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.

I’ve opened a folder in my brain for “when I am dead” then I will have plenty of time to worry about my mistakes lol.

I tend to think nothing is a mistake. And this is all part of it. For some reason some of us have a harder time than others in this set up.

( I say this feeling a bit of a prick knowing some kids are being blown to pieces in other parts of the world whilst I self reflect on MN 🤦).

I use this space to help process so I am sometimes coming out with unhelpful thoughts @Happyfarm happy. I'm thinking about myself really and should not have used the word we 😘.

I have a folder in there too called....' what the absolute fuck girl, come on ' 😆

We are too hard on ourselves. If I was speaking to my daughter I’d tell her to let it hurt then get up and carry on as this is just plain old life. We cry when we fall then we get up. We’ve just never had someone to help us get back up or teach us it’s ok to fall sometimes.

How fucking sad and how lucky are my 2 girls. I’ll love them unconditionally, whether they royally fuck up of not. They will never have to go through anything ever on their own. What a sad lonely little girl I was and many on here. 😢 I remember mopping up my first period, terrified, with no idea what was happening, miscarried alone. God memories are awful but mine will never go through that as long as I’m alive.

There is something about narcissistic mothers and periods. I hear it so often. I was surprised by it too and didn't tell my mother. She screamed and shouted at me when she found out. Really horrible. I had no guidance on period pain etc. I just endured it and figured out myself what was happening. But I endured it for many years before I did anything about it.

yes v much so. She talks a lot of sense and comes from the point of view of many years of debilitating fatigue and illness. All dismissed for many years by the medics. She references some of the books recommended here ( The body keeps thescore for example. ).
Honestly it is a v empowering and inspirational read ( funny too ) .

My mum wasn’t even a narc. The connection was just missing. I can’t really grasp why.

Agree, very very strange about periods. And bras! Very ODD being the daughter of a narc mother.

My mother did exactly the same as your mother - screamed at me and then threw a packet of sanitary towels at my head with a horrible look on her face like she wished they would hurt on impact. Didn’t show me how to use them, made me feel disgusting, never given any pain relief. Just had to navigate my way through myself.

I wonder why their daughters starting their periods trigger them this way?

I suppose it’s a very intimate experience and we don’t have the intimate safe relationship with them to have approached them. They don’t care, find it awkward who knows. It’s not about them it’s about us and that doesn’t go down well. If you look at it via their perspective you look needy and vulnerable and that implies you stupid and pathetic.

I had to take my mother to an appointment today. It took two and a half hours of my time. Had to pick her up, drop her back and wait around whilst
she was in the hospital . I really resented doing it .She was desperate to go for lunch or coffee afterwards despite it being mid afternoon but there was nowhere to park as all the parking is exorbitant. I didn’t want to go for lunch or coffee with her
as having to listen to her whilst in the car was bad enough. Everything she says enrages or upsets me . So I said I couldn’t do it and dropped her home. Now I feel so guilty. I haven’t spent any quality time with her in months. Last time I went to see her she was incredibly rude to OH.

I have enjoyed some excellent videos from Gabor Mate this week. He says choose guilt over resentment every single time.

Practice saying no I can't do that. The guilt will hurt you, harm you in significantly less ways than resentment. Resentment is the calling to stop.

Edit to add - I don't even think guilt hsrms you. It's forced on us and we are trained to feel it so it's not even an authentic emotion that we should own!

Shut up. Don't write to your ex. Have no involvement with your ex that you don't have to have. Women's aid told us to say "your child is fine, they're doing well at school and your next contact is at X time on Y date" and nothing else to exes, just that, on repeat, for every time they contact you regardless of what they say. Basically, don't give them a reaction or any ammunition to use against you.

To your son, just stick to the truth:
You didn't tell his father that he has X condition.
You don't think he has X condition.
Your son has been asking questions about it and mentioned it to you a few times, that's why you told the psychiatrist that you thought him, your son, was concerned about it.
You aren't concerned about X condition because you don't think he has it and you never did.

That way you're not saying his dad is lying. You don't know whether his dad is lying, which is likely he is, but you don't know for sure because you said yourself DS makes things up sometimes. So stay away from that accusation.

Basically don't concern yourself with what others think and just state what you think. Stop trying to work out what's going on. It doesn't matter what's going on. YOU aren't doing anything and if someone else is, that's out of your control, so don't think about it. Step back from it all. "Not my circus, not my monkeys". Just deal with your life, nobody else's. Your son thinks that you think he has X MH condition, you don't think that so you correct him, that's all. No need to make more of it.

The less you have to do with your ex the better. Then next time you get told "dad told me that you think XYZ". You can answer "how would your dad know what I think? I haven't spoken to him in 3yrs. Ignore anything he says about me, he knows nothing about me. I'm here if you ever need to ask anything". As he grows up he'll hopefully realise his dad lies.

Is my son going round saying ' my mum said I have X condition ' - is this a problem for me? Is he saying that in school. This is my worry.

No it isn't. What others think of you is none of your business. You can't control others thoughts or actions, including your son's. You're so caught up in others dramatics and you don't have to be, just step back.

I feel like an awful daughter for not having lunch with her, and resenting taking her to the appointment. She has never put herself out for me in my life. I just can't stand listening to her conversation, or her personality. Everything she says triggers me. She also doesn't appreciate the fact that I am putting myself out for her.

Amelia you don't owe her quality time. She's not your child. You choose to spend quality time with her if you want to. You don't want to, so don't. Also taxis, public transport and hospital patient transport exists, she can use that next time. Why are you giving up your time to do favours for someone who is rude to your OH?

@SamAndAnnie can you be my mum? 🤷😆

I love your replies. It always feels so right. And you're right. Thank you 🙏❤️💐

Good question. I have stepped back almost completely and haven’t seen her since she was so rude to him. On this occasion she was worried there would be bad news so I agreed. She has never apologised for being rude . She’s been very rude to me too in the past. I just can’t stand her to be honest.

I have never had an apology for appalling behaviour from mine. I have very kindly outlined my boundaries on certain things and need for space historically and it's as if you haven't even spoken. It really is like communicating with someone from another planet.

You wouldn't get an apology even if you directly asked for such.

Mum's like this will often create dramatic scenarios in order to engage you. For example, the need for you to be there because of terrible impending news.

If your husband was facing terrible news or a terrible situation, what would your mum say or do?

You owe her nothing. She's employing guilt to keep you engaged. It's not your emotion to take on.

Yes periods and bras I got the silent treatment for a day when I needed a bra because she just went out and bought me one , did not bother to measure me or take me with her and when it didn’t fit she got angry was mean and then ignored me . Periods were similar she got angry and said oh have your started then I suppose I had better buy you some things , only words on the subject. Very strange behaviour

@Pleaseshutthefuckup do you think that the ND in our kids makes it harder for them to really understand what’s happening. It’s very confusing even for adults but the delicacy of the narc might not register to our kids. My daughter is very self orientated and likes the gifts and doesn’t seem to register his behaviour, the fact that he and his gf argue all the time. When I say to her do you notice me and my partner never raise our voices she shrugs and couldn’t care less. As long as she gets what she wants from him that’s all that seems to matter, he’s very good at giving things.

I talked about it before, but my mother didn't handle it well either. There was just absolutely no support in dealing with it at all. When I was about 11, she got me to write to all the sanitary towel companies and ask for free samples which were put in a cupboard in my room. Then when my periods actually started, that was supposed to be my supply. It didn't last very long and I was too embarrassed and afraid to say I needed more so I took a few of hers and she screamed at me for taking them. I can actually remember her saying 'what happened to all the ones in your cupboard, you had more than enough.' And she still didn't effing start buying extra. I got screamed at for taking ibuprofen from the bathroom cabinet once and she never asked me what I'd taken them for, just said I was selfish and awful. I was too afraid to take them again. I struggled alone for two years, using toilet paper in my knickers, regularly missing school because the pain was so bad and the bleeding so heavy. I mean seriously, you don't have to be a rocket scientist when your young teen daughter misses school at the same time every month, to figure out what it might be, do you? It was actually the receptionist at school who phoned her up and told her to take me to the GP and start buying me sanitary towels. I still have so much anger and disbelief over it. Most of the time I feel I dislike but don't hate her, but when I think about that time, it is hate. I did the exact opposite for my DD. Huge piles of sanitary towels and period pants. Pain relief and prescription pain relief as soon as it was needed. Support with hygiene and laundry.

FWIW I don't think my mother is a narc, although my father 100% was. I think she's got dependent personality disorder. She takes caring from other people but doesn't know how to provide it, not really.

If you're an awful daughter, I am too, I haven't seen my mother once this year. But she's a terrible mother and grandmother. I'm the same as you, I can't stand her company, it just winds me up, as she veers between complaining, being mean about other people, and digging for personal information that I don't want to talk about.

I don't think it's the ND necessarily, although that doesn't help. It's the fact that she's a child. She's hardwired to lean into a relationship with him right now. When we're small, we trust our parents, we believe what they say, we do what we need to in order to stay on their good side, because we can't survive without them. And we don't really know anything outside of the family so whatever the family does is normal to us. Things will change as she gets older and more experienced. I tried so, so hard to do what my father wanted, to present the version of myself that he told me was acceptable, pretending to be happy about stuff I hated, hating myself for hating it, faking positive emotions, hiding negative ones, parroting his shit opinions to the world. I failed, obviously, because the game was rigged and I could never win it, but I didn't know that at the time.

You also have to think about how many adults can't spot this behaviour and don't realise they're being groomed by a narc until it's too late. Adults cannot understand this stuff, and it's even harder for children. There are so often threads posted by women in their thirties and older, describing weird behaviour by their parents, the misery they feel when they see them, asking if it's normal.

My daughter fakes absolutely when she is with him. So much so he doesn’t believe the ADHD.

She says she wants to make him happy. I wonder if it’s a thing where we need to make the least consistent one happy the most. She knows I love her consistently so she is her true ND self.