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?

This has really hit. When I was about 10 and she was going through the divorce from my dad she took me to the hairdressers to get my perm cut out. I have no idea why it needed cutting out. I guess over the years I didn't question it. My hair was cut so short I looked like a boy. People would assume my brother and I were both boys.

@TisRaining fortunately for me, DH is brilliant. In fact, my mother has been much better behaved since he came on the scene. I think she knows he would, metaphorically, tear her to shreds if she attacked me in front of him.

My mum had the shock of her life one evening when she started slagging me off to Dh!
We'd gone to stay over after a party and I'd gone up early. Think I may have been pregnant. As everyone drifts off to bed Dh starts tidying up. Dm tells him to leave it as it will get done in the morning (by me as I would be up hours before everyone else with toddler dd) he carries on but ends up sitting at the table with her. She starts with 'the problem with Meri is' and launches into full flow before Dh firmly says 'that's my wife you're talking about and you're out of order'
She didn't speak to any of us the next morning and faked a migraine so she didn't have to interact before we left.
She's slipped up in front of him a few times since but usually waits until he's left the room.

@JohnPrescottsPyjamas Smouldering wreckage” - what totally apt description. It’s exactly that. A narcissist enjoys lighting the touch paper, standing back and watching the distress their little bonfire causes. Even better if it can be done during a previously happy occasion or get together.

The real victims end up feeling emotionally wrung out, guilty and often apologising for something that wasn’t their fault in order to resolve/retrieve the situation. The perpetrators maintain control by either blanking the apology or saying they will “consider and think” about it in order to extract and extend maximum emotion time.

I absolutely hate confrontation of any type, even the mildest, because of her - even when it is completely justified. I feel physically sick, shake and then spend hours replaying and overanalysing my own responses.

Sorry it won't let me quote this.
I think learning from my counsellor that it was highly likely my mum was a narcissist made me feel incredibly sorry for her.
Not in 'I forgive you' kind of way but just that she can't ever just be happy and in the moment.
She's always looking for ways to push herself into the centre and play the victim. She's 'created' some almighty rows that she then manages to switch it round so that she's the poor victim and we are all the bad guys.
The popular one as a teen was if Step dad and I disagreed on something, and it would only ever be minor, she would turn it into a huge deal and scream and sob at me because ' I was putting her in the middle of it all again'
At first I was completely confused because it hadn't been involved her at all. She hadn't been there when it happened and it was over and done with by the time she came home but oh no. We had to relive it for fucking weeks.
Eventually I started arguing back saying 'I'm not putting you in the middle of it. You're doing that all by yourself'

Years later, in counselling, I was sobbing like a 7 year old and asking the counsellor what it was that I did so wrong that she couldn't love me. That one piece of conversation helped me so much. I finally started to see that it wasn't my fault and that I was lovable and that it was her that was the problem. Then the trauma of having lived through that, realising that my dad wasn't a victim of her and was/is actually narcissistic himself, and the grief that hit when I realised I couldn't ever have the relationship with her/them that I wanted. Yeah that was fucking hard.
Every other post on here is reminding me of some other bat shit thing she did.

(Sorry I realise that I blurted a lot of that out and it's not written well )

The spoiling Christmas not turning up on the day and having to clear the place settings away and try to explain to two little boys why they weren't coming.

Weddings she threw a hissy fit at her own nephews when we turned up tired after a long drive from Wales to London. My uncle called us away and handed us a large whiskey each. My sons christening same uncle and aunt drove up from London apparently she had a meltdown in the kitchen which I missed thankfully.

Sounds silly now but I was struck dumb every time it happened. My DIL was talking recently about the women in her family. Granny and daughters argue all the time. Sisters argue. She said it's what women do.

Never happened with us. There was no arguing answering back as children it was severe corporal punishment, sticks and belts. As adults we lacked the will. We all just wanted peace.

It was our spouses who said enough. My SIL actually called the police once. I didn't know whether to be shocked or laugh

And mine!

Mine thought it was perfectly reasonable for my sister to marry my ex husband (of course it was perfectly normal that I’d found them in bed together in her world). I should have moved on and been grateful I was invited to Christmas dinner the year later.

She threatened to put her head in the gas oven because I was afraid to go to sleep two floors up from her and my dad when I was 8. I lay awake for weeks worrying that if I made a sound she’d die.

When I had DD1 I refused to have my sister and ex husband in my daughters life, but it was apparently perfectly ok for my mother to have my sister over every Tuesday when my mother cared for DD. It was later said to me “we checked her over head to foot” 😳

The sad thing is, she wondered why I went NC with the whole family… I’m glad she’s gone now - no more drama!

I seriously could write a book about her behaviour, bloody awful woman.

Wow, your sister married your x 😲😪

The friends one is interesting isn't it? My mum tends to only have one main friend at a time. Always part of a couple and they end up going on holidays etc. but it never normally lasts more than a few years.
When I was younger she often went for someone similar to her in looks and personality. As you can imagine these ones didn't hang around for long as they took the attention away from her.
I remember one particular 'break up' were, when I asked what had happened she said 'well, you know what Julie's like. She always has to be the centre of attention' how I didn't laugh I'll never know.
The current one is similar but not. My mum thinks she's way more beautiful than her but she's also a little bit of an ego herself.
The friend was once asking me about my weight loss and when I said what size I was she answered with 'oh, well I'm a size 8 so' she was quite a bit bigger than me but still to this day will tell you she's a size 8 apropos of nothing (first time I've ever used that phrase!)
My mum calls these two all sorts and clearly doesn't really like them but if she ditches them she doesn't have anyone else lined up. Once she does they will be dropped in an instant!

Name changed for this as its outing but that's just reminded me of something that I remembered or mis remembered.
When I got my gcse results my mum told me that my gran (dads mum) had responded that 'cousin got all A's and A*'
Except she couldn't have done because she had been dead for five years so I haven't a clue where I got this memory from. My mum did hate my gran though. I think they were very similar personalities and hated not being the centre of everyone's worlds.

I do find that I can't remember much of my childhood but also that my memory is shocking in general. I was talking to my daughter the other day about how I would love to go and see 'The Killers' perform. Dh then tells me I did see them before dd1 was born.
I do wonder if childhood trauma results in some memory issues.

Meant to say in my last post that I only realised that my gran couldn't have said that when I was repeating the story to Dh who pointed out that she couldn't have said that when I was 16 if she had died when I was 11. How sad that I spent so many years (I'm mid 40's) thinking that my gran had said something like that.

Relationship wise I've been with Dh for almost 18 years and I'm still waiting for him to realise I'm not worth the effort.
He's truly an amazing man and just got me from day 1. He sees exactly who my parents are and has helped me to be stronger. He has carried me at points where I couldn't move forward and absolutely adores me and our children. I'm so lucky. But I still can't quite shake the feeling that he might come to his senses and leave. No one knows that.

@TockClicking the insecurity never goes away. I never complained about bad service anywhere drove my husband mad. I was just so grateful at the time.

However, since I went NC with mum 16 years ago I have grown a backbone but still can't cope with drama between those I love. My heart rate, breathing go up and I feel panicky

A week after I had a miscarriage "you'll be worried you can't have kids now, I was so lucky that I had my two with no issues". Thanks mum!

Or the ever helpful"I don't believe you are autistic, you shouldn't talk about it. People will think something's wrong with you".

I often have sm breaks because any kind of tension between people I know makes me feel the same. I feel so much calmer after a break.
I'm still reading through these posts but each one brings up a memory for me.
Another thing my mum used to do was tell me how much my dad loved me until my brother came along and then he dropped me like a brick. It was a weekly if not daily conversation once they divorced when I was 11 but had been brought up regularly over the years.
She would talk about it in my company to other people. She completely destroyed any hope of a close relationship with my dad. I mean he really did favour my brother. They both did but my dad would spend time with my brother over me always. He was another who used to love putting on a show. He would say 'people will be looking at us so we need to show they we are a good family'
We had lots of family nights at the local club through school and we would get home late and he would hug us and say 'we did it. We looked like the perfect family tonight' I'd cringe inside I think 'if only people knew'

I had a 'friend' say after my miscarriage that they take a while to have babies but hold onto them. Nice! Luckily don't see her now. I got pg straight away and held onto him. I'd never say anything so crass to someone who'd just miscarried.
I hope you're ok now.

I had just come out of hospital the day before after my second miscarriage in 6 months. My mother and I were watching Coronation Street and one of the characters had suffered a miscarriage. My mother, referring to the programme, said that she didn’t know why people made such a fuss about miscarriages as she had had one and just sat on the toilet and it came away without any fuss. I didn’t say a word. She is long dead now but it still makes me feel sick.

@TockClicking Definitely this.

Another ‘game’ once I was an adult was to ring me up, crying hysterically/raging with anger and telling me the dinner she had cooked for me was ruined or she had been sitting waiting for me for hours to pick her up - because I allegedly hadn’t bothered turning up so ‘’I’m clearly not that important to you ‘or ‘ I bet you got a better offer from someone else!’

Several times I doubted my own sanity as I would never do that to anyone without a genuine reason, but it dawned on me that this was also part of the guilt manipulation. I’m usually pretty well organised and keep a diary so to ‘forget’ once is possible, but it happened too many times over the years to be my poor admin.

Of course, it then became a big drama and a row because I’d ‘upset her with my thoughtlessness’ ‘ruined her plans that she’d been looking forward to for weeks’ The first few occasions, I grovelled completely because I thought it was my error, but it slowly dawned on me this was part of the dishonest behaviour.

Reading all your experiences also makes me so angry that these ‘adults’ intentionally or - even being generous - thoughtlessly, put so much emotional burden on such young children.

@Etive None of us should have had to feel responsible for preventing a potential suicide at aged 7! My mother also regularly threatened the head in the oven, the laying down on the railways tracks, the throwing herself off Beachy Head in order to ensure my compliance when all I was was being a normal, not particularly naughty, child. As an adult, I realise now there was no way she would have ever have carried out these threats, but how wicked to manipulate any human being with this form of blackmail, let alone a child.

Because that's what I thought life was about, and what I deserved.

Wow, that brought something up, Mum saying, so often, in tones of grim satisfaction when something bad had happened to me, 'well, that will soon teach you what life's all about'. . .

I’m so glad I wasn’t the only one and I mean that in a nice way, I’ve never spoken to anyone who had a parent do the same thing as my mother. It was such a cruel thing to do to a child. Like you, I was never particularly naughty and yes the compliance point makes total sense. When I walked away from the full family I felt free, my mother was always a victim in any scenario even when I found my ex husband in bed with my sister. I’m not ashamed to say I never attended her funeral, I had no reason to grieve for someone who had made my life so miserable.

With you absolutely 100%.
I was actually relieved that my mother died during the pandemic at the height of the restrictions. Because our few remaining family understandably cried off, I told the undertaker that I couldn’t face a funeral with just 2 of us there. They were brilliant and assured me they would do the right thing and it meant I didn’t have to go through the farce of the grieving daughter.

I am truly sorry about about your sister and ex but think you are brilliant and did exactly the right thing and also having the strength to walk away. I guess it’s like lancing a boil? Incredibly painful for a brief moment, but the relief is massive afterwards.

The one thing, and I wonder if others with NPD parents experience this? I’m still incredibly sensitive to real or even imagined criticism, and genuinely fear I’m showing her traits. I can feel happy and confident and then someone makes a thoughtless or harsh remark and I’m playing it over and over in my head for the rest of the day. I’m immediately defensive and tearful inside, find it hard to brush it off and wish I could take a sod it attitude. I eat myself up over whether it was my fault, tend assume everything is and maybe I could have prevented the situation in the first place.

I’m 54 and have never managed to learn to take the sod it attitude, although I wish I could and not be so sensitive to totally innocent comments people make. I found myself constantly wondering if I was doing the same with my children, if I was offending them or criticising them unnecessarily. I was continually checking in with DH that I hadn’t said or done anything “wrong”. I needed validation that I was a worthwhile person/parent and still do in many ways although I was very careful to keep my feelings away from the children.

I don’t blame you for not attending the funeral, I completely understand why you didn’t go and you know, it’s perfectly ok not to want grieve anyone that put you through so much. Many people wont understand though as they’ve never experienced a narcissist parent.

I sound wicked saying I felt relief when my mother died I feel such an evil person . My dad has her high up on a pedestal and I suppose he was an enabler as he never intervened to help me or my db

@sleepismyhobby You are not wicked at all. Your feelings are justified.