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

@RenewableNewt - I'm so sorry to hear this. You must keep your DM as far away from you as possible. You need time to go through this physically and emotionally

Whilst my DM never did any over the top declarations of love, she too loved a crisis because of the attention she would get.

Try to not let your DM take this heartache as her own. And she needs to keep her trap shut.

Thank you, all 🙏🏼 you’re right that I need space from her at the moment. It can be difficult to get it though, because she seems to feel she’s ‘owed’ this mother-daughter closeness in these kinds of situations and then retaliates if she doesn’t get it (even though when we’ve tried to open up to her in the past, as children or teenagers, she’s responded with rage or the silent treatment).

My ILs have been lovely, though, so I think I’ll concentrate on that and know I can go to them if I need to. Just need to get through the next week or so until Christmas and then it should all be coming to a close 🙏🏼 thank you again

Just had my dad on the phone to ask how I am. Apparently mum was ‘only trying to help’ when she said maybe the baby was growing, and ‘it wouldn’t hurt to keep her in the picture’.

I’m so fed up of having to placate her by giving her my personal information. This is what always happens. I imagine she’s started being difficult at home, and my dad thinks ‘I know what works, I’ll get Newt to divulge her personal stuff’.

I’m so sick of it, even now going through a miscarriage they want me to dance to her tune and placate her by ‘confiding’ in her. She is the last person I want to talk to at the moment.

It’s like if I can give her some sort of ‘world exclusive’ from my life, that keeps her happy. But why would I confide anything in her when all she’s ever done is throw it back at me? She had never ever supported me emotionally, so why should I share things when I’m at my most vulnerable?

Thank you @WaggledMyAerialAndWolfedMyCustardCreams sorry you’ve had to learn the hard way too.

I’m so tired and just sad that my parents can’t think beyond their own emotional responses and/or management strategies even while I’m going through this. It feels really lonely.

On a more positive note, it’s prompted me to book in to see my therapist/counsellor again in the New Year.

Thank you for replying

i told my mother yesterday that her behaviour can sometimes be irrational but she will never admit it! She told me to "get a grip, big baby drama queen! "

Tell her it's genetic - through the maternal line.

You do not placate that woman any longer! Honestly, we can't have anything even our pain. I'm cross with your DF as well. Can't he see that you've enough going on without having to consider her and her feelings? This is nothing to do with her.

I never shared anything with my DM either. The few times I did she howled with laughter with her friends at my upset. She enjoyed it if my life fell apart. Sick bitch.

@user1471538283 thank you. I was upset about that too. I thought he was phoning because he wanted to know how I was, but it seems like it was just to tell me off for not thinking of my mother first and foremost in my miscarriage and wanting to share every detail of it with her. 😐

There are parts I haven’t told her, because they’re mine and DH’s to know, not hers, and because she has no right to know everything about my life.

She’s never ever apologised for how she behaved towards us when we were growing up, and she still acts out and our dad will say ‘it’s not worth falling out over’. Well, when do we get to decide what is worth it? When can we decide what does hurt us? Or is that only for them to decide?

So furious about it all. Even though what they’ve actually done this time has been pretty minor, it’s the circumstances of it and the culmination of decades of it, and realising I don’t have the kind of parents who can really, genuinely, properly support me.

The realisation that my dad will sacrifice us to make his life with mum easier. When her behaviour was at its most difficult about 6ish years ago, he decided we should commit to going round for Sunday lunch every other week, right at the time when we wanted to put in some boundaries and not be at her beck and call.

It’s just easier for him to get us to do what she wants, than it is to stand up to her, like he should have done years ago.

Sorry

@RenewableNewt your dad sounds like he is your NM's enabler and chief flying monkey. My dad still talks about my mother (deceased) as if she was an absolute saint. It's great that you are seeing your counsellor and can offload.

I used to find when I was younger that even though I knew from bitter experience that my mother would would use any confidence I divulged against me I must have still craved her love so much that I would sometimes tell her something but always lived to regret it. @user1471538283 I remember the ridicule well and yes they do want our lives to fall apart so they can laugh at and torment us more and make us feel inadequate.

I think relationships with narcs are a "triumph of hope over experience."

Thank you @SapatSea sorry for not replying sooner.

I hope everyone had a peaceful Christmas and new year.

My DM’s gem over the holidays was asking if I’d had a scan before having surgical management for the MMC and when I said yes, she said ‘so it was dead then?’

I keep replaying her comment over and over in my head. I barely reacted to it at the time, but the more time I’ve had to dwell on it, the worse it feels. Who talks to their daughter like that, let alone when she’s just had a miscarriage?

She either has no filter or genuinely doesn’t care.

I’m back seeing my counsellor on Monday evening, which will be really helpful, and I’m doing a lot of meditation and work on inner child/mother wound stuff.

I can’t bear the thought of seeing her/hearing from her at the moment. She sent me a message the other day saying ‘haven’t heard from you in a while’ - she’ll never actually ask how we are, she only works in statements. Well, she hasn’t heard from me because I’m so bloody hurt by how she’s been throughout my MMC. Conveniently it was only me and her in the room at the time she said the ‘dead’ comment, of course.

Sorry to blurt this all out. Feeling very low these last couple of days

Her remark about your MMC is breathtakingly horrible. You should go nc for that alone.

In addition your observation that She only makes statements is SO interesting! That gives her plausible deniability so whatever response you give she can feel in charge. If you don’t answer she has not actually made a request so she doesn’t feel rejected. If you do answer the implied demand “you should have called” she can pretend you are chasing her and that makes her feel powerful.

Thank you for replying @pikkumyy77, I’m sorry for the total brain splurge.

That’s really interesting what you’ve said about the statements - I hadn’t thought about it like that. I’d thought it could be something to do with not actually caring how I was/what I thought, because only she matters, so therefore she doesn’t bother to actually ask? But I can totally see that it could be a power thing.

I’m finding at the moment that I’m grieving the MMC but also have a lot of grief for the mum I didn’t have. I think that second kind of grief is always there on some level (is that what the mother wound is, in some way?), but the miscarriage has really exacerbated it for me.

I can’t get over what she said, and also how she made sure not to say it with my dad present. I was so stunned at the time that I just didn’t really react and kept talking - thinking ‘did she really just say that?’ and also bizarrely to try and make her not feel awkward or bad! Why should I care about not making her feel awkward when she’s just asked something like that?! And yet I did, that’s the extent of the ‘fawn’/people pleasing that I’ve been conditioned to do.

thank you again for your reply, it means a lot to try and puzzle out our mothers together, even if we might never really understand them.

Thank you @WaggledMyAerialAndWolfedMyCustardCreams. I can barely believe it myself, the more I go over it in my head.

I think it’ll be one of the first things I bring up on Monday, although doing things chronologically would be more sensible. She’s been unbearable throughout all of this. If god forbid it happened again, I wouldn’t tell her. She’s done much much more harm than anything else - I was going to say more harm than good, but she’s done no good at all.

I’m keeping a big ‘brain dump’ document to get all of this down as well.

Honestly at the moment, I feel like I want to cut all contact with her, her behaviour has been so incredibly hurtful.

You’re so right that all of these feelings of grief about our families can be made much worse at Christmas, I can definitely identify with that.

We had the traditional mountains of presents from DM, and yet she talks to me like this. I don’t want to accept her presents as some sort of compensation that means she can speak to me however she likes and I’m not allowed to answer back or get upset. I’m an adult, FFS.

I listened to a few episodes of ‘Unfollowing Mum’ yesterday which is a really interesting podcast, has anyone else here heard it? Her mum sounds very similar to mine - the episode on lack of self rang so many bells.

Thank you again. My brain feels like it’s turning itself inside out x

If I challenged her on it and asked her why she said it, I know she’d deny it or not remember.

I think this denial is almost the most hurtful part—or rather the most damaging. Because it leaves you so confused, standing on quicksand instead of solid ground.

I agree with you 100% about the confusion @pikkumyy77 - she either denies things or says something like ‘stop this silliness’ if I call her out, because she can stomp all over us, but how I feel is silly.

I’ve just got home to a message from her (I have her muted so I only see when I actually check my messages, IYSWIM), and she has stated (again) that my dad will be dropping her off at my house in a couple of weekends’ time. She hasn’t asked if we’re free or if I’d like to meet up, she has told me she is being dropped off here. FFS.

I said to DH that it’s like she knows somehow that I don’t want anything to do with her at the moment and so she tries to push back in. I absolutely hate this. I was going to try and have a better day today and seeing this message has just sent me spinning.

• She said to my DH “rolls eyes Do you know, if you listened to my kids you’d think they’d been neglected or something”. (My brothers and I were taken into care due to her neglect and never allowed to return).
• My DB completed a PhD (an amazing achievement for a care leaver who had suffered intense childhood trauma) and before his graduation I bought a ‘Congratulations’ card and present from her to him because I knew she wouldn’t bother. She asked “What’s this for? What the hell am I supposed to write on it??”
• I asked her to be there for the birth of my first DC. She spent the entire labour complaining and left within 3 minutes of the birth. She didn’t contact me again for two weeks.
• Whenever I do anything for her or the wider family she will always text my DH and thank him! He always replies and says it was nothing to do with him and she should be thanking me, but she never has.

@RenewableNewt Your nym reminds me that I have always loved Newts and as a child dreamed of studying them, finding them, befriending them.

What happens if you don’t respond directly to her but call your father and leave a message stating “Won’t be home on x date”—I mean its far from clear she has any intention of actually coming. But still. If she does show up spontaneously can you just leave for a doctor’s appointment? I just always think of the thing that frustrates them the most and then do it. For instance calling back and saying “lovely to have mother’s help doing task X” which she will abominate..

@Menomeno ’s list is just horrible snd its on point because asking these N people to do anything that places the spotlight on someone else (the bsby, the card, even attention) is almost physically painful for them.

I think these hateful, spiteful, awful women hate it because we can see them for what they are.

@RenewableNewt Tell her bluntly she is not to come and see you.

My DM tried to insist to come and see me when my DF was dying and when he died but not to comfort me. Oh no, to be the widow (they had been divorced for over 20 years at this point) and it turned into a big thing about who would be picking her up, who she would visit, on and on. I had to say no very firmly. I had my own grief to deal with.

As do you. Tell her no from us!

@Menomeno I always find people's choice of words very interesting. Surely if you were not neglectful you would never think to mention it? And she was seeking assurance that she was not. Oh no, not from you or us!

They make you think you are going mad because they do not respond the way normal people do. But we are not going mad. We see them for what they are.

@Menomeno that is just awful.
Why do you stay in contact with her ?