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 found it utterly bizarre too. So bizarre that I thought it must be true, as no-one would go on about something so much if it wasn't true.
She would also make a point of going on about things that were true....I have big ears, and DP has wavy hair....as in waving goodbye!
She's always get a dig in. Myself, I never comment on features.....I only mention her weight because it's a direct result of her abnormal eating habits.

I've just remembered the final straw for my DM, the day she finally left him with my sister ( left me behind to deal with the fallout) he decided to control the amount of toilet roll we use.

That morning he had gone off on one because 3 women had used too much toilet roll over the week, he wanted to limit us all to 2 pieces on every toilet visit. He couldn't afford for us to keep wasting it.

FFS toilet roll! I can look back now on all this stuff and not feel much, I can picture most of it as a forgotten dream but that was my normal, I lived in that, I wonder how the hell I kept my sanity.

Yes to the racing heart, too!

Although selling our house was a 'logical' thing to do, and also the decent thing to do to help her out - must be my df's dd rather than hers, it was a need to find the mother who loved me. Fat chance.

I can remember her coming up 2 flights of stairs to see us in the attics and asking - while not looking us - why we didn't go out in the garden and sit outside in the sun. Also that someone at the church garden party was asking after me. It was obviously the lack of control that was getting to her, as I reassured her we were fine as we were.

We were invited into the sitting room once in 6 months - she had met up with an old boyfriend from the war and he was coming for coffee. We were presented as her 'new tenants' which she then corrected to 'my dd and dsil, ha ha just my little joke'. We had £50k equity when we sold, and she kept asking dh how much dosh we had. After that he started taking the building society book to work with him in his briefcase as we didn't trust her not to go rooting around.

I think it was the stress of moving house twice, being almost disowned by her, taking and repeating a set of professional exams etc that started my thyroid packing up. Just after we moved the second time dmil had a stroke, too.

Was funny, that year dmil thanked me for her mother's day present - when I said that it was between her and dh, she said "well, I'm your second mother" - when I told dm that she bit back with "How dare she say that - I'm your mother". Really weird dog in the manger attitude - she didn't want me, but anyone else show affection and she'd pounce on them.

I can remember the weekend before my df's funeral - my aunt and uncle were staying and we went over for lunch on the Saturday. As we left to go to mil's 'd'm turned to me and asked "Aren't you going to give us a kiss before you go". Am ashamed to say that I didn't have the balls to point out that the previous time she'd given me a kiss was 12 years before. Was like being pissed on by a nasty tom cat

Binky my dm did this too - we'd used too much after a visit to the local tandoori restaurant the night before. The loo roll disappeared from the toilet - she was obviously hiding it in the bathroom next door. When we left, we put a 9-pack of Andrex in the airing cupboard as a leaving present.

Dh then got a letter at work - not marked private and confidential - telling him to repair the damage we'd done to her house - holes in skirting board where we'd installed a phone extension, hole in the back door for a cat flap, and asking us to remove a microwave and the 9-pack. She put his name on the envelope and addressed the letter "to whom it may concern". Bitch. Had he been a little lower down it could have caused disciplinary action for receiving personal correspondence at work.

However, she didn't ask for the woodworm to be returned, nor the opening into the loft removed - she'd asked the builder to do the work, and for the bill to be sent to us. When I challenged this, she said that I'd said I thought it would be a good idea, so she got the work done and told the builder we wanted it done, hence the bill.

Wish we'd got the bitch sectioned!

Wow. I cannot believe some of the tales I've read on here, its so heart breaking that sooo many go through this!

Mine relate to my fabulous inlaws..

DFIL (to MrAlli) : We don't think allibaba is right for you. She doesn't appear to have any maternal instinct and we want to have grand children before we die.

That was 6 months in. I was 23 FFS!

On being told we were expecting our DS1 - no reaction at all, just sat there and said Congratulations in a half arsed manner.

On pointing out that if you want to buy some guys house and want to write to him to tell him to wait while you sell your own, you shouldn't boast how much your selling yours for (was 100k more), FIL said: Oh we all know why your here allibaba, the inheritance money!

That was a few weeks before we married, in front of MIL and SIL who claimed not to hear any of it!

At least DH is now recognising he is a narc and the rest his enablers...

DogEgg, my M told me regularly that she got fat because of being pg with me (not my db of course, just me). I was absolutely convinced that having my dcs would leave me the size of a house. And yet I've seen photos of M when I was a young child, and she was easily a size 10.

Isn't it weird how you grow up believing the lies they told you, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary? And sometimes without even realising that you believe it, like its stuck at the back of your mind as an incontrovertible truth.

bertha my mum says that too. I made her fat because she was pregnant with me. Not she got fat, I made her fat.

ex DP to me (during sex): ooh now I know what Jimmy Saville felt like"

Me: WTF? What a vile disgusting thing to say, fucking woman hater, get OFF!!

Him: OMG I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that?. actually I'm really hurt that you think I'm a woman hater?.

Cue end of relationship.

God I have yet another.
I was bullied at school and dmum said " I dont know why they dont like you. What do you do so that no one likes you ? It must be you" Or words to that affect I am paraphrasing slightly. Then she ends it with

"Everyone always likes me so It cant be anything from me. It must be your problem."

Shes also a total fucking martyr. When she was ill once my dad was making my tea and she made a huge hooha of getting out of bed and hanging on to the stair rail and shouting in her "poorly voice" at him instructions on how to make dinner. Because it made her look a better parent. To struggle out of bed to tell my poor dad how to make soup or whatever.

My dad btw is an intelligent man who was quite capable of making himself and his daughter dinner.

Coffee "Everyone likes me..."

Think we've disproved that, haven't we.

MrsDeVere awful.

mrsDV

I think you're a close contender for worse story on this thread.

Every time I come back to the thread I'm slightly horrified by how much it's grown.... hopefully the sheer number of posts will reassure posters that they REALLY are not the problem!!

Someone said something about being slightly relieved to not have kids because they weren't sure they'd be good parents. I feel that way all the time. I was very relieved when preg to find I was having boys because I was petrified that I'd make a daughter's life hell - I don't have any concept of what a 'good' mother-daughter relationship is.

I realised this properly in Tesco once. I saw a mum and her daughter (they looked a bit similar) at the checkout next to me. The mum was a bit glam, well dressed, maybe mid-40s. The daughter was about early teens, slim and pretty, also well-dressed. I remember thinking 'They look happy together.' I then thought 'I bet her mum would hate her if she got fat though.' I then realised how shitty that thought was :(

Suffice it to say, I'm hoping that tedious overanalysis of everything I do/say will stop me from being the bitch mother from hell. Heaven knows what sort of MIL I might end up as though

I'm a completely insecure parent. Parenting classes helped enormously, really helped me figure out what normal looked like.

It is still hard to overcome the programming, though, in daily life and reactions in the moment. Practice and awareness.

MrsDV
Herrena - these narcs lack empathy - every waking thought and deed is about them - how things make them look/feel. They would not recognise themselves even if they read all the stories on here - that is why you should not worry about being a bad mum. You are empathetic - that is what will make you a fabulous mum. (I know it wasn't me you saw in Tesco - as I am neither glam or well dressed )

buildingmycorestrength - that is a perfect name for you as it is exactly what you are doing. You are aware that you didn't have good role models and you are taking very positive steps to build your core strength - well done you and {{{hugs}}} you are getting there

Agree, I've really had to work hard to figure out 'how' to parent - also delayed having babies, thinking I couldn't 'risk' a girl. Had loads of therapy (and budgeting for more!) to help, been to support groups/ etc.

For this reason, I always get tres annoyed with the triumphant common-sensicalism threads - you know the ones "AIBU to wonder who the fuck bothers with parenting books?!" or those where someone asks for advice and then gets mocked for feeling unsure how to handle a situation in their DC's life, like it's a fucking crime not to be completely instinctive at parenting. But (1) I've got no reliable basis for working out what is emotionally abusive/ manipulative so really need to check my thinking out; (2) I don't see why I have to apologise for my 'lack of common sense'; (3) I think you are treading on thin ice if you just assume that your own family context is absolutely, straightforwardly 'normal'; (4) I can't help noticing that its a narc trait to assume what you think is common sense; (5) I can't help distrusting the claim that someone's own childhood experiences 'didn't do them any harm' - I usually find people saying that are overbearing and dismissive, to say the least, which might reasonably be attributed to insensitive or not otherwise optimal parenting. And reminds me of my own dear Narcs - if I feel this way about it, it must be true for you, too!

... which slightly leads me onto, should there be a DNc abbreviation?

God they are dreadful. Just remembered my dm telling me it was her job to tell me all my faults, as my " friends " wouldn't. There are many, of course. I remember snapping back " yes, that's why they are my friends"

I always remember Jilly cooper writing that having a friend should be like being asparagus and having warm sauce poured over you. Like getting in a lovely bath I suppose:).

There is a theme, with weight? And things being your fault? Things you can't control. A woman once lashed out at me randomly in the street and my dm said it was all my fault as I must have encouraged her:) wtf? Now I just call her on every rubbish thing she says, but that makes her ill " you're making me sick with nerves" , as I won't be told the TRUTH!!

OP - have not read the whole thread but my narcissus XP said, (after beating me up) "You bruise so easily! I think that you should take more Vitamin C!"

exMIL (pouting) -- 'I wish you would come and sit with us at the table Math' - I was reclining on the couch during Christmas dinner because she had a hard and fast rule about people eating in bedrooms and I had been ordered to lie down and only get up for the loo by emergency room doctor I had seen that morning because I was miscarrying and bleeding quite heavily. Thankfully exFIL (a doctor himself) told her it was important for me to follow doctor's orders. But she grumbled a lot nevertheless.

Same exMIL (in impatient, exasperated tone): '[SIL] is bleeding and she and [SIL's husband] can't decide whether to stay here and go to the hospital or get into the car and drive so we're all going to have to wait for her to get her act together '
SIL was about 10 weeks pregnant and had started spotting and cramping; we had all got to the half way point of a trip to the American west, the year before my Christmas MC. SIL was this woman's own daughter.

math - How dreadful! Why are people so awful?

Sparkely yy to how necessary I felt it was to read parenting books.
Alice Miller's 'For your own Good', which I read while expecting my first, became my parenting bible.

math wow. Just... wow. . .

jynier that is a perfect summation of their whole attitude. Extraordinary.

dothraki thank you ... I'm getting there! Your name is great too

Worst parenting advice ever for me was "Just follow your instincts." My instincts are were fucked up! I'm constantly terrified/angry, and want to overcontrol, lash out and run away. Not good instincts to follow. .

Had so many narcs in my life I now realise- must have a twat beacon attached to me somewhere.
Another one. I had a brief relationship with a Disney dad. Didn't understand why his ex was ungrateful that he'd turn up once every 3/4 weeks, take them out and spoil them and then hand the confused wreckage back. I asked him why he didn't see them more regularly. "Because now I can't see them every day, it hurts me". Him, grown man allegedly, them all primary school age

Same twat, talking about trading in large vehicle for a 2 seater sports car. Me: what about the kids? Him: what about them?! Followed by a chuckle. We really didn't have the same sense of human humour.