Suspected narcissist mother starting to scare me

[Ihaveonedaughter]

My mum is nearing the end of life after a battle with a neurological condition. She is quite weak and frail but in other ways has the whole deck of cards mentally. However, the last few times I've been to see my parents my mum has been increadingly bitter, angry and nasty towards me. I have a big birthday in early September and my mum gave me a birthday card today and told me she hadn't written in it because I could re use it and I needed to learn to stop spending money. Other nasty comments such as when my daughter asked my mum what I was like as a baby, mum could only say negative things such as I cried and wailed a lot, I was always hungry. My daughter looked upset it was all so negative. Sometimes she will refer to me as a slot because I had a few boyfriends in my teenage years / early twenties.

Last time we visited she told me she'd rather leave everything to my sister in her will as my sister has less and works a temp job etc.

Feel very sad it has come to this I feel my mum honestly hates me and certainly doesn't feel love.
Aibu to go no contact for a while even though mum is close to dying? It is hard because even though my dad doesn't defend me i know he would miss the children if we went no contact. Also i arrange a lot for my dad all of his online shopping, get his laptop fixed, just always tried to be helpful. I know he is struggling with my mum.
Tia x

Bump

Has it always been this way? Or is this a result of illness and deterioration of her mental state?
It would be ok to take a step back and not go so much. All you can decide is if you think you will regret it when she’s gone. How much longer has she got? Are we talking just grinning and bearing it for few weeks or are we talking months?

I'm sorry you're going through this.

My mum also has narcissistic tendencies and can be really unkind (she can also be lovely to be fair but it's all on her terms) - some of what you're saying sounds quite familiar.

I adored my dad so couldn't have stepped back while he was alive. As you know your mum is on borrowed time I'd recommend looking up FOG (Fear, Obligation, Gullt) and learning the Grey Rock method for her whilst maintaining the relationship with your dad.

Your dad has the option of standing up to his wife and being your champion or being his wife's enabler and throwing you to the wolves (her) because it's easier for him. If he misses you, he's brought that on himself. He could have and should have been someone you wanted to stay in touch with once you'd grown up. But he isn't and that's on him. You're not responsible for helping him either. He can learn to do his own online shopping etc.

You owe your abuser mother nothing. It matters not that she's dying. There's no need to sacrifice yourself and your daughter's wellbeing just so she can feel a tiny bit better about everything by abusing you with her dying breath.

Fuck the pair of them. Move onwards to happiness OP, without all this toxicity in your life.

Yes it has always been like this as way but it has taken me such a long time to fully realise what it all means. I don't think I will regret walking away. I don't feel I can continue to visit and keep being treated like this. Behaviour always like this but worst in recent months. My husband is horrified by the blank birthday card!

Thank you so much for posting yes this is honestly how I feel i would like to go to contact. I have recently started therapy for how my mum has been throughout my life. The last visit was so awful.

Ps @PinkCampervan how do.i get over the anger I have for my dad right now.

I'm not sure what the right answer here is op, or if there even is one, but I'm so sorry you're going through this. It must be extremely hurtful and retraumatising.

I don't think you'd be wrong to step away if it's becoming unbearable. Equally I don't think anyone can tell you it would be wrong to decide to stick with it until she passes. I think you need to listen to your own gut feeling on what you can handle and what you can't. I don't think you owe anyone but yourself anything at this point so I think you make the decision you feel you can live in the most peace with. That could be stepping away in part or completely and protecting your own wellbeing and your peace and by extension your family and dd. Or it could be continuing as you are and checking in with yourself now and again to see if it's still manageable.

I think it's great you've started counselling. I understand the pain of a dad not sticking up for you when they should and I think it's very difficult to process but also I wonder if your dad is a bit of a victim in this as well. I know my mum ground my dad down completely over the years and recognising that does help me to have more sympathy than anger towards him. But I do still feel very betrayed at times. I think it's very hard to heal from trauma when you're still living it op, so it's really up to you how long you feel prepared to sustain this all.

But I wonder if there are conversations you will be able to have with your dad in future to express how you feel things should have been? Maybe after she passes. Could you meet with him separately from her and offer support without directly having to deal with her?

Why are you in a hurry to get over it?

You're allowed emotions you know. Just because you weren't allowed to be angry at their treatment of you growing up, doesn't mean your anger isn't justified or that you're a bad person for feeling that way.

You get over it same way you get over other emotions - by feeling them, sitting with them, acknowledging them and working out where they came from and why. All of which your therapy will help with.

You had an entire childhood and adulthood of abuse, together with the bottled-up feelings surviving those relationships and in that environment necessitated. That's not something you get over in a week. Took me 15 years.

Though it would have been quicker had I gone NC as soon as I saw the toxicity for what it was, instead of thinking I just needed to get some boundaries (I did, as I had none at all, but with hindsight it obviously was never going to fix the issue of their behaviour). People who bring you up to have no boundaries and to tolerate abuse don't suddenly go oh ok then I'll behave when you start setting boundaries. They push back against them continuously, ramping up their abuse until one day you get sick of it enough and go NC as a last resort to save yourself and your remaining health/sanity.

I DGAF now, residual sadness for the parents I should have had is all that's left when I think about them, which is rarely. Minor annoyance felt when the manipulative games are attempted yet again. Which they do periodically, but only mildly, as they're aware I'm one new SIM card away from being entirely NC and that knowledge keeps them in check a bit. At this point contact is the exchange of banalities a few times a year by text.

Have you seen the Stately Homes thread? You can get long term support there too if you want. It's full of people with stories like yours.

Thank you. With my therapy (that admittedly I have not been going to for long) we have been doing inner child work and I've been really used to taking my inner child around with me and being kind to her, having fun with her etc. I think it is because of this that the latest visit was so painful as I am becoming more and more aware of how my mum behaved towards me as a child and it is unbelievable, honestly. I am really not sure why she had me.

Sorry it was late last night, I suppose I mean how can you get over it. I feel really heartbroken. There was always collusion with mum making horrible jokes about me and dad laughing and them saying nasty things about me. I still hear from other relatives things mum has said about me. Weird things such as she sent an email to all of her brothers and sisters one year before the Christmas lunch I was hosting complaining about the lunch I was giving (beef) and whether she should bring along the meat she wanted to eat. Another time she told my aunt she thought i was going to become a lesbian (my aunt warned me not to date women). At the moment the obsession is I am spending too much money. My husband and I work really long hours running our own business and we do need to outsource some things or the business wouldn't be possible for us together. I think the fact we are working hard and bringing in a little money seems to have made this worse. Especially with my sister not being financially secure.

Thanks for posting. It's really hard to know how much longer my mum had left maybe a year? Or maybe two years? So hard to tell.

Practise the grey rock suggested by a PP. Keep a slightly distant relationship- don’t give them information about your life.

I would avoid making a decision quickly at such a difficult time, while you are new to therapy.

Once you learn how to protect yourself a bit, you will find it easier to manage the situation and may be able to have a relationship with your dad that’s worth having.

You don’t have to- it’s just a matter of keeping options open.

Protecting yourself is about recognising she isn’t going to give you her approval, ever and- most importantly- realise you don’t need or want it.
She’s a nasty piece of work. Why does it matter what she thinks? Let that go.

Thank you and I completely agree.

It's a common narc trait I think to be jealous of your success, rather than happy for you. This very damaging thing of putting your own dc down to boost your own sense of inadequacy is another one.

I agree that key to healing is to stop hoping for approval from her. Approve yourself. For me, I tell myself she was like this before I was born. You are a good person who wouldn't treat anybody like this. Set boundaries of what you will tolerate.

The lack of empathy is very hard to cope with. I would give her the same blank card back for her birthday. The hurt they cause is phenomenal.

Thank you. Yes i agree this is how my mum has always been. I can't help but wish someone else had given birth to me! Her dying and her behaviour now is just making it worse as she seems hellbent on attacking me and taking me down with her. Such strange behaviour.

This morning my decision is to take a long break (possibly a permanent break). Already feel better.

I’d go one last time on my own and say goodbye for closure. Then walk away and don’t look back.

My mum has been very much like this since bring told she may only have a few years to live, she has become very bitter and judgmental. Everything I tell her is now given a negative spin and she has said some awful things to me. I went nc on and off for a few months, we did not have Christmas together and although I sent flowers for her birthday they were also criticised as being thoughtless. She did eventually apologise and we now have a very surface relationship. It bought back all the years I strived to make her happy, be good etc and underlying it all it seems was her not really liking me. A light bulb went off when a very old friend said but she has always been like this and the weight eased. I think frailty, lots of meds has lowered her social filter and she just speaks without thought now. Mentally i have stepped aside from it, i do as much as I want to and dh has supported me totally. The guilt is huge but you cannot help someone who is being so selfish and difficult. Give yourself time and space and do not feel bad about how you feel.

If she really feels so badly and negatively about you, would it even bother her then if you stopped visiting? You don’t need this nasty negativity in your life.

Thank you. I do feel like the last visit felt like goodbye as far as I was concerned. Part anger, part feeling like things are getting worse in terms of her behaviour and I don't want to see her go any lower than that, a lot of sadness that it could have been different. There was something so final about the blank birthday card (a few notes inside but a blank card) for my very big birthday and no mention of meeting up to celebrate it (when everyone else's birthday is celebrated, including her stuffed toy he gets a birthday lunch, long story). It felt like the last time to be honest. I am okay with it. I am looking forward to going through it with my therapist when I see her next. Not writing in a birthday card when she has not been out of the house and has lots of time or could dictate to my dad a nice message to me if feeling unwell (when it could be the last birthday she is alive!) and because I make a massive effort for everyone else's birthday, it really did hurt. She has not changed, she has always been like this, but the therapy and work we are doing in therapy / the big birthday / how I treat my kids have put it all into the sunlight and and the behaviour cannot go unnoticed now.

Yes they have always been like this. It is such a heartbreaking situation, I feel your pain. I am so sorry. Therapy is helping if you are up for doing that. Even hearing the therapist saying 'it's understandable you feel like that. It makes sense you did that. It was not your fault you deserved better. She did not meet your needs', those kinds of things have really helped.

I don't need this negativity at all and don't have the time or energy for it! I am not sure it would bother her if I didn't go back but she would not want to not see my kids again (they provide a lot of supply and bragging rights to other people, as the only grandchildren). I have realised that I have been taking the kids there for a long time for my parents sake mainly, also partly for my children's sake but not recently because they have been really confused and sadened by my mum's behaviour.

What is this illness where you know she only has one or two years left to live?

My best friend's mother became really nasty in her final year. She had dementia with lewy bodies.

My step-mother's mum was the same, although her dementia was vascular. But she became irrational, accusatory and just unpleasant to be around.

I would advise against walking away now. You're nearly at the end. You could have an honest conversation with your Dad though.

She has had a degenerative neurological condition for around 18 years and now is late stage, is very frail.

This post is obviously from a place of kindness, but it's clear from the OP's posts that her "mother" (she doesn't deserve the title IMO), has always been vile to her daughter, with the collusion of her father.

The OP should do what is best for her after years of mental cruelty, she owes nothing to either parent. Potential dementia seems to be the go-to explanation for any malicious behaviour from an older person, but when they've been viciously unkind all their lives it's just all part of an existing pattern.

The much quoted and possibly overused phrase from an article by the very insightful Philippa Perry may apply here - "If you have a choice between guilt and resentment, choose guilt". Not that you have any reason to feel guilt in the first place.