Narcissistic Mother - new flying monkey

[jennyjones198080]

My narcissistic mother has upped her game and I am at a loss on how to respond!

My mum’s tactic since I was a child was to tell me how amazing everyone else is - the unspoken implication being I don’t measure up. She would wax lyrical about how clever and successful and thin and beautiful everyone else was. I used to react by trying to get her to acknowledge my accomplishments- and I now see this is what she wanted, me trying to justify myself. So I have stopped.

for years I have heard about how amazingly accomplished her fiend’s daughter is. What she has achieved and just how unspeakably amazing she is.

yesterday I got an email from her offering me
advice on how I can retrain to her career. My mum told her how impressed I am by her success and how I would love to be just like her. She also offered to mentor me. I replied and thanked her for her kind offer, but explained I love my career and it’s going well so I am not contemplating a change.

she then replied saying she understands it’s daunting and I could be a class room assistant for a few years to build up my confidence before training to be a teacher. She spoke of the lifestyle I could enjoy and how life-changing it could be for me. She said I just need focus and direction- to be honest it was a bit patronising. If she looked me up on LinkedIn - or even just googled me - she would see that I am doing okay.

My mum wants me to have to explain to her that while my mum thinks I am in a dead end crappy job (and implies to everyone how embarrassed she is) - I am actually quite successful. The pay cut for me to become a teacher would be considerable - I wouldn’t be able to cover my mortgage and I have no interest at all in teaching. I have just achieved a big promotion in work that I have been working towards for twenty years. My mum won’t acknowledge this. But she must see my house, car and holidays and know i have a good salary (I am forty and single).

to be clear - I know teaching is a wonderful career for many people it just isn’t for me.

to those with narcissistic mums - any experience of this level of weirdness? Grey rock works with her when I visit - but she is now sending me flying monkeys and I can’t shoot them down😂

thank you everyone for the support and the advice. It’s shocking that this seems to be so common.

I have replied

’Thanks for this, but we seem to have a misunderstanding here. I am very happy with my career and am not contemplating a change.

All the best

Jen

if she replied again I will ignore

I wish there was support groups for those of us with mothers who behave so badly.
No advice, just a hug and solidarity ❤

Sounds perfect @jennyjones198080 🙂Hope that puts an end to it!

I have a mother just like yours. Word for word.
So much empathy to you.
It really sucks.

Well done on being so much better than she is and doing so well x

Have had the "oh, your Hedgesgalore are you?" followed by the condescending look.
I reply with "Yes, I'm the worst daughter in the world don'tcha know" evil tingling laugh.

This from health professionals who really should know better but get sucked into my mother's twisted lies on reality.

I call her out now, every single time. She tries to wind me up but I just change the subject and carry on.

She's in a care home now after caring for her for the last decade. Her illnesses have progressively got worse, added with her manipulation/emotional abuse, it was too much for me. Totally burnt out, I did keep her out of a home during covid because of everything happening and I'm still being careful shielding when it comes to illnesses. I visit very regularly to listen to her moaning. Yeah I'm the worse daughter there is.

@Hedgesgalore it is really painful - sounds like you have been through the wringer with your mum.

I have (nearly) given up trying to understand my mum. It’s just so terribly sad. I leave visits feeling upset and let down and guilty.

I don't think I'd be able to resist one of those 'flippant' replies that seems breezy but accidentally-on-purpose points out how thick your Mum is and how patronising her email was!

'Oh yes, Mum seems to think that because I don't use my degree that I'm not doing awfully well in life - you know how they can be! She doesn't really understand what I do, it is very technical, in fairness. In truth, I'm doing rather well in my chosen field. Honestly teaching would be terrible for me, I really don't want to work with kids (fair play to you, you must have a lot more patience than me!) and in truth it would mean a substantial pay cut from my current salary, which wouldn't be ideal as a home owner. Thanks for the offer though!'

Also, I'd be NCing your Mother. She really doesn't deserve the role if she needs to belittle you for her own pleasure.

I would reply with
”If I ever decide to decrease my pay and increase my stress I know exactly where to come for advice”
Thank you

I would avoid discussing your mother at all in your reply. She’ll get wind and it’ll be used against you / perpetuate the false narrative.

‘Cheers Sandra, my confidence it pretty good - no less because I was recently promoted to <Queen of My World>. Full of admiration for teachers but I love my job - it allows me lots of holidays like yours.

take care, OP’

You’re not belittling her but you are shutting her down and saying ‘I get paid enough to allow for fancy holidays’ without saying ‘I’m more dollared up than you’.

This is the kind of batshit nonsense my mother would do, along with other manipulative absurdities that she would later completely deny or try to laugh off as me overreacting.

I’ve been NC for over one blissful year, and I have to tell you OP it was the best decision I ever made. Sometimes I waver around special occasions or I have one or two rare memories of a good time with her, but I do still have occasional third party contact through a relative who unwittingly becomes her flying monkey and she has continued wherever possible to try to control and insult me through them. As a result, I am periodically reminded that I made the right choice.

The real value of NC is that you can choose not to emotionally involve yourself in their behaviour anymore, because you no longer seek a better relationship. I have taken time to mourn the relationship I wanted, and pretended I had, with my mother, and accept that she will NEVER change. Of course, she still tries to get to me or control me, but now I detach myself from feeling the implied judgement from her and I recognise her actions are 100% a reflection of her own insecurities. I play Narc bingo when she does these things, and I can laugh it off as the pathetic gesture it is- I really recommend it

So hurtful op. My mother can behave similar. Kinda goady behaviour. Families can be crap

This is really weird of your mother, because it actually makes more of a fool of the other person, giving unwanted advice. Is she actually trying to humiliate her as well? Perhaps your mother finds her rather full of herself. So killing 2 birds with one stone!

Without being too metoo...

Total empathy with the thing where a (for example) healthcare professional looks at you and says 'oh, so YOU'RE Chatelai...'

Then there's the whole sifting through a positive message to find the one small negative point then hyperfixating on it. 'Oh poor, you, you DID have a traumatic time' etc. Yes mother, I just tamed seventeen tigers in front of Winston Churchill's ghost and he applauded, but the fact that my train was late is what counts...

Bah and meh.

I've considered going NC...have tried to earlier in life, but keep getting guilted into resuming contact. Stay strong. We are more than the needs of our parents!

I really can’t fully understand my mother’s thought process.

she loves implying that I am a disappointment - as far as I am aware she keeps it very vague when talking about me. She then sits wide eyed listening to her friends talk about their ‘very successful’ children.

i don’t know if she got carried away in her fawning of this lady, and didn’t intend it to go to the email stage. Or it she set it all up deliberately.

I will never bring it up with my mum - and I don’t think she will bring it up with me. Because how could she explain it?

Your going to have to send a very blunt reply to this teacher woman including in it that your mother is a bit odd and that you earn loads more than a teacher does and you're not interested in taking a pay cut. She can think what she likes, one day your mother will reveal her true colours to her.

Don't even respond. If you receive emails/ texts like this, just delete them. No response at all as that's what she wants. If she says something whilst you're on the phone, be firm and strong and say I don't want to hear about this. If she carries on, end the phone call. She isn't going to change at all, you're the one with all the power here. Don't give her a voice

FWIW teaching is now a crap career

When she's dead you'll reflect how much drama she created in your life and how peaceful your life is and how much space you have to do your own stuff. In the meantime just work on not feeding her demon as best you can.

That sounds perfect OP. Sounds airy, breezy and simple. I was going to say not to go with anything which sounded arsey or suggested this had got under your skin, because no doubt your mum would ask her friends daughter if you had responded, and what you’d said. I’m sure she’d enjoy your reaction if you came across defensive and annoyed in your reply. You have my sympathy. My mum is a narcissist, and has lots of flying monkeys. I’ve stopped trying to shoot them down, as it got too stressful, but it’s still very draining when I see her. Im constantly between trying to win her approval, and just going low contact to remove myself from the drama.

Don't try to understand your mother's thought process that's on her. Everytime you respond to her you're feeding the beast . Mine was the same

Oh my husbands mother is the same way. As he's an only child she seems to have lumped me in with her narcissistic ways. Seems you have responded a great way.

You have my full sympathy, this relationship is so damaging, tiring and unnecessarily difficult.

Just email back and say yes I am sure it is amazing being a teacher and so lovely you have found what you wanted to do etc but I can't afford the pay cut even if I wanted to be a teachers and I'm sorry my mother has got the wrong end of the stick

E-Mail the unsuspecting helpful woman and tell her how mad your mother is. Why pretend she is normal to other people when she sets you up with stuff like this?
Tell the truth and let her humiliate herself rather than you.

Ain’t that the truth. My mother is very like the one described here. Always finds a way to cut me down, patronise me or humiliate me.