Tell me your narc dm's most outrageous stunts.

[oooz]

I'm in therapy decades after an abusive upbringing and the penny's only just dropped that my dm was a narc! Watching videos on narcissism I'm going 'Yes, yes, yes!' - it's all my experience. Playing the guilt card. Taking your successes for their own. Gaslighting. The control. It's SO refreshing finally learning my own truth. Now I've found this I want to learn as much as possible. Please share your experiences.

That makes sense to me, moveable. Not actually setting out to cause chaos or harm someone, but her self centredness is so great that no one else gets a look in!
She doesn't like him, so he must be bad for the children...
She needs the money, of course her children wouldn't begrudge her applying for a loan in their name. If she did it in her name, they may not give her the money!

Mine says things like 'no one is more law abiding than me...' while simultaneously cheating on tax, insurance, sneaking in to events with a sob story 'I just need a quick look around, I can't stay because my husband died'.

Totally lacks self awareness, which is odd in someone so self centred.

What is hitting home to me reading this thread is the fact that so many of us have minimised their mothers behaviours and we are so guilt ridden by feeling aggrieved that we desperately trying to justify it. At least I do I realise.
One incident that really affected me was my mother telling me that my husband didn't love me and cared nothing for me. What prompted.her to reach this conclusion ? The fact that my husband didn't want to have a vasectomy when I was pregnant with my third child ! For the record I didn't want him to have one either and we were happy to have a new addition and hadn't ruled out more children down the line. In fact we have five now. But why would you even say such a thing ? I guess she felt she knew what I wanted and needed better than I did !
I am afraid to unleash my feelings to be honest as I wouldn't know what to do with my anger. I am no good at anger as it just makes me feel that I am a bad person and I feel so horrible inside
This thread has helped me no end so thanks op and all who have shared.

Bit of a Disney grand mother. Was supposed to have my DS for a day but couldn't as was getting her nails done.

Bit my face whilst wasted and laughing hysterically when I was 14 and trying to pick her up off the carpark floor and get her in a taxi to get her to our home. Then the next day screamed at me that I had no idea what her life was like and blahblahblah, then crying, and then seeking reassurance from me that I still loved her, ad infinitum. It was always about her, and how "hard" her life was. Never about her children who had to look after her as teenagers.

Though my DM isn't the most pressing family issue I was thinking of this earlier and had to wonder based on this thread.

Does anyone else's Mum do this ?

Say I have friends Sarah and Jo.

DM will continuously slate them and after learning all about them will find traits to exploit.

Jo never makes the effort. Always lets you down. Isn't really a friend.

Sarah only wants to be your friend because you buy her children nice gifts

Always negging EVERY friendship no matter what.

They could be a saint and she'd find fault

My mum made a massive declaration that she found the 2 hour drive to ours too much and she was never coming up to visits us again (fair enough, people get to a certain age where they don’t like motorway driving etc, I didn’t have a problem with this)
BUT in the 12 months following this she drove 1.5 hours to butlins, flew to Florida and drove around there when she hates driving on the wrong side of the road and the icing on the biscuit - drove to Ireland which involves passing within 1 mile of my house!!!!!!

@mysistertotallyis yes! I've had this with every friendship from childhood onwards. I think she'd love if I had no friends

Where to start? When to stop?
Too many to count. NC for over 5 years now. My only regret is the bitch didn’t tell me my dad had died. She made his life a living hell too and the lies she told about and to him even the scriptwriters for eastenders would dismiss as too far fetched.

I think I could write a whole book about it!
-numerous pseudo suicide attempts
-accusing me when I was 15 of dressing provocatively in front of her (yet another) new boyfriend
-constant name calling
-reporting me to social services for neglecting my child (the irony)
-telling all the family I was a drug addict
-threatening to kill herself if I didn't come back from university immediately (this would be say at 3am)
-made the births and subsequent birthdays of my DC all about her
-faked numerous cancers and other illnesses such as HIV and brain tumours
-smashed the house up
-physical and emotional abuse in childhood
Etc etc

Well, now that I'm a parent at least I know not what to do 😂

I think one of the saddest things for me is that DP's DD1 is in denial about her DM's behaviours and will trot out the standard line of "but she's my mother" to excuse even the most awful stuff she does.

She has subjected my DP and her DCs to bouts of narcissistic rage that have gone on for hours about the most trivial things.

As an example; DS2 (21, who still lives with her at the moment) made a tyre mark on the grass outside the house one evening and she screamed at him for about 3 hours. He's sucking it up at the moment as he is saving up to emigrate, but it wouldn't surprise me if he cuts off all contact with her when he leaves the UK.

DS1 has said that he realises now that he lived his childhood constantly on edge as he never knew when she would blow up next.

mysistertotallyis my MIL is the culprit in my situation but I have done a ton or reading and research because of course there was no rhyme or reason to her behaviour and I spent many years early in my marriage trying to figure out what was going on. Eventually I stumbled across Borderline PD which in MIL’s case helped me so much as the behaviour of someone with BPD is motivated by fear of abandonment. Now I know it is not appropriate to diagnose someone, but the typical behaviour of someone with BPD fit MIL to a T. Also my counselor (who I see for other issues but somehow we chat about MIL sometimes ) said that BPD behaviours are often combined with narcissism and just general Cluster B type personality descriptions. I personally find it very helpful because once I saw her as someone fearful of abandonment a lot of her behaviour made logical sense. Since then I am able to anticipate it a lot more and head it off as well.

One aspect of that is she has a very strong desire to be intensely co-dependent with her children and her twin sister, so she sees all the spouses of those individuals as a threat and competition for the attention she wants. When it became clear that I wasn’t going to accept a marriage of three and I was good at creating boundaries and saying “no” (because I had a healthy mom who had modeled strong boundaries) she was angry that she could not co-opt me into accepting her behaviours. I am also impervious to guilt-trips, she can attempt to guilt me all day and it just washes off me, I could care less.

All your friends are the same threat to your mum. She wants you to be available to her, and every friend you have, especially the close ones are a direct competition for the emotional support (and let’s be frank, parenting) she wants from you. She will do her best to undermine your friendships and try and prevent you trusting other people and giving them the emotional and other support she feels entitled to. I know for a fact she has told outrageousness stories and lies about her BIL and SIL because I am often the one she told! So I know therefore that she must be telling all and sundry about all the terrible things I have done even if they are completely delusional. If your mum gets anxious about your freinedships and fears you are getting too close she will look for every vulnerability and apparent weakness in your friends as a reason for you to drop them in favour of her, or at least stop getting close and intimate which is her greatest fear,

It's an interesting question, to what extent they are malicious. I think there's no question that they can ruin every single aspect of your life if they choose to - a lot of the time you or your career or your sense of safety or whatever will just be collateral damage, but I've seen my mother punish me deliberately when I haven't given her the narcissistic supply she was hoping for - breaking stuff in my house, stealing things, sabotaging events and things like that. I imagine that the personality disorder hardly lets her consciously acknowledge any of that - most of the things she did had a plausible explanation, they could have been by accident, just that they would happen in clusters around times when I was very happy or when something was happening that took the focus off her.

It can be massively painful and of course can be intentional at times, I just think in MIL case at least there is enormous emotional immaturity. So much of what she wants from me and DH is that we parent her for example. She is like a charming three year old who wants us to take care of absolutely everything for her so she has no worries and responsibilities and yet at the same time wants to be a dictator who dominates us all and makes all the decisions.

If a three year old was in an adult body they would wreck havoc and yet be massively dependent and that is what MIL is like.

I think the emotional immaturity is what makes it difficult because she has no ability to self reflect and being alone is very frightening for her as she has no idea who she is and hates her own company. It drives the lack of boundaries and massive desire for co-dependency.

I don’t mean for a moment you shouldn’t protect yourself from someone like this and go LC or NC if necessary.

I haven't read the whole thread yet, but wanted to say I can empathise with everyone.
I too have a 'D'M like this.
I was determined not to be like her.
Is it through jealousy they are like this?
My DM always tries to wind me and my siblings up by dropping hints, causing a stir about one or another of us to see if we will fight it out. My siblings have sometimes fallen for this then sided with her over a sibling.
She once said to my DSis and me that we were jealous of each others lives. We looked at each other, laughed and said no way! We wouldn't want each others lives! It really pissed DM off as it back fired on her. Me and Dsis are much closer now and all of us know what she is like and talk to each other way more than we ever did.

I think it all stems back to her childhood. I think she feels left out as she was the youngest of 7 kids, and was sent to boarding school very young, as her father died young. Away from home, always trying to be the centre of attention, feeling unloved and unwanted.
And as an adult instead of showing us her love shes still trying to get it all the attention herself. If she was kinder, nicer and warmer and more approachable and more loveable we might be able to love her for herself rather than feel guilt to love her because shes our mum.

I don't know if that makes much sense. I cant find the correct words to try to explain it.

I think a lot of these mums did not get enough parenting and are stunted emotionally at a young age. Describing your mum going to boarding school does indicate that she didn’t get all the parenting she needed and was forced to cope.

Understanding a reason for their behaviour goes a long way to help you accept you can't change it, but...it's hard to make any use of this knowledge when your heart is in shreds yet again through some little piece of cruelty they have perpetrated. And then expected to be comforted by you because you have upset them by causing problems.
And repeat.

My DM has low level narc traits but when you look at her childhood it's not surprising

I think needing to be needed is a big factor, as is fear of abandonment but she is completely manageable. Being raised by a low level narc and whatever the hell my father is has created a monster with my sister

My other sibling and I can look back and blame adult dysfunction for issues that arose - she CAN'T. It has to be MY fault PERSONALLY or her whole "my life would have been perfect if only you hadn't existed" narrative dies on its arse.

.

Understanding is part of what helps. You also have to grieve, though, for the parent(s) you wanted/deserved/thought you had, but didn't.

I think you have put it v well Pound and that you have a good understanding of why she us like she is and that definitely helps.

Stupid question, sorry. Does narcissistic mean they love themselves more than anyone else?

I didn't live with my mother after I was about 16 months old and I haven't seen her for over 25 years. She told my grandparent she would kill herself if she wasn't invited to my wedding. I discussed it with dh. We didn't want her there. He made it clear that if she killed her self it was her choice, not my fault and he was sure she wouldn't. 19 years later I think she's still alive. I'll never know when she dies I guess but she was definitely alive 13 years ago.

Year, that is a bit too simple. They are simply unaware that other people matter, have emotions, are important. My NM is constantly offended and disappointed because the rest of the family does not revolve around her. BUT, she offends everyone constantly with her nastiness/selfishness. She truly cannot understand that people avoid her because she puts the phone down on them, picks holes in them, moans at them etc.

she's impossible to work with, does nothing for anyone else.

Does anyone else find it difficult that they look like their mother, and have similar mannerisms etc? I hate myself for it.

I don't hate myself, but it does bother me. I worry that I look as bad tempered and judgemental as she does! I hope that my different personality means that although I have resting bitch face, the rest of the time I am animated and cheerful looking. I hope.

Thank you picklemepopcorn.. I'm not sure what my mother is tbh. She tricked my father into getting her pregnant, abandoned me for men, tried to get access to my dcs when I hadn't seen her in over 20 years, left me in care but if I was happy with the carers she'd ruin it so I had to move, stayed silent when I was being abused and therefore I was left there, sided with her partner when he made a disgusting request to me, I hate her

I want a mum