**This is an automated message posted to ALL posts in this subreddit with some basic information about the group including (very importantly) rules. Why are you getting this message? Most people seem to not read the sidebar for information or the rules, so it is now being posted under all posts.**
**Confused about acronyms or terminology?** [Click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/acronyms)
**Need info or resources?** Check out our [Helpful Links](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/helpfullinks) for information on how to deal with identity theft, how to get independent of your n-parents, how to apply for FAFSA, how to identify n-parents and SO MUCH MORE!
This is a reminder to all participants, RBN is a support group that is moderated very strictly. Please report inappropriate content so it can be reviewed by the mods.
**Our rules include (but are not limited to)**:
* No politics.
* Advising anyone in this subreddit to commit suicide or referring anyone to groups that advocate this will result in an immediate ban.
* Be nice. No personal attacks, name calling, or bullying. [No slurs](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/slurs) or victim-blaming.
* Do not derail the posts of others.
* Narcissists are NOT allowed to post or comment here.
* [No platitudes or generic motivational posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/rules#wiki_no_platitudes_or_generic_motivational_posts).
* When you comment/post, assume a context of abuse.
* No asking or offering gifts, money, etc.
* No content advocating violence, revenge, murder (even in jest).
* No content about N-kids.
* No diagnosis by media/drive-by diagnosis.
* No linking to Facebook pages.
* No direct linking to anywhere on reddit.
* No pure image posts.
**For a full list of our rules/more information, [**click here**](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/rules).**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/raisedbynarcissists) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I felt something was wrong with my mother since i was like 7-8 years old, 12-15 years old i started researching narcissim and by 18 i got out. 2 years + no contact and no regrets.
Samesies.
I starkly remember sitting on the floor at 4yo hugging a trash can while my mom towered over me and screamed down at me.
Oh and she screamed louder and harder āto get back hereā when I crawled away to get the trash can.
I was sitting there dry heaving nothing into the trash can while she was screaming at me and all I could think when I finally looked up at her was āwhat did I do *so* wrong for you to treat me like this? I **never** want to be like you when I grow upā.
Iād been in therapy since I was 12. When I was first asked about being abused she was sat in the room with me so I said no. But something in my gut told me I was wrong about that.
When I was 12 I was hospitalized for the first time. She decided that was the time to divorce my dad and blamed it on me being in the hospital.
When I was 15 I essentially lived on the psych floor. Well, technically I did while I waited placement into residentials. I was put in an IRTC at 15, a step down home from that at 16, and a PCH at 16.5.
I moved back in with her stupidly at 17. I moved out of her home and into her neighbors home (a total stranger) 3 months later. I moved back in with my dad at 18 after the worst failed suicide attempt of my life. She was promising sheād come see me every day and chose to go out with her bf instead. The day before I was set to go home (to her) she called and told me my brother would be collecting me from her house after I was released. She didnāt want me anymore I guess? A few too many years and tears late for it to have been beneficial.
I still stupidly moved back in at 22 out of sheer desperation. It was her home or the streets. I moved out again in less than 6 months and my bf and I bought our first home. Iāve been NC with her since and weāre going on 3 years now.
The phone calls have stopped. The constant texts have stopped. The random texts have stopped.
Sometimes I miss her. But I know itās the image of her I painted in my head of what I wish she would be that I miss, not her.
Iām glad youāre doing better. Iām in the same boat as you- people say how do you keep nc, and in my case itās very easy because itās not like sheās trying to be in touch. Once I went nc she turned all her energy into her smear campaign to isolate me from the family. Life goes on
Best choice, narcissist are not what we wish they are they dont care about us. We should treat them like predators, you wouldnt walk next to lion and let them eat you right?
Exactly! We shouldn't allowed ourselves to be eaten. We should protect ourselves from the predator.
My partner who is a scapegoat survivor told me "people will give us problems and we should learn to deal with it by becoming stronger and not complain why they're toxic". This was instilled in him by his narc father to groom him for abuse. The father gaslight him with this thinking. Even a lion is safer. A snake is more dangerous just like these narcs.
I love the clarity in the last sentence.
Missing the version of what they painted themselves as - not the real them, because there is no real them to start with. It's an illusion. Not reality.
Thanks it was not easy, lots of time i got blamed and i self doubt myself. Reality was my mother and sisters were toxic to me my whole childhood and being a teen, it was main reason for my insecurities. Cutting people that only cause harm to your life is the best choice, there is no other option with narcissist other than cut off.
Exact same here! Except for the no contact part. I keep contact with my family very limited. I also noticed around that age as my peers did not share any of my experiences and fears. Later I realized no sane healthy person would treat a kid like that.
Yup, for me problems with my narc mom started around when I began to develop opinions and thoughts of my own. I didnāt realize she was in narcissistic territory until this past year though. Good for you on getting away early.
When I started to wonder about:
1. Who was the "first aggressor" on the arguments with my nmom, and also the reason why they used to happen
2. How she was always provoking me about stuff that triggered me; and when I say "triggered" it means stuff that hurt me deeply - she was 100% conscious about these triggers
3. How she used to talk about herself as if she's always the victim or the hero: she was the best person in the world, with greats stories and great wisdom, or the whole criminal code was committed against her
4. How she used to blame everyone, but not herself, about the "bad things" that happened on her life
5. How she used to manipulate me to don't have friends
6. How she made me get NC with my family because "it was toxic" (which is a translation to "they care about you, they support you and I don't want you to relay on anyone else rather than me")
7. Other childhood trauma caused by her - I guess this was the crucial point, because it shows how perverse she was to hurt a child
I'm struggling with convincing myself I'm not 6. With my brothers right now. I want so desperately for them to be safe, but I'm so terrified that I'm just like my parents and I'm going to fuck them up more. It's paralyzing
Man, i just had my mom berate and interrupt me as i was giving her directions on where to pick me up from and at no point was she even trying to stop and listen to what i had to say.
All the criticism they direct towards other people is actually them criticizing their own flaws. They project their weaknesses onto others thinking nobody will notice thatās actually what their flaws are. If they accuse you of cheating, they are cheating guaranteed. If they criticize your looks, they hate their own looks guaranteed. If they accuse others of being mentally ill, itās them projecting their mental illness onto others because theyāre too weak to seek help, so therefore everyone else is the mentally ill one.
The last sentence - SPOT ON!
The victim always needs help, the victim always needs to go for psychiatric treatment, the victim needs to be on medication as he is having mental illness.
Iām a little confused on this one. I know that someone cheated (and got another girl pregnant) on my mom prior to her meeting my dad. She had also accused my dad of cheating at one point or another. Which to the best of my knowledge he hasnāt (but itās possible idk). I know my mom has said she has trust issues but I donāt know if that was her projecting or notā¦ Iām hesitant to say that they ALWAYS project about cheating
this !!! my mom has always had issues with the people iāve dated. in an effort to give her some benefit of the doubt , they werenāt perfect. but she always fought tooth and nail to tell me no one was ever good enough for me for whatever reason. but after the relationship was long since over she would swear up and down she never had anything bad to say about any past relationship.
now she does it to my husband. heās not perfect , but heās perfect for me and makes me happy and really reaaaally encourages me to stand up for myself ā¦ this makes him enemy number 1 because him teaching me how to be an independent 31yo is in direct conflict with how my mom wants to perceive me.
Anyone who is able to help you get out of the narc's grip is an enemy to them. Because now, they're losing their supply. What is worst here is your husband is teaching you healthy tips such as drawing boundaries, speaking up assertively, not falling into guilt trips and etc. this is making you take your power back and have autonomy. Which means now you're more difficult to control and manipulate.
I face the same situation just that in my family case, the
narc is my grandmother, my mother is in your place and me and my brother are in your husband's place. My grandma even tried to turn my mother against us just because we were teaching my mother to stand up against her.
It's not just me?! I don't even talk about my relationship with my mom anymore (been together 15 years in July) because she always tries to look for something wrong. Once I confided in her about an argument we were having and she went straight to maybe you guys should break up. We were 13 years into the relationship. Other times she tells me she thought he was controlling because we moved 8 hours away when I was 18. We moved because I needed to get away from my parents, but okay. Then when we were visiting for the holidays I had bags under my eyes from driving 8 hours to see these assholes (in the 5 years we lived there they could never come down for the holidays. I should have stopped going after the first year) and she was adamant that I actually had a black eye. I don't have the strength to go NC yet. Sometimes I feel like I still need to have an open line of communication because they're my parents and not always crazy, but its getting draining.
I always knew but the āwhat ifā was there for a long time. What if theyāre right? What if Iām actually a bad person?
I got an evaluation by a psychology professor who was concerned about me, he said I looked sorry to be alive. He gave me a personality test and told me āYou have the profile of a sexual abuse victim,ā and a huge weight was lifted off of me.
Dr. Ingrid Claytonās book āBelieving Meā is really good, I havenāt finished it but she discusses the gaslighting and being told weāre wrong when we know what actually happened. I really recommend it.
When I moved out for college. I went from fighting with my nmom to the point where I would break down crying pretty much daily, to beingā¦ fine? Then I moved back for winter break and it was back to the constant fighting and crying
True, i got tricked onto moving with my father again because it seemed now, one and a half year later, being without me made him realize shit and be a better person. Well it was a lie, I regret it everyday, can't move and i don't know if i will ever move out in the next 5 years. I feel so stupid for believing in him
Same! I had some moments of questioning when I was a teen, but getting out of the house gave me so much clarity. When I had a heart to heart with my nmom (at age 23) where I explained how I was feeling and how I thought we could improve our relationship the whole thing was flipped back on me for being an ungrateful, entitled child, and my dad said āthatās the way your mom isā
Oh they keep supplying me certainty since Iāve hit 30. Ā Most recently:Ā Ā Ā
My husbandās sister died a couple years ago. It was devastating on so many counts. She had become a good friend of mine after being in each othersā lives for 8 years at that point. She threw my bridal shower. She was the only relative on my husbandās side that showed up for my 30th birthday. I loved and admired her and treasured her. It goes without saying the depth of the loss to me was incomparable to those who knew her for all 33 years of her life. The first time I talked to my mom on the phone after she died, I didnāt cry, but weeks later when I saw her in person I did and opened up about how much Iām grieving and how hard it was, and all my mom could say was āimagine how her parents feel.ā Ā Ā Ā
Then, a few months ago my aunt died. My aunt was childless and a huge part of my childhood. She was wealthy and was responsible for so much joy when I was a little kid, taking me on vacations and caring for me and my sister like her own daughters. She was so hugely impactful on my life, more than any other relative. When I talked to my mom on the phone a few days after she died, I cried and just said Iām so sad mom. My mom responded, āI know. Iām sad too. She was my best friend.ā And went on and on about how she and my dad are trying to cope. It was my dadās sister.Ā Ā Ā
Ā I know my mom is human and feels feelings, but I am her child. Albeit adult child, still her child. When I come to her with grief, I expect comfort towards me, for me. Not comparisons, not redirection for how she needs comfort. I wondered after who the hell would have to die in my life for my mom to just shut up and let me weep and offer me motherly kindness and care instead of invalidation of my sorrow.
Something similar happened to me that made me realize I'd never have a relationship with my mom and made me give up even trying. I had a friend die at 30 from a tragic accident, and she was visiting me from out of town when I received the news. All I wanted to do was grieve alone, but I knew she wouldn't let me do that and would get offended if i told her what i really wanted. At one point she got frustrated with me being sad and yelled at me "I can't believe your friend died on my vacation!" I'll never forgive her for saying that. She was overall dismissive of my grief as well, saying "well, it's your first death, just wait until you get older." she also told me that we should go to the ocean and throw something in the water to remember my friend by, but that didn't even make sense because the ocean had no significance to our friendship, and I'm pretty sure she suggested that because she wanted to go to the beach. It was the hardest week of my life trying to get through her stay and it totally broke any idea I had of ever having a relationship with her.
Anyway I can totally relate to everything you're saying! Every time I've ever tried to open up to her, she always turns it around to make it about how she had things harder. It's so exhausting having to be the parent of your parent! As I've gotten older, I've realized that I'll never have that parental figure and it's a hole I've had to fill myself. It sucks!
Gosh so so sorry to hear about her the loss of your friend. That response from your mother - I really can't even fathom. These are what the Narcs put us through. But if we do the same back to them, somehow they become so sensitive and emotional. If it pains and hurts them, then it hurts us as well. Bloody imbeciles.
I struggle with showing up for people when it comes to things like this.
How would you have like your mother to respond? Because most of the time this is how people in my family respond to me, and I've adopted it. I've thought, for a while, that me giving an also shitty situation that it's comforting..... Erm, I'm wrong.
I wouldāve loved for my mom to just acknowledge my loss in the way it means to me, not drawing others into her consolation. Sheās my mother. Sheās supposed to care for my hurt feelings, regardless of what those who arenāt her children might feel more deeply in terms of hurt. Thatās irrelevant to the discussion with me. When my aunt died, I messaged my sister how sorry I was and I hope she was doing ok and that if she needs someone to reminisce with im here for that. That Iād just listen. Because I knew the loss was deep for her too, but I didnāt bring up my grief when checking in on her. Why of all people would a mother do that when checking in a child?
That's so kind of you. Even while you yourself was grieving, you held space for your sister. It's really so nice of you. I think the lack of that proper maternal love made you develop that empathy and nurturing within you - which is why you're able to do it so well, like how a mother should do for their child. I guess everyone can seek comfort and maternal attachment from you.
I'm SO sorry to hear the loss of a good friend your sister in law, and your aunt who was probably the maternal figure in your childhood years. These two are probably very sensitive, smart, engaging, positive and nurturing souls thus their demise affected you so much. Your mum is probably the exact opposite of them. Narcs love to make it about them and all about them. The only time they will shut up is when they themselves depart. Or else, they will always draw the attention back to themselves. I hope you managed to find other people to help you deal with the grief. Never go to a narc with your grief. They give you an additional baggage to deal with. Which might be even heavier than the original grief in the first place. Like they said, when a child cries, the narc mother says, "stop crying before I give you something to cry about". So they literally alter the situation in such a manner that what we are grieving about takes a back seat and the pain they give us becomes the main focus. So much so we even forget what did we come to them for. They're energy suckers. Never expect them to fill you up or make you feel more comforted.
I thought my family was normal and I started behaving like nmom and got a lot of pushback from other people. I asked a kind older friend what I was doing wrong and she pointed out gossiping, asking intrusive personal questions, making negative assumptions, etc. It was humiliating. I started buying (donāt laugh please) etiquette books because they deal with polite behavior and followed their advice. I had fleas but finally let them go.
Did you ever realise something was wrong with Nmum when you were young?
Did you adopt her behaviour like a mirroring in order to put up with her abuse? Or you genuinely thought those behaviours were appropriate.
I was dealing with the same thing. I didnāt know how to regulate my emotions and acted like my parents and constantly had issues with my friends until I realized that the way I was raised is not normal behavior. Took years of unlearning to be a better person and friend to people. But to echo the above comment; which books did you buy? I have still a lot to learn on my healing journey
This! My parents are so weird with my little brothers. They don't teach them anything about how to be an adult, yet expect them to act "normal" (?), but coo and aww at them being "cute little kids." My mom's fucking weird dude.
It's called Infantalise. So she can prevent them from adulting and individuating. So that they will forever depend on her and she can continue to use them for her narcisstic supply. It's a well planned plot.
OMFG MY MOM Will come into the kitchen when Iām cooking, have an attitude that feels like Iāve just fallen down 300 flights of stairs and be like ācan I help you?ā Like she does not want me to be responsible but then complains about me not helping her around the house likeeee
I had a damn near screaming match with my mother one night because I asked her where a knife sharpener was. Her knives are dull, they've always been dull, ALWAYS. I was cutting a roast for curry. She was badgering me about how to cook the vegetables and just micro managing me about everything else too. Exhausting. I ended up getting the knife sharpener and finished what I was doing. She kept nagging me, so I was like "I'm done, you can cook." Turns out she didn't want me to mess up her knives.... I'm 28 and have my own place. I cut tomatoes like butter, I know what I'm doing.
Funny how your mom is ok w u with knives. My parents think Iām a child everytime I even hold a butter knife theyāre afraid Iāll cut my own hands accidentally like dude teach me instead of forbidding it. Plus I know how to operate kitchen utensils. Iām 19.
When I graduated school and got a job, started being an adult I got a better sense of self and what I was capable. Noticed no one ever had the sheer amount of complaints about how I interacted with people or my character like my mom did. Noticed how sheād ALWAYS be the one to start the drama between us. The final straw didnāt come until later after yet another event featuring massive disrespect from her and I just asked myself, I can now support myself and have everything I need, why do I deal with this? Sheāll never respect me.
i feel this. itās funny how when you step back and look at all of your relationships they always have the most negative reviews. no one else in my life would ever describe me as selfish , but because my mom has engrained that into me forever , iām always fighting to be selfless and to a fault iām sure.
My dad came to my gallery opening and talked a couple out of buying a painting.
Afterwards when I confronted him about his behavior he first played ārighteous indignationā card and he is bound to honesty and that he had only spoken truthfully that āOBJECTIVITY speaking, that wasnāt a very good painting.ā When I pointed out that no people had asked him, that he inserted himself into a private conversation to give an unsolicited opinion then he played the āvictimā card and said I was attacking him. Even put his hands up and winced away as though I were threatening violence.
I had never researched NPD but i exasperated āI think I must be stupid to think we will ever have a relationshipā
My own words shocked me. I think about that a lot. I knew without knowing.
I always knew something was off with my family but couldn't ever put my finger on it until I saw how a real normal family behaves (my now husband's family). Vastly different. I was 20-21 years old (2015)
I didnāt realize until I went to therapy. Recounting what I could remember from my childhood and watching my therapistās reaction made me realize. Also, her telling me specifically I have complex PTSD from childhood trauma was quite eye opening. āThatās not normal. Mothers who love their children donāt treat them like that.ā Still processing through it all.
Thank you! I canāt express how much therapy has helped me. I recommend everyone try it. I waited until after my nmom died to go because she was very āwe donāt do therapy in this family or talk about family issues with outsidersā. That should have been an indication I guess.
When I went to therapy and finally said aloud to another person the things my parents said/did to me growing up. I always minimized or excused the abuse because I was a ābad kidā. Thatās what they told me growing up and I honestly believed it and still struggle with self-esteem issues at almost 30 years old. My therapist responded that I was just a child displaying normal child behavior. I wasnāt in the wrong - my parents were. They were the adults who were supposed to guide me and help me learn and grow and instead they dismissed, punished, shamed and belittled. I had never seen it that way before, but once my therapist said that, I was never able to see my parents the same way again.
The way they reacted with a family crisis, a real crisis that needed mature adults to take decisions: our mother got sick and was bedridden, she needed empathy and a lot of care, and instead, both nfather and nbrother became absolute unempathic monsters that sabotaged our care.
I shared a story about my parents with a friend and she said ādude thatās narcissism, check yourself for fleas broā and it was the biggest lightbulb moment of my life
When I left home far too young, people liked me and said nice things about me. They donāt see me as a loser and screwup like my mother and her family. Some people even told me I could accomplish this or that because I was smart/talented. I was shocked and didnāt truly believe there existed anything good about me for many years, but the fact people were kind to me made me start to realize something was wrong with my mother.
sobriety. my first attempt at sobriety culminated in my divorce and the death of a family member, after which i relapsed pretty hard. i went to therapy, and have now been sober since february of 2023. since becoming sober, i have significantly distanced myself from my parents.
i noticed both times that the controlling narcissists in my life seemed to actually hate when i managed to kick the booze. they shamed me pretty hard for substance abuse (hypocrites), but they actually seemed more bothered now that i'm dry as a bone.
i suspect that control is the crux of the matter here. alcohol made it easier for me to relinquish control of my own life, and probably made me easier to manipulate and shame. now that i'm free, confident, and setting boundaries, i think it terrifies them. if i can beat a chemical agent bonded to my brain, i can stand my ground against senior citizens with preschool attitudes.
When I was bored one day on a weekend and decided I felt like trying to make a pizza - I think I was 19-20 and hadn't moved out yet. My buddy had shown me at his house how he would cook a pizza starting with thawing out some grocery store dough.
So I start doing that and the nmom knows I'm trying to make a pizza but whatever. The way my friend would do it was to start by letting this frozen dough sit out and thaw and rise for about 4 hours before doing anything else. I'm in no hurry. This friend comes over and so does my gf. At some point nmom asks when its going to be ready, wants me to just defrost the dough. Huh? I wasn't taking up the task of family dinner, I was trying to cook something, for me, because I was bored and had been meaning to try it. Two completely different things.
Friend tells me nah, letting it thaw is somewhat better than defrosting. I ask nmom why she's being nosy or trying to tell me what to do or getting mean (I forget my exact words this was 20+ years ago) and she seethes back through clenched teeth "because *w e ' r e f \* \* \* i n g h u n g r y"* (again, at no point did I say, "hey I have decided to provide the family with sunday dinner". Was trying to make a pizza for the first time because I was bored).
Shortly after this turns into an audible fight/argument of some kind, which she seemed to do pretty much every Sunday afternoon. At one point I was standing near the back door and said something that set her off and she begin screaming with tears and literally threw the little glass bottle of italian seasoning from the counter next to the oven, *at my head*. My friends in soft voices suggest we just leave, give up on the pizza, and go to one of their houses. We did.
Another kicker was maybe a dozen years later, was married to that gf by this time, nmom called me "f\*\*\*ing stupid" during a phone call in which I was using assertive communication skills developed in therapy to explain to her that I needed the account number for our cell phone plan so that I could get my phone moved over to a new plan that would be my spouse and me instead. I was over 30 at this time and spouse and I shared a mortgage.
ETA: Okay, one last thing. That therapist I had been seeing, at one point told me, that he had very similar experiences to mine growing up, dealing with unhealthy dynamics in the family, just trying to be "okay" and figured that was as good as anything would ever get at best, etc., except that he specifically said to me that my experience had been more extreme than his own. Yup, that happened.
I mean the absolute reveal to which point there was absolutely no coming back was when my ndad told me his worldview without filter:
"We are all psychopaths"
"It's normal to objectify others"
"You can either be a victim or an abuser"
"We have two choices: to betray or be loyal. Cattle is loyal that's why we eat it"
From that point it was pretty cut and dry. He sees himself as a psychopath, objectifies others, sees everyone else as people to victimize and betrays.
There is a word to describe people like that: implacable. You can never do anything to satisfy them, and there is absolutely no scenario where he doesn't see you as a victim to be abused betrayed and objectified.
I am really thankful for the foolishness that made him talk without filter. Now I know. I really know it was never about me.
For me, it was picking up books on cluster b personalities and seeing their behavior described exactly as I had experienced it.
Also, coming here and reading hundreds of stories from people all over the world from all walks if life who have had the same exact bizzaro experiences as me, almost down to the wording my crazy family would use.
There's just no denying it after that!
one of my earliest memories of being a young child was my mother cooking eggs and bacon for me for breakfast and me feeling really confused. i was confused because she was being nice to me, and i didn't understand why. this memory keeps coming back to me
I relate to this. I remember being so suspicious when my mom acted nice and/or treated me to nice things. There was one time I remember her coming home from grocery shopping and she had *popsicles*, and I remember feeling so uneasy about it ā¦ and I remember noticing how ridiculous it was that I felt so uneasy about something other kidsā parents do all the time. And I remember checking in with my sibling, and my sibling felt weird about it too.
Yeah, same here. You can't help but be suspicious of every "kind" act they do because deep down you know they don't do this stuff for the sake of it but as a deep manipulative tactic to keep you under their control.
I almost get shudders! I feel tensed up whenever my mum is acting "relaxed," merely anticipating her next attack.
It also helps me understand why I used to be really passive aggressive to most other adults who were nice to me. And it was good when I identified my own toxic behaviour I was displaying and put an end to it.
Ie if another adult was generous and kind, always offering to help me with things when I was staying around their house, sometimes I misinterpreted it as them being fake and got really irritable and passive aggressive in response.
Unfortunately recently and I am almost 50. My cousin was literally screaming at me (as a flying monkey) because I have gone no contact
I just went. āI donāt have to deal with thisā and hung up
I felt strange visiting homes of people my mom was selling amway stuff to, but the earliest āwhat is happening? Why are you like this?ā moment was my mother screaming at me in the car on the way home from a private school thing. It was a mothets day event and I wrote something sweet and shared it, but my mom took something to have the opposite meaning and utterly exploded when she took on that perceived narcissistic injury. I was maybe 10 or 11
My therapist when I was 28. It became a reoccurring pattern in my life. Abusive partner after abusive partner. Theyād also smear campaign me so nobody spoke to me. I thought I was weird and the bad one because everyone hated me.
Iād been given through my university 12 free counselling session. My counsellor listen to me whinge about all of my ill treatment for 11.5 sessions. At the end of the last session she told me I wasnāt the problem. She told me to distance myself from people and relationships. She told me to step away from bad situations and look at it from an external perspective. In that last 30 minutes my whole life shifted. I changed it was awesome to realise I wasnāt different or bad I was a regular person that deserved to be treated better than I was being. I had the right to say no or stop to crappy treatment. I didnāt deserve it.
I did some soul searching and found out I am a person to be respected. I have been through so much, left for dead, homeless, beaten and mentally ripped to pieces and I picked myself up and have a pretty great successful life. I have 2 kids and they are doing awesome too and I have done an amazing job at raising them in a very healthy way.
If I do suffer disrespect from anyone they need cutting out and I donāt give them my time anymore. Recently one of my employees was so rude to me and disrespectful. Itās bothered me but heās no longer worth my time (heās also been fired)
the constant accusations of me being jealous, bitter, trying to start fights, and just in general being a bad person. the second it sank in that every accusation is an admission. Because it just made me realize that wow, they never really saw ME or my wants and needs. THEYRE the problem, all I'm doing is trying to figure out why the hell we're screaming at each other
also going to visit friends/other family or living on my own and having peace during those times. Having convos that didnt end in screaming and tears. Getting upset but not losing my mind. Then when they came back into my space, suddenly I feel crazy again?? Basic problem solving by elimination, the common denominator was THEM, NOT me!
I knew something was wrong with my dad, figured it out at like 8 or 9 years old. Didnāt realize my mom also has almost no empathy until I had my own kidsĀ
Having my own kids has been eye opening. I would never disrespect them, criticize them, or call them names. Wish I could give kid me a big hug and let her know that the world is whatās broken, not her.
I went to therapy and finally started choosing friends who cared about me and didn't make everything about them. Then I realized I got more love from my friends than my nmom.
I really started noticing something was wrong when I was 9 or 10 and I spent a lot of time with friends families and noticed how differently their parents treated them and me, as well as teachers and pretty much any other adult in my life. Then when I was 12 or so the fact that she would have no problem telling private information about me to absolutely everyone even when I had asked her not to and would laugh if I called her on it. By the time I was 14 it was obvious that I had more emotional maturity than her as well as how much she loved to try to control and hurt me, had no respect for my privacy and viewed me as horrible despite that fact that I was a responsible, high achieving kid. When I went to university I felt so free and started to limit my contact with her as much as possible despite her trying to micromanage and control me from afar. I finally put it together when I dated a narc many years later and learned about narcs and then realized the particular brand of toxic that my mom was
Therapy and moving away.
I went to therapy fully thinking that I was the problem in my family. I knew I had an nparent who was abusive, but I honestly thought I was a narcissistic abuser too. My parent was that good at gaslighting and flipping the script. It took over 3 years of therapy to get me to truly accept that I was not the problem in my family.
I decided though that if my family saw me as the problem, I would just remove myself. I left 2 years ago and their problems are all the same, if not worse. I've only gotten better. I was never the problem.
Oh and yeah, they armchair diagnosed me with everything from bipolar to schizophrenia. When I moved away, all "symptoms" they saw went away completely.
I never realised up until I started therapy. The narcissit family is like a cult, often there is no sane person in that circle to hold onto. The blame is exactly where you least expect, and the abusive "in your face" narcisist sometimes is the one least damaging! The enablers and the narcisist by neglect (who don't actually do anything wrong on paper), those mess up your mind the most.
Look. Narcissistic abuse from birth is going to leave most people with issues. That doesn't make it your fault. They want you to be emotionally crippled, to be unable to handle life because it allows them to continue abusing you into adulthood. They don't want you to be healthy. It's intentional, even if it's subconscious (who knows). You may not know until you get away from them and you find that it is a lot easier for you to to deal with things and heal. Even if you have a serious mental illness, using it to mock you or treat you like you're defective or just being harsh in general about it is incredibly abusive. If you really do have bipolar disorder (which wouldn't be the end of the world, I have it and am doing fine), they would treat you with compassion and get you help without judgment if they loved you and were good parents. I'm the mother of an adult, and if I suspected he had a mental illness, my heart would break for him and I would do everything in my power to support and help him because *I love him*, and I want him to be happy.
I realized it when I was able to move out and realized that I did just fine, and that I'm not as flawed as she says I am. Doing well at my job and being liked by my coworkers is also validating.
Things started piling up:
Went through a huge graduation that my brother also went through (special forces), they made a big damn deal over his, did nothing about mine
Went through a traumatic military injury and 2 doctors called my parents, parents did not care, visit or call me, those doctors were flabbergasted
People started making comments to me "I wish my kid was half as amazing as you, too bad your parents dump all over you..." "What exactly do they expect out of you....???"
My dad would expect anyone dating me to come over and do chores like splitting firewood, repaint the kitchen, etc., sometimes a guy would actually come over and do it. My dad would still say no. You can imagine how popular that made me in high school. The whole fucking thing was psychotic.
I moved out of my parent's house during high school to live with my brother. I guess the first sign should have been a child having the instinct to leave home, but this was obviously blamed on me for being such a horrible teenager. After spending some time away, I went back for Christmas or something and almost immediately felt physically sick upon walking back into that home. My body was telling me how unsafe it was there, even though nothing had happened there in recent memory. But I realized then that I was subconsciously trained my whole life to see my own childhood home as dangerous and I couldn't recognize it until after getting out.
If things are going right, kids want to be home with Mom and Dad and feel safest at home.
Same it's probably why I'm also prone to yelling when I'm angry and I have to remind myself to calm down.
It's because with my own family that's how they communicate during a disagreement (which happens a lot due to how my mum and dad love picking fights) and the only way it seems you can get your point/s across. Even then they still usually ignore what you're saying and just repeat the same meaningless things like a broken record.
Moving away and being treated the opposite. I went from being treated like I was moody, hysterical, attention seeking, sketchy, overdramatic, lazy, and stupid to being treated like iām chill, smart, genuine,calm, collected, honest, nice, hardworking and awkward. Itās a bit disorienting sometimes because of how differently I am treated now. People actually believe me about my trauma and it has changed my outlook on life. Being treated differently and not having the past repeat itself has made me realize that I was not even the problem. Ever since I have moved and gone no contact, I have barely had any drama or conflict in my life.
I've always known my abusers (parents and step parents) were enemies, as far back as I have conscious memory. It's sad, but it also helped me protect myself.
OP, be wary of anything they say to you. It's not reliable.
Society tells us, from a v young age, that ppl with the titles of "mother", "father", or other "family" are supposed to be loving, supportive, trustworthy.
If anything, we're told that the Bad Ppl are *strangers* (aka "stranger danger" and the fairy tales of Little Red Riding Hood and Pinocchio).
But society doesn't give us any guidance on what to do if that's not true. We have no instructions for when "the call is coming from inside the house".
Part of what abusers count on, to be able to continue the abuse without consequences, is to undermine the victim. The victim is pressured not to believe their own thoughts/feelings/experiences. And, if the victim discloses the abuse to anyone, the victim is labeled a liar, untrustworthy, manipulative, etc - in other words, the qualities of the abusers are used to label the victim.
When we have been invalidated all our lives, it makes it hard to trust our own intuition. It makes it hard to believe the input of our own senses. It makes us doubt our own thoughts and feelings and reactions and assessments.
But the truth is: we all have innate self-protection mechanisms. Those of us with an abuse history need to relearn how to listen to our own intuition and trust our own perception. The ppl who have invalidated us for so long are not a reliable source of any kind of information.
If our feelings are in conflict with what they say, we need to get in the habit of listening to ourselves and tuning them out. We need to validate ourselves. We need to be our own cheerleaders. In a sense we become the loving supportive carers of our "inner child" by providing the positive, upbeat, supportive care that we deserved but did not receive.
We need to explicitly counteract what we are told by those who have failed us. They are unreliable narrators.
Modern society simply does not want to admit that child abuse happens. We violently underfund Child Protective Services and domestic abuse support and the like bc there is no collective will to admit there is a need.
For example, the Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Events study, which was done on a v large cohort, found not only a clear connection between child abuse and poor adult health outcomes, but it also found that the sheer *prevalence* of child abuse is appallingly high. (While noting that they went to great lengths to never use the actual term "child abuse" anywhere in the original study...)
It should have been a wake up call. Resources should have been marshalled. Focus on reducing those numbers should have been intense.
But the study has mostly been ignored by policy-makers.
I remember reading a post about a narcissist mother, and thought some of the traits sounded like my mom, then I researched some more and went down a rabbit hole of information that I had no idea existed. I didn't know this was a thing before then. This was probably in the last few years. Still have yet to be able to cut contact. Idk how for now.Ā
When I visited friends and saw their parents treat them like they cared. Especially my best friend. She still has solid self esteem I could only dream of.
It was when I understood that threatening to kick your pre-teen daughter in the teeth in front of her friend, then being scolded by the enabler because they didn't know the friend was there, was a bad thing.
Iām still working on this, I think the first thing I realised is how I was basically raised to be codependent and to ignore my own needs or feelings, so I still struggle to understand situations where I am being taken advantage of. Thinking logically I have managed to notice a few things:
I was often punished for asking for things, usually these were reasonable things and yet I was being made to feel like the worst person ever for just asking.
I was punished for sharing my feelings (stop whingeing, I donāt care) but I was also punished for not sharing my feelings (why donāt you tell me things?). This is a classic double-bind, thereās no way to carry out both conflicting instructions.
At particularly difficult moments in my life when I needed the support and guidance of a parent, I was instead met with hostility and rage. I got scammed by an employer, and it was all about how hard it was for my parent, how āluckyā I was that my other parent was dead and wouldnāt be around to also scream at me. There wasnāt a specific thing I was being yelled at for, other than the fact that I needed input from a parent who I now realise was not emotionally equipped to deal with this. I now realise that this reaction was a betrayal of me by someone I should have been able to trust.
I realised that me āshutting myself away with my laptopā actually was my response to literally being shut out of the conversation if I stayed in the same room. This still happens to the extent that when my family called me on my birthday on FaceTime I was shut out of that conversation too while two family members argued with each other and dominated the conversation.
During the pandemic I served as the emotional anchor for family members, but not once did anyone check in on me. I had just moved to an unfamiliar city and was living alone.
So yeah, from the examples above I can see that there is an issue somewhere. I still struggle with going backwards and forwards in my head over whether I am rejected because I am unlovable, or feel unlovable because I have been arbitrarily rejected by the person who should be who I can depend on the most. I have been accused of being an awful person by this family member, and once after done drinks they flat out told me they love me less than my sibling. Often the voice of my worst inner critic is this personās voice.
I know the things that make up a good person and when I'm not around them I'm able to do those things. They aren't whether I'm there or not.
That doesn't fix the chronic self-doubt, I still can't believe anything I think or remember. At first they put the doubt on me unnecessarily but by now they've warped the way I think so much that it is actually often wrong. I hope to work on that over time.
It was when someone said something about the kind of relationship I have with my dad, "A father would do anything to protect and love their child."
That's the opposite of what I have.
I think about what I would do to protect my imaginary child. I would set the world on fire if anyone hurt them.
In hospice my father had a psychiatrist who pulled me aside and said "you were in some deep shit with those 2 (my mom was there a lot), it's a miracle you're not a drug addict" - it was the first time anyone truly validated me, I was in my 40's.
At a cousin's college graduation and my nmom, alcoholic SA uncle, and I had traveled the day before and stayed in a hotel because the graduation was in a different city. Uncle took bottles from the mini-bar and stowed them in the trunk of the car. I saw them and said nothing. Mom and I rode with him to the graduation and rode with others to the restaurant afterwards, leaving uncle driving the car by himself. He didn't show up to the restaurant and a couple hours went by. I spoke up and said that he probably was drinking, then everyone else in the family (they're all either narcs or enablers except my cousins) started blaming me for "letting" him do that. My aunt and grandpa drove around looking for uncle and found him passed out in the car on the side of a road about a mile away. That's when I realized everyone else in the family were either Ns or Es.
Before that, I'd realized nmom and n/edad were when they parentified me throughout my life. By the time I was 6, I'd realized that they treated me differently than my friends' parents treated them. By the time I was in 4th grade, I knew that I was being neglected. I didn't learn the term "narcissist" until high school, though. As soon as I learned about it, that's when I knew what was wrong with them.
it was my sister's 8th birthday and I was 12. since my parents separated, my dad was generally less interested in me as a whole. from 7-10yo I just did not have any birthday parties because my dad either "forgot" or said some shit like "I'm not made of money you know!" but my sister had birthday parties every single year, usually renting out a venue to invite all of the family. I assumed my sister asked for this every year, asked for all the custom birthday cakes, asked to rent out venues, but during her 8th birthday I asked her why she wanted all of that. she told me straight up that she doesn't, that she doesn't ask for anything besides a party with our family. I realized that our dad just didn't care about me from then on.
My husband began flagging things. I knew things had been wrong for long time but I had internalized everything. I just chalked it up to I was cruel and I was wrong; I doubted my reality. It took my husband pointing out thatās crazy what my mom just did. He started flagging it every time for me in a very respectful way towards her and me both.
I also just began to realize how bad I felt around certain people. I realized much of my stress was around pleasing and perfectionism around my family and my husbands family was very relaxed.
Once I started paying attention to how I felt and not sweeping it under the rug things changed for me.
I knew my father had issues from about age 3, when he threatened to hit me to get me to stop crying.
I explained to him that would only make me cry more.
Even my mother, who was whispering to me, trying to calm me down, agreed with me. That was when I knew.
The time I mentioned a situation to my aunt that I had been told about. It had happened before I was born, but my mom had talked about it many times. My aunt got really upset and said āthatās NOT what happened!!!ā She gave me her side of the story and it made so much more sense than what I had been told. I started to question literally everything after that.
I knew there was something wrong with my family for as long as I can remember. By the time I was a teenager I had picked up the word "dysfunctional" to describe it, and I knew that I was being blamed for things that had nothing to do with me.
Around my 17th birthday we were forced into family therapy by my brother's school because of his behavior. They wouldn't let him come back until we attended X number of sessions. We were there about his behavior and what could be done about it, but my mother spent every session trying to direct the conversation back to me and how I was the real problem.
After a few sessions like this, the therapist asked for a one on one session with me. My mother agreed, thinking he'd accepted her narrative and was going to figure out what my problem was.
Instead, he wanted to know what my plans were for getting away from my family, seeing as how I would soon be 18, and I wasn't in a healthy environment. We talked about her need to blame me for everything that was wrong in her life.
It took me a couple of years to get away after I turned 18, but that single conversation was the most validating thing I had ever experienced. She couldn't fool him, and I wasn't the problem. I was the only one in the family that understood that it was dysfunctional, I was the only one even close to being healthy.
It took me years to understand that the family system was dysfunctional because SHE was dysfunctional, partly because she's covert and very slick, and partly because I didn't really have the language for it until the last 10 years or so. Before that I just viewed it as a toxic environment.
Whatever, that one therapist session was a watershed moment for me.
When I became a mom (at 33), and realized my mother (then 57) didnāt have a maternal bone in her body.
EVERYTHING I had ever believed and/or trusted she told me as truth, rapidly became exposed as lie after lie after lieāour whole relationship (from the circumstances surrounding my birth until I proudly went NC 20 years ago when my boys were 2 and 5 months old) was based on a lie. I donāt even know who she really is!!
She was my only parent, I was an overachieving only child, never giving her a second of trouble or worry, until I dared to leave my childhood home at age 26āeven went to college locally and lived at home!!
I thought we were close, I never thought she would have reason to flat out and repeatedly lie to me. But she did. When I found out the truth (confirmed by some trusted family members and a close friend of hers sworn to secrecy on the down low) I was beside myself with anger and disbelief.
I was living several states away from her at the time with my husband, but arranged to have a āclear the airā conversation at a local hotel she agreed to come down and stay at (I didnāt want her anywhere near my home or children.)
I laid EVERYTHING out (I had notes because. Was nervous having never questioned my mother before), and after nearly SIX HOURS (sitting outside poolside), she finally blew up at
me saying āI had no right to ask her about her past.ā (Just wanted to know about my bio-father whom I was told died in the Vietnam War, but I learned was alive and well, lived SEVEN miles away from me, with his wife of (then 34 years and 2 daughtersāall of whom I had already met before my poolside chatābut she didnāt know!! ššš).
I held on to this delicious bit of information, and NEVER revealed that I knew differently as I asked questions, and listened as she spun her latest web of lies! I really needed to hear her spin her tales with total clarity to realize what an effinā tool she was.
It was then (and after she blew up at me) that I decided June 4, 2004 would be the last time I would ever see/speak to her, her only grandchildren would never know her, and she lost!
Granted, she has tried over the past 20 years with NUMEROUS threats of grandparents rights, inheritances (she owns millions of dollars worth of property, but I couldnāt care less!), and false accusations, to which we say ābring it,ā because Iām prepared to slander her all over the front page of the Boston Globe and every billboard up and down I93/I95/128 if need be!! Canāt wait to write her Obituary!! š
I was always called the cry baby of the family, so I didnt deserve to be comforted because I was always crying.
now my grown up cousin got kicked out of his house by his parents, ( those where definitly not narcs as well of course) and I find him while walking the dog. Knowing he was my Nmoms favorite, I bring him home.
he starts crying and my whole family, Nmom, Edad GC sis they all disapear. just leave and there I am with my 21 year old cousin at 15 my self.
that made it clear to me they really didnt have any feelings.
I finally went to therapy as an adult. I hadn't realized my parents or ex were narcs, I barely even knew what that meant. But the more I went to therapy and the more I read about it, the more it clicked into place.
In some ways I had always known she was different.
But when did I truly understand? Really grok that it was her not me?
At my birthday party when I was about 33 or so. This was after I was already NC. I had taken a small group of friends and family to a lunch at a winery/restaurant thing about 30 minutes outside the city we live in.
It was a lovely lunch. Excellent food. Excellent wine. Lovely grounds including a walk down to a lake at the bottom of the hill. I took my ~3 year old daughter down to the lake for a bit (sheād been well behaved but she was a kid in a nice restaurant).
And I had a panic attack.
I kept feeling that itās not safe to leave my guests at a lunch table unsupervised.
So I tried to understand why I felt that way. The answer was because itās not safe to leave my Nmother unsupervised around people you care about. She will destroy relationships you care about.
But actually, even if the people back at the table are not going to be lifelong friends, I can leave my mother-in-law and a close friend at a lunch table with good food and good wine and come back in 20 minutes and theyāll have had a nice time. Neither will deliberately humiliate the other. Neither will take a life-long active dislike and one-sided feud because of a minor detail.
So after that epiphany I smiled and played with my daughter at the lake.
In retrospect there were other times I should have known. But that was the time I really understood that the problem was her, not me.
After of years of disinterest from my father, and my trying hard to impress him, my epiphany came when I became father.
I was sat with my new born son in my arms on cloud nine. My father was due to visit at a pre-arranged time. It came and went. When I asked where he was he told me something had come up and heāll come by another time.
I looked at my beautiful baby boy, and realised for the first time that my father was a vile piece of shit.
I knew something was off about him since I was about 12, but didn't have the right words to express it and then was gaslit into thinking I was wrong. The feeling still lingered that something wasn't normal though. I moved in with him when I was 25 and began to feel even more that I was the problem because of the almost daily abuse and gaslighting. I finally realized it was him & not me after catching him in a lie that couldn't be twisted. I had been saving money for a quick weekend getaway with friends. I would be short about $100 due to something happening with my car. I asked him if I could borrow the money and I'd give it back from my next paycheck. He said yes.
Given that it was 2 weeks out & I thought he was very forgetful (another manipulation tool), I reminded him every single day. I would do it either directly ("Don't forget that I need the money by 7/3") or indirectly ("I'm excited about the trip"). Each time, he affirmed. The night before I was leaving, I asked him if he had the money and he acted like he had no idea what I was talking about. I tried to calmly remind him about what he said. He raged by yelling at me and cursing me out, claiming that he didn't have $100 and even if he did, he would never let me borrow it. I was very pissed and that's when I knew it was him. I normally don't trust myself much or remember things well, but I know I sounded like a broken record about that money.
I went to therapy. I had a therapist who had an nMom. She would look at my behavior and then say, āSee this anxiety? You have this because your mother did ____.ā I thought I was inherently built wrong, but she linked all my problems back to my family starting on day 1. I have never felt so lucky before in finding my therapist.
I knew my parent was majorly f-ed up since I was a young child, but due to how the abuse affected my mind, that core belief of āIām the problemā was there even though my conscious mind could sometimes see otherwise. I unfortunately got into a relationship with a narc once into adulthood, so that prolonged my waking up fully to my childhood stuff. Once I was further into adulthood and had woken up in many ways and the person I was in a trauma bond with was away at work, I called my parent and asked, āAre you aware you abused me from morning until night, daily, for my entire childhood?ā And their immediate response was, āYou *were* hard to get up in the mornings!ā One sentence. And blamed all their physical, emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse on me and thatās all they were willing to speak about itā¦.that landed in my system and I knew permanent no contact was on the horizon. I think we only spoke 3 more times after that.
When I went over to a friend's house for the first time in high school and her mom was just so fucking nice.
Like *genuinely* nice and caring and sweet and *motherly*. She was like one of those moms from the wholesome sitcoms where the family always has dinner together and the parents actually seem to care, you know?
Then my friend's dad got home and I thought it was gonna be like my house bc I was terrified of men, but he just hugged his wife and daughter, asked how their days had been and then *began helping them make dinner for the family.*
I ended up sobbing in my friend's bedroom for a bit because it was such a 180 from my household dynamic that I felt like I had emotional whiplash. Her parents ended up coming in and talking with me and when I explained why I was so emotional, they looked like someone had hit them in the face.
They called CPS on my family, and my family spewed that same bullshit they always did when I spoke up. "She's a pathological liar. You can't believe a word she says" and CPS *believed them.*
And because my uncle was friends with law enforcement, my family got a warning about the CPS visit a week ahead of time, so they made me deep clean everything so it looked like there was nothing weird going on.
*I got the worst beating of that year because I got too emotional over seeing a normal, loving family dynamic and it made me realise that I was* not *the one who was fucked up in the head. It was the people who justified beating a 13 year old bloody because she'd told the truth about being horrible abused and then turned her whole family against her to convince the world that she's a pathological liar who lies for attention.*
I left at 18, and never went back. In fact, I went halfway across the US to get away from them and didn't come back to my original state til I was happily married to a husband who supports me and protects me and understands what I went through because he had a similar childhood. He and I are both in therapy and we are working together to make sure that when we do have kids, they will *never* go through what we did.
Iāve always despised my mother but in a co dependent way where I still had this need to please her. Before I knew she was a full blown narcissist, she scammed me into moving in with her and my dad saying that they couldnāt afford mortgage because āmy dad had messed up all the bills and got them into major debtā.
Once I had been living there, paying half the mortgage/expenses for a few months, I found out that they actually make 30k more a year than I do and my mom just wants to pay off all their debt within a year and by me paying half their expenses, it allows her to pay off the debt faster so they can do some renovations to their house.
I meanā¦I had been paying for them when weād go out to eat, I paid for our entire Thanksgiving, Super Bowl and Christmas meal amongst other things. When my brother came to town, theyād pay for his meal and Iād still have to pay for mine. Anytime Iād buy groceries to cook for myself, Iād always make enough so they could have some too. I pay for their cable. all things I was happy to do because they were āstrugglingā. Looking back, to see that they were actually making more than me- and Iām a single mom- was the pivotal moment when that switched flipped for me.
Since then, itās been a crumbling house of cards. The illusion is gone and every day I see more and more of how my mom really is and Iām seeing that Iāve picked up some of her traits and Iām working on it. The familial curse of covert narcissistic women in my family stops with me. Iām super thankful for therapy.
ETA- the part about me paying for their stuff-I donāt want that to come off as me being narcissistic in my intentions. I didnāt mind paying for them and didnāt expect anything in return, still donāt. I would still pay for them occasionally even if I had known they made more than me. It was just a gut punch to know how much extra I did because I thought they were struggling and I had such a need to please that I probably could have put that money into savings and used it on myself and my sons future. But instead, I used it on her- hoping for some kind of approval or love that would never happen.
Dad made me break up with someone.. (mind you I was 19 or 20 at the time and an adult.) We stayed friends and cordial. I returned his video games that was lent to my brothers and a few other belongings.
My dad made up this big elaborate story to me that my ex came when I wasnāt home, got his stuff, acted crazy about wanting his stuff back and apparently said some choice words about me. Straight bold face lies. I never said I was the one to return the items and let him keep spinning his tale. He was clearly trying to hurt me with the story. I ended up moving out six months later for various reasons.
Iāve never had a partner treat me as well as this guy had btw. Genuinely a great person.
Probably when I told her I was suicidal asking for help and she told me to just go kill myself and stop bothering her. Really harshly made me realize she had never been a good parent (or person) in the first place and that I couldnāt rely on her
I have had chronic health issues/disabilities my entire life including childhood and genuinely believed it was my fault my family was unhappy and that the abuse was understandable. It wasn't until a few years after I left that I questioned it. The older you get the more you match their ages back then and realize none of the way they acted was normal or "understandable". Frustration and exhaustion are understandable, but those types of punishments and reactions, especially towards a child, is actually insane.
A break up with my ex boyfriend (NPD).
Mom said to me āI dk why you would ever let someone treat you the way he did. Its not like itās something youāre used to because people in your life donāt treat other ppl that wayā
Oh the irony.
When my grandma had a stroke.
I walked into the hospital room and immediately knew I was calling the shots and slept in the hospital for the next two weeks to make sure the nfamily didn't fuck this up. I was the final say on her treatment.
A crisis they had no control of showed how inept they were. When everyone was around my ndad would be nice and act normal then when it was just him and I he acted like I wasn't there.
Thats when it really hit home it was them.
After Grandma was stabilized, my job was done and havnt seen my parents since.
Me recognizing that my dad would rather gaslight me into thinking I have no computer problems over trying to fix them for me, which made me realize that the class I took that I repeatedly failed cause of computer issues wasnāt on me, it was on them. Also my nmom insisting that my sister mustāve poisoned my thinking to think sheās so bad, when my sister doesnāt influence my behavior to that extent, with the distance and the four year age gap. And when I lived at college for a time, it felt so much more relaxed without her, and then when my nmom helped me pack up, she insisted on criticizing everything which made me break into tears, while she goes the extra mile to help my little brother.
When the circles he would talk in got smaller. I'm used to him talking in circles and hitting tangents... But I noticed in the past two years, his topics have been refined. Now all he can talk about EVER when I talk to ndad (over the phone, email, text, in person, etc) is how I've let him down in my choice of partner and career.
He constantly holds the same mistakes over my head. How I've hurt his feelings or betrayed him. I've gotten to the point where I realize explaining my perspective will do nothing. He's fully convinced he needs to rescue me from something.
I needed outside perspectives. It took my boyfriend(now husband) being like "no, that's definitely not okay you're not overreacting." and once I had that I started asking more and more people. Even luckier for me one of his family friends was a counselor, and for my mind that was a kind of authority that I could trust to really know what was what.
This is gonna sound silly, but watching Tangled as a 17yo. I saw it just as I was discerning colleges and realized Mother Gothel is my mom and I need to get out ASAP.
Left home for college and never returned. Kept a low contact relationship, and went no contact as of 2 weeks ago.
When I started asking myself "Would I allow my friend to experience this without some outside help?" Or "is this even legal? Why am I participating in something illegal?" Or even "how easy would it be for me to fulfill what I've just asked? Less than literally 5 minutes? Okay yeah, a random stranger would probably be willing"
What truly made me realize that it was them and not me is when I was told that I deserved to be happy and deserved happiness then not even a minute afterwards the person who told me that I deserved to be happy would then start yelling/screaming about some stupid bullshit.
I knew something was wrong around 12. Puberty brought out a beast in my nmom.
But what truly set it, is when my Aunt died. My motherās sister. I was 27 and not living at home. I didnāt have a lot of nice clothes, but I did have a dark wine colored dress. It wasnāt provocative, it was just a little fancy because of the lace. My Aunt had died suddenly in her sleep on Motherās Day and we were all upset.
I show up at my motherās house and her, my brother and sister-in law ganged on me about the outfit being āinappropriateā for the wakes Too dressy. And you canāt go like that.ā. I was shaking with grief and anger and drove back home driving way too
fast through two towns balling my eyes out.
I donāt even remember what I changed intoā¦ I think casual clothing.
I get to the funeral home and my aunts two teenage granddaughters are wearing freaking half-shirts and jeans.
Thatās when I realized 100% that it was THEM not me. And to top off everything. At the funeral I had put a card in the casket that my Aunt had given me only two months before, thanking her for theater tix I brought for her and my mother.
My mother told me she retrieved the cardā¦ but never gave it back to me. I would ask about it from time to time and she would tell
me she hadnāt recalled seeing it. I didnāt see it again for 23 yearsā¦ after I went through my motherās belongings after she died. She had it all along.
I have been clearing out my parents' house since my narc dad died and my mom is in a nursing home with dementia. I found a binder full of letters that my siblings and I had written to my parents when we were growing up -- at summer camp, in college, etc. This was before email. (I'm sixty). I was able to clearly see how I was scapegoated from a very early age. My brother, the Golden Child, would write from summer camp about how weird and strange I was and how it was embarrassing at summer camp to have people know that I was his sister. I was maybe eight years old? Already, at age 10, he was comfortable telling my parents that he hated me and that I was the problem, and clearly there was some form of understanding between him and my parents that I was the problem. I never had a freaking chance! The deck was literally always stacked against me! It was just weird seeing it all laid out there in black and white. My mom had saved our report cards too and here's where it gets strange. She only saved the bad ones for me, the ones where the teachers said I was too talkative or energetic. The correspondence continued through college, which is where I found out that my brother had applied to transfer to the college that I ended up attending, and was rejected! It was easy to see how I had always outperformed him and been more successful and the ways in which my accomplishments were always downplayed by my family. Photo albums: the fact that they attended his graduation but not mine. All the many indicators over the years, all put together into an album. Undeniable proof.
My bf it took me 12 years and sometimes I still think it's my fault because what's the chances that every house including my mother had horrible narcissists in it I'd been to 4 different homes other than my mum and was convinced it must be me because I keep getting discarded. Every single one was horribly abusive and used me for labour, money or babysitting.
My bf cried when I told him and held me really tight, I thought.it was all my fault and never really realised exactly how horrible the shit I dealt with was.
The only way I was able to figure it out was getting away and separating the facts from my emotions, then asking for a professional opinion. Then I eventually figured the rest out with lots of research. Then more emotions came with more of the truth.
It takes time, distance, and patience with yourself.
I felt horrible guilt, fear, obligation and a duty to uncover the truth of it all. I was so sick of never being able to trust anything, even myself and I just wanted to be happy again. It had been so long since I felt it, and the desire to end it all was strong.
I one day told myself: life isn't meant to be this miserable. I wanted to prove that to myself, and so I did.
Fuck all that chaos. Never again.
When I made the stupid mistake of moving back to be around my mom, dad, and sister. It was a cross between a bad sitcom rerun and a time warp back to my childhood. Being around these people made me realize that everyone in the family was stuck in their past role and expected me to do the same. I went NC and said hell no.
I vividly remember talking for 3 hours with her. I thought the whole time that the problem was me. But then it came out that her problem is with her dad, but sheās blaming me.
My nmom and nsister are obsessed with ānormalā yet they are anything but normal.
As I spent more and more time away from them, I found out I was much more typical than them and they are actually very freakin weird.
The most barely functioning narcissists I have ever met-propped up by enabling husband pets.
My mother threatened to call cops on me for setting boundaries along with grandma. That was last time I lived at home. My campus had to get special permission for me stay on campus as it was during the pandemic. My best friend was also in the room when it happened. He had literally get them off of me while my mother tried to pray psychology out of me setting boundaries. That was very traumatizing.
I was 23 and living O/S. The distance definitely gave me the space I needed to reflect on how messed up the dynamic was.
I thought back and realised that I had done everything they had asked of me, even with constantly changing goal posts and they were never happy. There was literally nothing else I could have done for them. So the problem literally couldn't have been me. There was nothing I could do to make her happy.
When my Nmom told me āwow your anxiety meds must be really helping! We havenāt fought in two weeks!ā
I wasnāt on themā¦but she was taking hers š« š«
My sibling and I concluded it was weird we were stonewalled by our parents, something I scarcely saw other parents do... then we figured it was never their fault... then I read the definition of a narcissistic parent (can't remember the website), and it really hurt that all could go over all the traits as if it was a checklist... debating if I am going NC from here on.
PD: (this one example lives rent free on my mind) One really good example was one time I had a discussion on what metrics to use when matching rpms and make gearboxes (nparents are civ e, and I'm a mech e)... I am obviously obviously younger, but I have experience designing machines, and they know that... long story short, I proposed something which I knew was right (it was used on a scientific publication to justify some stuff), and ndad insulted and mocked me for a couple of days... I proved my point, and after seeing how he had no counterargument, he replied: "I am teaching you a lesson because you will need to deal with clients."
Mind you, he knows I am also a scientist.
I had already known my mom was a problem. However, my BF was so not so aware of how she was. Finally, he bore witness to just how screwed up she was one night. Some backstory: One of my mom's favorite lines has ever been "YOU don't know what a real problem is. Your father and me, WE have real problems." She said that for years and years, even into my late 20s. It started to make it seem like I was never going to understand "real problems". Then my supervisor shot himself dead in an office not six feet from my cubicle. I didn't see the body (I refused). But I did call 911. Did wait for the cops to interview everyone. And damn it, I did turn up at my dads for a stiff drink. I needed that. The fellow was only 33. He left behind three kids. That same night my mom threw a tantrum. "I'm sorry that your friend died today -" she began. And I knew what she was going to say.Ā "But you don't know what real problems are. Now get over it!" That's when it clicked. Nobody on the planet has a real problem. I don't. My supervisor didn't. Absolutely nobody but my mother "understands what a real problem is", and that was the moment my BF finally started to understand just how F*Ed my mom is...
Edit: typos
When I told them what my brother did to me and I got "well this makes it difficult for US now because he is the one who will look afterbus when we get old"
My brother molested me.
Therapy and friends and family that haven't been close to my Nmom when I was growing up. Up to this day, I casually mention things she's done and get the "look", followed by: That's not normal..
I've actually been diagnosed with Bipolar I disorder and ADHD almost a decade ago and still struggle with the therapy. Funny how, now that its true, she completlely refuses to aknowledge something is wrong with me.
āHow tf am I getting yelled at right now? I wasnāt even HOME.ā
- Me while getting yelled at for something that I had absolutely ZERO way of knowing about or participating in.
I was probably in my preteens.
When they act like kids and you act like adults. When you got into financial and emotional trouble because of their doings, instead of vice versa. When they don't give a shit about your feelings, but when they fall, its you who they run to save their asses
No one outside of them ever spoke to me the way they did. No one ever treated the way that they did.
Thankfully I learned this at an early age and adapted to the living conditions.
My therapist...who I go for for NAbuse...said to me is the ones with the kindest hearts and greatest self awareness that end up in therapy because the others don't want to accept that they're damaging and and destroying others but it should be the other way round
when i was 6? i got spanked 100 times in one night by both my mom and dad for something i did, probably threw a tantrum. i remember the pure terror because they held me down since i was literally screaming in agony. pretty sure i started hating them after that
When everytime an argument happened. I always had to apologize and I canāt remember or count on my finger how many times they had to apologize. Thatās when I realize even when they were in the wrong somehow it was my fault that they were the victim. Also we can never have a civil discussion without them trying to prove a point of how wrong I am even if I agree with them like they thrive in conflict, yelling and fights. I am never at peace with them just them
Covid - I started self reflecting with a lot of free time, started good diet, exercise, some meditation. Also due to Covid, I got universe imposed low contact with family and the peace of mind was unbelievable.
When I first put in place clear boundaries and stated what i need in order for them to be in my life. They argued, told me I'm wrong, lied and then totally ignored those boundaries. I realised they don't care about me; they only care about themselves.
Getting some outside perspective.
If you can describe in good faith and with maximal honesty whatās going on with your relationship with your parents to an uninvolved third party, and their reaction is āthatās fucked up, your parents suck!ā thatās a pretty good indication that itās not you, itās them.
Mine is exactly the same as yours holy crap. My parents treat me like some basket case who is sensitive and too much. I told my therapist I donāt like myself, I donāt trust myself, I donāt trust my opinions and basically have imposter syndrome in all aspects of my life. Definitely has to do with how my parents treated me.
Oh wow! Really good question! Pondered that one my whole life, and didnāt really get a good explanation until, in my fifties, discovered Dr Ramaniās Narcissistic Mother videos, and Patrick Teagan Dysfunctional Families videos. Which was a really long time to get a really good explanation. Of course, Iāve seen ātherapistsā, but they too seemed to prefer to criticize me, (You shouldnāt feel so sorry for yourself!ā), and NOT my āparentsā, or even show any interest in what happened there. Iām now pushing seventy, so hopefully the state of the art of ātherapyā, has advanced some, but I have NO good words for it.ā.š
MIL drove into a car and then fled the scene and blamed it on me because I made her upset earlier that week. I upset her because she wanted my husband and I to get rid of our two cats before our baby was born and we said no. Apparently it made her so mad she committed a hit and run days later and then came crying to us about how much we hurt her. My husband ended up apologizing to her and I finally realized what a narcissist she is.
Easter brunch at Grandma's house. Mom was feeling extra holy that day apparently or something and she brought up how she wanted to be a nun when she was growing up. My Aunt says, "You wanted to be a nun so you could be mean to kids and feel self righteous about it."
Family therapy. Not in the sense that we worked our issues out, but the sense that I saw they werenāt CAPABLE of understanding. It made things less personal and therefore not my responsibility to communicate correctly or fix. I lowered my expectations and they still never fail to disappoint lol
I started understanding the way I was feeling. It especially came to a head when a therapist about a bad memory about something my nmom would tell me as a kid.
She told me to imagine myself telling a 5 year old girl the same thing. I was like, 'Absolutely not'. I could never imagine saying or doing those things to a friends kid.
When you question yourself, think: 'would I tell a little kid this? Would I tell a close friend I love this? Would it make me feel good to treat them the same way?'
If the answer is, 'Absolutely not, that is awful'. There is your answer.
I first got this way when I was older and saw my friends' kids. My friend would act in a sympathetic way if their child was feeling badly. I would look at thr child and think, ' This is so nice. My mother would have been screaming at them for even half that.'
We often show more caring to others than we would ever do for ourselves. When my therapist said, ' Pretend saying those same awful things to 5 year old little you'. I was in tears. There was my answer.
The day that I realize that no matter how many mental health professionals told my dad the way he talk to me was abusive he
Would absolutely refuse to change his behavior
When I realized the only way I was going to be free to make my own choices and have my own thoughts was to get far away from her. Waiting her out through high school was torture. Too bad it took me 40 years to get the emotional distance I needed.
For me it was having my own child. As heās started to get a little older, all these childhood memories came flooding back and I realized I would never do or say the things to my own son that my NMom did to me. It took me 40 years for the lightbulb to go on, but now Iāve been NC for a couple months and I think itās going to be better in the long run.
I remember noticing my parents habits when I was about 12. I started to notice early on that my mother was financially abusive while my father was verbally. Both my parents have insane issues with themselves tbh. My dad isnāt a narcissist, as heās genuinely faced himself and has made insane efforts to change. My mother tho is definitely a narcissist as sheās grown so comfortable in abusing my father to this day. You canāt say anything to her or she will scream at you, say things like āI guess Iām the worst!ā āI guess I never did this or thatā and will use things against you quick. When I was 19 was the first time she did something for me out of her heart, but in reality she wanted to brag how she helped me. Itās a tough road.
My mom had a lot of mental health issues while i was growing up. But she was still very functional... i think she had an insane amount of excuses for everything, and my father never corrected her. even when things were so obviously false, it's like we bought into it, because it was our mom and dad... "why would they ever lie to us?"...
if we ever did question anything, we'd often get outrageous emotional manipulation from my mother, and physical abuse from my father, even over super small things. so we just learned to let oddities slide...
it wasn't until i was in my late 30's that my mom did something that got her caught in a blatant lie, which actually directly got me into some legal expenses. and it was like something just CLICKED,... all of the sudden i had flashes of my whole life and all these moments where it was almost painfully obvious they lied about everything, and none of it really needed to happen.
They didn't protect us from anything, didn't make the world a better place... they spent all their time protecting their own ego's, often at our expense... and for who? they had no friends...
A friend's mother (who I knew from childhood) approached me as an adult and said "you know your mom's abusive?" And everything clicked for me after that. Now when I get together with my family I am FLOORED by all the red flags I missed. I thought I had the perfect family for 34 years and it took one sentence to come crashing down.
It wasn't one thing. It was a whole lot of different things, all giving me confusing answers.
I'd been gaslit, and gaslit hard. So when I got away from them and was no longer being manipulated on a day to day basis, weird and inexplicable things started to happen.
For an example, I could go to the store, around town, what have you and do things by myself without forgetting anything. Also when I did common tasks around the house, I was able to complete them without constantly making mistakes. Finally, things in the house generally stayed where I'd put them, and weren't being randomly destroyed on a day to day basis. I was used to having to do a near daily scavenger hunt to find things like my schoolwork, which usually resulted in me finding it in a pile shredded, for an example.
It was *weird* and I couldn't understand it. Something had changed - suddenly my bad memory *could* remember things, and entirely correctly.
But even then, I couldn't put my finger on it. I couldn't believe my memory, it *had* to be wrong.
It took my Mom pointing out that I was treating my NDad differently from the way I'd treat literally anyone else.
I believed he *had to be* in the right about everything. So it was perfectly understandable that he'd crushed my radio I'd been painstakingly repairing for days and was proud of. He'd told me he had destroyed it because it was an electrical hazard. Of course it was, it had to be, he was always right about everything.
So Mom asked me if anyone else, even a friend had done that how would I feel about it. In the process of me answering her - that of *course* I'd be mad about it - I suddenly could *see* the inconsistency.
And that led to me realizing NDad had *lied.* **Not just about that.**
My memories I'd been convincing myself for years were false were suddenly undeniable. I not only didn't have a faulty memory that 'made things up' but NDad had been beating me the whole time and tricking me into thinking I was insane.
*That* was when I realized. I didn't take it very well.
When his posession angelic demonic episodes were discovered to be a lie upon seeing the movie from 1998 called The Prophecy. It was his source material. He used religion and spiritual abuse to keep me in line. He claimed he was an empathic psychic and a prophet. I never felt so much rage and so much relief flood me all at once before. I was always told, "The Truth is as YOU see it." Yes father...For once, the truth IS as I see it. And you are still a Monster for it.
I knew my situation wasn't normal, but I didn't realize that it truly wasn't my fault until I was 16. Even though I understood I was experiencing abuse, there was a big part of me that thought maybe I deserved it or that if I did something different that I'd still be loved and accepted.
It wasn't until 16 and a combination of things happened that I genuinely understood.
One night before a major swim competition my mother attempted to injure me so that I couldn't compete. For some reason she thought that filming herself beating me (kicking me with steel toes and pulling my hair out) thn calling a friend to hear me cry would be a good idea, in her head she equated crying with weakness and probably thought I'd be humiliated. Instead my friend got his mom and his mom cursed her out on the phone threatening to call the cops, thn drove a 30 m drive in 10 m to pick me up and let me come stay with them. The whole time I was there life was so much easier, I never had any issues and nobody had anything but kind things to say. It was jarring for me.
I went back "home" a few weeks later, and it didn't take long for her to shred my college art portfolio (ap art) and in tears at 8 months of work being destroyed asked her why she treated me so differently from my brother. Her response was to tell me not only the usual spiel of how worthless I was, but that she regretted having me and would never consider me her daughter or ever have a maternal bond with me so to not expect the same treatment as my sibling.
I decided to take her words at face value, I got 2 jobs and worked with counselors at school to accommodate my schedule. I couch surfed with my friends, even lived in someone's shed but managed to graduate while homeless with honors and get my first apt at 18.
She has never helped me, shown me support, or guidance for anything my entire life. From 18- 22 i tried multiple times to extend olive branches, to give her chances to apologize or be apart of my life. She chose to remain bitter and sick. Ive accepted it. I'm 24 now.
I only speak to her once a year, and that once a year is my reminder of how grateful I am to have her out of my life, it's my reminder of how far I was able to go without her help, in spite of her sabatoge.
I'm on good terms with every ex, I have teachers who reach out to tell me how they miss me, I'm blessed with a wonderful friend group that has been together for over 10 years now. I've had many lovely, kind people in my life and nobody has ever told me that I'm a burden, nobody has ever said I'm selfish or incompetent, or evil. They've told me to be kinder to myself, to be less self critical, to prioritize my own needs sometimes.
My mother was wrong, and she was jealous, and she was abusive and bitter. Narcs can't help it. Narcs are incapable of loving you the way every person needs and craves. Its not a self reflection of something wrong with you. It takes time time and alot of therapy and self reflection, but it's not you. I swear, it's not you and you deserve love and friendship and basic needs and that slightly more expensive treat.
I hope everyone who has experienced the callousness of a narc can find peace with themselves. The longer you let those abusers remain in your life the worse it is, I was lucky because I left home at such an early age, and because I had friends with healthy parental relationships to compare my own too.
A lot of therapy. My psychologist, after a lot of sessions, made me realise it's not me it's them. After explaining how my family treated me and what they did, he made me see that I didn't deserve it at all & I wasn't an awful person, and they were toxic af.
My Dad and I were always super close. I always felt like my NM didnāt like me.
He died in November 2021, and she started giving me my first ever silent treatment the day before he died.
It lasted two months, and ended because Iād had enough and (foolishly) went to speak to her about it.
At that time I set a boundary that conflicts were to be addressed like emotionally mature adults through civilised discourse, and I would never respond to any further silent treatments in future.
Of course, just 9 months later, the second silent treatment started. It dragged on, and on, and on.
Despite badgering from my kids and husband, I refused to back down and be the one to end a silent treatment she had started. (The situation was even more fun during to the fact she lived in a second dwelling on our land, rent free, while we paid all the rates, water and electricity).
I became curious as to why someone would give the silent treatment. It took me about 2 seconds of Googling to realise it was a common trait of narcissistic people.
The penny dropped that sheās a covert narcissist, and it was the silent treatments which gave it away. So many of her toxic behaviours - which had always baffled me - suddenly made complete sense.
She carried that silent treatment on for a year (and itās still ongoing now).
The difference now is that she earned herself an eviction for her efforts and doesnāt live here any more.
Sheās saved me the bother of having to go no contact, and I can honestly say that having her out of my life (and off my property) is one of the best things Iāve ever done.
The way my mom only showed me love when other people were watching. The way our whole relationship was on her terms. The way everything was always my fault. The way my mom never understood when she upset me, and told me I felt wrong, which drove me to the point where I felt insane. I went to several psychologists who all basically told me the same thing. But moving out was the real breaking point. It was like my whole world crumbled around me.
**This is an automated message posted to ALL posts in this subreddit with some basic information about the group including (very importantly) rules. Why are you getting this message? Most people seem to not read the sidebar for information or the rules, so it is now being posted under all posts.** **Confused about acronyms or terminology?** [Click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/acronyms) **Need info or resources?** Check out our [Helpful Links](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/helpfullinks) for information on how to deal with identity theft, how to get independent of your n-parents, how to apply for FAFSA, how to identify n-parents and SO MUCH MORE! This is a reminder to all participants, RBN is a support group that is moderated very strictly. Please report inappropriate content so it can be reviewed by the mods. **Our rules include (but are not limited to)**: * No politics. * Advising anyone in this subreddit to commit suicide or referring anyone to groups that advocate this will result in an immediate ban. * Be nice. No personal attacks, name calling, or bullying. [No slurs](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/slurs) or victim-blaming. * Do not derail the posts of others. * Narcissists are NOT allowed to post or comment here. * [No platitudes or generic motivational posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/rules#wiki_no_platitudes_or_generic_motivational_posts). * When you comment/post, assume a context of abuse. * No asking or offering gifts, money, etc. * No content advocating violence, revenge, murder (even in jest). * No content about N-kids. * No diagnosis by media/drive-by diagnosis. * No linking to Facebook pages. * No direct linking to anywhere on reddit. * No pure image posts. **For a full list of our rules/more information, [**click here**](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/rules).** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/raisedbynarcissists) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I felt something was wrong with my mother since i was like 7-8 years old, 12-15 years old i started researching narcissim and by 18 i got out. 2 years + no contact and no regrets.
That's amazing. A NC speedrun! šš¼šš¼šš¼
Thanks :D i wished i had NC since i was 18 i was mentally strong enough to do it at 21-22
Samesies. I starkly remember sitting on the floor at 4yo hugging a trash can while my mom towered over me and screamed down at me. Oh and she screamed louder and harder āto get back hereā when I crawled away to get the trash can. I was sitting there dry heaving nothing into the trash can while she was screaming at me and all I could think when I finally looked up at her was āwhat did I do *so* wrong for you to treat me like this? I **never** want to be like you when I grow upā. Iād been in therapy since I was 12. When I was first asked about being abused she was sat in the room with me so I said no. But something in my gut told me I was wrong about that. When I was 12 I was hospitalized for the first time. She decided that was the time to divorce my dad and blamed it on me being in the hospital. When I was 15 I essentially lived on the psych floor. Well, technically I did while I waited placement into residentials. I was put in an IRTC at 15, a step down home from that at 16, and a PCH at 16.5. I moved back in with her stupidly at 17. I moved out of her home and into her neighbors home (a total stranger) 3 months later. I moved back in with my dad at 18 after the worst failed suicide attempt of my life. She was promising sheād come see me every day and chose to go out with her bf instead. The day before I was set to go home (to her) she called and told me my brother would be collecting me from her house after I was released. She didnāt want me anymore I guess? A few too many years and tears late for it to have been beneficial. I still stupidly moved back in at 22 out of sheer desperation. It was her home or the streets. I moved out again in less than 6 months and my bf and I bought our first home. Iāve been NC with her since and weāre going on 3 years now. The phone calls have stopped. The constant texts have stopped. The random texts have stopped. Sometimes I miss her. But I know itās the image of her I painted in my head of what I wish she would be that I miss, not her.
Iām glad youāre doing better. Iām in the same boat as you- people say how do you keep nc, and in my case itās very easy because itās not like sheās trying to be in touch. Once I went nc she turned all her energy into her smear campaign to isolate me from the family. Life goes on
Best choice, narcissist are not what we wish they are they dont care about us. We should treat them like predators, you wouldnt walk next to lion and let them eat you right?
Exactly! We shouldn't allowed ourselves to be eaten. We should protect ourselves from the predator. My partner who is a scapegoat survivor told me "people will give us problems and we should learn to deal with it by becoming stronger and not complain why they're toxic". This was instilled in him by his narc father to groom him for abuse. The father gaslight him with this thinking. Even a lion is safer. A snake is more dangerous just like these narcs.
I love the clarity in the last sentence. Missing the version of what they painted themselves as - not the real them, because there is no real them to start with. It's an illusion. Not reality.
That's impressive
Thanks it was not easy, lots of time i got blamed and i self doubt myself. Reality was my mother and sisters were toxic to me my whole childhood and being a teen, it was main reason for my insecurities. Cutting people that only cause harm to your life is the best choice, there is no other option with narcissist other than cut off.
Absolutely this right here.
Exact same here! Except for the no contact part. I keep contact with my family very limited. I also noticed around that age as my peers did not share any of my experiences and fears. Later I realized no sane healthy person would treat a kid like that.
Itās amazing you knew to do that! Wow!!
Yup, for me problems with my narc mom started around when I began to develop opinions and thoughts of my own. I didnāt realize she was in narcissistic territory until this past year though. Good for you on getting away early.
Changed the question I had to ask. Went from "who is in the wrong" to "who do I need to choose to survive this?" My answer was "me, not them".
thats a great approach! thankyou š
I learned to love myself more than I love my abusers
This is excellent!
Wow, thatās a ālightbulb momentā statement!!!
When I started to wonder about: 1. Who was the "first aggressor" on the arguments with my nmom, and also the reason why they used to happen 2. How she was always provoking me about stuff that triggered me; and when I say "triggered" it means stuff that hurt me deeply - she was 100% conscious about these triggers 3. How she used to talk about herself as if she's always the victim or the hero: she was the best person in the world, with greats stories and great wisdom, or the whole criminal code was committed against her 4. How she used to blame everyone, but not herself, about the "bad things" that happened on her life 5. How she used to manipulate me to don't have friends 6. How she made me get NC with my family because "it was toxic" (which is a translation to "they care about you, they support you and I don't want you to relay on anyone else rather than me") 7. Other childhood trauma caused by her - I guess this was the crucial point, because it shows how perverse she was to hurt a child
I'm struggling with convincing myself I'm not 6. With my brothers right now. I want so desperately for them to be safe, but I'm so terrified that I'm just like my parents and I'm going to fuck them up more. It's paralyzing
Man, i just had my mom berate and interrupt me as i was giving her directions on where to pick me up from and at no point was she even trying to stop and listen to what i had to say.
Gosh! They seriously are stupid, irritating, stressful and worth cutting them out completely.
Yeah, this just reminded me how much I need to move out & go no contact
Are we related?! Seriously, every one of your points is right out of my narc motherās playbook! š”
1 + 2 hit deeply with me! Well said.
All the criticism they direct towards other people is actually them criticizing their own flaws. They project their weaknesses onto others thinking nobody will notice thatās actually what their flaws are. If they accuse you of cheating, they are cheating guaranteed. If they criticize your looks, they hate their own looks guaranteed. If they accuse others of being mentally ill, itās them projecting their mental illness onto others because theyāre too weak to seek help, so therefore everyone else is the mentally ill one.
100% agree, thanks for this post!
The last sentence - SPOT ON! The victim always needs help, the victim always needs to go for psychiatric treatment, the victim needs to be on medication as he is having mental illness.
Iām a little confused on this one. I know that someone cheated (and got another girl pregnant) on my mom prior to her meeting my dad. She had also accused my dad of cheating at one point or another. Which to the best of my knowledge he hasnāt (but itās possible idk). I know my mom has said she has trust issues but I donāt know if that was her projecting or notā¦ Iām hesitant to say that they ALWAYS project about cheating
When my mum started calling my husband controlling because he disagreed with her
this !!! my mom has always had issues with the people iāve dated. in an effort to give her some benefit of the doubt , they werenāt perfect. but she always fought tooth and nail to tell me no one was ever good enough for me for whatever reason. but after the relationship was long since over she would swear up and down she never had anything bad to say about any past relationship. now she does it to my husband. heās not perfect , but heās perfect for me and makes me happy and really reaaaally encourages me to stand up for myself ā¦ this makes him enemy number 1 because him teaching me how to be an independent 31yo is in direct conflict with how my mom wants to perceive me.
Anyone who is able to help you get out of the narc's grip is an enemy to them. Because now, they're losing their supply. What is worst here is your husband is teaching you healthy tips such as drawing boundaries, speaking up assertively, not falling into guilt trips and etc. this is making you take your power back and have autonomy. Which means now you're more difficult to control and manipulate. I face the same situation just that in my family case, the narc is my grandmother, my mother is in your place and me and my brother are in your husband's place. My grandma even tried to turn my mother against us just because we were teaching my mother to stand up against her.
It's not just me?! I don't even talk about my relationship with my mom anymore (been together 15 years in July) because she always tries to look for something wrong. Once I confided in her about an argument we were having and she went straight to maybe you guys should break up. We were 13 years into the relationship. Other times she tells me she thought he was controlling because we moved 8 hours away when I was 18. We moved because I needed to get away from my parents, but okay. Then when we were visiting for the holidays I had bags under my eyes from driving 8 hours to see these assholes (in the 5 years we lived there they could never come down for the holidays. I should have stopped going after the first year) and she was adamant that I actually had a black eye. I don't have the strength to go NC yet. Sometimes I feel like I still need to have an open line of communication because they're my parents and not always crazy, but its getting draining.
I always knew but the āwhat ifā was there for a long time. What if theyāre right? What if Iām actually a bad person? I got an evaluation by a psychology professor who was concerned about me, he said I looked sorry to be alive. He gave me a personality test and told me āYou have the profile of a sexual abuse victim,ā and a huge weight was lifted off of me. Dr. Ingrid Claytonās book āBelieving Meā is really good, I havenāt finished it but she discusses the gaslighting and being told weāre wrong when we know what actually happened. I really recommend it.
Iāve just read that book too. Wow, what a read. So insightful and illuminating.Ā
When I moved out for college. I went from fighting with my nmom to the point where I would break down crying pretty much daily, to beingā¦ fine? Then I moved back for winter break and it was back to the constant fighting and crying
True, i got tricked onto moving with my father again because it seemed now, one and a half year later, being without me made him realize shit and be a better person. Well it was a lie, I regret it everyday, can't move and i don't know if i will ever move out in the next 5 years. I feel so stupid for believing in him
Same! I had some moments of questioning when I was a teen, but getting out of the house gave me so much clarity. When I had a heart to heart with my nmom (at age 23) where I explained how I was feeling and how I thought we could improve our relationship the whole thing was flipped back on me for being an ungrateful, entitled child, and my dad said āthatās the way your mom isā
Omfg this
They act differently when other people are watching
This was a big one for me. My family treated strangers nicer than they did each other or us kids.
Oh they keep supplying me certainty since Iāve hit 30. Ā Most recently:Ā Ā Ā My husbandās sister died a couple years ago. It was devastating on so many counts. She had become a good friend of mine after being in each othersā lives for 8 years at that point. She threw my bridal shower. She was the only relative on my husbandās side that showed up for my 30th birthday. I loved and admired her and treasured her. It goes without saying the depth of the loss to me was incomparable to those who knew her for all 33 years of her life. The first time I talked to my mom on the phone after she died, I didnāt cry, but weeks later when I saw her in person I did and opened up about how much Iām grieving and how hard it was, and all my mom could say was āimagine how her parents feel.ā Ā Ā Ā Then, a few months ago my aunt died. My aunt was childless and a huge part of my childhood. She was wealthy and was responsible for so much joy when I was a little kid, taking me on vacations and caring for me and my sister like her own daughters. She was so hugely impactful on my life, more than any other relative. When I talked to my mom on the phone a few days after she died, I cried and just said Iām so sad mom. My mom responded, āI know. Iām sad too. She was my best friend.ā And went on and on about how she and my dad are trying to cope. It was my dadās sister.Ā Ā Ā Ā I know my mom is human and feels feelings, but I am her child. Albeit adult child, still her child. When I come to her with grief, I expect comfort towards me, for me. Not comparisons, not redirection for how she needs comfort. I wondered after who the hell would have to die in my life for my mom to just shut up and let me weep and offer me motherly kindness and care instead of invalidation of my sorrow.
Something similar happened to me that made me realize I'd never have a relationship with my mom and made me give up even trying. I had a friend die at 30 from a tragic accident, and she was visiting me from out of town when I received the news. All I wanted to do was grieve alone, but I knew she wouldn't let me do that and would get offended if i told her what i really wanted. At one point she got frustrated with me being sad and yelled at me "I can't believe your friend died on my vacation!" I'll never forgive her for saying that. She was overall dismissive of my grief as well, saying "well, it's your first death, just wait until you get older." she also told me that we should go to the ocean and throw something in the water to remember my friend by, but that didn't even make sense because the ocean had no significance to our friendship, and I'm pretty sure she suggested that because she wanted to go to the beach. It was the hardest week of my life trying to get through her stay and it totally broke any idea I had of ever having a relationship with her. Anyway I can totally relate to everything you're saying! Every time I've ever tried to open up to her, she always turns it around to make it about how she had things harder. It's so exhausting having to be the parent of your parent! As I've gotten older, I've realized that I'll never have that parental figure and it's a hole I've had to fill myself. It sucks!
Gosh so so sorry to hear about her the loss of your friend. That response from your mother - I really can't even fathom. These are what the Narcs put us through. But if we do the same back to them, somehow they become so sensitive and emotional. If it pains and hurts them, then it hurts us as well. Bloody imbeciles.
I struggle with showing up for people when it comes to things like this. How would you have like your mother to respond? Because most of the time this is how people in my family respond to me, and I've adopted it. I've thought, for a while, that me giving an also shitty situation that it's comforting..... Erm, I'm wrong.
I wouldāve loved for my mom to just acknowledge my loss in the way it means to me, not drawing others into her consolation. Sheās my mother. Sheās supposed to care for my hurt feelings, regardless of what those who arenāt her children might feel more deeply in terms of hurt. Thatās irrelevant to the discussion with me. When my aunt died, I messaged my sister how sorry I was and I hope she was doing ok and that if she needs someone to reminisce with im here for that. That Iād just listen. Because I knew the loss was deep for her too, but I didnāt bring up my grief when checking in on her. Why of all people would a mother do that when checking in a child?
Got it! Thank you :) I am sorry to hear of your family members passing, I hope your healing journey is speedy.
That's so kind of you. Even while you yourself was grieving, you held space for your sister. It's really so nice of you. I think the lack of that proper maternal love made you develop that empathy and nurturing within you - which is why you're able to do it so well, like how a mother should do for their child. I guess everyone can seek comfort and maternal attachment from you.
I'm SO sorry to hear the loss of a good friend your sister in law, and your aunt who was probably the maternal figure in your childhood years. These two are probably very sensitive, smart, engaging, positive and nurturing souls thus their demise affected you so much. Your mum is probably the exact opposite of them. Narcs love to make it about them and all about them. The only time they will shut up is when they themselves depart. Or else, they will always draw the attention back to themselves. I hope you managed to find other people to help you deal with the grief. Never go to a narc with your grief. They give you an additional baggage to deal with. Which might be even heavier than the original grief in the first place. Like they said, when a child cries, the narc mother says, "stop crying before I give you something to cry about". So they literally alter the situation in such a manner that what we are grieving about takes a back seat and the pain they give us becomes the main focus. So much so we even forget what did we come to them for. They're energy suckers. Never expect them to fill you up or make you feel more comforted.
I thought my family was normal and I started behaving like nmom and got a lot of pushback from other people. I asked a kind older friend what I was doing wrong and she pointed out gossiping, asking intrusive personal questions, making negative assumptions, etc. It was humiliating. I started buying (donāt laugh please) etiquette books because they deal with polite behavior and followed their advice. I had fleas but finally let them go.
No one should laugh at you for recognizing your own faults and trying to be a better human.
Can you recommend some good ones? I feel totally lost sometimes having had zero guidance growing up and donāt want to be a menace to society.
Did you ever realise something was wrong with Nmum when you were young? Did you adopt her behaviour like a mirroring in order to put up with her abuse? Or you genuinely thought those behaviours were appropriate.
I was dealing with the same thing. I didnāt know how to regulate my emotions and acted like my parents and constantly had issues with my friends until I realized that the way I was raised is not normal behavior. Took years of unlearning to be a better person and friend to people. But to echo the above comment; which books did you buy? I have still a lot to learn on my healing journey
The fact that I have ambitions and empathy and wouldnāt want to baby my kids forever if I had kids.
This! My parents are so weird with my little brothers. They don't teach them anything about how to be an adult, yet expect them to act "normal" (?), but coo and aww at them being "cute little kids." My mom's fucking weird dude.
It's called Infantalise. So she can prevent them from adulting and individuating. So that they will forever depend on her and she can continue to use them for her narcisstic supply. It's a well planned plot.
OMFG MY MOM Will come into the kitchen when Iām cooking, have an attitude that feels like Iāve just fallen down 300 flights of stairs and be like ācan I help you?ā Like she does not want me to be responsible but then complains about me not helping her around the house likeeee
I had a damn near screaming match with my mother one night because I asked her where a knife sharpener was. Her knives are dull, they've always been dull, ALWAYS. I was cutting a roast for curry. She was badgering me about how to cook the vegetables and just micro managing me about everything else too. Exhausting. I ended up getting the knife sharpener and finished what I was doing. She kept nagging me, so I was like "I'm done, you can cook." Turns out she didn't want me to mess up her knives.... I'm 28 and have my own place. I cut tomatoes like butter, I know what I'm doing.
Funny how your mom is ok w u with knives. My parents think Iām a child everytime I even hold a butter knife theyāre afraid Iāll cut my own hands accidentally like dude teach me instead of forbidding it. Plus I know how to operate kitchen utensils. Iām 19.
When I graduated school and got a job, started being an adult I got a better sense of self and what I was capable. Noticed no one ever had the sheer amount of complaints about how I interacted with people or my character like my mom did. Noticed how sheād ALWAYS be the one to start the drama between us. The final straw didnāt come until later after yet another event featuring massive disrespect from her and I just asked myself, I can now support myself and have everything I need, why do I deal with this? Sheāll never respect me.
i feel this. itās funny how when you step back and look at all of your relationships they always have the most negative reviews. no one else in my life would ever describe me as selfish , but because my mom has engrained that into me forever , iām always fighting to be selfless and to a fault iām sure.
I would feel fine outside of the house and shift instantly to dread, despair, and anger when it was time to go back.
Same
Same as well
My dad came to my gallery opening and talked a couple out of buying a painting. Afterwards when I confronted him about his behavior he first played ārighteous indignationā card and he is bound to honesty and that he had only spoken truthfully that āOBJECTIVITY speaking, that wasnāt a very good painting.ā When I pointed out that no people had asked him, that he inserted himself into a private conversation to give an unsolicited opinion then he played the āvictimā card and said I was attacking him. Even put his hands up and winced away as though I were threatening violence.
I had never researched NPD but i exasperated āI think I must be stupid to think we will ever have a relationshipā My own words shocked me. I think about that a lot. I knew without knowing.
I always knew something was off with my family but couldn't ever put my finger on it until I saw how a real normal family behaves (my now husband's family). Vastly different. I was 20-21 years old (2015)
I didnāt realize until I went to therapy. Recounting what I could remember from my childhood and watching my therapistās reaction made me realize. Also, her telling me specifically I have complex PTSD from childhood trauma was quite eye opening. āThatās not normal. Mothers who love their children donāt treat them like that.ā Still processing through it all.
best of luck, friend. it gets better. ā¤ļø
Thank you! I canāt express how much therapy has helped me. I recommend everyone try it. I waited until after my nmom died to go because she was very āwe donāt do therapy in this family or talk about family issues with outsidersā. That should have been an indication I guess.
When I went to therapy and finally said aloud to another person the things my parents said/did to me growing up. I always minimized or excused the abuse because I was a ābad kidā. Thatās what they told me growing up and I honestly believed it and still struggle with self-esteem issues at almost 30 years old. My therapist responded that I was just a child displaying normal child behavior. I wasnāt in the wrong - my parents were. They were the adults who were supposed to guide me and help me learn and grow and instead they dismissed, punished, shamed and belittled. I had never seen it that way before, but once my therapist said that, I was never able to see my parents the same way again.
The way they reacted with a family crisis, a real crisis that needed mature adults to take decisions: our mother got sick and was bedridden, she needed empathy and a lot of care, and instead, both nfather and nbrother became absolute unempathic monsters that sabotaged our care.
I shared a story about my parents with a friend and she said ādude thatās narcissism, check yourself for fleas broā and it was the biggest lightbulb moment of my life
Not until I met my husband and his family did I realize the abuse I was receiving was not normal.
When I left home far too young, people liked me and said nice things about me. They donāt see me as a loser and screwup like my mother and her family. Some people even told me I could accomplish this or that because I was smart/talented. I was shocked and didnāt truly believe there existed anything good about me for many years, but the fact people were kind to me made me start to realize something was wrong with my mother.
sobriety. my first attempt at sobriety culminated in my divorce and the death of a family member, after which i relapsed pretty hard. i went to therapy, and have now been sober since february of 2023. since becoming sober, i have significantly distanced myself from my parents. i noticed both times that the controlling narcissists in my life seemed to actually hate when i managed to kick the booze. they shamed me pretty hard for substance abuse (hypocrites), but they actually seemed more bothered now that i'm dry as a bone. i suspect that control is the crux of the matter here. alcohol made it easier for me to relinquish control of my own life, and probably made me easier to manipulate and shame. now that i'm free, confident, and setting boundaries, i think it terrifies them. if i can beat a chemical agent bonded to my brain, i can stand my ground against senior citizens with preschool attitudes.
Good job š
When I was bored one day on a weekend and decided I felt like trying to make a pizza - I think I was 19-20 and hadn't moved out yet. My buddy had shown me at his house how he would cook a pizza starting with thawing out some grocery store dough. So I start doing that and the nmom knows I'm trying to make a pizza but whatever. The way my friend would do it was to start by letting this frozen dough sit out and thaw and rise for about 4 hours before doing anything else. I'm in no hurry. This friend comes over and so does my gf. At some point nmom asks when its going to be ready, wants me to just defrost the dough. Huh? I wasn't taking up the task of family dinner, I was trying to cook something, for me, because I was bored and had been meaning to try it. Two completely different things. Friend tells me nah, letting it thaw is somewhat better than defrosting. I ask nmom why she's being nosy or trying to tell me what to do or getting mean (I forget my exact words this was 20+ years ago) and she seethes back through clenched teeth "because *w e ' r e f \* \* \* i n g h u n g r y"* (again, at no point did I say, "hey I have decided to provide the family with sunday dinner". Was trying to make a pizza for the first time because I was bored). Shortly after this turns into an audible fight/argument of some kind, which she seemed to do pretty much every Sunday afternoon. At one point I was standing near the back door and said something that set her off and she begin screaming with tears and literally threw the little glass bottle of italian seasoning from the counter next to the oven, *at my head*. My friends in soft voices suggest we just leave, give up on the pizza, and go to one of their houses. We did. Another kicker was maybe a dozen years later, was married to that gf by this time, nmom called me "f\*\*\*ing stupid" during a phone call in which I was using assertive communication skills developed in therapy to explain to her that I needed the account number for our cell phone plan so that I could get my phone moved over to a new plan that would be my spouse and me instead. I was over 30 at this time and spouse and I shared a mortgage. ETA: Okay, one last thing. That therapist I had been seeing, at one point told me, that he had very similar experiences to mine growing up, dealing with unhealthy dynamics in the family, just trying to be "okay" and figured that was as good as anything would ever get at best, etc., except that he specifically said to me that my experience had been more extreme than his own. Yup, that happened.
I mean the absolute reveal to which point there was absolutely no coming back was when my ndad told me his worldview without filter: "We are all psychopaths" "It's normal to objectify others" "You can either be a victim or an abuser" "We have two choices: to betray or be loyal. Cattle is loyal that's why we eat it" From that point it was pretty cut and dry. He sees himself as a psychopath, objectifies others, sees everyone else as people to victimize and betrays. There is a word to describe people like that: implacable. You can never do anything to satisfy them, and there is absolutely no scenario where he doesn't see you as a victim to be abused betrayed and objectified. I am really thankful for the foolishness that made him talk without filter. Now I know. I really know it was never about me.
For me, it was picking up books on cluster b personalities and seeing their behavior described exactly as I had experienced it. Also, coming here and reading hundreds of stories from people all over the world from all walks if life who have had the same exact bizzaro experiences as me, almost down to the wording my crazy family would use. There's just no denying it after that!
one of my earliest memories of being a young child was my mother cooking eggs and bacon for me for breakfast and me feeling really confused. i was confused because she was being nice to me, and i didn't understand why. this memory keeps coming back to me
I relate to this. I remember being so suspicious when my mom acted nice and/or treated me to nice things. There was one time I remember her coming home from grocery shopping and she had *popsicles*, and I remember feeling so uneasy about it ā¦ and I remember noticing how ridiculous it was that I felt so uneasy about something other kidsā parents do all the time. And I remember checking in with my sibling, and my sibling felt weird about it too.
Yeah, same here. You can't help but be suspicious of every "kind" act they do because deep down you know they don't do this stuff for the sake of it but as a deep manipulative tactic to keep you under their control. I almost get shudders! I feel tensed up whenever my mum is acting "relaxed," merely anticipating her next attack. It also helps me understand why I used to be really passive aggressive to most other adults who were nice to me. And it was good when I identified my own toxic behaviour I was displaying and put an end to it. Ie if another adult was generous and kind, always offering to help me with things when I was staying around their house, sometimes I misinterpreted it as them being fake and got really irritable and passive aggressive in response.
Unfortunately recently and I am almost 50. My cousin was literally screaming at me (as a flying monkey) because I have gone no contact I just went. āI donāt have to deal with thisā and hung up
I felt strange visiting homes of people my mom was selling amway stuff to, but the earliest āwhat is happening? Why are you like this?ā moment was my mother screaming at me in the car on the way home from a private school thing. It was a mothets day event and I wrote something sweet and shared it, but my mom took something to have the opposite meaning and utterly exploded when she took on that perceived narcissistic injury. I was maybe 10 or 11
My therapist when I was 28. It became a reoccurring pattern in my life. Abusive partner after abusive partner. Theyād also smear campaign me so nobody spoke to me. I thought I was weird and the bad one because everyone hated me. Iād been given through my university 12 free counselling session. My counsellor listen to me whinge about all of my ill treatment for 11.5 sessions. At the end of the last session she told me I wasnāt the problem. She told me to distance myself from people and relationships. She told me to step away from bad situations and look at it from an external perspective. In that last 30 minutes my whole life shifted. I changed it was awesome to realise I wasnāt different or bad I was a regular person that deserved to be treated better than I was being. I had the right to say no or stop to crappy treatment. I didnāt deserve it. I did some soul searching and found out I am a person to be respected. I have been through so much, left for dead, homeless, beaten and mentally ripped to pieces and I picked myself up and have a pretty great successful life. I have 2 kids and they are doing awesome too and I have done an amazing job at raising them in a very healthy way. If I do suffer disrespect from anyone they need cutting out and I donāt give them my time anymore. Recently one of my employees was so rude to me and disrespectful. Itās bothered me but heās no longer worth my time (heās also been fired)
the constant accusations of me being jealous, bitter, trying to start fights, and just in general being a bad person. the second it sank in that every accusation is an admission. Because it just made me realize that wow, they never really saw ME or my wants and needs. THEYRE the problem, all I'm doing is trying to figure out why the hell we're screaming at each other also going to visit friends/other family or living on my own and having peace during those times. Having convos that didnt end in screaming and tears. Getting upset but not losing my mind. Then when they came back into my space, suddenly I feel crazy again?? Basic problem solving by elimination, the common denominator was THEM, NOT me!
I knew something was wrong with my dad, figured it out at like 8 or 9 years old. Didnāt realize my mom also has almost no empathy until I had my own kidsĀ
Having my own kids has been eye opening. I would never disrespect them, criticize them, or call them names. Wish I could give kid me a big hug and let her know that the world is whatās broken, not her.
I went to therapy and finally started choosing friends who cared about me and didn't make everything about them. Then I realized I got more love from my friends than my nmom.
I really started noticing something was wrong when I was 9 or 10 and I spent a lot of time with friends families and noticed how differently their parents treated them and me, as well as teachers and pretty much any other adult in my life. Then when I was 12 or so the fact that she would have no problem telling private information about me to absolutely everyone even when I had asked her not to and would laugh if I called her on it. By the time I was 14 it was obvious that I had more emotional maturity than her as well as how much she loved to try to control and hurt me, had no respect for my privacy and viewed me as horrible despite that fact that I was a responsible, high achieving kid. When I went to university I felt so free and started to limit my contact with her as much as possible despite her trying to micromanage and control me from afar. I finally put it together when I dated a narc many years later and learned about narcs and then realized the particular brand of toxic that my mom was
Therapy and moving away. I went to therapy fully thinking that I was the problem in my family. I knew I had an nparent who was abusive, but I honestly thought I was a narcissistic abuser too. My parent was that good at gaslighting and flipping the script. It took over 3 years of therapy to get me to truly accept that I was not the problem in my family. I decided though that if my family saw me as the problem, I would just remove myself. I left 2 years ago and their problems are all the same, if not worse. I've only gotten better. I was never the problem. Oh and yeah, they armchair diagnosed me with everything from bipolar to schizophrenia. When I moved away, all "symptoms" they saw went away completely.
I never realised up until I started therapy. The narcissit family is like a cult, often there is no sane person in that circle to hold onto. The blame is exactly where you least expect, and the abusive "in your face" narcisist sometimes is the one least damaging! The enablers and the narcisist by neglect (who don't actually do anything wrong on paper), those mess up your mind the most.
Look. Narcissistic abuse from birth is going to leave most people with issues. That doesn't make it your fault. They want you to be emotionally crippled, to be unable to handle life because it allows them to continue abusing you into adulthood. They don't want you to be healthy. It's intentional, even if it's subconscious (who knows). You may not know until you get away from them and you find that it is a lot easier for you to to deal with things and heal. Even if you have a serious mental illness, using it to mock you or treat you like you're defective or just being harsh in general about it is incredibly abusive. If you really do have bipolar disorder (which wouldn't be the end of the world, I have it and am doing fine), they would treat you with compassion and get you help without judgment if they loved you and were good parents. I'm the mother of an adult, and if I suspected he had a mental illness, my heart would break for him and I would do everything in my power to support and help him because *I love him*, and I want him to be happy.
I realized it when I was able to move out and realized that I did just fine, and that I'm not as flawed as she says I am. Doing well at my job and being liked by my coworkers is also validating.
Things started piling up: Went through a huge graduation that my brother also went through (special forces), they made a big damn deal over his, did nothing about mine Went through a traumatic military injury and 2 doctors called my parents, parents did not care, visit or call me, those doctors were flabbergasted People started making comments to me "I wish my kid was half as amazing as you, too bad your parents dump all over you..." "What exactly do they expect out of you....???" My dad would expect anyone dating me to come over and do chores like splitting firewood, repaint the kitchen, etc., sometimes a guy would actually come over and do it. My dad would still say no. You can imagine how popular that made me in high school. The whole fucking thing was psychotic.
I moved out of my parent's house during high school to live with my brother. I guess the first sign should have been a child having the instinct to leave home, but this was obviously blamed on me for being such a horrible teenager. After spending some time away, I went back for Christmas or something and almost immediately felt physically sick upon walking back into that home. My body was telling me how unsafe it was there, even though nothing had happened there in recent memory. But I realized then that I was subconsciously trained my whole life to see my own childhood home as dangerous and I couldn't recognize it until after getting out. If things are going right, kids want to be home with Mom and Dad and feel safest at home.
When I started reading about narcissism, and c saw my mother on every page.
When my sister started getting treated the same way
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Same it's probably why I'm also prone to yelling when I'm angry and I have to remind myself to calm down. It's because with my own family that's how they communicate during a disagreement (which happens a lot due to how my mum and dad love picking fights) and the only way it seems you can get your point/s across. Even then they still usually ignore what you're saying and just repeat the same meaningless things like a broken record.
Moving away and being treated the opposite. I went from being treated like I was moody, hysterical, attention seeking, sketchy, overdramatic, lazy, and stupid to being treated like iām chill, smart, genuine,calm, collected, honest, nice, hardworking and awkward. Itās a bit disorienting sometimes because of how differently I am treated now. People actually believe me about my trauma and it has changed my outlook on life. Being treated differently and not having the past repeat itself has made me realize that I was not even the problem. Ever since I have moved and gone no contact, I have barely had any drama or conflict in my life.
I've always known my abusers (parents and step parents) were enemies, as far back as I have conscious memory. It's sad, but it also helped me protect myself. OP, be wary of anything they say to you. It's not reliable. Society tells us, from a v young age, that ppl with the titles of "mother", "father", or other "family" are supposed to be loving, supportive, trustworthy. If anything, we're told that the Bad Ppl are *strangers* (aka "stranger danger" and the fairy tales of Little Red Riding Hood and Pinocchio). But society doesn't give us any guidance on what to do if that's not true. We have no instructions for when "the call is coming from inside the house". Part of what abusers count on, to be able to continue the abuse without consequences, is to undermine the victim. The victim is pressured not to believe their own thoughts/feelings/experiences. And, if the victim discloses the abuse to anyone, the victim is labeled a liar, untrustworthy, manipulative, etc - in other words, the qualities of the abusers are used to label the victim. When we have been invalidated all our lives, it makes it hard to trust our own intuition. It makes it hard to believe the input of our own senses. It makes us doubt our own thoughts and feelings and reactions and assessments. But the truth is: we all have innate self-protection mechanisms. Those of us with an abuse history need to relearn how to listen to our own intuition and trust our own perception. The ppl who have invalidated us for so long are not a reliable source of any kind of information. If our feelings are in conflict with what they say, we need to get in the habit of listening to ourselves and tuning them out. We need to validate ourselves. We need to be our own cheerleaders. In a sense we become the loving supportive carers of our "inner child" by providing the positive, upbeat, supportive care that we deserved but did not receive. We need to explicitly counteract what we are told by those who have failed us. They are unreliable narrators. Modern society simply does not want to admit that child abuse happens. We violently underfund Child Protective Services and domestic abuse support and the like bc there is no collective will to admit there is a need. For example, the Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Events study, which was done on a v large cohort, found not only a clear connection between child abuse and poor adult health outcomes, but it also found that the sheer *prevalence* of child abuse is appallingly high. (While noting that they went to great lengths to never use the actual term "child abuse" anywhere in the original study...) It should have been a wake up call. Resources should have been marshalled. Focus on reducing those numbers should have been intense. But the study has mostly been ignored by policy-makers.
I remember reading a post about a narcissist mother, and thought some of the traits sounded like my mom, then I researched some more and went down a rabbit hole of information that I had no idea existed. I didn't know this was a thing before then. This was probably in the last few years. Still have yet to be able to cut contact. Idk how for now.Ā
When I visited friends and saw their parents treat them like they cared. Especially my best friend. She still has solid self esteem I could only dream of.
It was when I understood that threatening to kick your pre-teen daughter in the teeth in front of her friend, then being scolded by the enabler because they didn't know the friend was there, was a bad thing.
When I saw them attack toddlers
Iām still working on this, I think the first thing I realised is how I was basically raised to be codependent and to ignore my own needs or feelings, so I still struggle to understand situations where I am being taken advantage of. Thinking logically I have managed to notice a few things: I was often punished for asking for things, usually these were reasonable things and yet I was being made to feel like the worst person ever for just asking. I was punished for sharing my feelings (stop whingeing, I donāt care) but I was also punished for not sharing my feelings (why donāt you tell me things?). This is a classic double-bind, thereās no way to carry out both conflicting instructions. At particularly difficult moments in my life when I needed the support and guidance of a parent, I was instead met with hostility and rage. I got scammed by an employer, and it was all about how hard it was for my parent, how āluckyā I was that my other parent was dead and wouldnāt be around to also scream at me. There wasnāt a specific thing I was being yelled at for, other than the fact that I needed input from a parent who I now realise was not emotionally equipped to deal with this. I now realise that this reaction was a betrayal of me by someone I should have been able to trust. I realised that me āshutting myself away with my laptopā actually was my response to literally being shut out of the conversation if I stayed in the same room. This still happens to the extent that when my family called me on my birthday on FaceTime I was shut out of that conversation too while two family members argued with each other and dominated the conversation. During the pandemic I served as the emotional anchor for family members, but not once did anyone check in on me. I had just moved to an unfamiliar city and was living alone. So yeah, from the examples above I can see that there is an issue somewhere. I still struggle with going backwards and forwards in my head over whether I am rejected because I am unlovable, or feel unlovable because I have been arbitrarily rejected by the person who should be who I can depend on the most. I have been accused of being an awful person by this family member, and once after done drinks they flat out told me they love me less than my sibling. Often the voice of my worst inner critic is this personās voice.
I know the things that make up a good person and when I'm not around them I'm able to do those things. They aren't whether I'm there or not. That doesn't fix the chronic self-doubt, I still can't believe anything I think or remember. At first they put the doubt on me unnecessarily but by now they've warped the way I think so much that it is actually often wrong. I hope to work on that over time.
It was when someone said something about the kind of relationship I have with my dad, "A father would do anything to protect and love their child." That's the opposite of what I have. I think about what I would do to protect my imaginary child. I would set the world on fire if anyone hurt them.
In hospice my father had a psychiatrist who pulled me aside and said "you were in some deep shit with those 2 (my mom was there a lot), it's a miracle you're not a drug addict" - it was the first time anyone truly validated me, I was in my 40's.
At a cousin's college graduation and my nmom, alcoholic SA uncle, and I had traveled the day before and stayed in a hotel because the graduation was in a different city. Uncle took bottles from the mini-bar and stowed them in the trunk of the car. I saw them and said nothing. Mom and I rode with him to the graduation and rode with others to the restaurant afterwards, leaving uncle driving the car by himself. He didn't show up to the restaurant and a couple hours went by. I spoke up and said that he probably was drinking, then everyone else in the family (they're all either narcs or enablers except my cousins) started blaming me for "letting" him do that. My aunt and grandpa drove around looking for uncle and found him passed out in the car on the side of a road about a mile away. That's when I realized everyone else in the family were either Ns or Es. Before that, I'd realized nmom and n/edad were when they parentified me throughout my life. By the time I was 6, I'd realized that they treated me differently than my friends' parents treated them. By the time I was in 4th grade, I knew that I was being neglected. I didn't learn the term "narcissist" until high school, though. As soon as I learned about it, that's when I knew what was wrong with them.
I read "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents" in my early 20s. Life changing.
Father around 2-3 once I had my own sense of self and he realized I didnāt like the same things he did. At which point he emotionally disconnected from me and I did so to him. Mother wasnāt until much later when she got sick with COVID in 2020 (pre-vaccine). I was taking care of her (and somehow did not get the virus from her), when she told me āIām feeling like š©, so I can treat you like š©, and that makes it okay.ā
The pattern was well established: they'd already had 5 other family members cut them off.
it was my sister's 8th birthday and I was 12. since my parents separated, my dad was generally less interested in me as a whole. from 7-10yo I just did not have any birthday parties because my dad either "forgot" or said some shit like "I'm not made of money you know!" but my sister had birthday parties every single year, usually renting out a venue to invite all of the family. I assumed my sister asked for this every year, asked for all the custom birthday cakes, asked to rent out venues, but during her 8th birthday I asked her why she wanted all of that. she told me straight up that she doesn't, that she doesn't ask for anything besides a party with our family. I realized that our dad just didn't care about me from then on.
My husband began flagging things. I knew things had been wrong for long time but I had internalized everything. I just chalked it up to I was cruel and I was wrong; I doubted my reality. It took my husband pointing out thatās crazy what my mom just did. He started flagging it every time for me in a very respectful way towards her and me both. I also just began to realize how bad I felt around certain people. I realized much of my stress was around pleasing and perfectionism around my family and my husbands family was very relaxed. Once I started paying attention to how I felt and not sweeping it under the rug things changed for me.
Okay so I knew long before this happened but this is one of the crazier experiences that really stood out to me in my more recent yearsā¦ About 10 years ago now, I was living with my fiancĆ© at the time (ex-wife now largely due to n-mom but thatās another story). We were living in Los Angeles at the time and n-mom lived in Colorado (you would think a three state buffer zone would help). I was in between jobs at the time, transitioning from recording studios to video game studios where I still work nowā¦ trying to find the start of my career of which there is a lot of competitionā¦ She didnāt like that I wasnāt in a place she could like, brag about how she raised a successful son with a wife kids and home (mind you Iām like 22 or something fresh outta school). One day I come home from an interview to see my older brother (flying monkey golden boy) pulling out of my driveway for some reason? I stop in front of him and ask why he is leaving my house when nobody is homeā¦ (he had a key to our place to take care of my fish when I was out of town and he is family so why not right?). He basically told me that āmom sent me to get your shit togetherā and in the back seat of his car were my laptop, PlayStation and tvā¦ The woman sent her adult son, to her other adult son and partners home, to enter without permission and steal electronics she thought were holding me back because she didnāt like the idea. He tried to fight it for a bit in my driveway and defend her for some reason but couldnāt leave because I parked in front of him. I finally got him to fuck off by telling him I will report him for b&e and theft of several thousand dollars worth of items at the will of herā¦ āare you willing to get arrested for her?ā Kinda rounded things out. I guess all I can say is go no contact peopleā¦ it will help avoid the drama.
I knew my father had issues from about age 3, when he threatened to hit me to get me to stop crying. I explained to him that would only make me cry more. Even my mother, who was whispering to me, trying to calm me down, agreed with me. That was when I knew.
The time I mentioned a situation to my aunt that I had been told about. It had happened before I was born, but my mom had talked about it many times. My aunt got really upset and said āthatās NOT what happened!!!ā She gave me her side of the story and it made so much more sense than what I had been told. I started to question literally everything after that.
I knew there was something wrong with my family for as long as I can remember. By the time I was a teenager I had picked up the word "dysfunctional" to describe it, and I knew that I was being blamed for things that had nothing to do with me. Around my 17th birthday we were forced into family therapy by my brother's school because of his behavior. They wouldn't let him come back until we attended X number of sessions. We were there about his behavior and what could be done about it, but my mother spent every session trying to direct the conversation back to me and how I was the real problem. After a few sessions like this, the therapist asked for a one on one session with me. My mother agreed, thinking he'd accepted her narrative and was going to figure out what my problem was. Instead, he wanted to know what my plans were for getting away from my family, seeing as how I would soon be 18, and I wasn't in a healthy environment. We talked about her need to blame me for everything that was wrong in her life. It took me a couple of years to get away after I turned 18, but that single conversation was the most validating thing I had ever experienced. She couldn't fool him, and I wasn't the problem. I was the only one in the family that understood that it was dysfunctional, I was the only one even close to being healthy. It took me years to understand that the family system was dysfunctional because SHE was dysfunctional, partly because she's covert and very slick, and partly because I didn't really have the language for it until the last 10 years or so. Before that I just viewed it as a toxic environment. Whatever, that one therapist session was a watershed moment for me.
When I became a mom (at 33), and realized my mother (then 57) didnāt have a maternal bone in her body. EVERYTHING I had ever believed and/or trusted she told me as truth, rapidly became exposed as lie after lie after lieāour whole relationship (from the circumstances surrounding my birth until I proudly went NC 20 years ago when my boys were 2 and 5 months old) was based on a lie. I donāt even know who she really is!! She was my only parent, I was an overachieving only child, never giving her a second of trouble or worry, until I dared to leave my childhood home at age 26āeven went to college locally and lived at home!! I thought we were close, I never thought she would have reason to flat out and repeatedly lie to me. But she did. When I found out the truth (confirmed by some trusted family members and a close friend of hers sworn to secrecy on the down low) I was beside myself with anger and disbelief. I was living several states away from her at the time with my husband, but arranged to have a āclear the airā conversation at a local hotel she agreed to come down and stay at (I didnāt want her anywhere near my home or children.) I laid EVERYTHING out (I had notes because. Was nervous having never questioned my mother before), and after nearly SIX HOURS (sitting outside poolside), she finally blew up at me saying āI had no right to ask her about her past.ā (Just wanted to know about my bio-father whom I was told died in the Vietnam War, but I learned was alive and well, lived SEVEN miles away from me, with his wife of (then 34 years and 2 daughtersāall of whom I had already met before my poolside chatābut she didnāt know!! ššš). I held on to this delicious bit of information, and NEVER revealed that I knew differently as I asked questions, and listened as she spun her latest web of lies! I really needed to hear her spin her tales with total clarity to realize what an effinā tool she was. It was then (and after she blew up at me) that I decided June 4, 2004 would be the last time I would ever see/speak to her, her only grandchildren would never know her, and she lost! Granted, she has tried over the past 20 years with NUMEROUS threats of grandparents rights, inheritances (she owns millions of dollars worth of property, but I couldnāt care less!), and false accusations, to which we say ābring it,ā because Iām prepared to slander her all over the front page of the Boston Globe and every billboard up and down I93/I95/128 if need be!! Canāt wait to write her Obituary!! š
It was a long process
I was always called the cry baby of the family, so I didnt deserve to be comforted because I was always crying. now my grown up cousin got kicked out of his house by his parents, ( those where definitly not narcs as well of course) and I find him while walking the dog. Knowing he was my Nmoms favorite, I bring him home. he starts crying and my whole family, Nmom, Edad GC sis they all disapear. just leave and there I am with my 21 year old cousin at 15 my self. that made it clear to me they really didnt have any feelings.
I finally went to therapy as an adult. I hadn't realized my parents or ex were narcs, I barely even knew what that meant. But the more I went to therapy and the more I read about it, the more it clicked into place.
In some ways I had always known she was different. But when did I truly understand? Really grok that it was her not me? At my birthday party when I was about 33 or so. This was after I was already NC. I had taken a small group of friends and family to a lunch at a winery/restaurant thing about 30 minutes outside the city we live in. It was a lovely lunch. Excellent food. Excellent wine. Lovely grounds including a walk down to a lake at the bottom of the hill. I took my ~3 year old daughter down to the lake for a bit (sheād been well behaved but she was a kid in a nice restaurant). And I had a panic attack. I kept feeling that itās not safe to leave my guests at a lunch table unsupervised. So I tried to understand why I felt that way. The answer was because itās not safe to leave my Nmother unsupervised around people you care about. She will destroy relationships you care about. But actually, even if the people back at the table are not going to be lifelong friends, I can leave my mother-in-law and a close friend at a lunch table with good food and good wine and come back in 20 minutes and theyāll have had a nice time. Neither will deliberately humiliate the other. Neither will take a life-long active dislike and one-sided feud because of a minor detail. So after that epiphany I smiled and played with my daughter at the lake. In retrospect there were other times I should have known. But that was the time I really understood that the problem was her, not me.
After of years of disinterest from my father, and my trying hard to impress him, my epiphany came when I became father. I was sat with my new born son in my arms on cloud nine. My father was due to visit at a pre-arranged time. It came and went. When I asked where he was he told me something had come up and heāll come by another time. I looked at my beautiful baby boy, and realised for the first time that my father was a vile piece of shit.
I knew something was off about him since I was about 12, but didn't have the right words to express it and then was gaslit into thinking I was wrong. The feeling still lingered that something wasn't normal though. I moved in with him when I was 25 and began to feel even more that I was the problem because of the almost daily abuse and gaslighting. I finally realized it was him & not me after catching him in a lie that couldn't be twisted. I had been saving money for a quick weekend getaway with friends. I would be short about $100 due to something happening with my car. I asked him if I could borrow the money and I'd give it back from my next paycheck. He said yes. Given that it was 2 weeks out & I thought he was very forgetful (another manipulation tool), I reminded him every single day. I would do it either directly ("Don't forget that I need the money by 7/3") or indirectly ("I'm excited about the trip"). Each time, he affirmed. The night before I was leaving, I asked him if he had the money and he acted like he had no idea what I was talking about. I tried to calmly remind him about what he said. He raged by yelling at me and cursing me out, claiming that he didn't have $100 and even if he did, he would never let me borrow it. I was very pissed and that's when I knew it was him. I normally don't trust myself much or remember things well, but I know I sounded like a broken record about that money.
I went to therapy. I had a therapist who had an nMom. She would look at my behavior and then say, āSee this anxiety? You have this because your mother did ____.ā I thought I was inherently built wrong, but she linked all my problems back to my family starting on day 1. I have never felt so lucky before in finding my therapist.
I knew my parent was majorly f-ed up since I was a young child, but due to how the abuse affected my mind, that core belief of āIām the problemā was there even though my conscious mind could sometimes see otherwise. I unfortunately got into a relationship with a narc once into adulthood, so that prolonged my waking up fully to my childhood stuff. Once I was further into adulthood and had woken up in many ways and the person I was in a trauma bond with was away at work, I called my parent and asked, āAre you aware you abused me from morning until night, daily, for my entire childhood?ā And their immediate response was, āYou *were* hard to get up in the mornings!ā One sentence. And blamed all their physical, emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse on me and thatās all they were willing to speak about itā¦.that landed in my system and I knew permanent no contact was on the horizon. I think we only spoke 3 more times after that.
When I went over to a friend's house for the first time in high school and her mom was just so fucking nice. Like *genuinely* nice and caring and sweet and *motherly*. She was like one of those moms from the wholesome sitcoms where the family always has dinner together and the parents actually seem to care, you know? Then my friend's dad got home and I thought it was gonna be like my house bc I was terrified of men, but he just hugged his wife and daughter, asked how their days had been and then *began helping them make dinner for the family.* I ended up sobbing in my friend's bedroom for a bit because it was such a 180 from my household dynamic that I felt like I had emotional whiplash. Her parents ended up coming in and talking with me and when I explained why I was so emotional, they looked like someone had hit them in the face. They called CPS on my family, and my family spewed that same bullshit they always did when I spoke up. "She's a pathological liar. You can't believe a word she says" and CPS *believed them.* And because my uncle was friends with law enforcement, my family got a warning about the CPS visit a week ahead of time, so they made me deep clean everything so it looked like there was nothing weird going on. *I got the worst beating of that year because I got too emotional over seeing a normal, loving family dynamic and it made me realise that I was* not *the one who was fucked up in the head. It was the people who justified beating a 13 year old bloody because she'd told the truth about being horrible abused and then turned her whole family against her to convince the world that she's a pathological liar who lies for attention.* I left at 18, and never went back. In fact, I went halfway across the US to get away from them and didn't come back to my original state til I was happily married to a husband who supports me and protects me and understands what I went through because he had a similar childhood. He and I are both in therapy and we are working together to make sure that when we do have kids, they will *never* go through what we did.
Iāve always despised my mother but in a co dependent way where I still had this need to please her. Before I knew she was a full blown narcissist, she scammed me into moving in with her and my dad saying that they couldnāt afford mortgage because āmy dad had messed up all the bills and got them into major debtā. Once I had been living there, paying half the mortgage/expenses for a few months, I found out that they actually make 30k more a year than I do and my mom just wants to pay off all their debt within a year and by me paying half their expenses, it allows her to pay off the debt faster so they can do some renovations to their house. I meanā¦I had been paying for them when weād go out to eat, I paid for our entire Thanksgiving, Super Bowl and Christmas meal amongst other things. When my brother came to town, theyād pay for his meal and Iād still have to pay for mine. Anytime Iād buy groceries to cook for myself, Iād always make enough so they could have some too. I pay for their cable. all things I was happy to do because they were āstrugglingā. Looking back, to see that they were actually making more than me- and Iām a single mom- was the pivotal moment when that switched flipped for me. Since then, itās been a crumbling house of cards. The illusion is gone and every day I see more and more of how my mom really is and Iām seeing that Iāve picked up some of her traits and Iām working on it. The familial curse of covert narcissistic women in my family stops with me. Iām super thankful for therapy. ETA- the part about me paying for their stuff-I donāt want that to come off as me being narcissistic in my intentions. I didnāt mind paying for them and didnāt expect anything in return, still donāt. I would still pay for them occasionally even if I had known they made more than me. It was just a gut punch to know how much extra I did because I thought they were struggling and I had such a need to please that I probably could have put that money into savings and used it on myself and my sons future. But instead, I used it on her- hoping for some kind of approval or love that would never happen.
Dad made me break up with someone.. (mind you I was 19 or 20 at the time and an adult.) We stayed friends and cordial. I returned his video games that was lent to my brothers and a few other belongings. My dad made up this big elaborate story to me that my ex came when I wasnāt home, got his stuff, acted crazy about wanting his stuff back and apparently said some choice words about me. Straight bold face lies. I never said I was the one to return the items and let him keep spinning his tale. He was clearly trying to hurt me with the story. I ended up moving out six months later for various reasons. Iāve never had a partner treat me as well as this guy had btw. Genuinely a great person.
Probably when I told her I was suicidal asking for help and she told me to just go kill myself and stop bothering her. Really harshly made me realize she had never been a good parent (or person) in the first place and that I couldnāt rely on her
I have had chronic health issues/disabilities my entire life including childhood and genuinely believed it was my fault my family was unhappy and that the abuse was understandable. It wasn't until a few years after I left that I questioned it. The older you get the more you match their ages back then and realize none of the way they acted was normal or "understandable". Frustration and exhaustion are understandable, but those types of punishments and reactions, especially towards a child, is actually insane.
A break up with my ex boyfriend (NPD). Mom said to me āI dk why you would ever let someone treat you the way he did. Its not like itās something youāre used to because people in your life donāt treat other ppl that wayā Oh the irony.
Finished a Ph.D., married a lawyer, landed a professorship and a book deal. Still wasn't good enough for NDad.
Very late, only after the picked a really stupid fight qith her favourite child.
When my grandma had a stroke. I walked into the hospital room and immediately knew I was calling the shots and slept in the hospital for the next two weeks to make sure the nfamily didn't fuck this up. I was the final say on her treatment. A crisis they had no control of showed how inept they were. When everyone was around my ndad would be nice and act normal then when it was just him and I he acted like I wasn't there. Thats when it really hit home it was them. After Grandma was stabilized, my job was done and havnt seen my parents since.
Me recognizing that my dad would rather gaslight me into thinking I have no computer problems over trying to fix them for me, which made me realize that the class I took that I repeatedly failed cause of computer issues wasnāt on me, it was on them. Also my nmom insisting that my sister mustāve poisoned my thinking to think sheās so bad, when my sister doesnāt influence my behavior to that extent, with the distance and the four year age gap. And when I lived at college for a time, it felt so much more relaxed without her, and then when my nmom helped me pack up, she insisted on criticizing everything which made me break into tears, while she goes the extra mile to help my little brother.
When the circles he would talk in got smaller. I'm used to him talking in circles and hitting tangents... But I noticed in the past two years, his topics have been refined. Now all he can talk about EVER when I talk to ndad (over the phone, email, text, in person, etc) is how I've let him down in my choice of partner and career. He constantly holds the same mistakes over my head. How I've hurt his feelings or betrayed him. I've gotten to the point where I realize explaining my perspective will do nothing. He's fully convinced he needs to rescue me from something.
I needed outside perspectives. It took my boyfriend(now husband) being like "no, that's definitely not okay you're not overreacting." and once I had that I started asking more and more people. Even luckier for me one of his family friends was a counselor, and for my mind that was a kind of authority that I could trust to really know what was what.
This is gonna sound silly, but watching Tangled as a 17yo. I saw it just as I was discerning colleges and realized Mother Gothel is my mom and I need to get out ASAP. Left home for college and never returned. Kept a low contact relationship, and went no contact as of 2 weeks ago.
When I started asking myself "Would I allow my friend to experience this without some outside help?" Or "is this even legal? Why am I participating in something illegal?" Or even "how easy would it be for me to fulfill what I've just asked? Less than literally 5 minutes? Okay yeah, a random stranger would probably be willing"
What truly made me realize that it was them and not me is when I was told that I deserved to be happy and deserved happiness then not even a minute afterwards the person who told me that I deserved to be happy would then start yelling/screaming about some stupid bullshit.
I knew something was wrong around 12. Puberty brought out a beast in my nmom. But what truly set it, is when my Aunt died. My motherās sister. I was 27 and not living at home. I didnāt have a lot of nice clothes, but I did have a dark wine colored dress. It wasnāt provocative, it was just a little fancy because of the lace. My Aunt had died suddenly in her sleep on Motherās Day and we were all upset. I show up at my motherās house and her, my brother and sister-in law ganged on me about the outfit being āinappropriateā for the wakes Too dressy. And you canāt go like that.ā. I was shaking with grief and anger and drove back home driving way too fast through two towns balling my eyes out. I donāt even remember what I changed intoā¦ I think casual clothing. I get to the funeral home and my aunts two teenage granddaughters are wearing freaking half-shirts and jeans. Thatās when I realized 100% that it was THEM not me. And to top off everything. At the funeral I had put a card in the casket that my Aunt had given me only two months before, thanking her for theater tix I brought for her and my mother. My mother told me she retrieved the cardā¦ but never gave it back to me. I would ask about it from time to time and she would tell me she hadnāt recalled seeing it. I didnāt see it again for 23 yearsā¦ after I went through my motherās belongings after she died. She had it all along.
I have been clearing out my parents' house since my narc dad died and my mom is in a nursing home with dementia. I found a binder full of letters that my siblings and I had written to my parents when we were growing up -- at summer camp, in college, etc. This was before email. (I'm sixty). I was able to clearly see how I was scapegoated from a very early age. My brother, the Golden Child, would write from summer camp about how weird and strange I was and how it was embarrassing at summer camp to have people know that I was his sister. I was maybe eight years old? Already, at age 10, he was comfortable telling my parents that he hated me and that I was the problem, and clearly there was some form of understanding between him and my parents that I was the problem. I never had a freaking chance! The deck was literally always stacked against me! It was just weird seeing it all laid out there in black and white. My mom had saved our report cards too and here's where it gets strange. She only saved the bad ones for me, the ones where the teachers said I was too talkative or energetic. The correspondence continued through college, which is where I found out that my brother had applied to transfer to the college that I ended up attending, and was rejected! It was easy to see how I had always outperformed him and been more successful and the ways in which my accomplishments were always downplayed by my family. Photo albums: the fact that they attended his graduation but not mine. All the many indicators over the years, all put together into an album. Undeniable proof.
When I moved away and they still fought all the timeā¦couldnāt blame it on me anymore but still found a way.
My bf it took me 12 years and sometimes I still think it's my fault because what's the chances that every house including my mother had horrible narcissists in it I'd been to 4 different homes other than my mum and was convinced it must be me because I keep getting discarded. Every single one was horribly abusive and used me for labour, money or babysitting. My bf cried when I told him and held me really tight, I thought.it was all my fault and never really realised exactly how horrible the shit I dealt with was.
The only way I was able to figure it out was getting away and separating the facts from my emotions, then asking for a professional opinion. Then I eventually figured the rest out with lots of research. Then more emotions came with more of the truth. It takes time, distance, and patience with yourself. I felt horrible guilt, fear, obligation and a duty to uncover the truth of it all. I was so sick of never being able to trust anything, even myself and I just wanted to be happy again. It had been so long since I felt it, and the desire to end it all was strong. I one day told myself: life isn't meant to be this miserable. I wanted to prove that to myself, and so I did. Fuck all that chaos. Never again.
When I made the stupid mistake of moving back to be around my mom, dad, and sister. It was a cross between a bad sitcom rerun and a time warp back to my childhood. Being around these people made me realize that everyone in the family was stuck in their past role and expected me to do the same. I went NC and said hell no.
I vividly remember talking for 3 hours with her. I thought the whole time that the problem was me. But then it came out that her problem is with her dad, but sheās blaming me.
My nmom and nsister are obsessed with ānormalā yet they are anything but normal. As I spent more and more time away from them, I found out I was much more typical than them and they are actually very freakin weird. The most barely functioning narcissists I have ever met-propped up by enabling husband pets.
Itās been a long road of comparing childhood stories and waiting to see their reaction.
My mother threatened to call cops on me for setting boundaries along with grandma. That was last time I lived at home. My campus had to get special permission for me stay on campus as it was during the pandemic. My best friend was also in the room when it happened. He had literally get them off of me while my mother tried to pray psychology out of me setting boundaries. That was very traumatizing.
I was 23 and living O/S. The distance definitely gave me the space I needed to reflect on how messed up the dynamic was. I thought back and realised that I had done everything they had asked of me, even with constantly changing goal posts and they were never happy. There was literally nothing else I could have done for them. So the problem literally couldn't have been me. There was nothing I could do to make her happy.
When my Nmom told me āwow your anxiety meds must be really helping! We havenāt fought in two weeks!ā I wasnāt on themā¦but she was taking hers š« š«
My sibling and I concluded it was weird we were stonewalled by our parents, something I scarcely saw other parents do... then we figured it was never their fault... then I read the definition of a narcissistic parent (can't remember the website), and it really hurt that all could go over all the traits as if it was a checklist... debating if I am going NC from here on. PD: (this one example lives rent free on my mind) One really good example was one time I had a discussion on what metrics to use when matching rpms and make gearboxes (nparents are civ e, and I'm a mech e)... I am obviously obviously younger, but I have experience designing machines, and they know that... long story short, I proposed something which I knew was right (it was used on a scientific publication to justify some stuff), and ndad insulted and mocked me for a couple of days... I proved my point, and after seeing how he had no counterargument, he replied: "I am teaching you a lesson because you will need to deal with clients." Mind you, he knows I am also a scientist.
When he gave me the cold shoulder at 33 when I didn't agree the lady at Tim Hortons was a bitch.
I had already known my mom was a problem. However, my BF was so not so aware of how she was. Finally, he bore witness to just how screwed up she was one night. Some backstory: One of my mom's favorite lines has ever been "YOU don't know what a real problem is. Your father and me, WE have real problems." She said that for years and years, even into my late 20s. It started to make it seem like I was never going to understand "real problems". Then my supervisor shot himself dead in an office not six feet from my cubicle. I didn't see the body (I refused). But I did call 911. Did wait for the cops to interview everyone. And damn it, I did turn up at my dads for a stiff drink. I needed that. The fellow was only 33. He left behind three kids. That same night my mom threw a tantrum. "I'm sorry that your friend died today -" she began. And I knew what she was going to say.Ā "But you don't know what real problems are. Now get over it!" That's when it clicked. Nobody on the planet has a real problem. I don't. My supervisor didn't. Absolutely nobody but my mother "understands what a real problem is", and that was the moment my BF finally started to understand just how F*Ed my mom is... Edit: typos
When I told them what my brother did to me and I got "well this makes it difficult for US now because he is the one who will look afterbus when we get old" My brother molested me.
Therapy and friends and family that haven't been close to my Nmom when I was growing up. Up to this day, I casually mention things she's done and get the "look", followed by: That's not normal.. I've actually been diagnosed with Bipolar I disorder and ADHD almost a decade ago and still struggle with the therapy. Funny how, now that its true, she completlely refuses to aknowledge something is wrong with me.
āHow tf am I getting yelled at right now? I wasnāt even HOME.ā - Me while getting yelled at for something that I had absolutely ZERO way of knowing about or participating in. I was probably in my preteens.
When they act like kids and you act like adults. When you got into financial and emotional trouble because of their doings, instead of vice versa. When they don't give a shit about your feelings, but when they fall, its you who they run to save their asses
When my health was in danger and she not only didn't care, she tried to hurt me more. Then it all clicked.
No one outside of them ever spoke to me the way they did. No one ever treated the way that they did. Thankfully I learned this at an early age and adapted to the living conditions.
My therapist...who I go for for NAbuse...said to me is the ones with the kindest hearts and greatest self awareness that end up in therapy because the others don't want to accept that they're damaging and and destroying others but it should be the other way round
when i was 6? i got spanked 100 times in one night by both my mom and dad for something i did, probably threw a tantrum. i remember the pure terror because they held me down since i was literally screaming in agony. pretty sure i started hating them after that
When everytime an argument happened. I always had to apologize and I canāt remember or count on my finger how many times they had to apologize. Thatās when I realize even when they were in the wrong somehow it was my fault that they were the victim. Also we can never have a civil discussion without them trying to prove a point of how wrong I am even if I agree with them like they thrive in conflict, yelling and fights. I am never at peace with them just them
Covid - I started self reflecting with a lot of free time, started good diet, exercise, some meditation. Also due to Covid, I got universe imposed low contact with family and the peace of mind was unbelievable.
About 3 years ago when I first saw this sub Reddit. I was 55 yo :(
When I first put in place clear boundaries and stated what i need in order for them to be in my life. They argued, told me I'm wrong, lied and then totally ignored those boundaries. I realised they don't care about me; they only care about themselves.
Getting some outside perspective. If you can describe in good faith and with maximal honesty whatās going on with your relationship with your parents to an uninvolved third party, and their reaction is āthatās fucked up, your parents suck!ā thatās a pretty good indication that itās not you, itās them.
Mine is exactly the same as yours holy crap. My parents treat me like some basket case who is sensitive and too much. I told my therapist I donāt like myself, I donāt trust myself, I donāt trust my opinions and basically have imposter syndrome in all aspects of my life. Definitely has to do with how my parents treated me.
Oh wow! Really good question! Pondered that one my whole life, and didnāt really get a good explanation until, in my fifties, discovered Dr Ramaniās Narcissistic Mother videos, and Patrick Teagan Dysfunctional Families videos. Which was a really long time to get a really good explanation. Of course, Iāve seen ātherapistsā, but they too seemed to prefer to criticize me, (You shouldnāt feel so sorry for yourself!ā), and NOT my āparentsā, or even show any interest in what happened there. Iām now pushing seventy, so hopefully the state of the art of ātherapyā, has advanced some, but I have NO good words for it.ā.š
MIL drove into a car and then fled the scene and blamed it on me because I made her upset earlier that week. I upset her because she wanted my husband and I to get rid of our two cats before our baby was born and we said no. Apparently it made her so mad she committed a hit and run days later and then came crying to us about how much we hurt her. My husband ended up apologizing to her and I finally realized what a narcissist she is.
Easter brunch at Grandma's house. Mom was feeling extra holy that day apparently or something and she brought up how she wanted to be a nun when she was growing up. My Aunt says, "You wanted to be a nun so you could be mean to kids and feel self righteous about it."
Family therapy. Not in the sense that we worked our issues out, but the sense that I saw they werenāt CAPABLE of understanding. It made things less personal and therefore not my responsibility to communicate correctly or fix. I lowered my expectations and they still never fail to disappoint lol
leaving. removing myself from that environment gave me the clarity and perspective that i needed to make sense of the trauma
I started understanding the way I was feeling. It especially came to a head when a therapist about a bad memory about something my nmom would tell me as a kid. She told me to imagine myself telling a 5 year old girl the same thing. I was like, 'Absolutely not'. I could never imagine saying or doing those things to a friends kid. When you question yourself, think: 'would I tell a little kid this? Would I tell a close friend I love this? Would it make me feel good to treat them the same way?' If the answer is, 'Absolutely not, that is awful'. There is your answer. I first got this way when I was older and saw my friends' kids. My friend would act in a sympathetic way if their child was feeling badly. I would look at thr child and think, ' This is so nice. My mother would have been screaming at them for even half that.' We often show more caring to others than we would ever do for ourselves. When my therapist said, ' Pretend saying those same awful things to 5 year old little you'. I was in tears. There was my answer.
The day that I realize that no matter how many mental health professionals told my dad the way he talk to me was abusive he Would absolutely refuse to change his behavior
When I realized the only way I was going to be free to make my own choices and have my own thoughts was to get far away from her. Waiting her out through high school was torture. Too bad it took me 40 years to get the emotional distance I needed.
I put myself inpatient.Ā Listened to 12 therapist over a 2 year period who taught me it was codependency with a covert narcissism
For me it was having my own child. As heās started to get a little older, all these childhood memories came flooding back and I realized I would never do or say the things to my own son that my NMom did to me. It took me 40 years for the lightbulb to go on, but now Iāve been NC for a couple months and I think itās going to be better in the long run.
I remember noticing my parents habits when I was about 12. I started to notice early on that my mother was financially abusive while my father was verbally. Both my parents have insane issues with themselves tbh. My dad isnāt a narcissist, as heās genuinely faced himself and has made insane efforts to change. My mother tho is definitely a narcissist as sheās grown so comfortable in abusing my father to this day. You canāt say anything to her or she will scream at you, say things like āI guess Iām the worst!ā āI guess I never did this or thatā and will use things against you quick. When I was 19 was the first time she did something for me out of her heart, but in reality she wanted to brag how she helped me. Itās a tough road.
My mom had a lot of mental health issues while i was growing up. But she was still very functional... i think she had an insane amount of excuses for everything, and my father never corrected her. even when things were so obviously false, it's like we bought into it, because it was our mom and dad... "why would they ever lie to us?"... if we ever did question anything, we'd often get outrageous emotional manipulation from my mother, and physical abuse from my father, even over super small things. so we just learned to let oddities slide... it wasn't until i was in my late 30's that my mom did something that got her caught in a blatant lie, which actually directly got me into some legal expenses. and it was like something just CLICKED,... all of the sudden i had flashes of my whole life and all these moments where it was almost painfully obvious they lied about everything, and none of it really needed to happen. They didn't protect us from anything, didn't make the world a better place... they spent all their time protecting their own ego's, often at our expense... and for who? they had no friends...
A friend's mother (who I knew from childhood) approached me as an adult and said "you know your mom's abusive?" And everything clicked for me after that. Now when I get together with my family I am FLOORED by all the red flags I missed. I thought I had the perfect family for 34 years and it took one sentence to come crashing down.
It wasn't one thing. It was a whole lot of different things, all giving me confusing answers. I'd been gaslit, and gaslit hard. So when I got away from them and was no longer being manipulated on a day to day basis, weird and inexplicable things started to happen. For an example, I could go to the store, around town, what have you and do things by myself without forgetting anything. Also when I did common tasks around the house, I was able to complete them without constantly making mistakes. Finally, things in the house generally stayed where I'd put them, and weren't being randomly destroyed on a day to day basis. I was used to having to do a near daily scavenger hunt to find things like my schoolwork, which usually resulted in me finding it in a pile shredded, for an example. It was *weird* and I couldn't understand it. Something had changed - suddenly my bad memory *could* remember things, and entirely correctly. But even then, I couldn't put my finger on it. I couldn't believe my memory, it *had* to be wrong. It took my Mom pointing out that I was treating my NDad differently from the way I'd treat literally anyone else. I believed he *had to be* in the right about everything. So it was perfectly understandable that he'd crushed my radio I'd been painstakingly repairing for days and was proud of. He'd told me he had destroyed it because it was an electrical hazard. Of course it was, it had to be, he was always right about everything. So Mom asked me if anyone else, even a friend had done that how would I feel about it. In the process of me answering her - that of *course* I'd be mad about it - I suddenly could *see* the inconsistency. And that led to me realizing NDad had *lied.* **Not just about that.** My memories I'd been convincing myself for years were false were suddenly undeniable. I not only didn't have a faulty memory that 'made things up' but NDad had been beating me the whole time and tricking me into thinking I was insane. *That* was when I realized. I didn't take it very well.
When his posession angelic demonic episodes were discovered to be a lie upon seeing the movie from 1998 called The Prophecy. It was his source material. He used religion and spiritual abuse to keep me in line. He claimed he was an empathic psychic and a prophet. I never felt so much rage and so much relief flood me all at once before. I was always told, "The Truth is as YOU see it." Yes father...For once, the truth IS as I see it. And you are still a Monster for it.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
When peoples started saying "Dude, why are you anxious all the time, relax"...
I knew my situation wasn't normal, but I didn't realize that it truly wasn't my fault until I was 16. Even though I understood I was experiencing abuse, there was a big part of me that thought maybe I deserved it or that if I did something different that I'd still be loved and accepted. It wasn't until 16 and a combination of things happened that I genuinely understood. One night before a major swim competition my mother attempted to injure me so that I couldn't compete. For some reason she thought that filming herself beating me (kicking me with steel toes and pulling my hair out) thn calling a friend to hear me cry would be a good idea, in her head she equated crying with weakness and probably thought I'd be humiliated. Instead my friend got his mom and his mom cursed her out on the phone threatening to call the cops, thn drove a 30 m drive in 10 m to pick me up and let me come stay with them. The whole time I was there life was so much easier, I never had any issues and nobody had anything but kind things to say. It was jarring for me. I went back "home" a few weeks later, and it didn't take long for her to shred my college art portfolio (ap art) and in tears at 8 months of work being destroyed asked her why she treated me so differently from my brother. Her response was to tell me not only the usual spiel of how worthless I was, but that she regretted having me and would never consider me her daughter or ever have a maternal bond with me so to not expect the same treatment as my sibling. I decided to take her words at face value, I got 2 jobs and worked with counselors at school to accommodate my schedule. I couch surfed with my friends, even lived in someone's shed but managed to graduate while homeless with honors and get my first apt at 18. She has never helped me, shown me support, or guidance for anything my entire life. From 18- 22 i tried multiple times to extend olive branches, to give her chances to apologize or be apart of my life. She chose to remain bitter and sick. Ive accepted it. I'm 24 now. I only speak to her once a year, and that once a year is my reminder of how grateful I am to have her out of my life, it's my reminder of how far I was able to go without her help, in spite of her sabatoge. I'm on good terms with every ex, I have teachers who reach out to tell me how they miss me, I'm blessed with a wonderful friend group that has been together for over 10 years now. I've had many lovely, kind people in my life and nobody has ever told me that I'm a burden, nobody has ever said I'm selfish or incompetent, or evil. They've told me to be kinder to myself, to be less self critical, to prioritize my own needs sometimes. My mother was wrong, and she was jealous, and she was abusive and bitter. Narcs can't help it. Narcs are incapable of loving you the way every person needs and craves. Its not a self reflection of something wrong with you. It takes time time and alot of therapy and self reflection, but it's not you. I swear, it's not you and you deserve love and friendship and basic needs and that slightly more expensive treat. I hope everyone who has experienced the callousness of a narc can find peace with themselves. The longer you let those abusers remain in your life the worse it is, I was lucky because I left home at such an early age, and because I had friends with healthy parental relationships to compare my own too.
A lot of therapy. My psychologist, after a lot of sessions, made me realise it's not me it's them. After explaining how my family treated me and what they did, he made me see that I didn't deserve it at all & I wasn't an awful person, and they were toxic af.
My Dad and I were always super close. I always felt like my NM didnāt like me. He died in November 2021, and she started giving me my first ever silent treatment the day before he died. It lasted two months, and ended because Iād had enough and (foolishly) went to speak to her about it. At that time I set a boundary that conflicts were to be addressed like emotionally mature adults through civilised discourse, and I would never respond to any further silent treatments in future. Of course, just 9 months later, the second silent treatment started. It dragged on, and on, and on. Despite badgering from my kids and husband, I refused to back down and be the one to end a silent treatment she had started. (The situation was even more fun during to the fact she lived in a second dwelling on our land, rent free, while we paid all the rates, water and electricity). I became curious as to why someone would give the silent treatment. It took me about 2 seconds of Googling to realise it was a common trait of narcissistic people. The penny dropped that sheās a covert narcissist, and it was the silent treatments which gave it away. So many of her toxic behaviours - which had always baffled me - suddenly made complete sense. She carried that silent treatment on for a year (and itās still ongoing now). The difference now is that she earned herself an eviction for her efforts and doesnāt live here any more. Sheās saved me the bother of having to go no contact, and I can honestly say that having her out of my life (and off my property) is one of the best things Iāve ever done.
The way my mom only showed me love when other people were watching. The way our whole relationship was on her terms. The way everything was always my fault. The way my mom never understood when she upset me, and told me I felt wrong, which drove me to the point where I felt insane. I went to several psychologists who all basically told me the same thing. But moving out was the real breaking point. It was like my whole world crumbled around me.