May 2025 - 'We took you to STATELY HOMES' thread.

[Pleaseshutthefuckup]

Hope all ok with a new thread here. I've looked and can't find one anywhere past February.

Fwiw I would imagine the staff at care homes are used to families with difficult relationships. They will have seen it all before.

I think when I mirrored what she wanted/expected she was happier because it made her feel comfortable. When I don't mirror she doesn't know what to do with me and I think finds me quite difficult and maybe even unpleasant.

Fwiw I don't think my mother is a narcissist. Father 100% yes, textbook grandiose narc, and I would say to the extent of it being a full blown personality disorder (because he had a massive breakdown and ended up in a psychiatric unit). I still can't quite figure out the problem with my mother. My MIL (who was a psychiatric nurse) thinks some sort of other personality disorder, my therapist said possibly autistic spectrum.

A mess of issues all tangled up to form an inseparable ball of a person. I think you could spend a lifetime picking at the ball to get nowhere. I am like this, I want a nice tidy answer to appease my brain but it’s not coming.

@Happyfarm You've nailed it, really. It's the feeling that if I could just pin down exactly what the problem is, then I would know what I was dealing with and how to respond.

I suppose the bottom line is, everyone has good and bad qualities. We all make mistakes and have personality quirks and emotional responses that aren't the best. But it's whether the good parts outweigh the bad parts, isn't it? So with my mother, I know she was good at her job, she's generous to other people (although not to me), she's adventurous, in a lot of ways she's very brave. But she's not very nice to me or my children, can be very selfish and mean, has very fixed opinions, and if the opportunity arises, has a tendency to use people (me). I don't want to be in the role she wants to cast me in, and therefore our relationship doesn't work.

The relationship doesn’t work because she isn’t looking for a relationship in the conventional way a relationship works. No relationship will thrive in this world, one side is going to thrive and the other is going to shrink. I have come to this conclusion with my partners parents. In order for the “relationship” to exist I have to back down and submit my needs, submit to their entitlement, become someone entirely different in order to keep in their orbit. I can’t do this. We don’t do relationships the same way. I have a feeling my mum is autistic but still the same applies. One small drop of poison in the nicest wine ever will still make you sick.

Remember nobody has a relationship with a narc. They have a contract and will be dumped as soon as it’s broken.

@Happyfarm the role for me is that I'm supportive, offer practical help and emotional support, affirm her political opinions, participate in gossip, and step in when situations arise that she doesn't want to deal with.

In return, I get, erm, I'm not sure. A headache?

It’s only a role if we accept the position now that we know we have been assigned it. I do visit the in-laws now that I’ve detached from needing anything. She makes nice cake so I’ll eat that! I go with the let them theory now. Let them assign roles, think untrue things, talk, whatever. I’ll go and leave and carry on with being me. They are no longer people who I hold value to in terms of their opinion of me. I wanted this relationship, I’m not going to lie but alas it wasn’t to be. I’ve no real mum figure but I’ll live. The problem comes from wanting the relationship or needing the relationship so much that we sink into the role. We can’t stop them giving us roles.

I withdrew from my assigned role a long time ago and I'm very careful now not to be drawn back into it. The problem we've got is that when I do have contact, I'm anxious and on edge because I've got to watch everything I say and do to make sure I don't inadvertently get sucked back in, then when I won't play along she gets annoyed and disappointed. Really interesting to realise that I can't think of anything that's given to me in the relationship. I will be journaling that one for the rest of the week.

It’s not a relationship that’s why. Both sides grow in a relationship. It’s quite clever really. I remember my ex saying but look at everything you have because of me. None of it was mine, all I did was support him whilst he went and earned money and then he took it all away and I l was left with nothing. They fool you into thinking you have something but all you do is support them. When you look back you realise you haven’t grown, you have nothing.

Does anyone feel like they don’t seem to want what other people want because of the trauma? Others seem to want more, bigger house, fancy cars, expensive holidays etc. I just want somewhere a long way away from these people, less. A quiet place with nothing to need to understand, no complexities or noise. People are so hard to understand and they are very traumatising for my brain. I’m happy on my own or with extremely down to earth people. I look at social media of all the wild and varied things people do and all the money they spend and the things they have and just want none of it. Would I be different without the trauma? Has the trauma lifted me from the fog of society and back to the true self? Or am I talking nonsense. I find it so hard to congratulate people anymore on their possessions or their wealth. Society seems way out of my reach now, but I don’t want it anyway.

For weeks I have been telling my therapist that I'm just enjoying a quiet, peaceful life and solid sleep every night. I'm NC for almost a year now and the guilt has lessened and I can enjoy these things. My head has never been so quiet. I used to live in mental and emotional chaos. It's all gone.

I don't want a holiday or bigger things. I'm making my home nicer, more cosy, spend time with my cats, have a coffee. It's how I spend my holiday. When I first pulled back from my family I used to panic when people asked where I had been for my holiday, what did I do. I was ashamed that I no longer had a holiday in the way people would expect it. But I'm ready now to say I just enjoy an easy life and it's blissful. I like my home, where I live, my cats, my peace, the water. Nothing will ever feel better than being at peace within myself.

I have travelled. I have seen things. I have been to every but one continent. I never found what I searched for. But for the first time in my life I have now arrived home and can just live.

@Twatalert I want to move into a cottage, but I think I need to wait till the kids are older as they are settled. It’s not something I need to do but its on my wish list.

Oh for sure, I have no time for what the media or society thinks is a must have. As long as the car works I don't care. I only buy new clothes if the others are broken, it just doesn't enter my head.

@Happyfarm my social circle is tiny. I find other people exhausting. It's me, not them, I can accept that, because my people pleaser/codependent training is so strong, and I have to work really hard not to let it kick in. But at the same time, when you have been trained as a people pleaser, you're very vulnerable to narcs because you are the service human they have been looking for, so you have to be careful. I've got massive trust issues, too. I find it very hard to trust people. I like my own company. It's peaceful.

I used to want 'stuff', especially expensive stuff, but I know now it's because I've got very low self esteem and I thought that if I had it, it would finally mean that I was an OK person. Still got the low self esteem, but I know now that the stuff won't fix that because I would still be me, just with fancier clothes. That said, I also know that it's nice to have nice things. It's lovely having a nice house and a decent car. It's lovely to have a beautiful leather bag, pretty shoes, dinner in a restaurant. But I know those things don't make me better or worse than anyone else.

I should've said, I think a lot of my 'nice' things are things other people take for granted, like having a pair of new shoes if you need them, being able to buy a book etc

I think it's a measure of true and pure wealth to be content with what you have. I look as my grasping ex sister, a multimillionaire, who is eagle eyed in case someone swindles her and checked the price of every wedding present she received. She cried when she realised one present hadn't covered the guest's plate 🤣 what an impoverished soul. I feel really blessed and wealthy, I've got nowt, but all that I need.

I wonder if I’ve just reached “retirement” early as my life path has worn me out and life is traumatising as it’s too fast pace, I can’t keep up and no longer want to.

@Happyfarm Yes, I totally relate to what you are saying.
I don’t relate to stereotypical instagram people at all. I don’t use social media anyway - but the chasing money, possessions, beauty etc - none of it interests me in the slightest. It all seems very vacuous and pointless.
I wonder sometimes am I just too damaged and too hurt by life to care about those things, but at the same time I was never a things person even as a young child. I’ve always loved the sea, stars in the sky, animals and my new obsession - birds. I’ve always valued the little things.

I think people are generally more narcissistic now, I’m not saying there are more abusers, but there are more stereotypical narcissistic people - chasing money, beauty, power. And I think any narcissistic behaviour repels me now. So many people are like it now that I don’t really like people much anymore. I feel like I can’t relate to people much anymore. It’s like I’ve seen under the veil and can’t unsee it.

@VWSC3 I was always called an old soul. I think society is loosing its soul and it is very hard to connect to. I just seem to have stopped trying, you’ll find me in the garden!

I have some hope for young people, they seem to care about the environment and I think appear more connected to nature than the past couple of generations. But that could easily be confirmation bias.

Connection to the natural world is a life saver. You can always rely on there being some weather 🤠

It seems as we age we tend to spend more time outside, find joy in gardening and growing veg. We stop searching externally.

I've retired myself too, I've had a full (of shit) life 🤣

@Dogaredabomb Me too! I’m only 42 but I’m full to the brim of life’s shit!