April 2022 - well we took you to Stately Homes

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

It’s April 2022 and the Stately Home is still open to all comers.

You are not a monster. You’re her scapegoat and adult survivor of her narcissistic abuse. You’re traumatised. She got rid of your dad (women like your mother cannot do relationships at all and the men in their lives are as narcissistic as they are or are otherwise discarded) and then turned against you because you reminded her of him, a man she always hated. She’s also treated your brother abusively too.

if anyone is monstrous it is your mother. Have a read about narcissistic personality disorder and other cluster B disorders and see how much of that relates to her. It’s likely to be an awful lot. It’s not your fault she is like this and you did not make her that way. Your sister is merely a clone of your mother.

Keep your as yet unborn child well away from your mother and siblings. Do not fall into the trap of allowing them any access whatsoever to your child. Your husband and you need to stay away from them too.

The abuse they happened to you is not your fault, that is all on the perpetrators.
you do not have to make a big statement about going no contact. Just start to totally make yourself unavailable to them. Moving away further from them could also be an option here. Have a look at Dr Ramani on YouTube.

Would also suggest you contact NAPAC re the abuse in childhood.

@JaNaJanice so sorry to read what happened to you. @AttilaTheMeerkat is right - you owe them nothing; I'm sorry that your DH doesn't want to know. I hope that you can access therapy, when it works it can be liberating and you finally feel someone's in your corner.

I'm just back from seeing my Dad. Usual story, he didn't ask me once how I was, and spent most of the time telling anecdotes about famous people he knows / knew, including from my stepmother's family. This woman emotionally abused me and scapegoated me (thanks @AttilaTheMeerkat for reminding me of the term), using my DB as golden child and DSSis as another scapegoat. We took it in turns. She abandoned DDSis to be with my DF and then blamed everyone and everything else for her misery and guilt. One of her favourite things to do was putting my stuff in the bin if I put it in the wrong place when I went to stay with them. Oh and tearing down the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve when she got back from work because it was 'tacky'. I couldn't give a sh1t how fancy her family were. She was a toxic bully and I'm delighted that I'm NC with her now after their split.

DF is lonely and I do the right thing but I can't stand his company anymore. He's outwardly charming and everyone loves him but my heart isn't in it anymore ...

Well, let it be cautionary tale for all:
the leopard never changes its spots!

My remaining two days at my mum’s went like this: I took the delivery of a mattress in the morning, that I bought for her, then made a beeline to the doctors to help her there, wrote down all recommendations for her etc. later went to buy all the very expensive medications for her knees. Wrote down all instructions regarding said medication and explained everything to her. The evening went reasonably peacefully.

The next day I took some rest. Later cooked dinner. She even said thank you for the dinner and wished me good night, not just the silent treatment when we were alone.

This morning after breakfast I made a passing remark that I have my husband well trained cos he irons his own shirts. She carried on by saying that “you treat him just as badly as me! He is too good for you”. All that after she spent two months at our house and could see our teamwork and how good our relationship was. She was also so against our marriage in the first place! I was left speechless as this came out of the blue and after two seemingly good days that we had.

Needless to say that I lost it and flew the house. I am already racked with guild and keep churning this conversation in my mind, that may be in overreacted. But the sad truth is that after two weeks sorting out her house and helping her with things I was told that I am still not good enough!

I arrived home feeling ill, with high blood pressure that I normally never have. Sad, exhausted and deflated. And only two weeks ago I felt happy, confident and energetic. Just two weeks with her made all the difference.

But why, or why I am still feeling guilty??

And deep down, I know that I still love her, despite all the hurt and suffering she caused me. And only one week into NC I keep wondering how is she doing there, all alone?

I started counselling this week and hope that I can find all the answers or at least some peace?

Note: I wrote the first Hal's while still there and parked it, as was too upset even to post. The second half was written a week later - hence various tenses!

Thread nearly running out?
@neverhaveto your mother is an ungrateful spiteful old witch imo. I would be done with helping her. Can these people not observe their own behaviour?

@JaNaJanice I am so sorry! Your mother allowed you to be abused, she is actually a monster. Funny how it so often happens that someone highly thought of in society who presents a benign face to the world can also be a terrible human being.

Stop caring about them I would say to anyone with abusive parents and their enablers who ignored or minimised what was happening. It is hard though. 😒

neverhaveto

How did your cousnelling session go this past week?.

You've had the special training all children get from their narcissitic parent; the sort of training where you put the narcissist parent first with your own needs and wants dead last. She installed the fear, obligation and guilt buttons in you.

As an adult child of a narcissist, you may find yourself feeling guilty when you accomplish something or feel the need to “hide” in case there is retaliation for your success. This is because children of narcissists were trained at a young age to expect the other shoe to drop whenever they dared to shine brightly. They were punished by pathologically envious bullies or their toxic parents whenever they did achieve or dared to express joy – which causes them to recoil from the spotlight in adulthood.

You may love her but she has made the terrible choice not to love. She sees you as a bit part player with her at the centre of her universe or as an inanimate object to pick up and put down as she sees fit. She will probably not be on her own either for very long and if she is well that is on her. She has not given a shiny shit about you and never has cared about you either; only what you can give her which is lots of narc supply.

You also have two qualities that she completely lacks; empathy and insight. That is why you think about her even now.

I will start a new thread soon when this gets closer to 1000 posts.

Thank you @Pemba and @AttilaTheMeerkat - for listening and responding!

@AttilaTheMeerkat I only had one session with the therapist, so still early days. I feel weird, like I am recovering from a illness and a bit numb still. Do not feel my normal self yet...,

Hi guys!
Some of your stories are heartbreaking...
My mother has narcissistic tendencies and can really lack empathy.. it was difficult growing up but I left home quite young.
My father who I loved dearly has just died this last week, suddenly and unexpectedly. I am now in a living nightmare because my mother has MS and he was her full time carer.. they live in rural France, have a few animals including cats which she got even tho im extremely allergic to them.. have an entire floor of the house devoted to my mums wardrobe as she has a shopping addiction.. which he kept control over by basically being in complete control of the finances and password in all the laptops and disabling the phone and keeping a list of the purchases (which I found in his desk and totals hundreds each week) she has zero concept of money and also expects things to be financed by other people if she has no interest in it ie cleaning products, bills etc...
so now im here in rural France alone with her (im married and have two kids who are back in the uk this is the longest I've been apart from them ever) trying to sort everything out. She wants me to be her fulltime carer now and she wants to live with us but not even a tiny fraction of her stuff would fit in my home.. so she wants us to sell our house and sell her house and buy one together. I know even with that money pooled we will not be able to afford the type of space that would fit her stuff in. I was looking at 4/5 bed houses with ground floor bathrooms for her and she was saying 'oh I can put my stuff in the eves space and the spare room and it will fit' completely ignoring that 4 other people will be living in the home trying to use that space too.
she is being beyond nasty to me. Especially since she discovered under French law because he didn't make a will I have inherited 60 percent of the property.. in the lawyers office (which she initially refused to go to because she said it wasnt needed) when he said that she started saying 'this means nothing, none of it is yours and if you try to take it ill follow you to England and kill you' I had said literally nothing I hadn't even looked at her and previous to the meeting had read up on French law, knew that might be the case and said if that happens I'll just put all that money into buying a home together anyway (and she was just saying it was nonesense I won't inherit anything)
today she threatened to kill herself if I tried to speak to her about downsizing her clothing collection.
The other day when I was asking her not to buy anything off qvc because her accounts might be frozen when we report the death briefly she went off shouting at me about how my dad only ever got angry about her buying things off qvc because he was really angry at me and I shouldve been sending them money or something?! And the stress is probably what killed him
Its so hard not to just tell her to fuck off. But she's disabled and really really unrealistic.. I do not know what would happen to her if I just left. I love her and I want to help but she makes it so hard. No one else can have any emotions and if you arent totally calm and patient with her then she's absolutely outraged. She gaslight the ever living fk out of me and I feel like I'm going insane. I constantly feel guilty just for existing. I feel guilty writing this and half of me wonders if its me theres something wrong with.. am I greedy am I doing something wrong, would other people be able to deal with this better?
I try and hold my tongue because I know that I would feel guilty forever if I just stormed off. Shes just lost her husband. But its so stressful. I finish every day shaking.

@Twobirdsinatree
Well the one thing I would be doing for sure is refusing to inflict any of that on my husband and kids.
You MUST protect them from all this no matter what as she will ruin everyone's life if you let her.
Sorry to be blunt but you owe her nothing although I get the guilt and love getting in the way of you cutting her off.
I would try to get care in place if that makes you feel better and then leave her to.it.
So sorry for the loss of your dad x

Twobirdsinatree

When are you planning on going home?. Frankly I would go home asap and never have anything to do with her again. You do not owe her anything and it is not possible anyway to have a relationship with a narcissist.

I would leave your mother to it and return to your own family in the UK asap. She is no mother to you now and was a terrible parent to you as well when you were growing up. She was once young and abusive, now she is old and abusive. The authority figures she is really afraid of have all died off.

Do not further inflict your toxic mother and her mad schemes on your own husband and kids; you're only there with her now really because she has trained you since childhood to put her first and with your own needs and wants dead last. All adult children of narcissists receive such special training.

You also have FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) in spades; three damaging legacies that she installed in you too. She being your mother here is unlikely to accept any outside help other than your own because in her head you are there to serve her; that is your role in life. You probably also remind her of her late H, a man whom she likely also hated.

I am now going to set up a new Stately Homes thread as this one is nearly full.

Please post on the new thread accordingly. The Stately Home remains very much open to all who need it.

Thanku for replying to me. My husband understands. And my young kids actually do love her. And she's disabled she won't ever be caring for them alone because she's not physically able to do so. I've been married 10 years and my husband has met her many times. He was here last week when it initially happened and was amazing sorting everything out that needs sorting and driving her around. She isn't nasty to him she wouldn't dare be.
I dont know what care I would sort out or if she would accept that its hard to say anything that could be perceived as a rejection or critisicism to her without it become a full blown fight.. however tactfully you try and bring anything up.
I could sign over the percentage I get from the sale to her... but im really worried she won't be able to manage it herself.. I think my dad would want me to make sure she's okay. She doesnt know the passwords to her own bank accounts.. didnt even know how to use the card (except over the phone to qvc) because he did all that.. how is she going to sort out selling this house and moving back to the uk without our help? The estate agent came to value the property.. first of all she wouldn't accept the estimate and got them to raise it.. then when she was out of the room the estate agent basically told me the house won't sell because of her hoarding /shopping addiction and we need to clear it before she will list it. And then she even asked me if I was okay because of the way my mum spoke to me in front of her. Its odd but that made me angry with her because it felt like I was betraying my mother or getting one over her by getting sympathy. Any time i try and talk about how it is to deal with her I just feel awful about myself for betraying my motherlike that.
I dont know that its true that I dont owe her anything.. shes my mother. And my dad would want me to take care of her.

" I dont know that its true that I dont owe her anything.. shes my mother. And my dad would want me to take care of her."

She gave birth to you but that is where it ended for you as far as she is concerned. You did not ask to be born. Your late father enabled her and remained married to her for his own reasons. Leave her to the lawyers; she does not deserve to have you in her life in any way shape or form. She will bleed you dry and make you feel like a husk.

She likes your children because young kids are malleable and give her what she craves; oddles of lovely narcissistic supply. They do not know what she is like because they are too young. Your mother made the terrible choice not to love. You absolutely need to keep your children and H well away from her.

She is making it impossible for you to take care of her because of her abusive behaviour towards you. Her threats to kill herself are emotional manipulation 101. Ignore all statements from her and return to the UK asap. She will continue to make you ill both emotionally and physically as long as you remain there.

Its so hard to cut off like that tho. I feel so sorry for her she looks so frail. I feel sick that I could hurt her. I dont want to be like her. I want to be a good person and do right by her. I just wish she wouldn't be so nasty and actually acknowledged that I'm trying to help.. not thank me but at least act as though I'm helping not as though I'm some interloper trying to steal her money and belongings (which I know she doesnt actually believe as she constantly says she wants to live together) I do know she has narcissistic tendencies and I do know my own sense eof personal boundaries is totally skewed.. I have no idea what healthy self esteem is. I genuinely never know if I'm reasonable or not in my emotional responses, like I have no clue. And sometimes I only realise its her thats living in a complete fantasy land when other people point it out to me. My husband for example when she'd left the room last week said 'you do know everything she's just said there is nonesense' not even in a nasty way but just because he saw that I had fully fallen for it.
thankyou for listening and replying. It helps just to talk about it honestly. Its really hard, on top of the grief as well... I really don't know what I'm going to be able to do here. I dont know if I have the strength to walk away and I dont know if I have the strength to stay and try and help her. I feel like I just want to hide under a rock tbh

@Twobirdsinatree do not have her live with you. I would come home. She will either need to arrange carers for herself or a residential care home. She is an adult. You do not have to take responsibility for her. Come home and let the dust settle. Go low contact for a bit. Do not give up your own home for this woman.

@Twobirdsinatree I’m sorry for the loss of your Dad. You will need space to grieve too x

@Twobirdsinatree , so sorry for your loss. It is not just about your mum - does she realise that you just lost your dad!

I can totally relate to what you have written, having just returned from my home country trying to help and sort my mum's life. It ended badly, had to leave and am still recovering from the shocking treatment that I had there.

I would advise not to get her living with you under one roof. She will enslave you and your family to her own narcissistic needs. Do not waste your life - she is not worth it.

Look after yourself - you have a lovely family and understanding husband.

I'm sorry to hear about your awful experiences. It doesn't sound like your relatives being anything positive either emotionally, practically or even financially... I'd recommend reducing your contact with them, building your positive relationships with better people, maybe living far away! It doesn't sound like you'd miss them, so long as you have a plan and some alternative contacts.
Your husband doesn't sound very sympathetic... You might benefit from talking to a good therapist, help you to come to terms with your difficult past and prepare, protect and strengthen yourself to move into a happier future. Very best wishes xx