At the end of my tether with my narcissistic bully of a mother

[innerturmoil]

After 30 plus years of struggling with my mother's unreasonable behaviour, lack of support and passive aggressive comments I am finally admitting defeat. Whenever I speak to her on the phone with the best intentions she ends up riling me or putting me down or pulling me into an argument or confrontation. I have been reading up a lot on the web and believe that she may be suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder because:
She thinks she's wonderful and better than everyone else
She has ZERO empathy and can say whatever is on her mind without worrying about the impact on other people
She is always right
She will lie outright to win an argument
She manipulates people (me) and makes them feel guilty if they don't put her first.
Now I am not a psychologist but if anyone out there has tips for how to deal with someone like this I would really appreciate any help as I currently feel helpless and unable to rise above her provocation. Thanks.

I work with someone exactly like that, in fact she is my boss. I am able to get away ( applying for other jobs as we speak ).
This person bullies and manipulates those around her for her own benefit. Its awful and I cannot imagine having this done to you by your own mother.

You can't ever change them.

I'm 15 years in to going NC with my mother.

Op the only thing that 'works' with someone with a 'narc' personality is to either go nc or to reduce contact to an absolute minimum. She will never change, so really you have to decide for yourself what you will do about her.

I am so sorry to hear that she is your mother, that is a really hard place for you to be.

The most consistent advice I have read about narcs & their ilk is not to give them any information about yourself. Keep your aspirations, hurts, worries, accomplishments to yourself & have a whole swathe of neutral topics to keep the conversation going. My favourites are, the weather, TV programmes that I know she likes, the past & her favourite topic, herself.

Have a read of this thread inner. You're not alone.

Thanks for these replies - can I ask what is NC? Counselling? THere is no way she would go for that. The issue with our relationship is all my fault, clearly.

NC - no contact

NC is no contact

Oh right - I have considered that (NC) but I think the guilt plus familial pressure would kill me. Feel like I can't win whatever I do TBH.

inner the sooner you accept the fact that you will never "win" with a narc, the sooner you'll be free.

It's said a lot on these boards that you cant change them; you can only change yourself. That's hard to internalise, but try to do it. Try to just stop caring about whether she's ever going to geddit: she isn't.

A more "action-based" coping technique, and it ties in with the very excellent "don't give her any personal information" advice above, is to be (to her) as boring and bland as possible. Narcissists thrive on drama, so don't feed that monkey. If she sends an hysterical email, send a polite & very neutral one back. (That is, if you cant quite do NC [yet]).

Another fred (not the Stately Homes one, although it is very good) had loads of really good links; I can send them to you tomorrow.

You have my sympathies. I am in a bad place with my similar sounding NPD mother at the mo. It is so bloody hard to stand up to them, go nc etc. I have started properly calling her up on her behaviour for the first time in my life in the interests of boundary setting..... But this just leads to short term nastiness and raging. She somehow managed to make my DF's recent death all about her (she divorced him in 1979) and I nearly went spare, I just couldn't cope with her bullshit alongside making end of life care decisions. She just could not stand not being the centre of attention so somehow tried to compete. Ugh.

I wld highly recommend the tome on BPD "stop walking on eggshells" and the Nine Brown book "children of the self absorbed". I had loadsa useful advice on here too if your search my threads.

Good luck.

I sympathise with you. I am in the same boat, like many others and it helps to read threads where others feel the same and want to do something but feel the guilt will be too much. I reached my end of tether moment this weekend on Mother's Day as it happens when I visited with a bouquet and card only to be ignored for the entire visit after being treated to the death stare on arrival. I decided on Sunday evening to write a note to my dad explaining I would no longer visit as my mothers behaviour is so appalling. She abuses my dad terribly but says he is the abuser. I know this not to be true and wish he would break away and leave her to it. I can only advise that if you do decide to go NC you have to harden your heart so that you don't crack under the guilt as you will still feel that. I unfortunately married a narc husband but finally stood up to him 3 years ago and have never been happier after 30 years of trying to understand and accept his appalling behaviour too. I was conditioned to it all I now realise. I have a lovely new life now, my DS and I are so happy and I have a lovely partner who is brilliant with my son. All of this has my mother eaten up with jealously. She literally cannot bare that I am at last happy. I'm afraid the other posters are right when they say they don't ever change. I realised that with my ex and my mother is 85 and is actually getting worse as time goes on. They must miss eachother as the liked nothing better to ganging up on me usually on Christmas Day to jointly agree on my many faults. It's a sad place to be but you have to try to compartmentalise it so it doesn't affect other areas of happiness in your life. Stay strong and don't put up with it. You are worth more than that. Know that you are not the one with the problem.

Outtaideas - that sounds so familiar to me. Everything has to revolve around her - she had a breakdown at my cousin's wedding (who she is not even that close to) because the focus was elsewhere.
Pedant the bland boring approach is a good one - it works when I am strong for sure but I can lose it when she gets bored with me and starts pushing some buttons and making little passive aggressive comments. I can withstand so much before I stand up to her and then get the standard 'stop having a go at me' lines.
Pippin I'm so glad you got away from your ex - why is it that people take pleasure out of making others feel bad? My father has also been bullied all through his life and just does her bidding for an easy (ish) life. She talks to him like he is 8 and will say to me 'you don't know what I have to put up with, with your father' which would be laughable if it wasn't so sad.
I'm already dreading Christmas! I have decided that no matter what me DP and the 3 DCs are staying at home and my parents can come if they want but we won't go there as that is where and when the worst happens.

I too grew up with a mother who I now suspect has NPD. I walked out at 20yrs old with nothing but the clothes I stood up in. There was no contact for about a year, once contact had resumed the nastiness wasn't there but there would be comments that made me wonder had I imagined that or was there a dig there. Contact stopped permanently when I was 23, that was 17yrs ago. In some ways it's probably been easier because I walked away from the entire family. My younger brother was still at school, and there was never really that much between my older brother and me.

What I have learnt since though is that someone with NPD needs 'feeding' regularly. They are also able to manipulate others around them to their way of seeing things, and using them as accomplaces in their behaviour which is why my older brother and I had no relationship - because she ensured that we didn't. It's also why my father was able to bury his head in the sand about what was going on.

Once you get past the guilt, the trying to work out why, and dealing with the effects it has on you, you will realise that no contact is the only way of dealing with this. You have to cut off their 'food'.

I can honestly say the only time I really needed a mother was when my youngest was hospitalised at 7mths, it was only for 24hrs but still....

Ultimately you learn to cope, you learn that this was not your fault and you can have a fulfilling life after this. You have to put yourself first because no one else in this scenario is going to.

Hi OP, I have been where you are and it was a long road for me to get to the point of cutting off contact. One thing I did manage first though was to stop having phone conversations, because she required it once a week and it would hang over me and make me so miserable.

I told her I didn't have time for phone chats because of work and DC, and it would have to be emails from then on. She kept trying to phone for years, leaving snidey messages, but I just didn't pick up. Partly it was true, I really didn't have time, but also why should i endure an hour of her nastiness just because she decided I had to?

I only ever saw her once every couple of months (she lives quite far away) but even that became unbearable with her constant demeaning comments, lack of boundaries and making everything about her, and raging and accusing me of all sorts if I dared to challenge any of it.

I finally said no more just a few months ago. The guilt isn't as bad as I expected. The truth is she has treated me like dirt for 40 years and while I knew that, I somehow fell for her version of events that we were close and got on. But it was all on her terms and if I ever stepped out of line it was awful. I just had to really see that I shouldn't feel guilty about hurting her feelings by saying no to having her in my life, when she has been hurting my feelings deliberately, for my whole life and not giving a crap.

It's difficult but if you can see it like this, it helps. I'm sorry you have a mum like this, I know how hard it is.

If you didn't know what NC means then I'm guessing you are unfamiliar with the FOG: Fear Obligation Guilt. Worth reading about.

You say you are:

finally admitting defeat

the bland boring approach is a good one - it works when I am strong for sure but I can lose it when she gets bored with me and starts

Feel like I can't win whatever I do TBH.

So obviously you should be NC. That's the logical conclusion. But you say:

I have considered that (NC) but I think the guilt plus familial pressure would kill me.

What on earth have you got to feel guilty about? That's irrational. It is the FOG talking.

Familial pressure aka "winged monkeys" or "co-dependents". They are worth learning about too.

Absolutely agree with melon

The guilt can be overwhelming and very real, even when it's completely irrational and has actually been created by the narcissist. For decades I dreamed of somehow never seeing my mum again, and it got worse when I first got pregnant. I thought seriously about how I could move continent or something so I could not have to see her. But actually saying "I don't want to see you" seemed unthinkable because how could I do that to her, it would hurt her so much. Even though she had hurt me very badly over and over and over.

Looking back, I was seeing things through a very distorted lens in which her feelings mattered more than anything, and mine didn't matter at all. She had brought me up to see it that way and that is why it is so hard to detach from.

I totally agree with the bit about "her feelings mattered more than anything and my feelings didn't matter at all". You become totally subsumed to them, geared to ensuring they are happy, no matter the consequences and it can become quite codependent, obsessive. It did for me anyway, because if my narc mother wasn't happy then the world would come crashing down and take me with it, so it became almost my life's mission to keep her happy at all costs.
But the real headfuck is that mine was never physically abusive, in fact she was always telling me all the sacrifices she'd made for me and how hard a life she'd had and what a devoted mother she was. Which made the FOG even thicker when I tried to detach. It can be so deeply unhealthy and suffocating even when on the surface and to others it seems like you have a kind, loving mother and a close relationship.
I hope some of that makes sense.

It is not possible to have a relationship with a narcissist and your best bet here going forward is to actually have no contact with her at all. Low contact is a further option but you may well find that low contact is too much as well to contend with.

You likely feel a mix of FOG as well because you've also been trained by your mother your whole life to serve her. Your interests and wants are of no real consequence to her. They are true masters of "come closer so I can hurt you again".

Not really surprised to read either about your Dad's role here; many narcissistic women cannot do relationships at all so the men within it either put up with it and become bystanders (acting out of self preservation and want of a quiet life) or her hatchet man. He has certainly failed here as a parent as well because he has failed to protect you from her malign influence. He is weak and likely also needs someone to idolise.

You have to ignore the familial pressure from the winged monkeys (sent in to do her bidding); they are really acting in their own interests here to maintain their position within the dynamic. They are certainly not acting in your own interests.

The "Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers" is a helpful website as is reading the publication "Children of the Self Absorbed" written by Nina W Brown.

This website may also help you:
Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers

I am 6 weeks into NC with my INSANE mother and I cannot tell you how much calmer I feel. It hasn't been without guilt but the ladies on Stately Homes have helped me a lot.

I think you have to stop expecting that this will ever be a two-way relationship. She will never show you love, care, empathy, understanding. You know this, but you don't want to accept it - understandably - because we have this view that mothers aren't 'supposed' to be that way. It's not fair, it's unjust, it's hurtful - but sadly it is just how things are in your case. Admitting that to yourself, and accepting that, is the first step.

The second step is to see that while you can't change her, you can change how you respond to her. This means not allowing her 'in' so that she can upset you. Going no contact is one way of achieving this. As a PP said, if you want to stay in contact, making sure that you don't reveal anything personal, so that she can't come back at you, is another. Setting up these boundaries can be very difficult and anxiety-provoking in the first instance, and you might want to think about getting some counselling and reading up, or training on, assertiveness to help you out.

Thank you guys, this is all very helpful reading and I have checked out the websites that you mention. I can't believe that it has taken me so long to 'diagnose' her when the evidence has been staring me in the face for so long! I am just so gutted that I don't have a close female in my original family (i have no sisters) but I am SO LUCKY that I have boys AND girls in my DC. I could not love them (all) more and I'm sure as a consequence of my own upbringing I shower the praise, unconditional love and attention. I have to focus on that as the best thing about the situation. Perversely she has made me a much better mother than perhaps I would have been!
I'm definitely going to try the 'medium chill' method of being bland in response and not give any personal information away to her. We'll see how that goes in the meantime.
One big problem is that whenever I speak to her on the phone she is either a) sulking because it's been too long since the last phone call or some other minor issue
b) depressed because something awful has happened (very minor but blown up out of all proportion) - she gives the news in a way that if a normal person said it you would react with sympathy and horror, but because it's all the time I can't keep up the reaction. I then get into trouble for not caring or being sympathetic etc.
If the conversation ends badly - I may snap and say 'why are you saying that to me - it makes me feel bad?' and she will accuse me of 'tearing a strip off her' she will then not make any contact for as long as she can. Eventually my father will be coerced into calling me and telling me off and asking me to apologise.
And so goes the cycle......... Help me break it!!!

But the real headfuck is that mine was never physically abusive...

It can be so deeply unhealthy and suffocating even when on the surface and to others it seems like you have a kind, loving mother and a close relationship.

Absolutely. A lot of my mum's power play was about insisting to me, herself and everyone else that we were so close, that I was a wonderful daughter, that she understood me and that I was sooooo grateful and rewarding. I was the "best" of her children (also known as the Golden Child) because I was "like her" and fed her needs. She was always showering me with presents for example - that I didn't need, want or like, but that reinforced my debt to her and the idea that she was such a great mum.

But it was all a set-up in which I had to play the role of mini-her, always be grateful to her, always serve her needs, agree with her, hug and kiss her whenever she demanded it, put up with any amount of hurtful remarks and boundary-crossing, never answer back or point out when she hurt me or upset my DC for example. If I dared to do that - i.e. have a personality, thoughts and opinions of my own - she would get very nasty and abusive, hurl insults, cry and get self-pitying about why I was "picking on her", and so on. It was all about her - she has actually never had any idea who I am, my tastes, preferences etc. and the same goes for my DC. We all just exist to show her in a good light and serve her need to feel important.