can confirm the sex thing with my DM too.
Women who have sex before marriage are "shop soiled" according to her.
No man wants to marry "damaged goods".
She doesn't hold men to the same standards though.

I confided in what I thought was friend about my mum and she feel out with me for being a nasty liar. It makes me feel very uncomfortable to even be typing about my mum as no one believes me apart from my dh and brother .
She died a few years ago and my dad holds her on sone kind of pedestal I haven't shed a tear, but I still feel odd about it I can't explain.my dh says it's relief

@sleepismyhobby - we believe you! I'm glad you feel relief.

I feel nothing but anger towards my DM.

She was obsessed with sex (constantly chasing men) and not supporting me if I "got into trouble". She also made up vile lies about sex.

Thanks
My mum was obsessed about teens that got pregnant and would call them dirty little sluts but would always give them a gift when babies were born.
I moved out at 18 with my boyfriend (now dh) and she would always joke with her friends how I'd need to add condones to my shopping list. Totally inappropriate.
She never came to our wedding as she disowned me for living in'sin' before we got married.
I should never of got back in touch with her but my dad said was breaking his Heart etc. I was only 21 and naive and let her back into my life! My brother moved abroad and was not contact with her

@sleepismyhobby yes, we believe you.

My dad always spoke of my mothers “golden qualities”. After my dad died and we expressed some concern for my mothers actions, (hugely mild understatement- she was a psychotic drunk under SS surveillance) a relative reminded us that “paradise lies at the feet of the mother”.

I think you all understand.

I cross posted eith you @sleepismyhobby (im such a slow typer!). Now reading your update: the poor and inappropriate boundaries are so familiar too. Despite her hang ups and ideas about soiled goods, no sex outside marriage, blah blah,I know all about her sex life. I don’t want to know.

It is good to be understood isn't it.
Especially as narc mothers are so adept at appearing to a wider audience as being kind, sweet, ever helpful.
I have been told that I am so lucky to have a mother like mine
It seems many people fall for her fakery, and yet I see her as a toxic person.
I have doubted myself at times, wondering if I am the probem in the relationship dynamic- perhaps she is that loving sweet kind person that everyone else sees and I am getting it wrong.

Yeah I hear you @speakout

It was only about 8 years ago that my mother moved her wrath off me (after I asked her to treat me like my brother) and onto my sister and dad.

Then her drinking began to spiral and more and more people started seeing her for who she was… now most people are wise to her.

It’s vindicating since during my childhood and until early 40s, no one else seemed to see her like I did. I mean they might have found her occasionally odd or flamboyant or hot tempered, but not the dangerous & nasty liar that she is. Fakery. Charming. Full of their own importance, charm, virtue, good taste, beauty. Legends. So believable. Until they aren’t.

Mine gave me the virgin until marriage nonsense. She was having an affair at the time 🙄

My dad had her on a pedestal for decades

@justasking111 ditto.

Tell you a funny story or two.

My mother's affair. The son of the man came to us and said what was going on. I told Mum to pack it in. She went home told dad what I had said all lies. Dad phoned me called me an awful wicked liar. I was upset. Three days later he phoned said she had gone out come home drunk and said she had swallowed a bottle of pills after he'd rumbled her lies after visiting the man and his wife. So what should he do. I said call an ambulance. Never know if she had swallowed anything but take comfort in her stomach being pumped out.

Second tale the man it transpired was a serial adulterer Forty years of marriage worth of sleeping around. His wife finally had enough and demanded a divorce. Now he was wealthy so she'd be fun financially. Mum was cock a hoop she'd finally got him. Told dad she wanted a divorce.

Well bugger me if the man didn't up and die of a heart attack. So mum was stuffed. Her reason for staying was because my dad and the man's wife had murdered him.

Why didn't she tell the police, well he was the breadwinner wasn't he. Her reason she was scared they'd murder her too

I tell ya Mata Hari had nothing on my mum when it came to drama and intrigue

@justasking111 Nowhere near as dramatic, but along a similar line. My mother always thought she was drop dead gorgeous and that every man she met fancied her.

One of her divorced friends met and became engaged and I don’t know why she did it, but mother started gossiping about how this man secretly preferred her and her friend was really second best. She was openly quite smug about it.

I came home one evening to find her sobbing and looking pathetic with several others from her coven paying court to her. Apparently her friends fiancée rang mother and asked to meet her privately for a little walk and chat. Reading between the lines I think mother was convinced he was about to declare his feelings for her but what he actually told her was to stop shit stirring, making unwelcome insinuations and to mind her own business! I think she was absolutely stunned that someone had caught her out and confronted her, but as usual she turned it all around so he was an absolutely vile man making unfounded allegations and that she was the victim of his nastiness.

Bizarrely though, the friendship with her friend continued - for a couple more years - and she even went to the wedding! Never understood it.

I wish you had punched her in the face in front of them all. A bad idea obviously but it’s what I would fantasise about doing in that situation.

We have minimum 4 holidays abroad every year, plus a few overseas trips with our jobs.

I have a family member that is very vocal like that, always commenting on any holiday fb post of mine like "I haven't had a holiday in years" or "you're so lucky" , to "its just not fair".
We both work full time and very hard too, this person doesn't work, says she can't as has to look after her children (8 & 10), her partner only works 16 hrs per week and they both smoke like bloody chimneys...

Have to bite my tongue to keep the peace, but yes, those comments wind me up.

Oh god I can come up with a quote or two here

'Oh you have a problem... rather you than me.'

'Giving birth to you, ruined my health'

'You will be the death of me / I am dying because of you'

'You made your bed, you lie on it'

and the hating of other females - my Mum hates other females thinks they are all filthy sluts, but men are amazing creatures to bat your eye lids at
'

I find that most narcissists tend to be misogynistic. My mother is. Even when I was a little girl the way she talked about other woman, that she disliked, or she felt they had slighted her in anyway (they hadn’t) was horrendous. Utterly horrible.

My DM was bitter about men too but in a different way to women. She was bitter about men only sometimes, I think it's when she was dropped by one.

I'm convinced she finally broke up with my DF because she had conned some man into thinking she would be well off. Her expectation was that my DF and I would go, she would keep the house and this man would slot in. Because she was convinced that life had given her nothing.

She was also nasty about other peoples happiness. Our neighbors had a grandchild and were delighted. She thought the baby wasnt very nice looking and didnt understand why they thought she was. How can you judge a baby?

She was spoilt by her family but she resented them because they didnt have very much money.

She used to scream at me that "we" didnt have any money. My DF worked full time and other bits, I worked and went to school, she didnt work. So where the fuck did she think more money was going to come from?

I could write a book. My first husband punched me in the face. I rang 'D'M to say I was leaving him. Her response was 'but I really like him!'

You have my sympathies.
Having suffered abuse my marriage at a young age, it took a few years to stand up and find the courage to leave.
It was very hard but I did, and with the help of a friend started divorce proceedings.
I was in a low place, doubting I was even doing the right thing, as my esteem and confidence was nil.
My mother could not have been more unhelpful.
She was angry because I was "the first one to seek divorce in the family"- " you were never satisfied even as a child"- she was upset because people would view her in a "bad light" having a divorced daughter. Annoyed because I had "brought shame" onto her.
Just a really awful time.

My mum is fond of telling people she bought me a pack of condoms 'to keep me safe' when I started dating in my teens. Total fiction, she actually got very upset when she discovered I hadn't stayed a virgin till marriage. (I was 24 by the time of that conversation btw!!) The really baffling part is, she has somehow absolutely convinced herself that the condom thing was true, and still mentions it occasionally now I'm in my 50s.