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.

@SocialPiranha YES! The "only joking" to cover up the fact that they've just said something vile.

GertrudeCB thank you for your post that is incredibly heartening to hear the cycle can be broken successfully.
I am so mindful how I raise my dc because of my own upbringing, and I am also in therapy so I can get better and stronger. Acknowledging you were abused and neglected and damaged by the one person that should love you unconditionally is incredibly painful, well done to everyone on here for understanding what happened to you and for growing into a decent human being despite the odds

Oh and my ex was threatening to put videos and pictures of me on the internet or send them to family and friends that he had made me do so I was basically forced into a corner and felt I had to tell at least those closest to me about them. My mother’s response was to tell me that she was disgusted with me and I should be ashamed of myself and she was sure my dad would feel the same way. Thank god my gran was already dead and didn’t have to know about it. What was I thinking making pornography? This was hissed and snarled at me with my children in the room. Thank god they weren’t paying attention as they were traumatised by recent events like having to leave their home and go to refuge.

Is it alright if I elaborate a little to gain some different perspectives? Amongst all the abuse, neglect and violence from my mother there have been moments of tenderness that leave me debating if I am all the terrible things she says I am. I lost dad last year and we were so very close, trigger warning!!! I found his body many days after his death but an hour before that I discovered I was pregnant so I went to his house two doors up from mine to tell him the news, subsequently I lost the baby the day before his funeral and it broke me. Anyway, my mother was actually very supportive and told me that dad was in heaven holding my baby safe for me and she meant it? I don't know where I stand because a day later she would text me and say I'm going to hell for killing my dad and that my dead nan would be ashamed of me. Does anyone else have a similar sort of experience? Tia x

This is the thing vanillasugar I really wasn’t in a joking mood anyway!

Every single thing I have ever achieved or cared about, being either taken over, or if they can’t take it over, rubbished. Without exception. Only THEIR feelings matter, and their only feelings are about how they appear to others.

This is my sister to a tee. To the point of taking my phone, going through the camera and after many "give it backs" tossing it back with

"Only other people's ugly children on there anyway"

Examples too many to even start but deliberately starting a conversation solely designed to rubbish my job, but believing she had been crafty and masked the intent and it wasn't obvious and everyone was of course totally duped

Giving my belongings away because "MK doesn't mind". The grabby relatives took them as well.

Sold my engagement ring because I left it in her bathroom and she said she thought it was "just junk".

Made me pay to stay with her but never charged my sisters.

We went no contact with narc MIL and her H years ago but she used to do the cancer scare thing and all the other things you have mentioned . They tell everyone we are terrible children 🙄🙄. They are so so twisted it's shocking!!

She also left her handbag in the car one time and the car was broken into. Again, that was my fault as I hadn't phoned her that week.

Ah yes, the blame. I was accused of breaking something in her house when I was in another country. When it was pointed out that I couldn't have done it, she blamed a nephew who happened to also be overseas at the time. (Narcs are never good at remembering anyone else's trips or news.) When it was pointed out that he couldn't have done it either, she blamed my sister who lived with her. Sister was so annoyed she moved out meaning M had no carer.

The story then changed to I (still living overseas and no contact with either of them) had blamed sister for breaking the item so sister had moved out...

I don’t know why parents are so awful to the children they have brought into this world.

My mother, can’t refer to her as DM, has always been highly emotional. The thing that saddens me is she can never acknowledge it and seek help. My father just enables her as “you know what your mother is like”. I’m now NC with them both.

Examples of her cruelty are telling me that she thinks I was starved of oxygen at birth. Wishing she had had the other child she aborted rather than me. Numerous “fake” suicide attempts. Calling me pizza face when I was suffering with acne. I could go on.

The thing which still amazes me, is both my parents truly believe they have been the best parents they can and cannot see why I have an issue with them. The sad thing is I miss my parents, miss sharing my children’s achievements with them and just wish they could be “normal” parents.

Some of the stories on here, I do wonder if the people involved are actually quite seriously mentally ill!

My mum had narc tendencies but nothing dreadfully awful - she wasn't abusive or neglectful really, I just didn't ever really feel that she actually loved me.
When I moved out of home, I used to come back most weekends (Bf still lived near my parents) and whenever I arrived, she'd always have some disparaging negative comment to make. My Dad said, years later, that she was jealous of me but I don't know.
I had to put her out of the room on my sister's wedding day because she was making a huge fuss about something and upsetting my sister; and then at the end of my sister's wedding (which was in a hall my mum was on the committee for) she made my sister help clear up.

Possibly the worst thing she used to do (but in hindsight I think she had some reason) was that, whatever used to go wrong for any of us, it was never as bad as "when she lost her baby". Nowadays, I suspect she was right - because it was extremely badly dealt with and I don't for one moment think that she ever had the help she needed to get through that with any level of "success" - so it clouded her life from then on. But she was never able to support any of us through bad times in our life, because it always went back to her and when she lost the baby. She was very focused on herself, had no ability to see outside of her own experience.

One of the most hurtful things she said to me (although I half expected it) was when I told her I was pregnant with DS1 - she said "Oh no, now I'll have 6 grandchildren" like that was some kind of bad thing. She'd have rather I'd been having kittens, I think. Anyway she died before DS1 was born so she never did have 6 grandchildren.

sad thing is I miss my parents, miss sharing my children’s achievements with them and just wish they could be “normal” parents.

This. Every nativity / celebration is tinged with sadness because we don't have kind, supportive parents. However, they will never be "normal" no matter how much we wish it to be so. We're protecting our children from their abuse.

OH yes, and she could never praise me. If I got 95% in a test, she'd ask what happened to the other 5%.

At my wedding my dm wore the same colour as my wedding dress (ivory).

The big no-no that everyone generally avoids at weddings: she did.

There have of course been many many other examples over the years, but that for me illustrates her perfectly. She has always been one of life’s grandstanders.

The extreme hypochondria that both my parents have used for attention and as an avoidance tactic has also been a very big and exasperating feature of the last 20 years.

I wonder if all this got worse when I had my 3 dc. It’s almost used as control/ attention seeking. They’ve often vied for attention between each other as to who is the more ill with whatever.

I wasn't going to post but after reading so many other similarities I feel I need to.

My narc M also had a stillbirth which she likes to bring up all the time, even to my dcs which is totally inappropriate.

There have also been many cancer scares over the years, along with leukaemia scares, Ebola, sepsis etc. She now has breast cancer and she is fucking loving it. I'm still having minimal contact.
I went out with my gran this weekend who is great and my mother said to her 'I hope you were both talking about how concerned you are about me' 🙄

After I'd had surgery and almost died she phoned to ask what sort of coat she should buy for the winter!

When I named dc3 she refused to call him that name for about a year! Xmas cards etc were to 'your son' or 'your beautiful baby'

I had an attachment assessment for work purposes last month and it shocked me to the core. Things I'd forgotten from childhood, it just made me hate her even more

Such sad reading. I empathise with you all. I agree with WhipItGood about the hypochondria as a control/attention seeking thing. I apologise for how this sounds, but my mother was delighted when she got cancer. She really was. At last, all the attention she could cope with. And that pit was bottomless. If she was asked how she was today by shop employees, waiters etc, she would put on the poorly voice and say "not really, I got cancer" in a tone of mincing pride that made my teeth grind. When she was in remission it was "I'm recovering from cancer."

It never occured to her that they were just being polite and didn't know what to say when faced with this. My sisters and I struggled to deal with her illness as she'd never shown us any respect or love or interest. We were just extensions of her and our father who had to make them look good at any cost. Yes, to the praising of other people, constantly, the triangulation practised on me and my sisters, everything PP's have said.

She's been dead 7 years now. My nasty narc father is 85 and still going strong. I know it's wrong, but I wish he'd go too.

Mozzchops Thirty, I know what you mean

Feeling a bit too fragile at the minute to contribute but thank you to all who have added their stories. It's really made me feel less alone as noone really believes that darling mothers can behave so crazily/hatefully.

@ittooshallpass

I was wondering when reading your post if you were my sister, then remembered I don’t have one!

My mum was just the same, wanted to be seen as chief mourner (she’d also had affairs prior to the divorce), and when she did turn up at the funeral and realised she wasn’t near the fron sat there with a face like thunder. So upsetting me further when I was burying my dad and obviously already upset. Then lots of weeping on the church steps. I banned her from the wake!

Oh and one time when I was poorly in hospital for a week (she hadn’t come to visit btw) dh had a phone call from school saying dd was vomiting, so rang and asked my mum to get dd and stay with her an hour.

During this time she decided for some batshit reason to move dds bed out from the wall to see how clean it was. On finding dust on the skirting board she apparantly went crazy and made primary school age, vomiting dd clean it while screaming about my poor housework standards.

Dd rang me on my mobile in tears. I rang dh to warn him and dh kicked her out the house!

Oh and another time when I was 18yo I was in a bad accident which wasn’t my fault. I rang her from my hospital bed to tell her I’d broken my back and pelvis and she said “you fucking stupid bitch”.

My mother locking me in the bathroom with her so she could tell me that my dad was dying from cancer and would be dead soon. But not to worry, we would be going to live with that man I wasn’t to mention that had given us a couple of lifts that time. I was eleven.

Have heard the "I'm dying from cancer" stories too from another relation on DHs side along with a countdown of how many weeks he had to live. He is still alive unfortunately.

My MIL likes to tell all and sundry about her (minor day case) operation and how careful she has to be now. She laps it up because they see an old lady but these people readily give her supply and are so easily fooled; she is a master manipulator. I have seen her narc rage only once at another person, boy was that a sight to behold because her abuser mask really did slip then. It did not surprise me because I discovered what she was like many years ago. DH of course has never seen this and remains blind to her true nature. Well he may have his suspicions about her (and he certainly detested his father) but who wants to really believe that their mother can and does behave so atrociously in wider society?. The mother wound in he runs deep and will not be healed.

I had no truck with FIL either when he was alive (her enabler and weak bystander of a man) but she also made her H's death all about her as well. She tricked the hospital staff into letting her visit him earlier because she told them she had no public transport or an easy way of getting there to see her beloved. She used to park at our house (not visit here thankfully) then hop into a taxi. She played the grieving widow very well and put on the cheapest spread at the wake (she was talked out of simply providing people with one cup of tea and a biscuit by the church people because she thought that no-one had come a long way).

Has anyone else noticed just how mean such people (MIL is as tight as a gnats arse) are as well as well as being terrible gift givers?. She also hates women, all of them and sees them as a threat.

I didn’t realise my family situation wasn’t normal. I genuinely loved my M and lived in hope of one day satisfying her and meeting her approval. A couple of examples of her behaviour are:

Opening all my post and taking any birthday/Christmas money I was given to “look after it” (we were well off).

Allowing her favourite DC to use me as a punch bag for years and telling me “it’s just his way of letting off steam”.

I only got my good A levels and degree because of her.

As a teenager telling me I looked fat before I went out and making me change. At the time I was under 8 stone and in the grip of an eating disorder.

Telling me “well I still like him” after I told her DP had had an affair.

Refusing to speak to me for weeks and removing photos of me from around the house if I didn’t do exactly as I was told. Stopping DF from talking to me too. But when I was older I was allowed the honour of chauffeuring her to the station twice a day - strictly on the understanding I would be ignored the whole time.

Regularly insisting I drop everything / take day off work to take her somewhere, then arriving to find she’d lent DB the car / changed her mind. And refuse to speak to me if I asked why she didn’t let me know.

Controlling my relationships. Refusing to speak to me unless I went out with people she nominated, did as she instructed me and answered all her intrusive questions. She would become frantic if a boyfriend didn’t call me every day - she saw it as a personal slight.

Showing my boyfriends endless photos of her as a teenager in a bikini and commenting that I didn’t inherit her figure.

Constantly ridiculing my friends who were all pathetic and beneath her notice, whilst DB’s friends were amazing - quirky and fun.

10 years of NC; it was a huge relief when she no longer had power over me.

Yes! The meanness! To a hardfaced degree!

Any friends who saw through her, she would go out of her way to slag off and tell me that they weren’t to be trusted. And flirted outrageously with my boyfriends. She even said to one “all the ones before you were just boys, but you, you’re a real man.”