Regale me with hilarious/ridiculous things that a narcissist or enabler has said to you....

[Herrena]

I'll go first.

My DF acts as enabler for my narcissist M, although I doubt he's fully aware of this. We were discussing her and my god-awful childhood yesterday over skype when he dropped in this little gem:

'Well, you were so quiet. You didn't really defend yourself properly.'

What the actual fuck?!

I didn't really process the remark at the time but now I'm bloody fuming.

Go on, tell me yours. Let's laugh at the bastards and then maybe I won't spend the next week dwelling on my wrath

I was a rubbish foster mum, I got far too attached to the children and was devastated when they left. When two of our charges were leaving after 2 years, to be adopted, my mother phoned me up at 3am and hissed down the phone, "Wouldn't it be lovely if we could all pick and choose our children and then just wave bye bye when we've had enough."

That was 11 years ago and I still shake with fury when I think of it.

It is cathartic but it's the first time I've put it all together. It's been a bit of a shock tbh and I've been in a whirl of emotion over the last two days. It's as if the world I knew where I was just a crap daughter has turned on its axis. It takes a bit of getting used to.

So many punctuation mistakes. Sorry.

Hope it still makes sense.

This is not only cathartic - it is f*ing liberating.
How about this one:
I had tried to lock myself in the bathroom to get away for yet another beating from my mother.
My father pushed the door open for her (I can't remember whether I had failed to lock it properly, or was coming out to take the beating) The door swung back into my head splitting it open.
My mother:
Now look what you've made your father do!

I had abandonment issues throughout childhood which developed into depression I my teens. I overdosed on pills and the next da DM arranged for me to stay with a friend because she couldn't trust me to behave while she went on holiday

And another, I was trying to explain my low mood at the age of 19 & her response was 'Nerves? Don't be stupid I never had nerves at your age!'

I was a bit self conscious about a new hair cut but DM put me at ease by telling me not to worry 'No one would ever look at you anyway.'

When I got married and was thinking about going to a hotel for a few days she told me not to bother because all the waiters would look down their noses at me.

Glen Yet another post - and there are so many on this thread that are making me laugh and cry at the same time.

hair I know how that one goes, it's a horrible shock to learn that your 'normal' upbringing was anything but.

I knew my mother was different from other mothers, but now I see that she is just the same as all these other ones, that all these other people have survived, that I'm not alone with my feelings of fear, isolation and poor self esteem. It has been refreshing to see others that have come through with strength and courage, and to be able to see that that can be me too. That I don't have to follow the shitty script that was written for me.

The scary part will be finding out who I am, when I am not being informed by my mother, SiL and 2 x narc EX's who I am. That is something I am going to need help with.

I tried to gas myself in my car a few years ago, mother came to see me in A&E as she was my NOK. She sighed, a huffed and eventually said 'I really have no idea why you have absolutely no self esteem'. At the time, not funny, now, hysterically so.

By 19 I was seriously depressed and feeling really desperate after years of her shit. I hadn't been able to work for a couple of months because if it. She berated me daily about sorting myself out and get a job. She wasn't prepared to support me just lazing around.

When I told her I felt suicidal and need help, she said 'well I don't know why, you've got such lovely hair.' WTF?!

I found a therapist & she went on and on about what a load of rubbish counselling was and that they would only blame her....

Gunznroses I don't think anyone means it hurtfully - it's more of a 'Wow, RESPECT to you for still standing after all that!' At least that's how I read it anyway. There may be people out there going 'Nyer nyer, my mum was less narc-y than your mum' but I seriously doubt it.

I've had the 'Why are you so hard on yourself? Why don't you give yourself a break?' talk too. From the woman who used to fly into a FURY if I asked her to repeat a mumbled incoherent instruction. When I was 4.

Sheesh

well this thread has been really enlightening for me. I had overheard my Wonderful wonderful nan (who i lived with for a while) saying that my mum was a nark. I thought it meant narky as in badtempered.

But now i know what she meant.

So much makes sense. I thought that she was just evil, but now i see its a personality disorder, i kind of feel sorry for her. (not enough to give her head space- but hey- thats self preservation for you!)

Herren we are indeed still just standing.
Let's hear it for us!!!

When going through a divorce with an 18 month DD, DM said.....you don't understand how much your divorce has hurt me and you DF.

MY mother enables her husband, who she ran away with 30 years ago, when I was 12.

Last time I spoke to her (9 years ago) she said "I hope [dd1] doesn't do to you what you did to me!"

I won't. I've got a really good relationship with my dd1 (with all my dc) and I'd never do what she did! Therefore she'll never do to me what I did to me and my siblings.

Dc and I are close, friends. Dh and I are very happily married after 18 years.

herrena, might be a good idea to give up the awards ceremony bit, like you said, and concentrate on narcs bingo cards

It would be hard work getting the narcs to the awards in the first place. You'd have to tell them why they were invited in the first place, as they don't like surprises do they? They like to be in control. Or they'd complain about having to make the effort to get there in the first place....Shame really, as a 'Tantrums and Tiaras' theme would have put Elton Johns in the shade....

Seriously though, as much as I try to see the funny side of the narcissism, it saddens me, cathartic as the thread is.

arthriticfingers, mrsmindcontrol and akaemmafrost: just awful that you've had to deal with physical abuse as well as the narcissism. Words are not enough.

Remember none of this is our fault. None of it. Never has been, never will be.

You are right, of course, crushed they would not turn up if were we inviting them
two of toxic mother's many excuses:
'Oh my back!' (used for years until miraculously cured when she discovered her 'knee' which has worked for her - both knee and excuse - for many years now)
Can't - I might have to visit xxx (friend who lived 100s of miles away and who died without my mother ever visiting her)

DM 'It's a shame you bf didn't love you enough to have babies with you'

Ummm yes thanks mum.....

I had been wondering whether my "friend" (recently estranged wife of good friend) was a narcissist. This conversation clinched it:
CSM: How's your Mother (aged 87, had bad cold week before)?
"Friend": Worried about her daughter.

My M "why should you get to go out when I can't" well mother because I'm working, I'm old enough and I don't have a 10yo daughter (my younger sister) to look after. This was mild for her.

She once beat me up in front of one of her (many) boyfriends. He was so horrified he dumped her there and then. That was then my fault so I got another beating I was 15.

She was a violent twisted bully.

She also once told me that she had pnd after having me and thats why she always struggled with a relationship with me.

I don't have a clue who my father is. I have asked her for information numerous times and been given different variations of names and dates of birth. one day when I was asking again she told me to f*ck off to Jeremy Kyle.

I haven't spoken to her for 7 years now. Bliss

Oh yeah just remembered her best line.

She threw a glass bottle at me splitting my head open. "Its your fault you ran in the wrong direction" I was 7 years old. I don't know what bullshit we told the hospital but it certainly wasn't the truth.

incognito :( at what you have been through (but I did like the "Its your fault you ran in the wrong direction") Have we all ended up with a twisted sense of humour?

Forgot to add that the excuse:

Can't - I might have to visit xxx (friend who lived 100s of miles away and who died without my mother ever visiting her)

was used regularly when I suggested she might like to see my children whom she did not see from year to year - I will add that, when I suggested a visit, I did not specify a month, let alone a day - just a suggestion it was ...

I was incredibly proud of my slightly narcissistic DH when he finally told his very narcissistic M how he felt about a family situation after nearly 10 yrs of it eating away at him. He was so calm, very unlike him and the reason he had never confronted her before. It is unlikely to have made an impression on her but he feels much better for having done it.

"I know why now he always preferred my sisters to me. Because of my skin. No unconditional love there then."

Not sure what to make of that?

I was just thinking, about having each narc at their own table at a wedding reception, and have thought up another 'not so small' refinement.

It would be really evil - and only to be done it you were breaking all contact after a wedding, but -

how about letting the narc 'dm' have her way - book everything where she wants, venue, menu etc, invite all her friends - and then just piss off with your intended and a couple (or more) of your own friends and have your wedding where you want, and how you want?

When dh and I got married, we did discuss (briefly) getting married in the church I'd gone to some 50 miles away from home. I was on the electoral roll there so it would have been possible.

Cue dm "If you get married in Manchester your father won't be going and I won't be going either".

She was really mean, too. For example, if a recipe serving 4 needed a tin of tomatoes and she was doing half, she'd put half a tin of tomatoes in the fridge where it would go mouldy. Once at our house for the weekend, we had bolognese and my poor df remarked 'that was really tasty'. Cue dm in a squawk worthy of the café owner in Monty Python's Spam Song "It was only mince".

Another time - might have been the same weekend - feeling like throwing up during a very heavy period - I was peeling grapes do make Sole Veronique for dinner. Inbetween the grape peeling I was waiting on her hand and foot - and dinner was a little late. Said with a sniff "A ham sandwich would have done".

Think that was the same weekend she walked into the house, plonked her arse down on the settee and said "I'm not going to do a thing all weekend" - she was true to her word, too

I did think of getting my dm to sign the form - in the guise of witnessing my signature - to leave her body to medical science. Then after she died, there would have been no funeral, and all the people who didn't know her would have been saying what a wonderful thing she'd done, leaving her body to science. She'd have probably ended up on a slab being dissected by a hung over medical student. Otoh, they might have found something really strange from a physiological pov, which could have been quite interesting - missing heart for example. A counsellor I was seeing at the time thought it was brilliant and said that revenge fantasies are very good therapeutically.

The week before I was 19 I broke off my engagement - to a narc, natch. The Sunday was Mothering Sunday, and so I went home on the Saturday morning to give her a card/present and to tell my parents I was no longer engaged. When I told dm her only comment was "I wish I'd done the same thing".

And breathe - the cost of psychotherapy has already passed the £20k cost and is ongoing - but this is quite good fun even though it's sad for all of us that it's necessary.