Narc mum, terminally ill dad. :(

[picklemepopcorn]

It's all about her. Always has been.

Today she told him, from the comfort of her reclining chair, to make her a coffee. Specified which sachet, how much water, just a dash of milk. He got it wrong, she complained. He had brain surgery last month and has incurable cancer.

Today she was too ill to visit her newborn grandson for the first time. He didn't go either, because he wanted to make sure she was ok. Yet she was well enough to go to a public event this evening.

She has told him, the man with an aggressive brain tumour, to answer the phone this week as she is fed up with having to do stuff for him. Then complained when he got some messages wrong.

It's going to be a tricky few months.

Oh god that's awful. I don't think it would help your Dad at this point to see things as they really are. Also you need to be thinking about how to deal with her if you lose him. Boundaries will be needed. Sounds dreadful, life truly is a bitch sometimes x

Oh, OP,

What an awful situation for you. So sorry your Dad's that ill, which is terribly upsetting and stressful in itself.

To have to witness your Mother's behaviour and lack of support towards him, on top of that, must make it 10 times worse.

Would I be right to assume her need to control every situation would thus prevent you from spending one-to-one time with your Dad? 'Monitoring' private conversations and making a relaxing, peaceful atmosphere difficult etc?

With brain surgery so very recent, I guess he'd be currently too fragile to manage much outside their home, and is perhaps still very tired/ easily confused. Maybe on his 'better' days, opportunities to take him for short rides in the car (if you drive) would give you both some space away.

Hopefully he's getting enough help from the hospital and/or cancer charities?

Do you have RL sources of support, OP? You're having to cope with an awful lot of strain

I wish you and your Dad all the very best; I'm sure experienced MNers will advise on how best to proceed with your Mum in these circumstances.

PS Is it your newborn baby (their GC)? If so, many congratulations!

Not my baby thankfully, not really, did my bit a while back!

I'm getting time alone with him, and am helping each of them with little organisational bits which need doing. She doesn't like him getting help from me with things, because she wants to be the one helping- but she's too impatient to listen to what he needs and tends to do what she thinks is best rather than what he wants her to do.

DH and I are already planning boundaries FC, I think you are right, it's going to get pretty wild. She will be devastated, she will have lost her mainstay and carer, and she always shares her pain generously!

I have wondered for years if she had attachment disorder, ASD or was just unbelievably self centred. It was seeing all the narc stuff on here which sent me looking at personality disorders. Not a diagnosis, but certainly a way to think of it which makes sense. That control thing... Oh my, how we have wrestled with that.

My dad is the most wonderful man. Things have sometimes been difficult because he has always put her first, the key phrase growing up- 'don't upset your mother!' Despite that, he is warm, generous, funny... Of all our four parents, he is the one I would have had no trouble looking after/living with us into his old age, the only one I'd ring for advice.

I'm going to miss him so much.

Thank you both. I needed to tell the world all about it! I get so angry, but have to stay calm and nudge behaviours rather than confronting them.

Oh and she won't go to the various support organisations- they won't be able to help because no one there will understand their special circumstances. Because she is a snowflake.