Explaining narc mother to other people

[Skeena77]

Hi there,

Here is a question for everyone who has a narcissistic/ abusive mother. I have hardly any contact with her and my father is dead. My daughters don’t either as she said she didn’t want any contact with them (but then she went and told everyone that I wouldn’t let her see her granddaughters). I’m more or less feeling okay with low contact (obs I don’t feel okay with never having had a real mother, but having little contact with her is the best solution imo).

Question: what do you say to people who ask about your mum / family. Like, „are you visiting your mum for Christmas?“ etc. I’ve just started a new job in a new city and this kind of small talk happens all the time and I don’t have a good reply. I don’t want to open up to colleagues and strangers too much but I also don’t want to appear rude.

thank you other mummies for helping!

Genuine narcs tend to avoid diagnosis like the plague. They’re supremely talented at making everyone close to them feel like it’s their fault or they’re the crazy ones anyway. It’s only once they’ve escaped and encounter “normal” people that they realise that it isn’t them. Narcs believe that they are the superior beings on this planet. Why would they seek help?

People who haven’t grown up with a narc parent will tend to minimize anything they hear about life with that parent, ie, “Oh, she really meant this…”, “Oh, you must be exaggerating… No mother would ever say/do that!” but they have no comprehension that GENUINE narcs are incapable of loving their children as separate beings. They are simply a reflection of them and how they feel about their kids depends on how they feel in that moment.

Mine used me to process her own fucked up self esteem (her mother was just as bad) and powerlessness… She hacked into my hair with scissors right at the scalp, the night before my first school photos, dragging me in to the teacher the next day by my upper arm theatrically telling her that I had “Typically” done this just before the photos to “spoil everything for her”, and “Why do kids do this???” but by then I had already been trained to assume nobody would believe me if I spoke up. Another year, she shaved off my eyebrows. NOBODY BELIEVES CHILDREN OF NARCS when they talk of the little abuses and humiliations so they don’t speak up about the big ones either. Even when they have ten broken arms before they are nine years old - they are written off as a klutz. This is the power of a narc parent:

This breaks my heart my mother use to make fun of me i thought it was normal. She also was and is loved by all that noone believed me. It is a pain like no other

I’m so sorry that she did that to you and probably also many other terrible things you don’t have the energy to write about. She is and was a horrible person and you had the worst luck to get her as a mum.

I remember mine outright lying to my dad about what I had done or not done so my dad would then punish me for things I’d never done. He never asked if what she was saying was true. I felt incredibly meek to say, „Dad, she’s lying“ … but he wouldn’t have believed me anyway.

oh yes, my mother is happiest when I’m suffering.her go to is laughing at me and poking fun in those moments. It took me a long time to realise that wasn’t normal for mothers.

Exactly this, work colleagues do not care. In fact I’d never ask a colleague I didn’t know quite well what they were doing as they may not celebrate it. I may say have you got much time off over Christmas then they will usually offer a comfortable reply.

And I forgot to say that I’m so sorry for your pain. It’s awful mother cards you were dealt but you are doing so well.

@Skeena77 Mine’s dead now and tbh, she did not mellow when she was dying (it was a very long, drawn out process)… I would say it was the best time of her life. She had looooots of attention. She became even more hostile and nasty. I was nursing her and the only gratifying thing was that she lost her filter at the end and other people got to see and hear how she REALLY was around me. (Spitting, biting, saying really hurtful things…) For a long time after her death I was really, really traumatised and needed a lot of counselling. I regret every second spent with her and taken from my kids. Funny story:- on the way to the funeral, my lovely DH pulled over and asked if there was anything he could do to make the day go better for me. I asked if he knew of anywhere on the way we could stop off and buy some wooden stakes and holy water. (It kept us going all day.)

Yes on not being believed. Even as an adult I still hear people blindly convinced that nobody loves you more than your mother, your mother always wants the best for you, a mother's love is the purest and strongest...
I too had the 'she won't be around forever', 'nothing is worth cutting contact over' and 'but she is your mother' with a horrified poignant look..

Some people didn't believe me when I went through that phase of spilling my guts and oversharing (so not wise) and it was retraumatising in a way. Some people take parents side always or consider cutting contact as too cruel no matter what. There is usually a religious or cultural element in their minds as well so that adds to their reaction. They can seem like normal, nice, understanding people that you can open up to but it's surprising who ends up being understanding or not of no contact with mum so best to stay vague and not expect support or understanding of others even if they seem like nice, warm people.

First of all, I’m so sorry that your mother was so terrible. She was a horrible mother. I can’t understand how a mother could ever scream at their own child like that. You never deserved any of that.

You are really wise to end on a positive and send them on their merry egg nog way. For me personally, I think I want something shorter to not open up as much. You are braver i think.

Honestly it's just usually small talk when people ask these things, so I would just give a generic answer like "yes we'll see my mum on Boxing Day" or just lie "oh my mum's going on a cruise with my auntie, we'll see her in the new year".

I have a raging narc DM so I understand, it makes you question everything about yourself, hypervigiliant and anxious about yourself all the time over the tiniest the things. You've probably gotten used to having explain yourself and justify your existence to yourself and your narc DM, not consciously so but because you've been raised to KNOW that you can never do anything right. Once you start to realise your whole life and whole childhood was mired by this craziness, you can start to let go of it all.

Full solidarity to all the daughters of narc DMs.

I’m so sorry about the terrible things that happened to you. 😥I just don’t want to give them that information about me though because some people can use it as ammunition against you later. Like oh no she’s not really able to go for that promotion because she’s unstable or something like that. I just don’t want to let people in to my own personal pain just because they ask an innocuous question. I’ll let people in when it’s me who’s ready. I have spent a lifetime protecting myself so I won’t stop now.

I‘m so sorry for you. It is terrible when your own mother sets out to destroy you. But I agree, this is exactly what narcissistic mothers want for their scapegoat child. It’s part of the reason why I moved away - so I can protect myself and my family, but my life allowed me to do that but I understand that’s not possible for everyone.

I completely agree with you that people should learn not to ask these kinds of questions. But the reason I don’t want to answer this way is because I want to protect myself in a new place in a new job. Maybe when I’ve been here for longer I will open up more…

Thank you

Oh my... the sheer ignorance 🤣🙏

So awful when you are not believed. And then you try to convince because otherwise it’s YOU who is the awful person- even after all you’ve been through. No child actually WANTS NC with their mother. It’s a last resort to protect yourself.

Why do you need to know these things? They're irrelevant to the OP's question.

I think if somebody asks you if you're going to your mum's for Christmas, they're actually not asking about your mum; they're asking about you. I would deflect and talk about your plans, not mentioning your mum again.

Thanks. This is what I say to friends I don’t want to open up with. If it was a colleague or an acquaintance I would say far less and agree that this is best. Xx

Say she has gotten into the habit of going on cruises at Christmas, she loves them.

Usually for at least a fortnight and unfortunately you guys can't afford that long off work/afford them financially.

You'll see her when she gets back blah blah.

That's not why the op posted. She has a specific query re explaining to people asking if she is spending xmas with her mother.

I think some white lies are perfectly ok in this scenario.

The vast majority of people who do not have personality disordered/mentally ill parents just cannot conceive of parents like them. They are therefore anything from clueless & unhelpful to judgemental/offensive.

There is simply no point in trying to explain to them.

And ateotd, it's generally just politeness/a feeling of social "duty" that they're asking due to. It's just small talk. And if you introduce something unexpected and uncomfortable (like, my parent is a batshit, fairly evil c*#& ....they're just going to be uncomfortable and not know what to say. And u fairly judge you because your family or origin setup isn't "normal". What's the point.

White lies all the way.

I think key here is that describing people as narcissists has only become widespread relatively recently and probs not something people are officially diagnosed with very widely.

Thanks for the thread OP.
I take these type of questions as meaning 'We're all going to have a jolly good time at Christmas, aren't we?', rather than 'What are your specific plans with your mother this year?' People really don't care and won't think about it as long as the answer sounds about right. I just either say'"Ye-es! And you?" in a light, 'of course' tone, or ' No not this year, it's my DB's year'.
It's bad enough to live through it without having to talk about it with strangers.
Also, in my experience most people have no idea and take a dim view. It's both too personal and too potentially damaging to let it enter the workplace.

@RosesAndCake Sometimes it feels like you want to grab people by the shoulders and shout “Stop drinking the Coolaid!!! Not everyone gets Hallmark Parents! Don’t you read the news???” Other times you realise that they don’t want to hear it because it’s too painful for them to accept that it’s true and it happened to you.