Has anyone ever had "a talk" with a difficult/ narrassistic parent?

[mermaid101]

I have posted about my mum on here a few times. I think she had some narrassistic tendencies.

I have noticed that over the last couple of years she has managed to fall out with practically her whole family apart from my sister and me and some of her friends.

She is not self aware or self reflecitve but readiing between the lines of what she tell me, some of her friends seem to be "phasing her out".

My sister and I do not find her easy. We would like to have a better, more positive relationship with her. We are also concerned she ends up completely isolated. We think the best course of action might be to have a fairly frank discussion with her. We realise this will be difficult , but feel something must be done.

Has a anyone ever done this and had any sort of success?

I realise there are few details/ examples in this message. I don't want to make it too lengthy but am happy to answer any questions .

Other people might have better experiences but for me it was a total waste of time.
One of the main things about narcissism is that everyone else is wrong not them and any challenge to that will NOT get a positive response!
Do it if you feel you need to but don't be surprised if you end up with your mother feeling very aggrieved and you being the baddie!

Oh, and she will probably blame one of you more than the other and then try a " divide and conquer " strategy.

Yes, it resulted in tears and hysteria. Don't waste your time >

My mum is a Narc. She's managed to isolate herself from most of her family (out of 6 siblings she now only speaks to one). She has no friends left. I tried to speak to her several times over the past few years and honestly she just can't seem to see it's her, everything is always everyone else's fault, she is always the victim. She drove me to despair and I ended up going no contact 6 months ago. It was THE best decision I've ever made! I figure she's digging her own grave now, she's pushed so many people away and she has no one to blame but herself.

My sister still sees her and my mum also has a partner (he's as bad as her) so she's not totally alone.

I think you can try to talk to her but it will probably fall on deaf ears and she will make you feel guilty for daring to say anything to her.

Hopping, that is the sort of reaction we are anticipating. We were hoping that the extensive list of friends and family she has fallen out with, coupled with our own observations might be enough to help her see that people are generally finding her difficult/ objectionable.

Can I ask a bit more about your situation? What happened afte " the talk". Was there a lot of high emotions? Did you feel you managed to get your point across at all? Was it one of your parents? Of course, you don't need to answer if you would rather not share?

That's an interesting point about divide and conquer. She had tried this many times in the past. I hadn't thought of that.

We are preparing for this as you would for a critical work meeting with the most difficult clients you can imagine. We are going to plan exactly what we are going to say any have a strategy nailed down.

But so far, not many success stories it would seem. To be honest, it does seem like abit of a hopeless mission, but we're out of ideas and feel we cannot continue as we are.

I tried but it never worked, just meant she got hysterical and crying, just ridiculous.

Anyway they never, ever do anything wrong do they, it's always the other person being horrible to them [no, just trying to have a reasonable and logical conversation to make things better].

And such personalities seem to lack insight into themselves or realise [or even think about] the impact of their thoughtless, indifference, actions and words have on others.

I tried it several times. Every time it was fruitless. The last time I spoke with her I had to walk away because I nearly punched her in the face.

It made no difference, she wasn't able to take my feelings/position/viewpoint on board. Her most recent actions threatened my position professionally as well as having the potential to harm my children. When I tried she started to talk about my abusive childhood as though I had forgotten about it and was still only able to understand it in terms of how it made her feel (apparently it did bother her when my dad hit me/dragged me across the room by my hair/threw me, did I never notice how she left the room when it was happening...? It was because she didn't want to see it).

She also tried the divide and conquer with my brother and me - for years. The only time she ever invited one of us over for dinner was when the other one had confronted her over something. The first thing we'd do after is phone the other up and say "I've had an invite for dinner. What have you done?" It was always met with a laugh because the other had always done something!

She was also always the victim. Always. Whenever she was challenged on anything she cried and wailed about how no one loved her. She even did it to my son.

She lied to people about why we cut contact with her (rather than just keeping quiet about it or deflecting questions with a neutral answer) because she knew that I could say nothing about the real reason, for legal reasons.

We couldn't continue as we were. My mother's behaviour contributed to the breakdown of my marriage and made the premature birth by EMCS of my daughter more difficult to handle. She revelled in making every problem worse rather than doing nothing or trying to help.

I can not tell you how much happier my life is without her in it. I'm only just starting to feel like I'm no longer floating, or bouncing along like I'm walking on the moon.

I'm always happy and I always smile because, no matter how bad everything else is, it's never as bad as it was when she was adding her own particular brand of poison to the situation.

She didn't send the children Christmas cards this year. I don't know why. Maybe she has got the message. Maybe she's not around to send them cards. I don't know, and frankly, I don't care.

Not with success. It was 'all my fault' (how she figured that out I really have no idea, but that was one of the signs that something really was profoundly wrong given the specific situation). Also 'I was lying, everyone loved her and valued her' ... a highly isolated woman that no one visited. Very sad.

The only way to handle her was to decide what I would put up with and what I wouldn't. Then if she started behaving too far out of the norms I walked away. She tried to keep within bounds because she did not in the end want to loose all contact.

The point of all that was that reasoning, love and gentle attempts to help were pointless. The mouth would move but there was no ability to meet each other or work together. You just had to sit there and listen as she talked and nod and 'mmmhmmm', even when she was utterly self-centred, distorting everything or talking drivel.

Maybe if your mother isn't too far gone it's worth trying once but from what you say, expect trouble afterwards. Possibly a lot of it.

IME, if you try to tackle it, you get her wrath AND the wrath of her partner.

I had to call the police to get her to leave!

NC since then. Am debating if I write to tell her officially that all contact will now cease between her and my dsis and anyone to do with them for now on.

We were hoping that the extensive list of friends and family she has fallen out with, coupled with our own observations might be enough to help her see that people are generally finding her difficult/ objectionable.

I hope it works for you, but I tried similar with my mother and she just cried and wailed about how no one liked her and no one loved her...

But then 10 minutes later, she'd be telling me how she didn't need me anyway because of all the great friends she'd got.

Before then crying again because she was approaching retirement and all of her friends were married and so wouldn't have time for her (personally, I have time for a relationship and friends) and describing how fragile her friendships were that meant any time away from them (e.g. a night out with me) would mean she was forgotten about.

I also suggested once that she went to speak to the doctor about how she was feeling and see if they could offer her some counselling (psychiatric help) to support her. She said she had been to the doctors and they said there was nothing wrong with her and that I was her problem.

I've stood and listened to her rewriting history/the truth in front of me. We once bumped into the parents of a very old school friend of mine. I do a hobby with one of the parents (pure coincidence). My stbxh and I stood there like :-O as she told them how I'd begged her to do the hobby with me because I didn't have the confidence to do it on my own (never happened - there's no way I'd have had her in a social environment with me and I did go, quite happily, completely on my own) and that she'd had to point out to me that if she had come with me, I wouldn't have been able to go anyway because I was only able to go because she babysat for me. I'd been doing the hobby for 3 years at the point at which I went NC and in that time she didn't babysit for me to do this hobby once. My stbxh had the children when I did it and, in fact, still does!

I sometimes had a mental image of my mother as a superhero, well supervillian, whilst she was talking; deflecting other people's contributions/suggestions/observations at lightening speed with her costume all shiny afterwards because nothing anyone had said had even touched her, let alone made any impact.

One more thing...

It sounds as though you and your sister have given this a great deal of thought. I would be prepared to feel very deflated and frustrated afterwards.

Good mental image Folkgirl!

The truth has no part to play in these people's lives!

I tried and failed to "have a talk" with my mother.

When I tried to point out things she'd done than had upset me, she initially denied them all but then when I gave her evidence, she just said that was how she felt at the time or turned it around to blame me.

We are now almost NC as she promised me she would change time and time again and never did.

Sorry to be negative but this approach didn't work in my case - hopefully you will have more luck.

When I tried to have a heart-to-heart with my narcissistic mum after two years of mostly not talking, she was all sweet and light. She admitted she had known I was unhappy as a child, that she drowns her sorrows and that she had not done that good of a job. She asked me what I thought should happen now and then in the same breath told me a 'family secret' that put my relationship with my siblings under a lot of stress for the next three months, til the moment I figured out what she told me about hadn't actually happen. When I confronted her with putting me in a horrible position and then that she had lied to me, she told people I had accused her of things that weren't true. I had a small success when I said I wasn't going to pretend that things were okay until she apologised. It took six months, but in the end she did. I'm not trying to start serious conversations anymore, because she just isn't interested.

My sister had more success by inviting her to three joint sessions with her therapist. In it my M of course blamed all and sundry for the problems in our family despite attempts at empathy (and blatant sarcasm) from the therapist. What helped my sister (and me by proxy) is to have an outsider confirm she is crazy and doesn't care about us, and a few gems of honesty from my M. While being put under pressure to talk during a session, she basically begged my sister to let her keep her illusions of perfection, because without them she wouldn't have any existence left. And that's the truth right there.

I tried and got told that they had no regrets and nothing that had happened over the past 30 years would be changed if they could - when directly asked about behaviours (beating/emotional/sexual abuse) I was told it was my fault for being a wilful child.

Nc for over 2 years now and life is better although I still think about the what ifs and shoulda woulda coulda's

Hope that it goes better for you!

Sad to say, but ime, talking is a total waste of time.

They feel attacked (no matter how diplomatic / tactful you are), and will attack you (either through crying/hysterics or anger - maybe both). They will blame you, blame everyone else, try to make you feel sorry for them / guilty. They will lash out and say awful things that will resonate in your head and heart for days, months, years.

We all hope for that 'breakthrough' moment that is a real turning point in the relationship with things moving toward a completely different, more positive place. But, sad to say, I think those sorts of things only happen in fiction.

My solution was to reduce contact dramatically, have a completely superficial relationship, and not get engaged or dragged in to any of the drama. I'd be around briefly, and only on my terms - which didn't give the opportunity for things to deteriorate into a woe-is-me victim/martyr conversation.

Put your energy toward a relationship with her dsis (who sounds lovely), your dh/dp (if you've got one), and into learning how to be a completely different sort of parent to your dc. Much better use of your time.

I sent a letter once to the MIL asking her to curb her behaviour (she was sending my recently widowed dad 'hate mail' at the time) as my dad had asked me to. It resulted in a letter by return of post........... to my dad.

A few months down the line, I got a reply saying 'you're angry with me, well I'm angry with xyz' and then carried on slagging off the other poor relative she'd got it in for.

Although we're pretty much NC, DH still lives by the 'don't rock the boat, it's not worth the aggro' mantra....... whereas I decided to no longer give a shit and Dad moved so she cant write to him anymore

If your mother really is a narccisist, it is unlikely this will make a difference to her behaviour.

If your mother really is a narccisist, it is unlikely this will make a difference to her behaviour.

It has all been said by posters, OP.
I wish it was possible to offer positive experiences with good outcomes, but if your mother is truly narc then there is simply not going to be positive result however well you work out a strategy and construct your sentences.
It may go one of several ways ......hysteria, abuse & violence, consigning you to the "hateful people" category ....or attempting one or other approach with one of you while trying to get the other 'on side'.
The one way it will not go - whatever you try - is any level of self reflection or acceptance that the behaviour is wrong.
actually - I lie - I have seen that reaction faked, but it lasted only as long as it took for the accusers to leave the house

I think you need to do this, so you know you have tried all that you can. However do try to protect yourself emotionally by acknowledging, in advance, that you are not going to chase her behaviour by a whisker.

Questions: Is your mother actually Narcissistic or is she difficult?

Do you think your mother cares deeply enough about you two to actually listen?

And is she capable of responding positively?

My mum is moderately narcissistic - not nearly so awful as many of the cases on here, though very frustrating in her own way. She has now started dementia too, which means that we will never be able to connect.

I did have a couple of talks with her, and failed completely however. As others on here have said, their world is built upon being right, and being at the centre of things. To challenge that view would be to bring the world crashing down. All you can do is to negotiate some boundaries which make life more bearable for you. Be clear about what would make you happy and make them achievable goals.

In my mum's case, however, I eventually worked out the root cause of her narcissism. She nursed her own mum for two or three years as she died slowly and painfully, whilst my mum was in her early twenties. In those days there was no bereavement counselling and she never came to terms with the suffering which was awful, and which left a huge gaping hole in her life which no-one has ever been able to fill. She is also a very private person, not liking to open up on real emotions, so may not have responded to counselling. Maybe, just maybe you may be able to identify a root cause in your mum, and to help to direct her towards someone who could help her come to terms with it too, if it isn't too late for you? It is hard to do it for a parent, however, as they aren't going to easily accept parenting or guiding by you, much as she might need it. But if you can, it seems to me that a narcissist may be fuelled by a deep need for attention/love within themselves, which ironically drives away the very people who could provide it. If someone can heal the hurt, I believe that in my mum's case at least, there could have been hope.

Hope that makes sense.

One of the problems is there is a tendency to let it slide, and on they rabbit, so when you do have a showdown it tends to be a row, not least because it interrupts their flow/monologue. And then they can play the victim with some plausibility.

But really any chat you produce that doesn't prop them up will be deemed an act of hostility, a challenge.

In some ways though it's more likely with 'offspring' because life started with them telling you what to do and your going along with it because you were a kid, they don't move on from that viewpoint, you are an extension to them. They can get on with strangers because they can maintain their sense of self rather than evolve into any kind of relationship.

I've a blazing row but that's not much of a talk. Once you prop them up, off they go their own merry way.