Quotes from Narcissistic Mothers (& support for their victims) Thread 2

[01Name]

Following on from this thread: www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4610023-to-ask-for-your-quotes-from-narcissistic-mothers?page=39&reply=120137262, started by @itsgoodtobehome as a tongue-in-cheek repository for anecdotes of appalling remarks/deeds from parents/siblings with rampant NPD. It morphed into a place where those of us suffering the effects of such behaviour could share experiences, solidarity, advice and support. I hope this thread can continue the good work of the original. Your voice will be heard; your opinion and thoughts matter. You are welcome and valued here.

I have tears in my eyes writing this- all you amazing women here who have survived such shit, yet determined to heal, to come to some understanding, to parent differently and to have such open hearts to share and find empathy for others.

Like several of us my DF became ill when I was 11, he had the first of several heart attacks which eventually over some years led to his death.

My only sibling, an older sister had left home at 14 ( what does that tell you) married and emigrated as soon as she could.
Leaving me, my DM and DF.
From his first serious heart attack I was the one having to phone an ambulance, make that judgement, speak to responders and emergency crew. My mother was "too distraught" to handle things. I was still at primary school.
Friends rallied around my mother, she would sit and wail while I make tea and sandwiches for neighbours.
This scanario was repeated several times over the next few years, each time my mother slid into victim mentality.
Not once did she ask me how I felt, how it was for me seeing my father in intensive care at 11, 13, 14, 15. NOT FUCKING ONCE.
There were no other family members to support me, thankfully I had a few close friends at school and they were my lifeline.

And of course when he died, I had to arrange everything, while she slipped into grieving widow mode. All her talk was about how she had lost her husband, and while I accept her pain , I don't think it entered her head that I had also lost my father it - that fact was lost on her.

Sorry for the rant, it feels good to get that off my chest.

I am really trying to be a better parent. But now I see my DD23 behaving with me like my DM does. Her stepfather died a few years ago and all she does is tell me where I am going wrong in my life. She sounds more like my DM every day.
she’s going to visit them next week. She tells them all about my life and I’ve asked her to stop. My health is my business and those I want to share it with.

i know this makes me sound cruel but i think you should chuck her ashes in a bin or just leave them in a cemetery somewhere you can never get through to these narcissist when my grandaughter spends time at her mums she allways comes home looking grubby and like the life has been sucked out of her she is realising of her own back what her mothers like and said at the age of ten years old that her mother wasnt what she envisaged a mum to be shes never clean when shes at hers mothers her mother lives with her parents and none of them has empathy they dont like using to much hot water as it cost to much they buy the cheapest food and they are definitely not hard up they are just tight her mother chooses not to work spends all day in her bedroom watching videos and lazing she does her hair and tells my grandaughter i hope you like my hair when you see me and Hopefully you wont say you dont so thats telling her to like it and compliment her but it must be so hard for her when all she wants is a good mum instead of all the time being put down by her ( Thank god she doesn’t live with her mother ) hopefully we can heal her
love to all of you xxx

I have mixed feelings about my father. Sometimes I see him as a victim, but other times I see him is it in a black and can be quite angry about that. He is probably on the autistic spectrum which I guess makes it more difficult for him. He is a decent man, but find it very hard to show his feelings so our relationship is rather distant.

My dad was also one of those “try not to upset her“ people, he spent a lot of time with my sister and me taking us out doing stuff like bike rides et cetera. I have come to realise recently that I have very few memories of my mother ever taking part in these kinds of activities with us.

my mother is also one of those who fails to recognise accomplishments. What has always driven me mad is her way of completely ignoring any of my achievements, but then using them to brag to her friends, including sometimes in front of me.

my sister was the golden child and I now see her son becoming just like my mother. His behaviour is extremely challenging yet my sister can’t see it and favours him over her other son. In fact, she still can’t see that my mother is a narcissist at all, so it’s not really surprising that she can’t see this in her son either.

this group and this discussion have been such a great support to me. Having a narcissist mother is very isolating since people simply cannot understand what it’s all about. It’s kind of reassuring in fact that people can’t get their heads around it because it is not normal and shouldn’t be accepted. Finding a group of people who just in “get it“ has been very empowering, and I wish you all the very best for the future.

ItsRainingPens that's so interesting about having no memories about doing activities with your mother.
I can see it was the same with me.
We didn't have much money growing up, but it was my father ( who was also an enabler) was the parent who I would tag along with. He was a keen gardener and I enjoyed helping, he would engage me when fixing his car, or making jam.
It was my older sister who would buddy along with my mother- they would bake, or knit, I remember being made very unwelcome in the kitchen when my mother was cooking- I left home unable to cook. I have no memories of my mother taking me anywhere or even joining in with a jigsaw.

In retrospect I think it was my sister who got the short straw, she left home when I was 8, but my mother's worst and focussed energy was on her during the early years. It did mean that my older sister became a flying monkey, and the two would often combine forces to make me feel shame, upset and undermine me.
My sister has turned into a carbon copy of our mother, she has daughters and grandchildren of her own now.
My sister's daughter is going through the same experience as me, having a narc mother. We support each other through our healing.

It’s really interesting that you both mention having no memories of your mothers doing activities with you. Mine was the same - I remember her sitting on the side when our father took us swimming, for example, and she didn’t go on rides or go into play areas with us. Eventually we stopped asking her because it was always a no.

I do remember her watching us play make-believe games with our dolls house and me feeling very uncomfortable about it, and feeling like I couldn’t play the ‘story’ how I wanted to because I felt so self-conscious.

my mother is also one of those who fails to recognise accomplishments. What has always driven me mad is her way of completely ignoring any of my achievements, but then using them to brag to her friends, including sometimes in front of me.

I am nodding in agreement ItsRainingPens my* *mother does exactly the same.
She will mention me as a trophy when she is trying to impress her friends, but to my face she has zero interest in what I do or who I am.

Same here. I did a study abroad placement aged 20/21 and had never been abroad before other than one week-long school trip. I found it a really difficult experience for several reasons, but my mother provided zero support. I remember texting to ask to skype her, and she responded ‘only if it’s a good skype’, i.e. if I didn’t burden her with anything emotional.

Yet she used to boast to others about me studying abroad and getting on ‘fine’.

The other thing that still rankles is that I was rejected by Cambridge uni (which she thought/thinks I did deliberately), but I was ‘pooled’, so in other words not rejected straightaway. Since then, I’ve got a first-class honours degree from another very good university, a PGCE, and an MA with distinction. If she knows I’m applying for a job, she still says ‘don’t forget to tell them you were pooled by Cambridge’, as though that’s my biggest achievement.

It’s all about prestige and boastability, same as the headteacher thing.

It’s so weird isn’t it I can’t imagine ever treating my daughter like this . Mine tried to stop me doing things like playing the piano or going to a good school because she couldn’t bear the thought of me being better then her she also didn’t like me doing things with my father . I used to do the cryptic crosswords in the paper as we both had minds that worked that way she got so angry about it used to go on about how ridiculous it was and storm around and slam doors to try and make us stop because we were sitting doing a cross word 🤣

I can’t imagine it either and i’m determined not to turn out like her. Mine still hates me talking to DF about anything she doesn’t understand and will try anything to change the subject back to something she can talk about (normally her work). We were talking about Berlin a few weeks ago and she kept interrupting us and really blatantly just mentioning work so that we’d stop 🤷🏻‍♀️

I’ve almost certainly told this before, but when I was at uni I did some Russian, and my DF asked me what ‘sputnik’ meant. I didn’t know, and she raced me to google it so she could say the answer first. Really bizarre behaviour.

My mother would chip away at my confidence by questioning everything I wanted to do and by trying to put a doubt in my mind whether it was a new job, a new relationship, buying a car or even a property.
”I’ve heard that other people said it doesn’t work”
”Are you sure you could cope?”
”Ive heard xyz can be very dangerous”
”You’re not the sort of person that can do that”
”What happens if it all goes wrong? What will you do then?”
”You’d be much better forgetting about things like that” (and staying around to worship me)
”I really don’t know where you get these ideas from”
”I’ve heard it’s not actually a very nice area”
“Men are only after one thing”

Yes johnprescottspyjamas she doesn’t like us going on holiday sometimes she ignores the fact that we have been had never ever asked if we have had a nice time (despite the fact she does on a lot more holidays then us and I have to
listen all about them) I always get we went there we didn’t like it or my friend so and so went there and had an awful time ( think she invented that one )

So sorry this happened to you @JohnPrescottsPyjamas. It’s quite insidious, that chipping away at your confidence and making you doubt yourself.

Mine said of my then-boyfriend having female friends ‘I wouldn’t like that’, ‘I wouldn’t put up with that’, ‘[Jenny] is all over him’, etc. I was about 17-18 and it was my first serious relationship. It was incredibly damaging to my already low self-confidence and I’ve had to really work on my issues around seeing other women as competition, which DM instilled in me.

Of the same boyfriend, she said he’d go away to uni and forget all about me, so I clung to him for far longer than I should have.

There’s so much I could have done or done differently if I’d had the confidence, if my mother hadn’t actively worked to grind me down.

Such fun, unpicking all of this. It’s really incredible how they seem to want to break their daughters down to be as insecure as them, because I’m fairly certain that the vast majority of my mother’s behaviour stems from massive insecurities on her part. I feel sorry for her in that sense, but furious that she inflicted the same on us.

OMG. All these stories of mothers not doing things. It was the same with me. I was always doing things with my dad.
I was talking with a relative about Thailand as I’d just come back from holiday. My DM came over and then said “when we were in China” and got the photo book out, taking over the conversation. If I talk about any holidays she has always done better. But she hasn’t.

Oh wow, I've found my thread! I hope it's ok to join.

My mother has NPD. She is utterly toxic, all usually done with a smile on her face. My dad is her accomplice. Any 'crime' I commit means that dad stops talking to me for months and months on end. Most of my childhood and teenage life was met by the silent treatment from him for crimes such as 'breaking your mother's heart'.

Mum's worst NPD trait is her jealousy, which is ironic as her favourite lune is 'she's no threat to me' 🙄
Mum cannot cope with me or my sister liking our inlaws. That is her biggest fear, whilst of course saying her favourite 'no threat to me' line.

Her favourite thing is to 'catch me out'. I've often withheld things from her to avoid judgement so catching me out is her speciality.

My mum is currently not talking to me because she thinks I see my MIL too much. 3 months ago, she quizzed my children on how often they see my MIL. My daughter said that she sometimes watches her at football training. My mum then launched a huge attack on me in full on victim mode about why she is not 'invited' to watch football, and her other favourite line 'I must be such an awful mother'. Well yes, you're right about that mum.

So that's 3 months of not talking to me now. Dad obviously has stopped talking to me too. This includes not liking pictures of my children etc that go on facebook.

The whole thing is utterly joyless and relentless. I truly can't wait until my parents die (sounds awful but true). They are so toxic and complicated.

My mum falls out with absolutely everyone - she loves to divide and conquer. She of course doesn't speak to her inlaws as we are all only allowed to like her mum (who is now dead). She doesn't talk to my aunts, uncle, cousins etc.

Oh I loathe her. I've had huge amounts of therapy

Mine aren’t talking to me either had been 18 months because I dated to stand up to
my mother and pint out she said something rude, how dare you upset your mother !! So now they have also
dropped their only grandchildren it is their loss we have a nice life they sit at home red the daily Mail and are miserable

Welcome @Nowanextraone 💐☕️🥐

It’s a thread I’m sure all of us would rather not have to be on, but it’s a really supportive space for those of us with NMs.

You’ve probably seen mention of ‘the script’ NMs use and how similar they all seem to be. My own unfortunately is extremely jealous of my in-laws, like yours. Like you, I’ve adopted the grey rock technique of just not mentioning much about my life to her at all. It’s not like she’s ever been supportive of me or anything I’ve done when I did share things with her anyway.

When I used to share stuff, I’d always get ‘are you doing XYZ on your own‘, which was code for ‘is MiL going with you?’

Somewhat ironically (and linked to the earlier posts about our mothers not doing anything with us or supporting us), I did a half marathon at the weekend that DM knew full well I was doing and could have come along if she wanted to. She made no effort to, but my MiL and SiL got up at 4.30am to come and spectate along the route (although I’d never have asked that of them).

My dad also did a big cycle ride on the same day, and I was a bit upset to learn that DM didn’t go with him to that either. He found it really challenging (it’s not his usual discipline), and he was on his own with nobody to support him.

My MiL has wanted to go to my dad’s events before which just shows how different they are (I say ‘has wanted’ because he didn’t end up doing the event, but her desire to go and support/spectate him was still there). She and DM are very different people.

It’s good that we have our ILs on our side 💐

I love this stream with all you lovely people if you can see these horrible traits in your mothers then surely now your old enough to realise this is the healing process and im sure will make for good parenting my grandaughter adores her father and im sure she will turn out fine she just needs to stand up to her mother but her mother actually looks crazy when she’s not happy and goes into one her eyes do not look normal her evilness shows so will take something to stand up to her but im sure it will happen when my granddaughter was six years old we took her to see her grandmother as we did once a week she sat and drew a lovely picture and her mum rang her and she picked up a black pencil and scribbled all over the picture her grandmother said to us her mother is haunting her she was so right thank god she’s settled in her school and doing very well and she’s so happy at home she used to throw lots of tantrums but they seem to be subsiding she’s a beautiful child and her beauty is shinning through Thank God

Bloody hell I am reading more of this thread and the similarities are endless.

The lying - the rewriting of events. Examples are things such as my mother's 'near death' experiences - operations, asthma attacks etc that I was there for and saw the hospital notes for and she was NOT near death. When she got covid, my sister and I both placed a bet on how quickly she'd make sure she got into hospital. She called an ambulance 3X in the end. I spoke to the paramedic on the 3rd time at 10pm and was told that they were taking her in for 'reassurance'. Mum's story was she was blue-lighted in, desperately ill and put onto the strongest steroids EVER. I called up the ward and she wasn't even on steroids at all, and was discharged the next morning without treatment. Over the years, this story has grown in dramatics even further - she nearly died etc etc.

She will outrightly deny things happened, or pretend she can't remember.

And yes, the boasting of my achievements to other people, but to me, nothing.

There really is a script!

Thank you so much for the welcome. I'm so sorry you have reason to be in here too.

That's absolutely epic that you did a half marathon - well done, that's amazing! 😊

Omg yes, the 'are you going on your own?' Exactly what my mum says.

My sister isn't really a true ally sadly. She was (is) anorexic as a result of our upbringing. She hasn't been able to heal so well with therapy as me, as she worries she'd get fat, so she can often be quite dismissive some days about how I feel, and then the next day she's supportive.

There really is @Nowanextraone. This thread is extremely illuminating!

My own DM ‘faked’ or twisted her MS diagnosis to manipulate me (which is probably the most stand-out shocking thing she and my DF have ever done).

She wasn’t getting the response she wanted from me as I was just working out the emotional damage/neglect/abuse she had put me through for so many years, so I was putting boundaries in place. When she realised she wasn’t getting to me in the way she used to, she and DF declared she was about to be diagnosed with MS, so I drove down to be there on the day of her appointment.

I’ll never forget how she shuffled into the house all stopped over and crying. In reality, she’d been diagnosed around 4 years prior to that, and my sister had found an NHS letter at home at the time. DM had seemingly kept the diagnosis from us until it was useful to bring out to manipulate us. It really is unbelieveable.

DF also gave the game away in a message to me when he mentioned ‘years’ rather than days/weeks since the diagnosis.

But yes, the ‘medical emergency‘ really is part of the script, especially if they’re not getting their own way and need a nuclear option to get you to do what they want.

*stooped over, not stopped, sorry

God I am SO sorry that happened to you. That's absolutely horrific. Your mum is literally the same as my mum and your dad enabling her - same here. Whenever I have tried to put boundaries in place, there is always a medical emergency without fail.

Another example of my mum and medical things. She obviously sabotaged the relationship with her inlaws (my grandparents) years ago. I've been brought up thinking they were bad people but of course I am not so naive now. Anyway, my dad was diagnosed with that chronic leukaemia. It's the one that most people die with it, not of it. Anyway, my mum gleefully wrote my nana a letter over the summer to tell her of my dad's diagnosis, letting my Nana think dad has got the acute, life threatening kind of leukaemia. I was, and still am, absolutely disgusted. Mum was beyond excited about it.

@Nowanextraone thank you. It’s really surreal to me still, because it was so blatant and manipulative. I don’t know whether they discussed a kind of story to tell me, like ‘let’s pretend to Newt that the diagnosis is happening now’, and I don’t know why my DF went along with it. I don’t know if he deliberately said ‘years’ to me in order to give it away, possibly if he felt guilty and wanted me to know the truth (or something more like it?)?

I’m so sorry for your father’s illness too, and your mum’s behaviour about it. Her behaviour being ‘beyond excited’ is so far from how we ourselves would behave in such a situation, that phrase really stood out to me. 💐 to you

My own mum also seems to enjoy the apparent ‘power’ of having knowledge and being able to control who gets access to it and how. Secrets were big in our family growing up, so I’m determined that I won’t be quiet about her behaviour or keep up her image for her any more.

My gran (DM’s mum) had cancer when I was about 12 or so. DM told me and my younger sister about it by arriving home from the supermarket, dropping the bags on the kitchen floor and saying ‘Granny’s got cancer’. At that age (8-12ish), someone having cancer to our minds = dying, so we were distraught. It’s completely probable that she was also struggling with the news, because she didn’t tell us for a long time despite my gran wanting her to. But that’s absolutely not how to go about it.