Narcissistic Personality Disorder - how to cope?

[LovesPeace]

Hi
My mother is an (undiagnosed) narcissist, and my sister and I are both struggling to deal with her. She takes pleasure/gratification in being nasty and hurting people, especially those close to her (us!).
My father died 2 years Ago, and she's showing increasingly attention seeking, and risky behaviours with strangers. As she has a grandiose view of herself, people only have to flatter her a little, and she'll comply with their suggestions.
She gave her bank security details to a scammer, and got thousands stolen, paid £500 to 'tree surgeons' who took the money never to be seen again, gave her credit card details to a fake double glazing salesman, etc.
Today, she phoned random men to come and fix a whirligig into the ground, paid them £150 and invited them to take all my Dad's tools from the garage, playing the 'Lady of the Manor' to the peasants. She doesn't even know what they took - they carried out boxes - but they were smarmy enough and paid attention to her.
She's now talking about clearing the rest of my Dad's stuff. My Dad was lovely, and my sister and I adored him, but not her as she's always been abusive...and by destroying his things she can hurt us, and get our attention. She is unbelievably nasty.
My sister and I plan to rescue his slides, his diaries, and sentimental keepsakes (things he made for us) before she destroys it...but any advice how to cope?
Despairing! :-(

Are you sure she isn't dementing?

Yes, very sure.

My father was always a calming force that stopped her acting on her impulses...but now she's like a giant difficult toddler!

She'll do things like discuss gardening contracts - the poor people spend ages paying her attention while she talks at them, gives them tea, offers them lucrative steady contracts. They start work, within a week when the novelty has worn off and they are just working diligently away, she'll tell them not to bother coming back!

Then she'll phone another gardener and do it all again!

Help!

You have two choices I'm afraid - one is to distance yourself, the other is to cut off contact completely.

What you cannot do is change her behaviour through talking, reasoning, doing things differently. And you can't protect her from herself via the law because she is competent to make her own decisions (legally at least).

It is not your job to protect other people from her -don't worry about the gardeners - it's annoying but she isn't going to make or break their livelihoods. And you can't protect her from the con men. All you can do is protect yourselves.

Am I your (previously undiscovered) sister???

In my position as your sister in another dimension I recommend that when it comes to your fathers possessions, if there is anything you care about, offer to help your mother by taking "rubbish" to the tip. If she thinks it is valueless to you, she cannot use it against you. I realised this too late with my own mother and lost nearly all of my fathers treasures.

My existing sister is doing a stealthy removal of treasures...I live far away...not far enough though!

She tries to hold the 'inheritance' over us, but neither of us care enough to engage with that crock of sh*t!

Can't, it's nice to have someone who understands what an NPD mother is like...most people just can't believe it...

yes my mother is quite like this. my father died and she threw out all of his things and I have only ever seen one photo of him. she frequently says she wishes I would have died when I was born (I nearly did)- and yes she's utterly bonkers with strangers. no gardening but other bizarre things like buying houses she has no money for and lying to everyone incessantly. nobody would quite 'get' this surrealness I'm afraid. In my case it was compunded by alcohol. worryingly she's a professional with at risk people, seems fine until she unleashes the wrath elsewhere. But I think there have been issues, complaints and so forth. My tactic is distance. I cannot change her.