Narcissist mother

[Pinkrose444]

It finally made sense to me that my mother was a narcissist about 8 years ago after an incident that happened. Since then I feel I have changed as a person , I get angry easily and don’t take care of myself, I am overweight , depressed and emotionally eat and procrastinate a lot. Before realising she was a narc , I was happy and looked after myself , I ate well and exercised. I live 4 hrs away from her and used to visit a few times a year for a few days at a time. Since the past year Iv gone low contact, sending the odd message and visited her once for a couple of days. I did recently go through a grieving period of realising I’m not going to have a relationship with my mother as I would like. I did try therapy for a bit but felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere with it. I suppose I just want to know , did your life change when you finally clicked your mother was a narc?

I'm so sorry, it sounds like the past 8 years you've been grieving, as you say, and that the sadness and anger are symptoms of this. Last year I came to the realisation my mum is a narcissist. I've been no contact for a few weeks, after a few months of low contact / 'grey rock' - which didn't work, as she just bombarded me even more.

Although it's been extremely stressful and I've gone through feelings of confusion and guilt, I've felt so much better not being in contact. For me, it had become every day drama, constant lies and manipulation, and direct nastiness towards me, and I just couldn't do it anymore. I've needed this time to properly stand back from the situation and also come to the realisation of how long this has been going on (my whole life!).

One of the things that's helped me when I've started to feel guilty about the situation (which might account for some of how you're feeling, I'm not sure) is to write down all the things that happened, and how it made me feel. This is because whenever that feeling of guilt creeps in or I question my decision to distance myself from her, I read it back and it reminds me of what actually happened and I feel more justified, I am also able to have a lot of sympathy for myself.

Is there someone else - a friend or family member, who sees your mum for who she is? Talking to them helped me a lot to feel seen. Following social media accounts about recovering from a narcissist parent has also helped hugely as a constant reminder you're not alone and that you're right to feel the way you do. It might be that you need to go no contact rather than low contact, even if its just temporary, and use the time to build your self confidence and the types of relationships you deserve.

This post has caught my attention. Sometimes I think my mum is a narcissist or emotionally abusive and sometimes I think I'm being over the top. I mean how do you know? I find spending time with my mum hard going and stressful. My DH doesn't think she's a nice person at all.
I know I feel a lot of conflicting feelings where my mums concerned but at the end of the day she's my mum.🤷‍♀️

Can you elaborate for us?

What would you like to know?

Describe your mum maybe?
Only if you wanted to obviously

Hi everyone I’d like to start my own post but don’t know how ?

It’s also caught my eye. I don’t know where to stray really. I feel the same as you think I’m over reacting but then since having my own children I would not treat them or say the things about them that my mother does to me. It’s gone on all my life. I feel to her I am never good enough, if someone else praises me she will take credit ‘we’ll look at me what do you exoect’. I grew up with her always bragging about stuff to other people, often stretching the truth to sound better. Everyone else thinks she is lovely. She does help me with childcare but I know about it and makes out she does more than she does. The most recent thing it was my birthday, we’d had a falling out a couple of days before as she arrived late for my party and in a right mood. I asked her what was wrong and she threatened to leave. The day of my birthday, I got a text saying happy birthday but no phone call. We’d arranged to do food/cake but she didn’t reply to mine or my sisters texts asking what the plan was. When she did turn up she barely looked at me, never gave me a cuddle or said happy birthday and the atmosphere was awful. This is not the first special occasion she has ruined. She also seemed annoyed at special things my friends/colleagues had done for me as if I’m not deserving of it.

Like others I started to realise my mum was a narc when I had DS. I think this is quite common especially if you've been blind to it before.

Yes my life has changed as I realised just how messed up her behaviour was growing up and how the constant tantrums actually dominated me and my siblings lives. I have no happy memories from childhood, just confusion, shame, guilt, hypervigilance and constant barrage of DM shouting and screaming tantrums. DF was mainly working during my childhood and would disappear to the pub when he wasn't, probably to avoid my DM. He has enabled her for decades and is still frightened of her, but has never stood up to her bullshit. Then guess what when I got married I started acting out what I had seen in my childhood, I didn't have a clue about what a healthy relationship looked like.

I left my marriage when DS was a toddler. I had to break the toxic family cycle. I feel deeply regretful of this and I blame myself a lot for my marriage failing but know I also chose an avoidant and not emotionally mature DH who told me that it was normal for married couples to ignore each other as that what his parents did.

DM ignores me mostly now as I stood up to her a few times. I am low contact and keep a low level relationship for my DS sake so he knows his GPs. My DF treats us well and we have contact most days. Narc DM just ignores us. I also have an automatic switch off if she tries to engage me in any sort of way. I have a few friends and mostly feels like I'm building up a life for me and DS in the aftermath of a lot of trauma.

So yes to answer your question my life changed a lot once I realised DM is a narc. I really feel for anyone who has had to deal with this.