Those of you with narcissistic mothers

[endthefarts]

I don't know if my mother fits the criteria for being a narcissist or whether she's just a passive aggressive, self obsessed pain in the arse who likes to talk about how amazing she is. However, whichever she is, I find her extremely difficult to be around and my hackles are up within minutes of being in her company.

She's definitely got worse with age and has become unbearable over the last 10 years, and until I was about 30 I could be in her company without feeling like punching her quite happily. When I look back on my childhood, she was always highly strung and over protective and rubbed other women up the wrong way, but I can't work out if she displayed the behaviours that she displays now or whether she was actually a lovely mum. Were you aware that your mums were awful as a child or did you love them because they were your mum and children love their mums? I'm trying to get my head around whether she damaged me as a child without me having any idea or whether she's just become a monster as she's aged. Thanks.

Awful hard going. Have it too. Her way or a mood. Age bracket mid 70s. She will never change. Sulking a big thing or control. I ignore as best I can its hurtful though. Dont enjoy being in her company..

@Unicorn81
That list is very familiar to my mother. I have got more aware of it since getting older and I am so scared I will turn out like her. I try my best and do everything I can for her to try and keep the peace but the more time I spend with her the more I can see I'm picking up certain ways from her

I agree @Techway it’s not till so much later in life did the penny drop that I had an awful mother. I was actually pregnant with DS when I sought therapy - I was afraid of being a bad parent, not least because my mother actually told me I would be (?!) and when we started unpicking how she treated me, I remember vividly the therapist saying ‘maybe she doesn’t know how to love you’ and I thought ‘what are you talking about? She says it all the time, she shows me by being constantly critical, by ignoring my personal space, by interfering in everything I do, including with my DH - isn’t that what love is?’ And then slowly but surely I realised it wasn’t, when I started to assert myself, she went crazy, screaming and saying hideous things 5 days after I’d given birth - about how ungrateful I was because I wanted a couple of days alone with my DH and newborn. Enmeshed much? I was utterly shattered, 8 years later it still kills me to recall how she turned on me. The threat and guilt were always there under the surface, I’d been totally conditioned to accept it and give her everything she wanted. I went LC for a few years to try and maintain a relationship. But she never accepted I had my own life and my own family now. She sulked, and poured poison into the ears of anyone who’d listen including my in-laws. I had to choose, and I went NC after a particularly nasty day visiting when she took my DS aside and told him to ask to come and live with her, offering toys and biscuits and whatever he wanted ‘I’ll never say no to you, like your mother does’. He was 4 and I knew then I had to protect them, I couldn’t trust her. It broke my heart. Again. Better off without her, I know that. But my heart hasn’t caught up with my head.

@Bananawomanthefirst, so shocking to read your experience and you did right to cut contact as it is finally a chance to break the cycle. Did you have another parent that provided a counter balance?

Young children are often sought out by NPD types because they are malleable and can provide unconditional admiration. It changes when by late primary years children assert themselves and are much more discerning. I wish you well.

What

I feel so upset I never wanted to admitted that my mum was like this but she is everything everyone is saying and a 'child-parent' sums her up. My DS is 2 and she constantly say hasn't mummy fed you today, hasn't mummy changed your nappy, has mummy forgotten you etc always putti nag me down she never encourages or says thank you or sorry even when she is in the wrong. But I still have this guilt that without me she will have nothing so i can't live my life properly.

@Oldknees1 have you read anything on the FOG. fear obligation and guilt?

I know this is hard, but you need to stop your mum from doing that ASAP as it will damage the way your son sees you.

@Oldknees1 that is my mum absolutely. Little comments to the kids or to me that in her mind, are not critical but to me absolutely are. And I brush it off every time but my god it's wearing.

The problem now though is she has been doing the same to my DSIL, my brothers wife. It's all blown up because my brother is defending his wife quite rightly and told her to basically quit it. DM is if the opinion that she has done absolutely nothing wrong, so why should she apologise and perhaps DSIL is just being a bit too sensitive? You can imagine how that went when she said it to DB.

Thanks to MN I have had this epiphany this Christmas, and finally got a name for the utter headwreck weirdness I've lived with (and been controlled by) for 30 years

This^. For me it's a sibling so I shouldn't really be here. Neither of us were the golden child. Maybe sibling thought they were. Narcissistic traits covert/overt rather than diagnosed NPD.

However, I've read on MN and online and listened to some online presentations about Narcissism. Some of the descriptions right down to narc vocabulary have been chillingly accurate.

Some of the negatives listed earlier in this thread resonate but the one that stands out to me is the narc mum, 'getting into debt ten times over in 40 years with that poster's Dad paying off the debt each time. Most recently £15,000. If you ask the narc what the money was spent on, they couldn't tell you.

It's only taken me until my middle age to get it ! However, now I've got it, I won't be letting go.

Back on topic.

Some of the negatives listed earlier in this thread resonate but the one that stands out to me is the narc mum, 'getting into debt ten times over in 40 years with that poster's Dad paying off the debt each time. Most recently £15,000. If you ask the narc what the money was spent on, they couldn't tell you.

Sibling used equity release of their property for their own spending habits. Refinanced each time by their spouse. If past behaviour is anything to go by, they are probably hell bent on doing it again. You mean they've stopped spending ? Pfft.

DM is if the opinion that she has done absolutely nothing wrong, so why should she apologise and perhaps DSIL is just being a bit too sensitive?

Do all narcs go to narc school to learn this ? (Joke)

Sensitive is a word used by narc sibling. Whoa !

Its a pattern of behaviour that I learned through counselling. They will not change ever. Looking back she always got her own way not used to being told the word no. Its bloody draining

My mother now has dememtia and the narcissism is even worse, had hoped she would mellow.

Thanks @Techway, it means a lot when you said it was shocking. My father was an alcoholic - possibly why it took me so long to see what my mother was really like - he was much more obviously the crap parent. @Oldknees1 please, please shut your ears somehow to that poisonous undermining, we all need support when parenting, it’s hard enough without having extra guilt tripping.

And yes @Mary46 you are right. They will never change. It’s the wishing and hoping that kept/keeps me tied to the pain.

So the Christmas manipulation has begun. Gushing card to "our lovely daughter" ( their daughter who they have slagged off to their entire circle and lied about to my nearest and dearest ) Xmas presents for my children to keep up their act of being loving grandparents. Gah! Everything geared up to make me look like a spiteful, ungrateful, horrible cow but just manipulation and an attempt to get a rise out of me. This is my second Christmas being No Contact, and although much easier than last year, the pain is still rooted deeply within.
Only a child of a narcissistic mother will understand this annoyance!

Its awful yes I get you. Mine has an awful sense of entitlement. She buys kids v little think I find that hurtful. Anyway happy xmas to all

It’s that insane disconnect between what they say and what they do, and so performative, always for show, never for real. I feel like a mug for being taken in by it, but how are we supposed to know different when we were brought up with it? But eventually we do see it for what it really is - the manipulation, the guilt-tripping etc, and put the blame where it belongs, with them, I guess that’s when we start to heal... Big hugs to us all

It’s all a tool to say look what we did for Christmas and look what we got back. Oh woe is me crap.

If you look at it like that, it may help.

I knew from a very young age that she was mean, cruel and spiteful when nobody was looking.

One of my earliest memories of her was screaming at my older (half brother) when he was 14 and cornering him in front of the TV, where, being tiny, he tried to get past to go upstairs, but ended up pushing her away from him as she was punching him in the side of the head - no bruising left that way - and she landed on her arse just in front of where I was sitting on the floor.

She screamed and wailed and cried for the next brother up and then ran up the stairs to him before pretending that she couldn't stand up anymore because he'd 'attacked her' and 'hurt her really badly'. My brother got a battering for that and she got cuddles and tea and sympathy. Nobody bothered checking if I was OK. Because I wasn't part of the scene. and I'd have said she rolled like a weeble when she was hitting him and he tried to get away

'Natural born mother', though. According to her, anyhow.

I cannot tell you how happy I am to have found this thread. My children are (almost) grown up so have not been on here for many years, so am a little bit rusty. Can I re-open this? Can I post? I would love to be part of this conversation.

@Tiredofthinkingaboutthepast - I only post on and off so not sure if there is any etiquette about posting on old-ish threads. However if you look out for the latest iteration of But We Took You To Stately Homes (in the Relationships section, as this one is) you will probably find more traffic.