Quotes from Narcissistic Mothers (& support for their victims) Thread 3

[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. It continued to a second thread here: Quotes from Narcissistic Mothers (& support for their victims) Thread 2 | Mumsnet I hope this thread can continue the good work of its predecessors. Your voice will be heard; your opinion and thoughts matter. You are welcome and valued here. The world is a better place with you in it, despite what you might have been conditioned to believe by those who brought you into it. x

Yes yes to being told your whole life that you are causing trouble, if you don’t want to “take it”.

part 2 of my story was having asked her WTF anyone would say that I wouldn’t speak to her, I felt she needed to apologise. But she was visiting me, a flight away. So instead of apologising….no….let’s twist it so she is the victim….she is packing up her suitcases and leaving to go home….before my weddding…because she isn’t being treated like this. Whole narrative is then she flew out for wedding, got treated like crap so she left…she loves the role of victim.

@JohnPrescottsPyjamas - my DM thought she was incredibly intelligent. The only reason she didn't do better than me at school was because she didn't have the opportunities. She did, she just wasn't clever.

She never preached the getting married thing to me but I don't think she saw me as an individual in my own right or pretty enough. I often wonder if she just thought I'd parent her forever. She was told that she had a beautiful daughter and apparently she was dismissive. Because no one should say anything about anyone when it's clearly all about her.

@Radishyellow - I knew your DM would make a huge fuss. It's just jealousy. She couldn't bear for you to have one special day.

My DM was the same. She tried to turn every single funeral into being about her. Everything all the time.

Thanks so much for your kind words @JohnPrescottsPyjamas and @user1471538283.

Ya, it feels like a personal failure of mine that I haven’t been able to at least manage a “civil” relationship with my family. I would hear of people who only see their families at Christmas and other such special occasions and wish I could be like those people. Those people are able to manage their families and I used to beat myself up because I couldn’t. Life would be so much easier if I could just manage them, I wouldn’t feel like such an oddity who has no family. Recently though I’ve been thinking that maybe “those people” weren’t abused, maybe they just don’t “get on” with their families and so it’s easier to manage them and maintain some sort of relationship, I don’t know, but it brings me some comfort.

In relation to the obsession with appearance I can relate. My M was incredibly vain and would often say things like, “oh this man in work said I have the most beautiful eyes, did you hear that (fathers name/anyone in the vicinity), followed by a crazy laugh. I used to cringe at this. She would always comment on people’s appearance and could be quite scathing. My whole life she would tell me to “be careful” of what I ate in case I got fat. I joined weight watchers with her at about the age of 15, I was never more than a size 10. When I had a boyfriend around this age he would call over and she would give out that I wasn’t making enough of an effort for him in relation to my clothes, how messed up is that? It’s sad because I was clearly comfortable around him but she had to drop her poison. When pregnant she used to say I should only wear my hair up as my face was “round”. Last one, I promise! I have an autoimmune condition (I believe it’s caused from childhood trauma) and there was a chance I needed to go on steroids for a few weeks to settle a flare up, she told me to be careful as they will make my face fat. No concern for my heath just my face.

They cause incalculable damage and even writing this down has helped so much.

@Radishyellow oh yes, always the victim. The inability to take any responsibility is shocking and I think being around people like this long term is damaging to your mental and physical health. Well, it’s definitely it to mine anyway!

Unfortunately, it goes with narc territory.

Create a drama, make it all about themselves, assume the victim role, create an atmosphere. My NM thrived in attention, negative or positive. She loved to cause a fight, deliberately saying something provocative or hurtful knowing someone would bite, then she would turn on the tears sobbing that she didn’t know what she had done but clearly enjoying the fact that everyone was focussed on her.

I learnt too late in my relationship with her that the best thing I could have done was grey rock this behaviour. My natural instinct was to appease and attempt to smooth things over, which actually played into her stupid games and fed her need to have everything revolving around her.

Had an unexpected call from my mum this morning which has put me on edge - I think because it’s very reminiscent of her behaviour 7-8 years ago when I finished university and moved to DH’s hometown (she totally flipped and bombarded me with calls, messages, emails, and then when that didn’t work, produced her MS diagnosis as a way to bring me back in, plus crying all over me, begging me to tell her I loved her, after which she looked me right in the face and said ‘I know you hate me’).

She called today out of the blue - she never phones me, and I prefer it that way. She asked so many seemingly innocuous questions but she sounded increasingly frantic as the call went on. She was also surprised at every answer I gave. What have you been doing this week? Working - oh! What are you going to Tesco for? …the weekly shop? Oh! All culminating in a very frantic-sounding love you!! at the end when I was hanging up.

It was so strange - that she’d phone me out of the blue, having only seen me on Sunday, plus her reaction to absolutely every answer I gave to her questions. I’ve spent a perfectly normal week doing perfectly normal things, so I’m not sure why it warrants such surprise?

I’m worried that this is the start of her erratic behaviour when I’m supposed to drop everything and run to her and declare my undying love, despite 30 years of atrocious behaviour from her. She has never been there for us or been a kind, listening ear - she refused to speak to me when I was struggling at uni abroad unless I could put a good face on it and not look upset. Every ‘big’ feeling we had as children was either met with her rage or her silent treatment (sometimes for days). My earliest memory of her is her ignoring me while I sat on the stairs and cried through the bannisters ‘mummy mummy mummy’ until I felt physically sick, I was probably about 4 years old.

I think she must see that we’re not close (it’s pretty obvious) and suddenly decide she wants to get back in before the baby is born. Unfortunately, that ship sailed long ago and the more I think about her behaviour now and in the past, the less I want her near my DC.

If she blows up this time like she did 8 or so years ago, this time I will be stronger and not tolerate her drama - I have no desire to have that kind of nonsense around me during pregnancy or around my baby when he or she is here. Ugh. Sorry for the huge post!

@JohnPrescottsPyjamas ‘Create a drama, make it all about themselves, assume the victim role, create an atmosphere.’

100% agree - this is mum’s MO when things don’t go her way, unfortunately, e.g. me moving nearer to my then-boyfriend/now husband aged 22/23, and now potentially me having a baby 🤷🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

@RenewableNewt - it sounds like a bid for attention because you are getting attention and soon the baby will.

It's horrible though because it knocks you back after any contact.

Please keep you and your baby front and centre.

@RenewableNewt
Stay strong.
Congratulations on the baby.

Thank you both 🙏🏼 I’m really sorry, I feel ridiculous for one phone call from my own mum having this effect on me, but it really touched a nerve because I can recognise the descent into her unbearable behaviour back when I was doing my ITT and moving to DH’s town.

Back then, she told me I was cold and unfeeling, and that I was ‘under the thumb’ of DH’s family (what she meant was I wasn’t under her thumb any more and she didn’t like it). She seems to think I’m incapable of independent thought, and so anything I do that doesn’t have her at the centre of it is because someone else has forced me to, somehow?

If she carries on down the route I think she might, I’d have no hesitation this time in ignoring her awful, manipulative behaviour, even though I know she’ll really act up and it would/will be horrible. But she isn’t going to do this to my pregnancy/baby.

thank you for understanding, I’m really sorry again x

@RenewableNewt - don't apologise! We've all been there.

One thing I've learnt from this wonderful thread is that all these DMs are the same so we can support each other.

She’s only going to get worse and more entitled when the baby arrives im afraid.
my mother was always in competition with DHs mother in her role as grandmother. She was also awful about my relationship with them once saying ‘well I hope youre happy with your NEW family now!’ They don’t change I’m afraid

I agree with everyone - the NM's think they are all so special, unique ( and alluring) but seem to be the same.
@RenewableNewt we all understand the dread, confusion and guilt even a phone call can cause, so vent away. I hope you can do all you can to limit the stress she is causing during your pregnancy.

I used to limit phone calls to once a week for 20 minutes and set a timer so that it would beep and I could say "oh that's the oven must rush, bye" or I would ring the door bell to have an excuse to get off the phone. I used to ask lots of questions about her too so that she could rabbit on as she was the star of her story and then she would forget to interrogate me. Happily I had also moved to the other end of the country before my first pregnancy which helped a lot! Can you limit contact?

@RenewableNewt As everyone else has said, no need whatsoever to apologise - every single one of us can relate exactly to what you mean.

Phone calls from my mother could reduce me to tears too. They just gave a way of getting right under your skin and catching you off guard. Mine could suddenly be really thoughtful and kind so I’d let my defences down and she be in there quicker than a rat up a drainpipe with a barbed comment or a spiteful aside leaving me distraught or literally shaking with impotent rage that she’d managed to get me again.

Excellent advice about restricting the time you’re talking. Too much time and the narc seems to feed off you and gain more power. Keeping it short keeps YOU in control!

As an aside, when the land line phone used to ring and it was NM, I swear the ring tone was different. It became quite a joke within the family.

Thank you so much for replying. I do feel embarrassed but I’m also trying to acknowledge that it’s a kind of understandably visceral reaction to really coming to terms with the damage my mum has wrought on us over decades - I’ve finally got my head out of the sand about it and it’s really hard to look at it for what it really is. Does that make sense?

@KaleQueen mine is very very similar. I had ‘get out, go back to [DH’s hometown], GO HOME!’ when I’d first moved here and she’d summoned me back. Conversely, she loved it when my ex-boyfriend as a teenager spent a lot of time with us and his parents referred to my parents as his ‘better family’. So she had no qualms over making someone else feel jealous but can’t hack it when she’s on the receiving end.

‘I’m told I have to love you but I don’t even like you ‘ (I was about 10 when this was said)

’you’re neither use nor ornament’ (age 12)

‘Its sad as I look back at photos and I was SO much prettier than you are at the same age’ ( aged 14)

‘No point crying and saying I’m making fun of you and bullying you - I’m not I’m desensitising you’ (said all the time over about 10 years)

‘well you signed the form so don’t blame me ‘ (when I was dragged as a teenager for a second trimester termination I didn’t want but was threatened with awful things if I didn’t )

‘it went in the hospital incinerator with the rest of the RUBBISH’ (said when I cried about my baby)

There are so many more as well unfortunately

Sorry, I was going to reply to you all in one post but managed to press publish by accident and then I lost your other comments.

@SapatSea totally agree about the script/playbook/similarities between all our mothers. I remember posting here years ago about DM and posters advising that she’d have some sort of medical emergency to bring me back into line, and lo and behold, she announced she was going to be diagnosed with MS (when it later transpired she’d been diagnosed many years previously and kept it a secret). I was (and still am, to an extent) completely shocked that so many of these women are so similar that strangers on the internet could predict what my mum would do.

Limiting contact is going to be the way to go - e.g. messages only on the group chat and not 1-1, as advised by my counsellor. I’m worried she’s going to try and make the Friday phone calls a thing, because I don’t work on Fridays and she seems to like to get me when DH isn’t around (like saying she’ll ‘keep me company’ when he has to work away on occasional weekends - which she won’t be finding out about in future if I can help it). But I have plans for next week that don’t involve being available by phone, so I can message after the event and apologise for missing her call etc.

@JohnPrescottsPyjamas thank you 🙂 I think this one got under my skin so much because her visit last weekend left me reeling for several days and then, just when I was getting over it, she turns up unannounced by phonecall and sounded frantic/a bit manic like she did.

Re. control, I very much want to be in control of the information that’s shared about my pregnancy and ultimately about our baby. Writing that at first, I found I felt negative towards the phrase ‘in control’ and ‘I want to be in control’, like it’s a negative, but actually I was never in control of any element of my life really, even into my late teens/early twenties, and then when I did take some control and make my own decisions, that’s when my mum really hit the roof. So that probably has something to do with my initial reaction. But actually, it’s OK and understandable to want to be in control of how much she gets to know about my body and my and DH’s baby, because it’s our duty to protect him/her.

Thank you all for your sensible and wise posts x

Oh @AvictimRecovery I’m so very very sorry to read your post, your mother’s words are horrifying. Do you have much/any contact with her now?

That our own mothers can say such things and behave in these ways when they’re supposed to be our primary caregivers and we’re biologically/evolutionarily programmed to try to be close to them for our own safety and wellbeing, when actually they themselves are a threat to that, is the biggest mindfuck imagineable.

I’m NC with most of my family. She has power over my siblings so I don’t even have them as I was the scapegoat and dsis was golden child but db was also treated badly so now he’s been able to get joint golden child status which I think he’s happy with as he was always so sad not to feel loved whereas I had consistency in being treated so badly which in some ways was kinder as he never knew was he coming or going

@AvictimRecovery I'm so very sorry your mother was so viscerally cruel about your pregnancy and termination (but it doesn't surprise me). So brutal. Nm's trample on your very soul.

I have posted a thread but it's a bit dull so no replies. I just saw this and hope for some advice:

I have a narcissist mother and brother. Both are high functioning alcoholics. No one would believe it ref my mum.

I've gone no contact with highly abusive sibling. A bit more enmeshed with mother. She lives very close by and I have been reliant on help due to extreme health issues.

Do you tell your children the truth? Because alcoholism is also involved, it's incredibly stressful keeping my son from this right now.

It was awful but prior to that she had just slowly crushed me with lesser things but I still doubted myself she would gaslight me so much that I’d wonder sometimes was it me ? I think she got over confident though and then was just hateful but it opened my eyes. She was always so in charge and scary yet when I realised and had a go at her she cowered and was crying saying ‘why are you shouting at me ? I’m scared ‘ then told family I had ‘squared up’ to her and she felt so scared she wanted to call the police ?

She had a total smear campaign as well told anyone who would listen dreadful lies about me. She had a perfect public image so everyone believed her I had to just accept that I lost so many people but I had no energy to defend myself

How old is your son? Is he at an age where he would be able to see what you mean and grasp the seriousness of the issueif you were to point out the higher level alcoholism?

@JohnPrescottsPyjamas he's 12. He is however autistic/ADHD. In his case he is incredibly perceptive, incredibly intelligent but may interpret things differently. I realised because he is so honest and matter of fact that he had figured out certain things already regards my brother's behaviour himself - from having spent time there seeing cousins. He asked me things which I never thought he'd notice for example.