"But We Took You To Stately Homes!" - Survivors of Dysfunctional Families

[DontstepontheMomeRaths]

Thread opener here: webaunty.co.uk/mumsnet/
You may need to right-click and 'unblock' it after downloading it.

It's February 2014, and the Stately Home is still open to visitors.

Forerunning threads:
December 2007
March 2008
August 2008
February 2009
May 2009
January 2010
April 2010
August 2010
March 2011
November 2011
January 2012
November 2012
January 2013
March 2013
August 2013
December 2013

Please check later posts in this thread for links & quotes. The main thing is: "they did do it to you" - and you can recover.

Oh wow I never realised that was a narc trait!
My mother does it all the time, or I'll be saying something and she will just start another different conversation. I started saying 'er excuse me I'm talking' like I would to the dcs.
She also controls conversations everywhere, to the point of embarrassment, totally inappropriate stuff.

She also talks about randoms I don't know, or slebs neither of us know, her faves being ant and dec - 'oh I'm surprised ant and his wife haven't had a baby yet, I mean they've been married long enough, I read they've been trying. Has dec found anyone yet, his brothers a priest you know, lovely family, it's why he's so nice, he won't be allowed to forget his roots'

WTF????? STFU!!!!!

oh god the monologuing yes. Oh god. 40 mins often and so totally out of touch with reality, her interpretion of events. And how she was incredibly intelligent, more intelligent than "anyone else including the doctors" in the hospital where she was a patient. In a loud voice. In the hospital.

One of the slightly more embarrasing occasions; posh restaurant and she talked again in a loud voice for half an hour about her stoma leaking. Didn't dare try to change the subject, if you did she'd get hysterically angry.

She emptied the place.

I think the single most frighteningly insidious habit was saying 'oh you're just like me' on many many occasions. When you consider she was an engulfing, utterly self centred, manipulative, violent, utterly intrusive ruin of a woman .... by all the gods I hope I'm not.

Mine interrupts and talks over me.

Yes ditto the 'oh you're just like me'
Actually no I'm not

As much as mine projects the Perfect Image, she also requires constant reassurance along with it.

This is where I get confused: All your narcs sound utterly horrid I'm still not convinced DM is that bad and I wish you could live in my head/life for a while but see it with your eyes and tell me whether I'm just been totally oversensitive or not?

People say and do things that hurt each other - that's life isn't it? Perhaps we do just clash. I know I can be difficult and opinionated and am a control freak, so perhaps it's just a bad mix. I could nitpick and think of all the narc-esque type things she's said or done but if our characters are just a mismatch, of course she's going to sound like a full blown narc to you guys, but you're only hearing one side of the story - mine. It's not so much that I'm doubting myself, more that I'm trying to be balanced and objective rather than emotionally tangled up because she's my mum.

mine can be very kind sometimes and most people seem to like her when they meet her, but she's got narc traits and is totally self obsessed and a terrible professional victim and martyr.

mine is also obsessed with other people's (even random people) opinion of her and is always asking for reassurance/cossetting.

Oh but your mother is really that bad.

I have narc relatives and I have no interest in hearing their side of the story because they really do not have any opinions of their own to impart anyway. Its all about them, they are so completely self absorbed, have a car crash of lives and they have no empathy to boot. Anything they say or do is really a mishmash of other people's opinions.
I keep well away from them and have as little to do with them as possible. My boundaries which have worked for me are no phone calls to them unless absolutely necessary, no chat above a very superficial level, telling them nothing personal and no visits to them without DH. Also my MIL would dearly love to spend mother's day alone with her darling boy so I'm going along there too. My own mother does not like mother's day anyway so does not expect anything from me. So that is one problem solved:).

And no you are not bloody oversensitive!!!. That is also a charge levelled at the offspring of such toxic people anyway by the toxic parent so that should be ignored. You do not deliberately hurt your mother, you walk on eggshells around her. She can and would do the narcissistic rage on you without a second thought; she is not the mother you so want her to be and she will never give you the approval you likely still seek. She still hurts you unthinkingly; she does not care because she has no empathy.

I think too that counselling for you is a must and you need to work with someone who has no bias about keeping families together.

She wants you around youputyourrightarmin because you're her narc supply and you've been trained by her well to serve only here. Yes trained (as has Mosschops, Meerka and GoodtoBetter; their mothers are also narcissistic) Now your DD is her supply too, I would certainly seriously consider as of now severely curtailing the "childcare" (the quotemarks are deliberate) that your mother provides to your DD. I can only assume that you only allowed contact between your child and your mother to begin with because you hoped that somehow she would behave better towards your child this generation around. She has not, the shoes alone are proof of disrespecting any boundary you have cared to set. Its been summararily ignored. You would not put up with that from a friend; your mother is no different honestly.

And it is not your fault your mother is like this. Her own family did that lot of damage to her. You did not cause that to happen.

I think these people are v complex and it doesn't really matter if theyre nice sometimes, if they're fucking horrible at other times or just make you miserable then it doesn't really matter why or that they're family...you need some (at least mental) distance from them.

Distance is the only way forward with regards to narcissists; both mental and physical.

When I first learnt to my horror that I have narc relatives the following excerpts were helpful:-

"Given distance, or only transient and intermittent contact, you can get along with narcissists by treating them as infants: you give them whatever they want or need whenever they ask and do not expect any reciprocation at all, do not expect them to show the slightest interest in you or your life (or even in why you're bothering with them at all), do not expect them to be able to do anything that you need or want, do not expect them to apologize or make amends or show any consideration for your feelings, do not expect them to take ordinary responsibility in any way. But note: they are not infants; infants develop and mature and require this kind of care for only a brief period, after which they are on the road to autonomy and looking after themselves, whereas narcissists never outgrow their demands for dedicated attention to their infantile needs 168 hours a week. Adult narcissists can be as demanding of your time and energy as little babies but without the gratification of their growing or learning anything from what they suck from you. Babies love you back, but adult narcissists are like vampires: they will take all you can give while giving nothing back, then curse you for running dry and discard you as a waste of their precious time.

It is also essential that you keep emotional distance from narcissists. They're pretty good at maintaining a conventional persona in superficial associations with people who mean absolutely nothing to them, and they'll flatter the hell out of you if you have something they can use or if, for some reason, they perceive you as an authority figure. That is, as long as they think you don't count or they're afraid of you, they'll treat you well enough that you may mistake it for love. But, as soon as you try to get close to them, they'll say that you are too demanding and, if you ever say "I love you," they'll presume that you belong to them as a possession or an appendage, and treat you very very badly right away. The abrupt change from decent treatment to outright abuse is very shocking and bewildering, and it's so contrary to normal experience that I was plenty old before I realized that it was actually my expression of affection that triggered the narcissists' nasty reactions. Once they know you are emotionally attached to them, they expect to be able to use you like an appliance and shove you around like a piece of furniture. If you object, then they'll say that obviously you don't really love them or else you'd let them do whatever they want with you. If you should be so uppity as to express a mind and heart of your own, then they will cut you off just like that, sometimes trashing you and all your friends on the way out the door. The narcissist will treat you just like a broken toy or tool or an unruly body part: "If thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off" [Matt. 18:8]. This means you".

they'll presume that you belong to them as a possession or an appendage, and treat you very very badly right away.

That was the case with my biological mother yes. Terrifying to see and be around. When I finally stood up for myself and did not accept her version of an incident involving hands round my throat and shaking me (ie, it was all in my imagination - now I admit I have a bad memory but that isn't something you just forget!) she went crazy.

Yes, she could be loving at times and warm nad funny and bright. But the overall picture was dark, dark, dark.

For the record, my adoptive mum was a lovely lovely person while she was alive, and I am so lucky in my MIL, she's my 'little mother' now. I do want to say how lovley they are because I'm so damn grateful that they were / are in my life.

FIL has texted asking if DH is sending MIL a card.

Ive told DH its upto him.
Im secretly seething

She doesn't deserve one.

mommybird

What was his response to you saying its up to him?. I would have told your DH not to bother with either of them.

Also it is really no business of the FIL (the enabler/winged monkey) to send such a loaded text message in the first place. I would block him from your phone as of now.

Honestly, anything that your DH sends to them will be seen by her as a reward to bother you both even more. Same with any contact that is made.

He's angry now. Which i didn't expect.

MIL didn't send our dd1 a birthday card but instead made a sing and dance about how she's keeping her birthday card and money at her house for when she's 'allowed to see her again."

So DH has said he doesn't see why he should send her a card when she couldn't be bothered to do the same for our dd.

He has a valid point.

I can't believe he had the nerve to send that text KNOWING they didn't send dd1 a birthday or chriatmas card. It was dd2s 1st Christmas too.

But i know why, because its all about MIL and how she feels. Doesn't matter about anyone else.

Im going to relax now as i found my first grey hair last week.

Hi mommybird,

re your comment:-

"I can't believe he had the nerve to send that text KNOWING they didn't send dd1 a birthday or chriatmas card. It was dd2s 1st Christmas too"

But I can believe it, this is precisely what the enabler does. Women like your MIL as well always need a willing enabler to help them.

"But i know why, because its all about MIL and how she feels. Doesn't matter about anyone else".

Your summary above is completely correct.

Continue to ignore these people and block all their attempts at communication. Continue also to stand firm.

Hi all, I hope I can put something across to you all as to what I see from your posts. I'll start with your good self RightArm. As an outsider, the pattern of behaviour I see from your mum is that when you confront her with her behaviour, she goes crazy. I am guessing (possibly wrongly) that she does this because she knows that you have spotted her horrid behaviour and releasing that information to the outside world will shatter her 'public' image. This in turn will allow people to see her for the person she actually is, and not this image of hard-done-by mother and GM. The going crazy bit I would assume to be her trying to frighten you into not revealing her true image.

Exposing a narc is probably one of their biggest fears and they can go to extremes to counter that, such as pre-emptive defence, ie, telling people that you've fallen out and that you are determined to bad-mouth them (the narc) to anyone who'll listen. The way I would get back at them is by being yourself and NEVER slating the narc. This will have them doing their own work in getting people to see that they're the nasty one when people actually see that you're not as bad as the narc is making you out to be IYSWIM.

I hope you understand what I'm talking about as I can confuse people LOL

I have to go out now, but will be back later.

Atilla was bang on here MommyBird, the FIL is getting involved where he has no right to be and is being her 'winged monkey' so should be isolated and ignored.

how DARE he try to guilt your H into anything.

This is what always pisses me off, why is it that they have to make US the one that makes the overtures?

When I fell out with DSis, I had the knock on the door to make amends, as none of us are getting any younger DM herself said, "I'd hate for you to only make up with sis at my funeral"

I also had my depression (back in the 90s) thrown at me as 'My Mental Health Issues' being a reason why I was not 'behaving'

I did say that the 'fact that none of us are getting any younger' is precisely the reason why i should NOT have to put up with shit, as I have precious time left on this earth to waste it on those who mistreat me and enjoy doing so.

I also said wrt the funeral comment - 'when you're dead, I won't NEED to make up with her, will i?'

Why is it that I got the phone calls, the uninvited visits, the little chats? the storming into my house, barging my son and refusing to leave until the POLICE told them to go?

Wouldn't it have been a shit load easier to call DSIS, tell her she's been a C* and to apologise? One call. ONE. Versus ALL that shit I have had thrown at me.

Mind you. that would only have solved ONE issue, wouldn't it? At least I'm free from the lot of them now.

when it comes to their targets, NOTHING ever gets in the way of their own gratification, does it? Not reason, not empathy, not family, nothing.

We are collateral damage, our kids are collateral damage, all in the pursuit of THEIR happiness/ego/esteem/image.

Sometimes, as in abusive relationships, our kids are a specially chosen target because our 'parents' KNOW it hurts us more, they get a stronger perverse pleasure from involving them.

Its allways our fault, never there's.

It has really messed with my head a few times. I cannot understand how anyone can be THAT self centred.

The whole card thing has just shocked me. I know if DH says anything back it will be "..well its not my fault dd1 didn't get a card when you don't let me see her.."

She could of posted it. Simple and easy. An olive branch. A good gesture.. but no, she wanted to be the victim, to keep it at her house for when us meanies let her see her DGD who she doesn't get to see anymore.

She didn't think of my dd. On her birthday.
Why keep it? Its her birthday on a certain date! She did it to use it as ammo.

None of that probley makes any sense but im ranting and typing at the same time!

Olive branches are only offered to those we VALUE....

Not completely sure, but with Mothers Day coming up I think dh is coming under FOG again. He says he has flu, but I'm wise to this moodiness, sleepiness, depressivness he gets especially when leading up to yearly days or events.

I guess my mother's day will be horrendous then

I try so hard to not get angry but it is hard.

Talk to him pumpkin, without blaming, but saying that she is allowing HIS family to suffer due to her behaviour and this is YOUR day too.

Can you suggest something for you all to do as a family, to take his mind off it all?

I bought a MD card. It says nothing on it other than happy mothers day.

I still don't know whether to send it. Even dd says not to

I haven't bothered with MD for years as since living abroad and it being a different day it sort of lapsed, quite a relief as I think it's a minefield with a toxic mother.