Children of Narcissistic Parents

[Smoke Jaguar]

Ah, Footsteps, I'm so sorry As much of a relief that it can pose, it's also a kick in the guts
Nae - Was it that big funeral in town in the arvo? What a crowd - you NM would have had a spectacular audience!
Would like to discuss further this crap with my dad and my mum but feel really constrained by privacy issues. I've discussed it before in the Family Crisis PSG, but now that I know I'm a DONM it would be good to elaborate with people 'who know'! That's been a problem before when venting about my mum - non-DONM's have no idea (and so they shouldn't! I'm glad!) and I end up feeling like a drama queen who's blown things out of proportion Esp because I still have a relationship with her that functions well a lot of the time.

[~Lashes~]

footsteps.

can we get a psg fasttracked?? id like to let something out and get opinions on it, but cant just here..

[toomanyshoes]

Talk about the longest 5 days of my life. All compounded because I was sick and fighting with DH!

But the classic line for the week is driving to the Dr to pick up my test results, asked mum what it would mean if my cholesterol was high and I was hit with these pearls of wisdom "Just mean's you'll have to stop eating chocolate, butter and all that"....this from the woman who soloed a DOUBLE family block of milk chocolate in 2 days! Cholesterol was fine

I'm really starting to wonder if she confuses herself with me? Call me crazy, but she always goes on about me not eating this and me not eating that yet I don't eat it or hardly do, she's the one ordering take away and eating out more often than not and her house is always FILLED with chocolate/lollies/snacks.

She stuffed the kids full of food the entire time we were there, all day long then of course yells at them when they won't eat dinner! I told you they didn't need anymore fruit/lollies/milk/food!!!!!!!

[JaCaMaDy]

There is so much written here, that sounds just like my mum. I was subjected to her influences until i was 32, and met my DF & he opened my eyes for the 1st time. I can thank some lovely BB ladies for pointing me in the direction of the DONM site when I posted a while ago about my mum. I never even had a clue there were others like my mum before. Gosh, I could write for days, about the things my mum says & does, from taking all the credit when I achieve anything, to ignoring her baby granddaughter because she doesn't like my DF (because he see's right through her, and doesn't put up with her behaviours) At the moment I have been getting some relief from her because my little sister is pregnant with her 1st bubba, and there is a new opportunity for mum to take control. In everyone but my DF's eyes, I am the bad, evil daughter that hurts my mum all the time, because I disagree or pull her up on things. We have very limited contact with her as the emotional drainage of being around her, takes ages to recover from.
Our current issue is that it is the 2nd anniversary of my son passing away next week, and mum is not coping, because it's SO hard for HER, yep don't bother worrying about me, I just carried, birthed & nurtured him before he was ripped away from me. She has NEVER asked how I am or feel, ever, always about her loss Anyway that just one thing on a list of many...

xo

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Smoke Jaguar]

Oh, no You really don't need to be dealing with her grief! It's so typical! When my DS was born all my mum could whinge about was "No one cares about my point of view!"...and she was right...nobody did - they only saw that she didn't see or talk to me for 10 days because she was cut out of the limelight and found out about the birth when everyone else did (for reasons of her own creation, but that's shrouded in lies and mystery, too)...
I hope you get the space you need next week

[Astrid]

JaCaMa - wow that really sucks.

Was reading an article in one of those trash mags (Woman's Day, New Idea etc). It was about a mother shunned by her son, some cricketer. She was not invited to his wedding and was not told about. Oh the drama , just made me want to write into the magazine and tell them off for playing into the games of a NPD mother. Many years ago I would have felt for her (like many others do), but since I learnt about NPD about the time of my own wedding, I now look at those articles quite differently.

Thinking about it, I wonder how many articles like that, especially the ones in That's Life, are feeding the "what about me" need of those suffering with NPD

[Just Me]

JaCaMa- That is really awful. I'm so sorry. Hopefully having a name for what is going on with your mum, helps in some way

Astrid - It seems to be in the media a lot and we never recognise it. I found this article when I started searching for information about cutting off parents.

TODAYMoms - What happens when children cut off their parents? I find it amazing how obviously narcissistic she is, but they are running her story and further tormenting her DD. If she really cared about her DD, she wouldn't take the story on national TV. I think the 'I have no idea why' is pretty indicative ... and the pyschologist is enabling her.

It kind of led me to make other observations of society. To me it seems that there are a lot of baby boomers that seem incredibly narcissistic. They are the ones constantly pointing the finger at the younger generations saying that young people today are narcissistic, selfish and egocentric - and they have done something wrong in raising them. But you know, it was the baby boomers who lived through the sexual revolution, who indulged themselves (not that I am saying the revolution was bad - I think we needed it) but they were by far more rebellious and doing whatever they wanted than most young people now. They are also the one living in the 'spending the kids inheritance' retirement now. They keep doing news stories on it and honestly, I don't think anyone cares that they are spending their kids' inheritance but they are delluding themselves that their kids care and bragging about it trying to upset everyone. All this despite the fact that most of what they have was inherited from their own parents - they believe their parents should provide for them and their children should provide for them.

I think there is a reason why so many people in our age group have parents that they suspect have NPD and for all these years, baby boomer psychologists have been telling us there is something wrong with us because we are *selfish* enough not to want a relationship with our own parents.

Maybe it is some sort of attachment disorder from being post war babies that is causing the issues? Who knows ... but interesting to think about anyway ...

[NaeNae]

Hey everyone,

Just stopping by to say I have joined the other forum and have posted the whole "recent episode" story on there. I just cannot bring myself to posting everything in here, particularly the email conversations, without this being a PSG I just cannot .... Here is the link unsure if it will take you to my story but here you go



Nae x

[Astrid]

My mum was bron in 1935. Brought up with the whole "what will people think" mantra. So decisions were not made on what was best for the family or individual, but based on what others would think.

The time I really began to twig that my mother was NQR was after I had been given a lift home by the Police. I had given a statement about an assault I had witnessed and they had asked me how I was getting home as it was getting dark. I told them I was going to catch the bus, so they decided to give me a lift home. Mum was horrified, what would people think?! So being the dramatic teen I was I just said to her "Well, would you rather me abducted and raped, than get home safely?". My mother replied "yes". The shame of "someone" thinking her daughter was a criminal was worse than her own daughter being hurt. Thinking about it, me being abducted and raped would have helped feed her NPD, should could have run around getting sympathy on the back of my pain.

[Smoke Jaguar]

When you think about it, in the late 40s and 50s mums were being led up the garden path with false ideas of liberation, including liberation from their children - breastfeeding rates took a huge blow and a LOT of this crap about sleeping separately, religiously using prams, not tending to a crying baby, stretching out feeds (breast or substitute) all happened in this era. Our parents are a product of this great interruption in otherwise more instinctive parenting that was going on.
So, what was parading as 'liberation' was actually creating more work for mums (bottle washing, nappy washing, regimes and schedules etc) and toying with the brain development (the neural pathways that close physical contact with babies create, as with other mammals) of a whole generation of people who then repeated these parenting styles.
That's my theory, in part. Where that isn't the case, I reckon I can attribute childhood and/or adolescent trauma that goes unvalidated and unresolved to NPD.
Nae - read your entry in DONM, and I hope you've had a chance to read through the other stories on there. We're not crazy! It just sounds crazy to those lucky enough not to have experienced NPD close up. I feel crazy after posting about my mum in the F&RC PSG. Even the NZ episode I felt like maybe I was the crazy one. And that was Crazy Town stuff. There's a reason I kept that private!
Astrid, that's just eyerolling stuff! And yes, when I read those mother sob stories the first thing I think of is "well, this is YOUR angle...you MUST have done SOMETHING, lady"!

[Starfish]

Maybe it is some sort of attachment disorder from being post war babies that is causing the issues? Who knows ... but interesting to think about anyway ...

I think that this is a good point. My dad was born right after WW2 and I know that my grandmother was very very religious and strict. Also, from what I heard, she had a severe case of Gender Disappointment when my dad was born as she already had a son and really, really really wanted a girl (when my eldest cousin was born my grandmother refused to call her by her given name but instead called her by the name she had wanted to name my dad had he been a girl). I think it must have been hard for my dad growing up knowing that he was a disappointment just for being a boy, so that's probably where his issues stem from...

NaeNae - I'd love to read your story, but as I am a DONF not a DONM, I don't feel right joining that forum...

I am going to San Francisco to my brother's wedding on Monday. For the best part of a week DD and I will be living in a motel room with my parents. I hope my dad will be busy enough with my brother not to pick on me too much. I used to be able to handle it, but when he starts on DD ("I don't like her, but it's not her fault she's so horrible - it's all her mother's fault"), I just lose it...

ETA - Astrid - that is just awful. My dad says similar things to me. He doesn't like the work I do and has previously said that he would prefer me to have a "real" job that I hate rather than me being happy, because my current job has no status...

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

My mum's little brother (a spiteful, nasty, world-owes-me sort of narc) was born in the 70s, so it isn't just the baby boomers.

Astrid, my mother was the same when police brought me home. Her comfort was that they'd been at the school in a plain car and not in uniform, so people may not realise. Never dared tell her that I had my interview in the head of year office - obviously that would be me being in scholastic trouble, something to which I was not to admit in case the school (a) cared or (b) wanted to find out why.

[Smoke Jaguar]

Oh, Starfish, that's why I was lobbying for a private thread here for CONP (parents), because the other forum really is specific to daughters of narc mothers, and, clearly, there are members needing to talk about palpable personal experiences that fall outside of this criteria.
Having a situation currently that I can't talk about here.
That Today link is amazing - I had to literally LOL at some of the responses. Mainly applauding the brave ones who outed the narcs for what they are, and typically those narcs in complete denial with their giveaway reactions. Like the one who then claimed she didn't have children who were estranged and she was doing research? Come on, us CONP are used to that kind of bluffing bullcrap that unsuspecting people always fall for and are wowed by...seeing right through it, lady!
Risking privacy issues here, but launching into it anyway: My mum used to see a counsellor when she was a student and she even admitted to me, in a roundabout way, that she never got round to talking about any real issues because he was so impressed with her life story (and there are some really awful and tragic elements that she pulled through) that she felt the need to maintain the drama and entertain him. When she got bored of being the storyteller she just stopped going to him. She did the same with her probation-period supervisor. She maintained the veneer and steered well clear of any current issues (like, "how come my daughter and I fight so much and why can't I give her some freedom and stop criticising her?") by giving them what they wanted - the novelty of having such an interesting client. My sister and I have always been embarrassed by how she'll embellish the truth and unnecessarily lie and bluff her way through situations, and then, when we were a bit older, we realised that other people were actually sucked into the stories - they BELIEVED my mum! And we would just shrivel up and hate ourselves for feeling compelled by 'loyalty' to go along with the friggin stories. The amount of times I had to submit to being blamed for all sorts of things so that she would appear to be the blameless one, and woe betide me if I contradicted her story, no matter how unwittingly, and no matter how unnecessary the lie, because of unnecessary face-saving.
And for all her born-again Christianness and telling me how ANY lie is punishable by God so I'd better tell her the truth about everything...she'd come out with lie after lie after lie...even to my sister and I. We let her get away with it after a while, realising that she'd convinced herself of her new truth and life was easier if we just went along with it. Then she'd pray out loud and ask God to forgive her for lies. So, excuse me if I don't want her talking any more to my kids about 'the Lord' and 'right and wrong' - I'd rather they grow up to be little heathens, than confused and shamed.
Probably the saving grace for my sister and I was that we grew up with no other relatives this side of the Southern Hemisphere. It was just us two, and for some reason, the Golden Child/Scapegoat dynamic that DONM site talks about didn't go to full effect of polarising us. I definitely copped it worse, but my NM would sometimes try to switch the roles, not to much avail.
Anyway, it IS clear to me, FWIW, that we need some kind of private area, and it's a shame that some of us really need to join this other forum to get it out and nut it out with people who 'know' and that others of us can't join that one.
Last check there was still no sticky in the F&RC PSG, so there's still that scepticism of our claims to 'special treatment'.
I do want to offer a to all of us who nod and think "oh, thank goodness, it's not just me! Oh, wait, that means someone else has grown up with a shell of a mother/daughter relationship...crap".

[Astrid]

I think being a DONM that I need to be careful not to blame everything on her, in a way, to me it makes me like her. Nothing is their fault, therefore if I blame everything on her, then I am her. Yes, she has had a huge influence on my life, even now after her death.

It is amazing all the hints through my life that pointed at her though. My elder sister was desperate for me to move interstate with her, but I wouldn't as mum always told me "you have ruined your sister's life enough as it is". Many years later we spoke about it and I told her that she should have booked the tickets and just grabbed me (I was 16 at the time). When I was a depressed, suicidal 18yo and seeking therapy, they would always focus on my mother. It would get me angry, I could not work it out, I was looking at everything around, but not her. I knew my mum was a problem to an extant, but it was not until the lead up to my wedding, the subsequent fall out, then finally meeting DH's Aunt who told me about NPD and that she thought my mother suffered from it (DH's grandmother did), then it all began to sink in.

NPD is a hard thing to spot, but once you know about it, you can see it in many more places.

[Smoke Jaguar]

Oh, yeah, for sure - blaming a NM for things is counterproductive! It would be too easy to say "oh, that's why I did this and that". That buck stops here. Too many times she told me that I was the cause of her breakdown when I was 4yo...so I don't give her too much credit for how I am today!
I can definitely see NPD in mothers of the friends who DIDN'T go away from me...which saddens me, because I want to send them the link to say "see? it wasn't YOU", but what if they're not ready for it?

[Astrid]

Mayaness - you got that breakdown stuff as well? Mum pulled that one out a lot when I was about 12. As if at either 4 or 12, any child has control over their parent having a breakdown. Yes, someone may not be coping with their responsibilities in life, but that does not make it the fault of the child.

I can see it NPD in my ex-SIL (eldest bro's). He was badly affected by our mother and sadly, in his effort to get away from her and on with his life, he married a narcissist. I had just seen her as spoilt, selfish and mean, but now after it all my brother admits he married his mother. I should have picked it sooner. I could never work out why mum was always funny around her, always eager to please and not upset her. Essentially we had to miserable to keep her happy, but she was never happy. Mum claimed she did not want to ruin things for my brother, but I suspect is was more to do with how she reacted to a fellow narcissist. Maybe she thought ex-sil would "out" her? Thankfully though my brother sees it and is able to protect his children from it the best he can (and by the sounds of it they see their mother for what she is).

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

... We all have our own choices and abusing your own child that much is never excusable, and certainly not by blaming the other child for it!

Mayaness, I found out ... I wasn't ready, it opened a huge can of worms: but I'm happier now than I ever have been and it has been by learning that everything bad in the world is not my fault, that my mother really did do bad stuff and I'm not oversensitive. I would share, but be aware of the fallout it can cause.

Interesting viewpoint, Astrid - I have often wondered about the relationship my mother has with her little brother. By propping each other up and not wanting the other to "out" them... it makes sense. Thanks for sharing.

[young_mumma87]

sending hugs to everyone after reading up on this i have discovered that im pretty sure my ex has ths disorder i feel a little better about what he put me through xoxox