totally agree that making this thread private would be good and also a PSG that is private. Would really help people.
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totally agree that making this thread private would be good and also a PSG that is private. Would really help people.
I agree with the PSG idea. I too haven't posted much because I do feel guilty every time I share something, because at the back of my mind I have the doubt: Was this really how it was, or am I being oversensitive and overdramatic yet again? Every time I was upset about anything when I was growing up I was just told that it was my problem and I was an over sensitive drama queen, and to suck it up and shut up... :rolleyes:
I feel exactly the same way Starfish. I was told the same things so I blame myself for everything that happens all the time. I have a lot of guilt and spend a lot of time wondering if I am over reacting and over sensitive. Even in this thread I feel like a fraud. I have to remind myself that my experiences are valid but I feel like I am reading other people's threads with *real* issues and I am making mountains out of mole hills.
There is so much more I would say if we had a PSG.
I have been reading from the sidelines and am too worried about posting too much etc in here. A PSG would be wonderful.
JustMe I honestly cannot thank you enough, all your words and experiences while mine don't always seem as bad I can relate SOOOO much to things you write. Thank you for sharing, I was really beginning to wonder if I really had "issues" like my father and mother seem to think I do and since reading yours and everyone elses stories I have realised that yes I have issues but not in the way they expect. Coming to terms with a life of torture and abuse is a pretty big thing but clarity is a powerful healer.
I hope the mods make this a PSG it really is needed!!
I certainly have pulled back with the posting in here because it seems to be getting a lot of traffic and I feel a little uncomfortable having some of this being so widely read and searchable.
Perhaps once a PSG is made (another vote for that btw) then the mods can move this thread there?
Treatment, Keike? That means they'd have to admit there was something about themselves that needed changing. As I said to my sister, to make our mother see there is a problem would mean completely destroying her mentally and she may never recover. Not worth it.
But there are ways you can look at it. Humour helps. Knowing that the brain isn't working correctly you can laugh at the things said and done just to hurt you, even if the intent to hurt is never acknowledged. It is hard and I wish I'd been able to do this in the past with some very hurtful things (I'm sure you remember some of them) but I can now laugh. Most of the time. Even about house issues, iykwim. Doesn't mean I trust my mother - heaven forbid! - but it does mean it doesn't sting so much.
Very true :) I was hoping for some magic pill that her husband can crush into her orange juice or something.
And my dad has just texted to remove some joy in my life. Thankfully I have been able to text back with "you're wrong" and it's because of something he and my mother did a few years ago! Huzzah! Double bonus. Even happier now.
Keike - Wouldn't that be fantastic! A magic pill! Or perhaps some kind of annual injection like a flu shot even...hmmm anybody know anyone in the field of experimental biomedical science?
TFB - Yay for the little wins! Humour is a great way to deal with it if you can - its how I deal with DH's work being f-wits all the time.
agghh, need to vent realy realy sorry if this dosent fall under this categry or not, not sure anymore...
was planing on going shopping with df and 3 of the kids today while ds2 was at daycare.. mum starts making plans on the phone lastnight, coming over and us going shopping, i tell her our plans (we havent had the chance to do a "big" shop together since A was born) no matter what i said she was coming over, apparently we cant shop with our kids, we need her to watch them for us so we can, blah blah.. i ended up saying i needed some "down time" and was going alone, DF recived a call from his dad thismorning yelling and carrying on that DF needs to take the kids over to his place so i can have a break, blah blah, (yup mum had called) and basicaly the kids all had to go with df to fil's so mum could take me shopping and for some "me time"
also had a message (from mum) "ur entitled 2 ***** u have ur hands full& not much help i should help more im not much of a mother.."
why are we so incompetent we cant even do something simple?
why dose what we want as a family not matter?
oh thats right even tho we are adults and have our own family, were still just kids obviously we know bugger all and have no idea.
I bet she won't talk to you when you do go shopping, Lashes, as you didn't write back saying no, she's a wonderful mother, how did she do it without the help of someone as wonderful as her... (vomits).
My mother gets upset that Liebs loves going shopping with me and is pretty well-behaved. Excellently behaved for a 4yo boy. But, of course, she had two and it was so much more difficult for her... I told her I was over hearing that: having two children close together in age was her choice and she got to enjoy it. She can't complain about how dreadful her children were to me any more: she knows I will go no contact again if she does that.
Going to my mum's tomorrow for a few days. Really wish that PSG was up and running!
I've had a few more lightbulb moments. Would love to share, but won't in this forum. Sorry :(
Mayaness I'm going to mum's today as well for a while, unfortunately it's the only option to get away from DH for a bit!
Ahhh, I will be thinking of you!
It's going to be weird - I've been on that DONM forum and it's really agitated memories and thoughts. I'm considering sending the link to the main site to my sister.
It's going to be like changing lenses and seeing her differently!
Been thinking of you, Mayaness and tms. Let me know if you made it through the stay OK!
I have been meaning to post! The weekend with my mum was really good! Knowing what I do now I can see when to pull back and know that I'm pushing the proverbial up a steep incline...just to avoid the quagmire that usually follows. It was very liberating to know she wasn't picking on me or deliberately taking a swipe at me. My dad's another story - he's not a narcissist, he's got depression, and lost his plot when I insisted on pruning the trees in their beautiful garden that needed it. He went on about how I didn't know the theory behind pruning and shouldn't be touching the trees yaddiyaddah. So, he withdrew into his shell, bringing on a bout of "this is why..." from my mum, but I knew it wasn't about me, and not even really about him (or else she'd have noticed him spiralling). There's more relevant detail to the weekend but I won't go into it until there's a PSG.
So, having gone to the DONM site and looked around their forum, I was a bit nervous driving up about what I would do with this epiphany, but it was really, really useful and we can probably have one of those better-functioning relationships.
My questions now relate to how I guide the kids through these waters. DS had some questions that I semi-addressed and then changed the subject for. A bit too young at 5yo to explain about NPD! And I did my best to describe depression for him, to explain why his grandfather had gone all silent on us. My dad's depression and predisposition to depression have definitely enabled my mum over the years.
Would love to know how the PSG discussions go!
TMS - please report :)
Getting very frustrated, my mil has passed away in tragic circumstances and now my mother is calling in hassling me everyday for details.
:hug: black_rose. What is it with NPD suffers and the details? My mother was the same. I know many of us want to know details, but they just seem to push the need to know further than anyone else and take any lack of detail personally.
Without details, how can you make it all about yourself? Without details, how can you show how much support you are giving whilst telling everyone else all about it and being centre of attention?
Mayaness, knowledge is an amazing thing. I'm really pleased it is helping you. With my DS, I am brutally honest. Why aren't we going to Nanna's house today? Nanna has decided spending the day with her friends down the road is more important so we are not to visit her until tomorrow. Plus then she can cry about us not spending a whole week with her, only part of one. I am too sick of her behaviour to sugarcoat it. (I'm also upset she's not talking to me at the moment: ... But why ignore me, all the same?)
I thought she was being ok, even dh commented but then she knew we were talking to the police and she sends me a text asking me to call her ASAP. She wants to keep going over every detail and is trying to make out how close she and mil were when they weren't. It's driving her crazy as she has broken her ankle and should be getting the attention but she isnt.
Subscribing for my DHs sake.
His mother has NPD caused by being a victim of Münchhausens by proxy
Cannot go into to many details UNTIL a PSG is made, but I wanted to touch base and let you all know I am still reading from the sidelines ... well actually anytime there is an update in my inbox I read that.
Dh had an interesting situation yesterday, which has further embedded this whole NPD in my mother. He was at a Funeral for a close friend of the Family, after DD behaviour last week at a different funeral we made the decision for me to stay home with DD so she could run around and make as much noise without being told to SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH or taken outside in the freezing raining weather.
Mother was down for the funeral as the lady who passed away was a client of hers. After the service bit before family went off to bury her, Mother went up to DH and started to say " I am sorry for causing tension " ............ (again not sorry for what I did)
DH cut her off mid sentence and said "OK, this is not the time to be discussing this" and moved away.
I had previously shown DH him the DONM website and he saw and could understand the relationship we have and why it will never get better.
There are a lot more details, but not mentioning them in an open section.
Nae x x
my dad told me yesterday my mum hates me and shes deleted me off fb. x
Ah, Footsteps, I'm so sorry :hug: 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.
:hug: footsteps.
can we get a psg fasttracked?? id like to let something out and get opinions on it, but cant just here..
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!!!!!!!
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
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)...:rolleyes:
I hope you get the space you need next week :hug:
JaCaMa - wow that really sucks. :hug:
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 :rolleyes:, 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
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 :hug:
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 ...
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
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.
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"!
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. :hug: 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...
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.
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 :grouphug: 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".
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.
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?
:hug: 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).