why would you do this to your daughter?

[baldingeagle]

if someone else makes an effort and looks nice, she thinks they are beautiful. If I make an effort and look nice she tells me I am showing off.

If somebody else gets a job, she congratulates them. If I get a job she tells me I probably slept with someone to get it (probably after making an effort to look nice and showing off.)

She reads stories in the paper about paedophilia and is horrified and doesn't stop talking about it for days. When I told her when I was 14 that a teacher was being inappropriate with me, she said it was my fault for leading them on.

If somebody tells her something bad that happened to them, she will sympathise and offer support. If I tell her I am sad or down she'll tell me it's my fault and I deserve everything that I get.

If somebody else gets married, she says congratulations. When I got married she said either he has something severely wrong with him to have picked you, or you've lied to him/been behaving in a fake way, so he does't know what you're really like.

When the best man made his speech at my wedding, she clapped. When I made a speech after him, she heckled me to the point that I had to stop.

She obsessively pours over other people's Facebook profiles and likes and leaves nice comments on their pictures of their families. She comments underneath similar family photos of me and my children, saying she finds my smugness "disgusting" and that I am showing off and giving people an unrealistic picture of my life.

I block her on Facebook, only to get a call from my (bystander) father to tell me that she's been crying for days that I have blocked her on facebook and for his sake, I need to refriened her.

And this has happened every day, since I was very young.

Obviously I see that she is highly dysfunctional and emotionally abusive - but why? Why would you do this to your own daughter? I just cannot imagine doing this to my daughter, who is currently only a toddler. What could I have possibly done to my own mother to make her feel this way about me?

I have 2 daughters, and no, I could not imagine treating them like that. My mother has never treated me like that, but my father's wife of 30 years is exactly like that to the point it's so excruciatingly obvious to everyone. It's jealously. That coupled with deep seeded insecurities and a really bad personality, and you have the reason why. She will never change and nor will your mother. I'm sorry, some people are just foul and you're best to give them a very wide berth.

So much of this strikes a chord with my own experiences.

All I can say is: it's not your fault. You deserve so much better than to be treated like this.

Oh, and I should add - I have a brother who can do no wrong in step monster's eyes. He could rob a house and she'd praise him. He's not competition you see. And overly and publicly praising him is a passive aggressive way of dissing me.

How awful for you. I know someone like your mother. Stay well away. Do not 're-friend' her on facebook.

some reading may help you.
Or this one
I can't imagine what it's like for you.
Google NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) you will find your mother there.

She sounds a little like my mother. Any success I have is me 'showing off'.

In my mother's case, she was brought up to consider herself a failure by a controlling mother, always had to have an eye on 'what everyone thinks' and be self-effacing and modest at all times. She carried that through to me, although my brother was allowed to shout about any success (and she took pride in his successes). I understand her reasons but it doesn't mean I have to like the way she treats me.

You deserve better, OP. But you won't get it from her. I'd go LC and stop looking for her approval, you will never get it. I'd guess she hates any woman who threatens her position as 'top dog'.

Do you have siblings? Does she treat them the same way?

Oh dear baldingeagle there is no reason why, you'll drive yourself mad trying to find one, thinking she can change and waiting for some kind of apology.

Please please go no contact or at least minimise as much as you can. You don't owe anything to your dad. He should protect you from this spiteful woman.

What could I have possibly done to my own mother to make her feel this way about me?

I can't think of anything. Nothing excuses her abuse (and that's what it is) towards you.

Your father sounds like an enabler. I have daughters and nothing in this world would cause me to behave that way. Not to them or any other human being on this planet.

She continues to do this, because she hasn't been challenged and made to face any consequences.

So when your dad said to refriend her... You should have said "NO" and explained the reasons why... As you've done here.

You cave in and she uses her tears as manipulation.

Three options here...

1)You need to be prepared to cut her (and your dad) out of your life to stop it. You tell her you don't want that negative talk around your DC and unless she stops, she won't be seeing you or your DC again.

2. You accept it
3. You challenge. You call her out every time she does it. You tell her it's bad form and you don't find it funny.. Because people like her tend to say it's a joke.. And accuse you of being insensitive.

She's behaving like a bully and bullies continue until they are held to account.

Are you an only child?

I hope you realise that she's the one who has a problem here.

@baldingeagle hopefully the very wise @atilla will see this or please come over to the stately homes thread it is very kind and supportive and you will find many with similar problems

Your mother sounds very like mine, i am 45 with crap self esteem due to her. I dont care why she is the way she is, every time she opens her mouth to spout vileness it is by her own free will and own choice to be hideous.

I too struggle am LC as enabling father ill, as attention now on him she has racked her bile up a notch. Very torn between trying to support him but having to put up with her.

All my support and sympathies to you i am a fat, failure, whale according to her etc just awful xxx

Another one in the club, I'm afraid. Can relate completely, other than with criticism of my achiements. But for years I was told anyone who wante d a relationship with me would have to be mad and have something wrong with them - am nearly 40 and have never had a proper relationship.

Sexual abuse in my 20s was turned into a joke. I remember the bloke in question wanted to come round to the house for a legitimate reason and I couldn't say no, so I told my mother she could not go out and leave me alone with him whilst he was there. So instead she insists on my showing him around her house to see what improvements she had made, which was unnecessary as he hadn't been there before so wouldn't have known different, and meant I ended up being alone with him, the very situation I'd been wanting to avoid.

I met up with a pen friend after I'd known her for a few years, and was telling a friend's young daughter how happy my friend had been to meet me in person, finally. To which my mother butts in the conversation and say something like "she'd have to be really strange to be happy about that". Charming!

In my mother's I think it's partly because my father died when I was young, she avoided all relationships after that to concentrate on me and my sister, and thus doesn't want to lose me to someone else. Plus, my sister is a narc bully and my mother is scared of her, so she takes it all out on me instead, with the result that I'm incredibly insecure and depressed.

Oh, and as a pp says, a lot of what she says gets smoothed over by "I was only joking" on the few times I let her know she's hurt me. Obviously, I find these jokes side-splitting!