November 2022 - well we took you to Stately Homes

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

This is the latest thread, please feel free to write as much or as little as you please.

Whatever the reasons for your sister acting like she has done and continues to do it’s not your fault. Personality disorders could well be at work here. NPD is but one example of a personality disorder.

@MonkeyfromManchester - kudos to you and MrM for standing your ground and being firm. I applaud you, especially as the Hag seems to be playing the being elderly and vulnerable card in order to reel you in. We are lucky in this country we have a care system to step in. I had to use this for my DM - and it was a nightmare as she would refuse care or send them on their way as soon as they arrived. Then play the martyr and tell friends/family/anyone who would listen how her terrible DD (ie me) would be too busy to help her and she was all alone but she would somehow soldier through. I too think she deliberately made things worse for herself in order to get attention or what she demanded. Then my DM would tell me about how wonderful it was that her friends had wonderful DDs that would take care of them, take them out and treat them on outings, have them over for many dinners etc etc. I used to silently think that maybe her friends' DDs actually liked their DMs, and enjoyed their time together with their DM, whereas I actually did not. The nice thing about being NC is that I no longer have to put up with her crap and martyrdom.

@ClosedAuraOpenMind - you asked 'How can you be there for someone when they have never been there for you??' - the thing I have come to painfully realise is that you can't and you don't need to be. Why on earth should you be there for them when they were not there for you? As a child, we didn't have a choice. We relied on our parents to be there for us - and they weren't, and they never will be. Yet, they expect us to be there for them!

Ask yourself, even when you have tried to be there for your DM, has she ever appreciated it? Shown gratitude or love? Or does she moan and tell you what you've done/not done is not good enough? What makes you think it will be different this time? It sounds like your DM is playing you, making you feel guilty and obligated. Don't be. Don't sacrifice your emotional support and energy for your own family with your DD for your DM. There is a care system in place that will provide for her and if she doesn't like it, then it is tough. @briarhill - keep strong too with your DM's ailing health issues and don't get suckered back in.

Don't make the mistake I did - I ignored that my parents were never there for me, made excuses for them, hoped for the better and did so much for my DM when she was in hospital and recovering at home after. But when my beautiful DS died suddenly I found out the hard way that they weren't there for me and in fact made it all about them and showed f* all empathy. That was the trigger that made me go NC. I often wish I had had the balls to go NC with them earlier as the pain of having to deal with their behaviour when my DS was fighting for his life in hospital, on life support, was deeply traumatic.

@AttilaTheMeerkat - thank you for the reminder to look at the Dr Ramani episodes on Youtube. It is so helpful to find people that understand the sort of childhood and FOO that I had as I kept always wondering why I didn't have a 'normal' childhood like my friends and felt rather odd. It's also helpful to know how to accept that and come to terms with the fact that I will never have the relationship I wanted with them. Thanks also for pointing out that responding to any communications is dangerous for us and can reel us back in. It is very tempting though particularly when they send goady or abusive messages.

Your earlier post to have Christmas on YOUR terms is spot on. I hope you have a good break away and we are doing the same (mainly to avoid any surprise visits or guilt summons from my FOO).

Your note about toxic families being stingy with love and money was an eye-opener for me. I never realised the correlation and it is so true. I also noted that whilst they were stingy with gifts, (no effort made whatsoever, just a paltry amount shoved in one card for my entire family), they expected me to shower them with expensive thoughtful gifts, cash and treat them to various outings.

@PollyTwoBlankets - thank you for sharing your positive story. I'm fairly new on my NC journey and it is really comforting to read there is light at the end of the tunnel and that it is possible to do this for years and be at peace with the decision.

@nottoday300 - we are here for you when you are ready. It took me years to actually post after several years of being a silent follower. The advice and the accounts of what other people have gone through can make the journey feel as if you are not on your own x

Hello again all. I've had a bit of a lightbulb moment today. Me and my sister have realised that our mum is likely a narcissist. I've also realised that my ex partner is also a narcissist and I am codependent in my relationships. Pretty much all my relationships have been this way and now I know why. I was the 'never good enough' child and my sister I think was the golden child growing up. I feel like I'm beginning to understand myself more, I'm starting to know why I am an anxious mess with low self esteem and low self worth.

The problem is, I'm not entirely sure if my mum has early signs of dementia or if she's gaslighting us. She keeps outright denying things she's said. Things that she has absolutely 100% said. There's no doubt in my mind that she has said these things and yet she will insist I've made it up or misheard. It's happening more and more often. Is there a way to know for sure which it is? Her attitude and behaviour has got increasingly worse lately and I'm wondering if early onset dementia could be playing a part in it. Either that or she is feeling her control slip away as we distance ourselves from her more and more and therefore being more unpleasant. I'm really unsure what to do here. Has anyone else been through this?

How old is your mother now?.

Purely going by what you have written your abusive mother is gaslighting you and narcissists can and do get worse with age. She was once young and abusive and now she is old and abusive, it sounds like she has not changed an iota in all those years.

Your sister along with you need to put far more mental as well as physical distance between you and mother. It is not possible to have a relationship with a narcissist.

I would also think your relationship choices have come about directly from being raised by a narcissist for a mother. Your ex is a narcissist and you've been drawn to what is familiar to you. She likely taught you how to be codependent also.

Drop the rope your mother holds out to you. If you have children keep them well away from your mother. Narcissists tend to either over value or under value the "relationship" they have with their grandchildren (they see the kids as an ideal source of adoration and or narc supply) and they make also for being deplorably bad parent figures, let alone grandparent figures.

@NCcaterpillar - sadly, relationships with nieces and nephews become collateral damage when going NC. It's unavoidable, because the toxic family member(s) will go to any lengths to destroy your reputation and poison the pool when you dare to set boundaries or go LC/NC. They have to point fingers and apportion blame because they are simply unable to accept any responsibility for their own behaviours.

I have one particular adult nephew who has remained in touch with me and one particular adult niece, both of whom are marvellous people who could see why I walked away. My other nieces and nephews were not adults and I have absolutely no doubt that I would have been painted as a terrible villain, even though they all loved spending time with their me as kids and would often come to stay at my house.

It's a shame, but totally out of my hands. Perhaps when they are older they might track me down, but I won't be holding my breath. All I can hope for is that they have good memories, but I know how damaging parental influence can be.

A friend of mine put it well - that when a grenade goes off, people are going to get hurt and there's nothing you can do about it.

Solidarity to all. And @MonkeyfromManchester - you and MM deserve a bloody medal (although I have to agree with @AttilaTheMeerkat that I would be cancelling christmas day and leaving a ready meal in her fridge instead. She will definitely be seeking a way to try to destroy your christmas).

@MyFragility thank you! It's exhausting. The latest saga is ridiculous as she should have done to the doctor LAST year with her face, but it's preferable to be a martyr. She sat in the taxi on the way back from the Dr with Mr Monkey and said “did you think it would be cancer?” MM: you've not been tested for cancer.

If she's tries to make a drama out of it to elicit sympathy and invitations I can trump her with having tests for the following in October: pancreatic, liver, kidney and a range of gynae cancers. All clear, but I didn't do drama (although it was scary)

Oh God, the bad mouthing of you as the terrible daughter when you’d set up a care package. She WILL have made things worse for blackmail purposes. Really? All those daughters adore their mothers; that won't be true. And it does boil down to 1) should we sacrifice our happiness for parents who don't give a shit about our happiness and have been abusive? 2) yes, if they were decent people we would spend time with them.

I don't want her on Xmas Day, I'm doing it for Mr Monkey. He's resulote that we’re not shifting on giving her more time than that. That was the first words to me after he'd been to the doctors.

@CreatingHavoc good work on your realisations. I've found with The Hag toxic MIL that she's always been like that this. She has always had the rage you see in some dementia cases. She has selective memory. No doubt, she's getting some dementia, but it's not our responsibility.

Keep strong.

@Sicario i wish I could! Bridge too far for Mr Monkey, I'm afraid, but next year it's a cheap meal out as I'm not having her in my house. MM is under strict instructions to take her up to the loo. We are on fall watch. Just had our wobbly dining chairs mended. All trip hazards will be moved. She deliberately fell one time when she was staying here as I could see it out of the corner of my eye. The last straw for Mr Monkey last Xmas was the “collapse to her knees” in my mum’s living room. There was fuck all wrong with her. Total manipulation.

So, she was banging on about the need to defrost her fridge. MM: I'll come and do it on Sat. So no, the evil bitch pulled the fridge out and did it herself yesterday. Complete death wish. She really does think she's staying here if something happens. No way.

She is also ‘missing’ her prodigal GB son so she keeps bleating on about it. She thinks she can guilt trip her sons and make them feel terrible to elicit 24 hour care.

This is the abusive one who has disappeared on his wife and kids. We've not heard from him for years, nor has the hag. It's clear to me since the day I met him that he was GB, but he's toxic damaged goods and hates her, too. He lives in the same city as his ex-wife FFS. I think the Hag imagines some death bed scene with him there, weeping, but I think it's highly unlikely. MM says he has nothing to say to the toxic twat.

@AttilaTheMeerkat shes early 60's so quite early for dementia but you never know. Perhaps she's just trying to make us look stupid. It's such innocuous things that she denies, which is odd. Like, something she talked about many times when I was younger suddenly didn't happen. So odd.

Just wanted to vent my spleen. If I don't type it here, no one will know that this happened at all...

The other day, I drove my parents to a do. All they had to do was be pleasant in the car, while I drove. I was just dropping them off. It probably took 45 minutes.

My dad said nothing in particular, apart from expressing surprise that I didn't know where the function would be held (why would I?!)

My mum started the second she got in the car and did not stop for 45 minutes. Dad is stupid, he should know precisely where the place was, he hates going out, she can't go out which is his fault (she goes out daily), he can't hear, he's too stupid to wear his hearing aids, she is the hero of the hour, no one knows what is going on and she does everything. Lots of weird over the top sentences and gushing about the fact I was driving then the same about that I must message her and say I had got home safely. (I have never done that before in my life).

Literally not a word about me or my children apart from, randomly, a sudden order to tell her about my "health issues". (I literally don't have any). Also saying I had 15 minutes to tell her what I wanted for Christmas and doing a weird countdown. I ignored that.

And mentioning a local tourist attraction that she had "taken me to throughout my childhood". We have never been.

Add to that, fucking CONSTANT squeezing of my arm, tapping on my leg etc, while I was driving through the ice and the dark. In the end I had to tell her to stop doing it, so she pretended to smack me across the side of the head.

No, it's not dementia.

CreatingHavoc

She is trying to make you look stupid.

I would not at all think it’s dementia behind her behaviour, this is who she really is and has been all these years. One way of avoiding responsibility is for the narcissist to deny they have any. Even if it’s written down the narcissist will rewrite history and make excuses. Frequently they take the victim role by saying they were forced into being accountable when infact they willingly did so. This tactic often leaves the other person questioning themselves and their memory.

Thanks @AttilaTheMeerkat . I suspect you're probably right. I think I'm still coming to terms with the reality of the situation. Whenever I tried to be more involved with her I was usually rejected because she prioritised my sister and niece or if she did agree to meet up the whole experience would be stressful and made my mental health worse. I've now told her I need space and have changed my plans to deliberately avoid her. It's the first time in my life I think I've ever put a boundary in place. I've just finished a course of cbt for anxiety but it wasn't very helpful. I think I need to start proper therapy to work through things. Onwards and upwards, hopefully!

Creatinghavoc

You indeed need proper therapy to work through things, am not unfortunately all that surprised to read that CBT was of little use. To your mother, your sister and now her grandchild are the golden aka favoured ones but that is a role also not without price.

You ideally need to find a therapist well versed in narcissistic abuse. Have a look at Dr Ramani on YouTube.

Well done for stating a boundary here in that you need space. She won’t like this at all and will in all likelihood rail against it. You certainly need to place more mental and physical distance between you and your mother.

Please can i join in. My MIL is horrible and I've always known that. Her sons hate her and she has no friends. She is always complaining to anyone who will listen and also talking about what she has done and how so and so was so impressed with her.

I'm really here too because it's dawned on me recently that my husbands behaviour towards me (all 4 horsemen of the apocalypse) and his inability to make and keep friendships and his deteriorating relationship with our daughter is because of the narcissistic mother. He is clearly a covert narcissist in so many ways.

@geraniumsandsunshine welcome to the page. You will get loads of support here. I think a good starting point is to read as much as you can about narcissism and this will help you. At the very top of this forum, there are tons of resources. It really helps.

Good will to all men.

The Hag (evil MIL) can't use her washing machine. I bought (she paid for it) it 18 months ago to replace her old one which had stopped cleaning anything. I chose the simplest model - dial, no buttons - and showed her. She now uses the bastard as a weapon with Mr Monkey. He is supposed to go around immediately she ‘forgets’ how to use it, despite the written instructions that he wrote out for her. It wasn't convenient for him yesterday as we were going out for lunch. On a Sunday, she goes shopping with Slave Son - she screams at him for 45 minutes - so MM says i’ll come round after you are back from shopping but I can't say what time as I've got things to do (recover from hangover)

‘I'll pick you up in Slave Son’s car when I've finished at Tesco’
‘There is no need as I've told you the plan’

She rings several times as this answer isn't good enough. She only rings his mobile sd she's blocked on my mobile and daren't ring the landline as I've stonewalled her before and hung up on her when she's rude. I am pretty much NC with her now.

The mobile rings several times and MM is doing something so doesn't answer. He then rings her back when it's convenient for him.

‘Where you've been? We can pick you up.’
‘I will walk over when I'm ready’

He has a shower. The mobile is ringing and then five minutes the door bell. I know it's her so don't answer the door. MM gets out of the shower 10 minutes later. The phone starts ringing.

‘Where’ve you been?’ screaming
‘In the shower’
‘You should take the phone into the bathroom’
‘Well, I don’t’

He takes his time going over and is greeted with screaming. You would think that someone would be grateful for a life where she does FUCK ALL. Slave Son takes her shopping, sorts her finances, MM does the many, many medical appointments, before I went NC I sorted out a social worker and carers three times a day.

Then it's guilt city time of the performance.

‘I don't think I'll be here at Christmas’

MM doesn't react. More screaming and the threat

‘I won't come from Christmas’
Xmas is weaponised.
MM doesn't react to the (empty) threat
‘That’s your choice’

Then it's the pity party, head down, fake tears

‘I’m just on my own staring at four walls’

MM doesn't react in the expected way

‘Why not live with us? It would be so lovely and we can wait on you hand and foot (and that bitch DIL Monkey will have her bags packed by me)

I don't think she appreciates WHY people spend no time with her. She's utterly vile.

Hopefully, the Xmas threat will materialise this year as it did in 2020 when she sat in her disgusting flat in her food stained dressing gown because we called her bluff.

We've had constant I'm not looking forward to Xmas since she realised we've wrong footed her and by hosting her here for two hours on Xmas Day, she's not getting the invite for Christmas Day and Night to Mummy Monkey’s.

She doesn't appreciate again how very narrowly she's been banned from our house.

Hag has just phoned again. Five word reply from MM and he has just put the phone down after saying Bye. She's itching for a row. Fucking bitch. With every day that passes, MM is getting stronger and distancing himself from her complete abuse.

Going to cook a lovely dinner and drink wine and toast myself and MM for having a nice life.

@MonkeyfromManchester I could feel myself tensing up reading that, I don't know how you cope! My "mother" used to scream at me too, not as much as the Hag, but bizarrely it didn't cross my mind that actually I didn't have to take it. I almost wish I could go back in time and say to her, if you scream at me I will leave, and then do it. I was brought up, like your DH, to accept whatever abuse was meted out.

The incessant phoning must have you all on edge. One thing I had done before my "mother" blew it all up completely, was to change her ringtone to silent. She used to expect me to answer whenever she chose to call me, which was only when she wanted something or knew I was away/doing something nice (she would regularly give me the silent treatment for weeks). So I stopped being so available once her ringtone was silent, I'd only see I'd missed her call when I checked my phone. It made my life much more peaceful. Something your DH could try perhaps.

Sounds like the nearer Christmas comes, the more the Hag will ramp up her efforts to control things. She doesn't know any alternative way to approach things, so she will just scream and shout and whine even more than usual. My sympathies to you and your family, it's so horrible.

Thanks @Escapingafter50years they’ve only got one volume setting: screaming. Oh, and poor little old me vulnerable nice old lady shit. The abuse makes you feel you do have to take it, MM has moved from that place where he was all his life to ‘if you talk like that to me’. She cannot believe it.

I'm glad you've escaped. MM has escaped as much as he can, I think. She's pure evil.

We've just had the nice Hag phone call where she couldn't ‘understand’ her ready meal. MM was cool with her and she will be sitting her disgusting arm chair puzzled as to why he didn't apologize. 🤣

That’s a great idea with his phone.

Oh yes, she's going to ramp it up. It's not going to change things one bit.

She will threaten not to come and MM now calls her bluff on that ‘that’s your choice’.

Hag will probably try guilt at the Xmas lunch table. I'm getting near to the point of saying ‘you’re not invited to my mum’s for x, y, z reasons’, but i’m not as it’s another badge of victimhood and she’d love a row. She can simply sit and sulk and feel sorry for herself. She's a fucking see you next Tuesday.

MonkeyfromManchester- when she says she might not come , does that mean she ll stay at home with slave son ? And does she think slave son will cook her Christmas dinner or will she ?

@Ydkiml highly unlikely that she or Slave Son would cook Xmas lunch for themselves.

In years past, he's used the excuse of Hag going to my mum’s for his going down the pub e.g. respite care.

Not really that keen on him as he's let her walk all over him, although since lockdown he doesn't take her to the supermarket seven days a week (seriously!) ‘just’ twice a week.

She had what we think was Covid in Jan 2020 and it left her frail (although she can summon the energy to scream and shout) so she can't get the first bus at 5.30am to his house every weekday, let herself in, open his back door and let flea ridden feral cats into the house to piss and shit everywhere because she likes “pussy cats”. Like a CHILD. This is the woman who bleaches her skirting boards, FFS. Hag would march into his room to scream at him to get up. He's disabled.

She got mugged once, was warned by the police not to go out that early in a not especially nice area and got mugged AGAIN. Wore it like a badge of honour “oh, I got mugged again” in this stupid childish voice like I've been “naughty”. Jesus, like the police have got time...FFS.

When I write all this down, I can't believe any thing so hideous walks the earth.

It'll be interesting to see if she has a strop and doesn't come whether he will or not. I imagine she’ll want him to take ‘her side’. Fingers crossed neither come.

Fingers crossed 🤞 I doubt it tho . I think she ll come to try n spoil the two hours . She won’t win . x

I have NCed and have not back read. I can't give you all the reasons are exact dates for legal reasons.

After years of chipping away at us and giving one hand to slap us with the other; we went NC with Parent-in-Law (singular) 3 yrs ago.

They are now suing us for contact DC1 >10yo and DC >3yo.

During the NC, PIL has used flying monkeys to try and harm us. We have a lot of emails from them saying demeaning, horrible things to us but never outright swear words.

Their lawyers have been by the book and suggested family therapy, mediation etc. PIL is a covert Narc and we don't want to do therapy etc. There's no point.

We are now in a sh*t legal position where we have had to withdraw our objection to their seeking leave to file a c100. It is costing us 1000s we don't have.

It is all I can think about .

I have come here to ask who else is being sued by their stately home parent/s.

I need to feel less alone with it. PIL knows to be all sweetness and light and we have suffered for a decade almost without witnesses. I am starting to feel like they have us over a barrel.

Neptune Orion - so sorry for your situation. Are you in England? I didn't think grandparents had any rights here, if so. Beyond that, I'm afraid I don't have any experience to offer, just sympathy, and an ear to listen.

I've popped in & out of these threads for a while, but not added my bit, as somehow, it always feels like others have it worse than I do/did. And I became NC about 25 years ago. I've spent years in therapy, dealing with what happened when I was a kid/teenager/young adult. And working not to repeat the cycle with my own late teenage DD - I am sure I have got plenty wrong with her, but we at least still talk a lot, don't fight often, and laugh together a lot too. She has no plans to leave home - whereas I knew I'd be leaving home as soon as I could, from about 13, and then did leave as soon as I legally could.

I tend to think I'm dealing with the past, and it's just that, the past. But every so often, I find out another fact that properly kicks me in the teeth. I found out last night that a family member that I am estranged from had died some months ago. I downloaded a copy of their will. To find that in their will, they had named me (and another family member I also don't talk to) specifically, as not to receive any money. But not only that, they felt the need to talk about our estrangement, it's length, and to say that I wasn't to get anything as I 'know what I did'. I do know what I did. I walked away from the toxicity and the drama and the controlling, and refused to let them control my life and turn me bitter, as they were themselves, and as I had seen another family member become. It just wasn't healthy for me. And there would have been no going back - to go back would have meant apologising for anything / everything and accepting it was all my fault, and having it constantly brought up and thrown at me all the time. As well as dealing the the ongoing toxic behaviour.

It hurts that my family member is dead - despite everything, I did (do?) love them. It feels like spite from beyond the grave to read what they wrote. And it was obviously intended for me to read once they were dead. It was one last deliberate message of spite. And it does hurt. To know that even all these years later without contact, they hated me so much, to do that deliberately to hurt me.

I'd be lying if I said that being cut out of the will wasn't a bloody great shame - they left a hugely significant amount of money, it would be lifechanging - they've left it to someone out of family. But I knew that would happen when I chose to walk away. Money was one of the ways they used to control other family members - playing them off against each other by saying they would/wouldn't leave them their money if they did/didn't do something. I accepted when I walked away that I wouldn't inherit anything.

I do regret the loss of the photos. They had so many photos of them, their child, me, their siblings, their parents, all people who are related to me. Because I left so young, and at a point when digital cameras weren't a thing, I have so few photos. Only a handful of me, one or two of them and their child, and none of their parents and siblings - some of whom I knew as a child. As the beneficiary of the will is not a family member, as they'd ended up estranged from their only remaining family members left alive, I guess most of those photos will have been thrown away. I would have loved to have them.

I just keep going over it in my mind, and feel so hurt and sad. And it brings back all those feelings I thought I'd dealt with in therapy. And damn it, I can't speak to my therapist until after NY now. And there is no one in my real life who I can properly unload on. My DH is being sympathetic, but isn't the talking type. And my DD is not my therapist (I will not do that to her, as my mother did to me), so while she knows what's happened and why I am sad and is supportive, it wouldn't be right to be unloading on her.

Not sure what I want from writing this out really. Sorry it's so long. I guess catharsis, and knowing that others know how this kind of thing feels.

Well, I'm not looking forward to boxing day but mil will be here for 2 hours max work plenty of others to dilute her bigotry.
Other than that I plan to do and see whomever I choose 😊🎄

Today I was thinking about the toxic gifting which we used to have every year from my awful narc sister and BIL before I went NC. The unbelievable shit she used to wrap up for me and my family. Stuff that had obviously just been lying around her house that she didn't want. Or the year that she gave each of my kids a plastic beaker (they were teenagers).

I guess being forced to think about other people for a nano-second gives people like that the rage.

I am so glad I will never have to deal with any of that again.