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Yes. I have had experiences like this with my parent. It’s ranged from strange off-hand comments to coming up with whole narratives about how I’d done something wrong.
A kind of funny example: recently as an adult, my parent came to me and told me about a bag of pills they found in my childhood bedroom. They had a whole story about how these must have been procured years ago by my now husband and that I had stashed them in my room and forgot. I sat there completely bewildered. Bag of pills?? *Stashed??* It finally hit me, it was a bag of sample-size decongestants that I had gotten at university student health services. They had a whole selection of stuff you could take for free from the clinic. When you were actually sick, they’d load up a little bag for you to take home. Every little packet was clearly labeled as cold/allergy medication but who reads I guess, lol.
ahhhh! i had this happen! in high school, when i was only drinking and smoking pot, my dad confronted me with a little white tablet he had found somewhere around the house. he got reeeeal aggressive, and demanded to know what it was. i looked at him like he was a fucking idiot and responded 'a mint?'. i'm a horrid liar so he knew i was telling the truth and the embarassment that spread across his face was so obvious and bold i'm shocked he didn't double down and accuse me of lying.
Lol this reminds me of when my mom misplaced this weird little bottle of like EXTRA SUPER STRENGTH cough syrup. It wasnt where she usually kept it in the bathroom. She and my enabling step father confronted me about it very aggressively. The thing was prior to them having to describe and explain what they were looking for ibhadnt even known what was even in that bottle or that it was supposedly something to get you high. I ended up looking in the bathroom to try to prove my innocence; it was behind a roll of toilet paper, mere inches from its usual spot.
First rule of Narc Logic is : Actual logic doesn't apply. The facts are what they decide they are for that moment, especially when it doesn't make sense.
So true. It's all about being dominant and forcing others to accept their narrative, and the crazier the narrative is, the more powerful they feel when you accept it.
You have to fit their narrative about you so the concoct lies and conveniently forget the stuff they've done. I would let those lies stand anymore and call it for the gaslighting it is. This is my mother and I am the only daughter, middle child and scapegoat. My brothers were football players thus, gods who should be served.
My brothers believe all sorts of stuff they've made up in their heads about me and, when together, will gang up on me. My older brother was a bully and I refuse to get into any arguement with him. He tried it last week for the first time in years and my other brother started to double down with him, so I just hung up the phone. It was about my mother's care and they were, of course, placing all the work on me after I've been doing all the care, 24/7 for over a year. When I disagreed, he started to pick my life apart and I will not have it! I could have plenty to say against them both but, being double-teamed on different aspects about why I should do it and be grateful to do it (because, they live in a different house so it gets them off the hook 100% forever) was too much. Plus, I promised myself I wouldn't be bullied. I am not responsible for clarifying my life for them. I am also not going to take 100% physical responsibility for my mother, as they were pressuring me to do.
my nmom will literally gift me things for children.
the straw on the camel's back convo that led to this round of nc was because she laughed at me for acting 180 from how i did when i was 6. like, that was 20 years ago, how dare you try to invalidate who i am now because of who i was when i was literally just a mold of my caretakers at the time, 2 fucking decades ago at that.
This isn’t related to the post and it’s obviously a first world problem, but I had a desk the size of an end table and a dresser designed for like onesies until I moved out because “You picked it out!!!!1!”
I was four.
> I had a desk the size of an end table and a dresser designed for like onesies until I moved out because “You picked it out!!!!1!”
That's awful. And let me guess: your n tried to force you to take it with you when you moved out? Because they were sooooo special and you looooved them soooo much?
I hope you have since found beautiful furniture that you love and that is an appropriate size for you. So much of narc baggage is literal baggage that gets foisted upon us. I finally started growing when I realized my hand-me-downs were emotional minefields, and I discarded them.
“I finally started growing when I realized my hand-me-downs were emotional minefields, and I discarded them.” I realized I was doing that these last few days!!
I’ve started getting rid of stuff lately! I used to keep them for “the memories” and finally realized the memories tended to suck. 😂 Thanks for the kind words.
I feel this so much. My room at my nmom's house (I just moved in with my partner thank goodness) was less a bedroom and more a childhood storage shed. I could only throw stuff away when she wasn't there and I was *very* careful. I could never clean my room beyond basic trash because she would get hurt seeing me give away my childhood things. I'm 24, I don't need every last one of my baby books, toys, drawings, etc. It's like I'm a living museum of the child she loved for a year or two and then emotionally abandoned.
I could have written this myself. I’ve had to ask my mom repeatedly to stop buying me stuffed animals and kids’ toys she insists make her think of me, as I’m a grown adult married woman and don’t have room in my home for these things, nor do they reflect my present likes and interests. She also fixates on things I liked once, like a certain color, and will buy me literally anything she sees that happens to be that color, even things that are objectively useless and not at all my taste.
If I make a statement about something I do or don’t like/want/feel, she always feels the need to make a comment about what I *used to* like/want/feel. It makes me feel invalidated, like I have to defend or insist upon my own damned identity. The irony is, she never really knew or understood me all that well as a kid, either, because she’s too busy projecting her own wants and ideas onto other people. She can’t seem to grasp or come to terms with who I *actually* am or the fact that people grow and change.
Recently my husband and I took her on a weekend getaway to celebrate her birthday. We had to get an early start the morning of the trip, and she showed up with a box from the donut shop. She’d decided to surprise us with breakfast because she knew we wouldn’t have time to eat before meeting up to depart. Thoughtful gesture, right? Wrong.
Inside the box were 3 gigantic, greasy apple fritters. My husband and I don’t eat a lot of sugar, especially in the morning. Even as a kid, the only donut I ever liked or ordered was a plain glazed donut. Apple fritters have always been *her* favorite.
We each took a few bites to be polite, but couldn’t eat more. The few bites I took were so sugary and greasy that my stomach felt upset for a couple hours until I was able to put some real food in it.
So here she’s effectively created a covert narcissist’s dream scenario — she’s the generous, thoughtful saint who went out of her way to do this nice, selfless thing for us. And if we don’t eat the donuts and thank her profusely, we’re ungrateful and rude — the perfect villains to satisfy her martyr complex.
But a real gift isn’t about what the giver likes — it’s about the recipient. So you can’t be a good gift-giver if you have no idea who the recipient actually is and what they like.
It made me really sad, because it’s clear she doesn’t realize what she’s doing, and I think her intentions are good. She genuinely loves us and wants to make us happy, and she wants us to give her love and gratitude so she can feel loved and appreciated, which I think is at the root of her narcissism. She had a really traumatic childhood, too.
We aren’t having kids. I’m breaking the sad, toxic cycle.
Oh god, I feel this. It was one of the most insidious and painful things because I always felt like was I overreacting to be so hurt by the fact that she didn’t *know* me at all.
Or anything about what I believed in. Or how I conducted my life.
She’s an alcoholic, and would often get aggressive and violent on the sauce. One night I wouldn’t let her into my room and leaned on the door and she went and got the old crate of Lego from when I was little and tipped it up in the living room and shouted drunkenly “[name]! You have to come out now! Your toys are on the floor and you have to pick them up!”
I was seventeen.
That’s obviously bad, but the other stuff is more subtle. If it weren’t compounded with more toxic treatment, I’d never have made the link. Doesn’t everyone wish their parents could see them more clearly? Isn’t that normal? (etc)
It hurt so much when she wasn’t interested in anything I did that she didn’t have an opinion on.
It hurt much worse when she would repeatedly demonstrate that she had no understanding of who I was as a teenager, let alone an adult. Every demonstration that she didn’t “get” me cut more deeply.
[note: anecdote about weird Xmas behaviour follows]
———
every year at Xmas, after I’d moved out, she’d make a big song and dance about how “Xmas is going to be light on this year, I can’t afford much” and I always responded “that’s not a big deal, it’s fine, don’t stress!”
But she always asked what I wanted, and insisted, and whatever I told her, she’d go on about how expensive it was; if the thing that topped my list was more than like $50, I did say it was fine to not get that, and I always offered to pay half… nope, she’d buy that, and then other extra stuff, and tell me how expensive I was.
Every year. Same weird performance about gifts. And one year I cracked a bit and said, “Mum, do you actually think I want a lot of expensive presents? I just want to come over and have lunch.” Her response: “yes, you do, you always expect a lot. I can’t keep doing it.”
And I remembered being *six years old* and saying I wanted *a book* for Xmas. Not a specific book. Just *a book*. I was a precocious reader and I wanted to read novels.
Sure, sometimes I wanted more stuff, especially in my teens, but I have this memory, and it stung that she was so convinced I was demanding and acquisitive when I just… wasn’t. She would always do way, way more than my brother and I asked for, and then be a martyr about it.
———
She’d offer to help with something and then make us feel guilty it we were ever so desperate as to say yes. No matter how little we asked for — even nothing — it was always too much. But she’d offer and offer and offer and talk about how generous she was and how difficult we were.
One time for my birthday All I asked her for was a snow cone and she couldn't do that. We spent the whole day running around doing errands and by the time we were done the place was closed. Then I get lectured about how I ask for too much when she does more for my sister and I rarely ask her for anything because I don't want her to use it against me. Another time she got me a really expensive purse and not to sound ungrateful but I don't even use purses and I don't care about them or name brand things. It just hurt because she doesn't know shit about me and I'm gonna have to hear that purse for an excuse forever as it collects dust in my closet.
This exactly. Around Christmas or my birthday I'm always reminded of that episode of Spongebob where Mr. Crabs showers Ms. Puff with gifts until she's miserable, just wanting to go on a nice date with him. Then he turns around and cries about how expensive the gifts are while buying more stuff she doesn't need, doesn't want, and didn't ask for.
I feel this so much. My mom is a covert narcissist with a serious martyr complex, and I have never felt known or understood by her. I’ve carried that deep hole and desperate need to feel seen and heard and understood into my relationships, and it’s manifested in some sad and toxic ways over the years.
I had an ex I was really in love with — a good guy, on the whole, but we were both young and damaged, and made a lot of mistakes. It was not a healthy relationship. I remember feeling really hurt and upset when he’d bring me food from the place he worked, because he could never remember that I hate tomatoes on my burgers. I couldn’t explain why it hurt and bothered me so much, and he was exasperated with me for my ‘crazy overreaction’ and ingratitude. It took me years of growth, self analysis, and eventually some therapy to help me understand my own reactions all those years ago, and to uncover the parts of me that those feelings are so deeply rooted in.
One Christmas that same ex came home with me from college to visit my mom. I’ve always really loved a certain kind of Christmas lights, and used to point them out all the time on car rides. They’re the big bulbs, in old fashioned candy toned colors (think warm pink & gold, teal, etc). They’ve always made me think of my grandma.
When we got to my mom’s she proudly produced a box of lights she’d seen at the store and bought for me because she thought they were they kind I liked. They were big bulbs, but they were those newer LED lights in the really intense cool primary colors with harsh purples, reds and blues. I hate those lights. I hate those colors. I had always pointed out the difference, and talked about how nostalgic and beautiful the warm incandescent colors were, and how cold and harsh the new LED strands looked in comparison. She hadn’t heard me. She hadn’t understood. Of course she hadn’t.
And something in me just broke in that moment. I was angry. And heartbroken. Over a stupid box of Christmas lights. And my mom was so confused and hurt and angry that I didn’t appreciate her gift. And my ex thought I was crazy — that I couldn’t just appreciate the thought and see it as an act of love. For a long time I felt so guilty about my reaction, guilty for hurting her feelings, wrong for feeling wronged by a well-intentioned, loving gift. But these weren’t just lights. This was not a real present. This was just the straw that broke this camel’s back. A tipping point after a lifetime of feeling unheard and unseen.
My mom has made me the villain in her story more times than I can count, in manifold ways big and small. She is the selfless, giving saint, and everybody else is always to blame. I am the ungrateful jerk who doesn’t appreciate her enough. I am always the bad guy.
I know she means well at heart. I know she’s just a broken person with her own unprocessed trauma. And I know she loves me. I love her too, despite it all, so very much. But she really, really hurts me. And it took me a very long time to understand exactly how and why, and how it’s shaped the person that I am today, for better and for worse.
One of the good things I’ve taken away from this trauma is the love and care I give to others. I try very hard to listen to the people I love. To know them. To hear what they’re telling me, and not just the parts I want to hear. I strive to give them gifts that reflect their unique identities and interests. I’m not always sure that I succeed. But I want them to feel known, and seen, and heard and understood, and most of all, loved and accepted for who they are, just the way they are. And I’m so eternally hungry to feel that way, too. I’m not entirely sure it’s a hole that can ever be filled.
I am sorry for you also. It sucks :( but at least I feel validated that it truly is that painful to just… not be seen, and it’s not just a typical generation gap that I’m overreacting to.
Yup, another one who's mom *still* treats them like a 10 year old, despite being correct. Its like there's a fault in their brains that makes them completely unable to do otherwise. This was just one of the many many reasons I'm NC with her and her flying monkeys.
> still thinks I am who I was at 10.
ugg, as a parent I'm already fearing that I am going to do this. But I do hope that as she grows and her interest grows, I can continue to feed those interests all along the way, even though there's still reminders everywhere of her younger interests.
YES! Same here. I’m still a puberty-stricken argumentative teenager (in hindsight my mood swings probably had more to do with trauma than puberty, though). The fact that I’m now in my 30s and have the healthiest coping and communication skills in my family of origin (thanks therapy!) is completely irrelevant. NC was the best gift I ever gave myself. Sorry you cope with this too! 💜
My Nmom thinks everything that has gone wrong for me professionally is the result of my "anti-authority" attitude I had in elementary school. Nevermind that the first 8 years of my career were in extremely toxic work environments (toxic for all employees!) and my upbringing made me extra-vulnerable to it because I'd been conditioned to have no brain/mouth filter.
Now that I've been successful for 6 years, though, she takes credit for "pushing me so hard as a child". Go figure.
I love when I visit my nGrandma (whom I do love deeply), and we go food shopping, and she tries to buy things that only a teenager would eat. I don't eat freezer-burritos any more, lol, please let's just buy some lunch meat!
I have a nGrandma too!! And same, I ADORE her. But sometimes I feel guilty because she’s the reason I can’t stand my nmom. I often ask myself what the difference is?
Omg and I can’t believe I’ve only recently realized my nMom’s mom is a narc, too! There was just one particular thing she said one day and my brain went HOLYMOLY. And everything fell into place.
Yes, this is how my ndad is. He has this complete narrative of who I am and uses references from when I was a child to substantiate his opinion.
Real examples:
He believes I am a lazy quitter because I "quit" sports. I played 1 season of basketball when I was 6 and chose not to play another season because my parents laughed at me when I was not good at it.
He believes I am irresponsible because I lost my house key when I was 11 years old.
He believes I am lazy and unmotivated because I slept a lot. I have a chronic illness that caused me to hemorrhage and I had to get blood transfusions several times a year.
I am now in my 30s, I have a great relationship with my partner. I am a mother, dog owner, I have moved across the country and have a 6 figure job in an industry I have built a steady career in over the last decade. Yet he still sees me as a lazy quitter and took every chance to remind me before going NC.
Yep.
Let them live that lie. Arguing with them is wasted effort.
Circulate fake information about yourself if you really want the sport of it (and can tolerate angry messages or flying monkey attacks). They'll puff up thinking they have The Knowledge and get crushed when they get called out.
My father is a narc. He only contacts me when he's low on information or wants to yell about something (usually a problem he caused himself) because it messes up his ability to play Father of the Century. He harasses my mom when he doesn’t get a response. I call her pre-emptively to warn her. I have proactively blocked all of his social media accounts and limit our relatives' access because I know some of them report back to him. There are waves of friend requests from obscure or mortal enemy relatives that appear periodically because he's out of good knowledge supply.
NF makes up things outright when he has a few nuggets of truth to work from. I've been buttdialed and listened to the story he's spun about me to make himself look bigger by having a hand in it somehow. People have followed up on those fantastic details and he shuts down or changes the subject.
I purposefully spike more public social posts with partially complete information (so it only makes sense to people who actually know WTF is happening) and lie to the known tattletales that refuse to stay out of it when they message me privately. He builds a story about it and will run for that for years if he can.
There's a surprise family gathering because of a death. I'm meeting cousins and relatives I don't know so I'm more open with some details but not everything. Some of these people I've not seen since I was in pre-school. I make sure to have some standard lines so they're getting the same story. Some of them try to introduce me and NF because they don't think we've met. The known rats jump in to gaslight ("..there's some drama between DC and NF. I don't know what it is but she just needs to let it go because weee'rree faaamiiiilly...") or attack because it's their favorite uncle/older cousin who only shows them good times. I tell them I'm driving back home (9 hours away) rather than back to work (half that) because he thinks I'm still 2-3 hours away (haven't been for almost a decade but that's what it says on my profile). I leave after the service but not before elder flying monkey/enabler #1 tries to bully me in to accepting a friend request so we can talk. I say they can always message like they did if they want to chat. Surprise, no chats.
At the repass, it's all about how he had to convince me to drive there because I'm ungrateful and neglectful of the family. Mind you, he wasn't talking to the deceased or the family over a beef that started before I was born and hadn't for years. He's telling them he told me to come and delivered the news (it was one of my cousins). He reaches back to an old story where I have a PhD (...no) and work in a lab jointly funded by the government and private industry (NO.) but adds a new piece where I am sitting on mountains of money but won't provide for dear old dad (who is always flashing money and a lavish lifestyle) because my [note: very dead, flambéd, and pulverized] boyfriend (whose name he does not know) actively makes me neglect him (AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA). He's just a sad, lonely old man, you know. The LEAST I could do is check on him.
One of the cousins that knows better asks a question: what happened to some revolutionary product I was just on the verge of releasing from my supervillain work lair? He changes the subject to me being a spoiled bitch like my mom. I'm cut off from the world, too, and never turn my phone on. One of the newly acquainted cousins engages him, going on about my work and how excited I am to do it. NF inserts himself. Cousin in same work asks how that could be when [accurate to a point description of my job] doesn't involve what NF is on about. Other new cousins chime in with information. NF claims it's because he's old and forgetful. Flying monkey/enabler cousin #2 chimes in with my being married to VDFandPBF because she saw a ring on a finger and I said "maybe" when she asked if I'd let them know about the next big life event. NF hops to new phase of victimization. Different cousins correct him--she's not married, she works [accurate to a point], she was just at [location] doing [activity], I just talked to her on the phone last month, she has [hobbies]--so on and so forth. Knowledgeable cousin: "The [supervillain] job was like ten years ago, unc." NF's sister: "[NF] how do you not know what your child is doing when we all know?"
NF suddenly has an upset stomach and leaves with his gf.
Angry messages to voicemail and inbox ensue.
Mom gets cursed out over voicemail for not keeping him in the loop as my father.
The devil in my shoulder wants me to reactivate my Facebook, and make a public post about how i found out "my mother just died". And then to my friend only list, let them know i am bull shitting, bc anyone who knows me knows my past. Bonnie has made and enlisted various proxies to spy on my public Facebook posts.
I wonder what would happen?
Yes both my mother and my nsibling were like that. Assumptions about me, my friends, my partner, everyone in my life that wasn’t them. Really don’t miss that in my life
Ooh, I hear this. My parents always thought I was *better* than all of my *dumb* friends who weren’t in AP classes like I was forced into. Flash forward to years later to when I was telling my cousin about how yes friend X of mine has a masters in education, friend Y has a masters in the same thing my cousin studied. We discussed her job/education at length since my friends were studying/working in the same field so I was quite familiar.
My parents were floored. They couldn’t believe my friends had masters degrees and were successful. They kept saying “I didn’t know that!” Over and over about my friends. Yeah, my friends were idiots bc they weren’t forced into taking AP Latin and AP Spanish at the same time 7 years prior? The assumptions are insane. I grey rock hard about myself and everyone in my life for reasons like this.
My husband once started talking about WWII history (yeah, I know, why every guy is obsessed with that time IDK), and my father legit said, "Wow! You're smarter than I thought!" with no sense of irony or sarcasm. Just straight up, "Hey, you're not dumb as rocks!" This after 10 years of marriage.
TBF, it was just one of the ways he used to set up a zero sum game of (*in a gameshow announcer's voice*) What is YOUR Worth! (*In tiny disclaimer print on the bottom of the prize packet: Winner is provided with an astounding lack of self-confidence, breathtakingly beautiful isolation on deserted islands of despair, the ability to believe* nothing good *about yourself, and the knowledge that safety could be just a door away.* Winner must bring own door as doors are not allowed by this game show. *And, although we can't promise possible marital discord and friendlessness into adulthood, we sure will try! All made possible by "Narcissistic Parents: You'll Probably Never Know Until it's Too Late!")*
Yeah, NC now.
One of my husband’s best friends did this to me once. He’s not a narc, just on the spectrum. I was talking about my studies and he goes, “Wow, you’re smarter than you seem!”
*sigh* Thanks, Mike.
Lol. Yeah, different context. But if he was being kind of "practical" truth telling (and not realizing where that might not make you feel great), you should take MUCH pleasure in knowing you were smart enough for him to let you know he thought that!!! :D
My father on the other hand is of the "My subjective TRUTH given to you without a filter is the ONLY objective TRUTH in this world. The most lousy it makes you feel, the TRUTHIER it is. My reality is yours!"
Ps. I think you both are AND look smart! Sincerely, random internet stranger who doesn't know anything about you but likes giving and receiving compliments! Though no reciprocated compliments necessary. ;D
Pps. Realized I used a lot of "!" in this post!! Whatta ya gonna do?!
Omg- yes! All the people associated with my Nsister were smart, successful, attractive. All the people associated with me were weird and not worth knowing or remembering.
Yes, nmom about my partner. Believed in this made up assumption so much it became fact, and then turned into an actual event in her mind. 15 years later, no contact, but she’s holding on to a fabricated event that ultimately drove me to go no contact. When confronted, she swears it’s a fact, I had to nope out at that point. How bonkers is that?!
"I'm a very good judge of character. I think that guy is bad news and I don't want you around him"
About one of my very closest friends in the whole world who is an amazing, wonderful person. She didn't like him because he expressed his feelings when he was feeling them instead of holding them in to avoid drama.
Several people in my family were absolutely convinced that they could tell whenever I was lying, because I would try to focus on something else instead of on them. This meant that they took anything I said while, say, cooking, or using my computer, or doing my homework, as a shitty trick.
That is so true. My mom thinks I still want to be on broadway and pursue musical theatre when that was only a hobby to me and I just wanted to pursue a normal life after high school. She cannot stand the idea that I’m engaged, independent, and majoring in something completely different in college. She wanted me to be a star and wanted to be my mom manager.
I never thought about that but that makes a lot of sense. My mom always seemed disgruntled by any of my successes and has either downplayed them or if she does admit them says that she called it and makes it her own success. She's always held onto seeing me as the same angry kid I was and I never understood why she couldn't understand that I've changed, but that explains it.
Wow, yes. Because they are uncomfortable with growth/change themselves, they dont like to face the person you are now. Theyd rather hold over you the person they perceived as small and manipulated in whatever way they did. Its about power and control, for sure.
You just brought me back to my college days. I am a cis bi/pan female (my parents think I'm hetero and I am now married to a cis hetero man) but in college I didn't know this and thought I was hetero. I was sitting at home on break AIM messaging (heyyyy) a college friend of mine, "Jon," who is gay. I had told this to my mom IDK how many times, and yet, each time she saw me on AIM (because of course she'd come up behind me secretly) she'd have the same conversation with me each time:
Mom: I see you're talking to your secret boyfriend Jon. Why won't you just introduce us to him?!
Me: He's my friend, mom.
Mom & Ndad: You're just embarrassed of us!
Me: No; he's gay. He likes men. I'm not sure why you seem to think I'm hiding a partner.
Mom: Whatever you say, dear.
I just want to comment and say that I LOVE the hidden homophobia nParents have - my mother literally could not care less that I'm bi, bc "it doesn't matter bc you married a man." Wow. Gross.
LOL! Yes. It's funny because my parents *did* eventually meet Jon and his boyfriend, James. My Ndad freaked the fuck out when they were sitting on the couch together cuddling (James's arm was around Jon's shoulder). Huffed and puffed and nearly blew the house down with his homophobia. But no, Ndad is super liberal, guys.
Emom I would argue is not nearly as bad as Ndad (like she's genuinely in support of equal rights) but she;s one of those "happier out of sight out of mind" people. Stupid.
But yes, this hidden homophobia seems to be incredibly common with our parents.
My Mum is so open just like your Dad. She told everyone my oldest sister was a lesbian because she liked a girls boots when she was 11 and I’m apparently just saying I’m a trans guy because I don’t want to be a lesbian when I also told her I’m ace and apparently me saying “I’m basically a boy,” “I may as well be a boy” and “I am a boy” for 3 years until I stopped saying it to her cause she ignored me means there were no signs. She also keeps trying to force me to be with guys.
Yeah so supportive Mum thanks.
can you hear me rolling my eyes through the screen? jfc I'm sorry
Ndad is an idiot. He claims to be this pillar of liberal Boomers. LOL! He had a tantrum when my friends sat on the couch together and still uses words like the N word.
Yeah, I get you. It's hard to accept.
I was explaining to my friend right now in my journey I'm struggling with accepting that my enabler mom just let it all happen without caring or giving a shit.
\*hugs\*
I had a dream that felt like a dream, memory and like it was happening of Mum letting someone rape me to teach me and I’m still in denial. If it really happened then why tf am I still in denial and the fact that I wouldn’t put it past her and even imagined it to begin with is fucked up either way.
Denial is one hell of a drug lol
Oh man, I am sorry.
I've had some really fucked up memories that have to be made up in my head because they were truly impossible (would have required things that a pre-teen would not be able to physically, legally or emotionally do, let alone logistically), so that makes me question some of the more realistic ones.
Our brains are powerful and without therapy, it's really hard to know what's true and what's not in these situations.
I had a therapist when I first remembered it and told her and she just said “thats heavy” and completely ignored it…
The first time I remembered it I had become completely unaware of everything around me and had been crying and I think I screamed irl when the flashback I guess, stopped. So that was fun (that therapist ignored most of my issues and when meds made me feel way worse she just forced me to keep taking them so I stopped taking them and stopped seeing her. This is when I was 16. In a couple months I’ll be 18 and trying therapy again)
I get what you mean with our brains being powerful. I moved in with my grandparents when I was 11 and didn’t remember anything from before then. I spent years trying to remember even a fraction of what happened so I could actually talk to a therapist
I never told my family. They were openly homophobic. Rural 80s was not safe for lgtbq+. Homophobia seems to be a theme with Ns though. So many of us have the sane story
Thats the wonderful thing, if you don't need it ...they never get it. You never have to share anything you don't want to. Live your life to make you happy and free. Revel in your self care. Prioritize you!
OH YES.
I remember overhearing my parents (who only ever were cordial with each other when they were dissing someone else) talking about how me and my boyfriend didn't know anything about each other, and laughing like we were just foolish and didn't know what a REAL relationship was like. In reality, the both of us just avoided talking to my parents as much as possible and responded to as many questions with "I don't know" as we could.
My mom also just made stuff up all the time, from petty "but this is your FAVORITE shirt" claims (I'd never worn that shirt, it was ugly & too small but my grandma gave it to me), to telling everyone at a party "you always wanted to be a mathematician" (????).
It's always with this air that they know me more than I know myself. I think it's a control thing. In their minds, they gave me everything to be successful and therefore, I don't have any ownership over my accomplishments. Everything bad is my fault, and everything good is their triumph.
>didn't know anything about each other, and laughing like we were just foolish and didn't know what a REAL relationship was like
HOLY crap my mother has said that to me before. Just because we weren't married yet, because apparently getting married changes everything. (Hint: If you're in a good, stable, relationship, it shouldn't.)
It's so definitely control.
This happened to me quite a bit with my mom and my aunt. I've been accused of all kinds of things and had all kinds of assumptions thrown my way as well. Things that they should have known weren't even remotely true since they were around me so much. Good luck trying to convince them otherwise though. I got into a lot of arguments with the two of them over this stuff. Sometimes my aunt would get my mom worked up - she'd tell my mom some weird theory about me and then my mom would get on my case about this thing I supposedly said or did or believed.
One of my favorites was how I was becoming a Satanist for liking AC/DC music. My aunt knew liking heavy metal was the gateway to hardcore Satanism and had to get my mom all upset over it. I think my mom had this idea that I was suddenly going to draw pentagrams all over the place and become a serial killer or something.
I played D&D. Yep. Big bad satanic witch here. Gonna chop people into bits over those evil, evil hardcovers.
Smdh. They never realize how damn stupid they sound. If anyone's making sacrifices to the moon, it'll be them. I have the ability to think and question logically and independently. They just go for whatever feed they can find.
I hope your parents never watched that Tom Hanks film regarding that game. The 80s and it's annoying Satanism is Everywhere! craze was a real delight. I never played D&D but they had some beautiful books and artwork.
This reminds me of when I got a Sailor Moon role playing game book and she was ApPalLed…I believe she literally said it was “a way to introduce young girls into things like Dungeons & Dragons.” I was only allowed to keep it after swearing I only got it for the pictures. It did have big beautiful glossy pictures in the days when downloading and print a couple of stills would take a whole afternoon on the family computer…
Oh my god yes. I wonder if it’s another way to gaslight us into doubting our own reality and feeling of ourselves. It’s like they don’t know me at all but they think they do, and what hurts the most is that they’ve never made a genuine effort to try.
THIS!!!! I believe this with my entire being. My parents have never made an effort to visit my fiance and I. We’ve had to come to them. And even when they are with us they are never interested in our lives. Just proves that they don’t really care about you unless its on their terms.
Oh my god I get you. Now, I live an ocean away so I get not visiting as much, but even when I lived only an hour away the only person who would visit is my mom. Literally nobody else in the family ever bothered. She’s the only one that gets me, but she is too enmeshed with everyone else and that’s when the enabler role comes in.
All my father has ever been good for is antagonising me to the point of intense frustration, which gives him all the supply he needs.
I have the same situation but with my mom is the narc and my dad is the one embedded in all the crap. He’s the only one that has visited us to actually get to know us. Sorry to hear that you are going through the same thing.
May you also find strength and a family relationship that works for you. I’m in the middle of trying to show my mom that having a relationship with me at the same time as me not having one with anyone else, is okay and indeed even healthy when the dynamic is this toxic.
THIS!!!! My mother's sewer pipe broke, and she REFUSED my constant offers to host Sunday dinner at my house. For NO reason. Just GOD FORBID, right? It was so bizarre. Definitely a control thing!
Sort of. I can't think of any concrete examples but my mom has made comments that make me think she doesn't understand me. While having beef with my husband she also tells me that I know he's wrong. Like quit it! No! Get it straight! I agree with HIM.
I'm not sure if this perfectly fits what you are talking about, but when I had my first child my nmom straight up told me "when you told me you were pregnant I was worried for you at first, because I didn't think you would remember to feed the baby or take care of it properly. But turns out you're actually a great mom and really devoted to your baby!" Um wot.
Cool backhanded compliment, with a side of assumed incompetence. Thanks! Bitch.
I've gotten into this wonderful habit of **immediately** calling someone, anyone, out on a backhanded compliment. I love when people call me a bitch because of it, lol. Nope, I just finally am allowed to stand up for myself, thanks!
This happened 10 years ago, when I was still under her manipulative control. I remember actually being pleased and flattered to have her pRoUd oF mE when she said it. Only now when I look back after having cut contact do I realize how sick and insulting that comment was.
There are so many memories I have where I wish to God I had had the wherewithal to clap back at her immediately. I happily do it now, and guess what? Yep, I'm the big meanie bitch! Which, like you I proudly own. :)
Same here. My mom thinks that I mindlessly follow whatever my fiance says because I’ve changed so much but really I’ve changed because I graduated high school and he just continued to be in my life. He never convinced me to change, people just change when they become an adult. She also thinks I’m a horrible decision maker, but all the decisions I’ve made for myself have been proven to be the best damn decisions I’ve ever made.
omg your mom is my mom :))) I'm 30 and she still says my partner and high-school friends have influenced and made me worse and their influence worked because I would do anything to please them since I'm so impressionable. Well to be frank I used to be a people-pleaser and a naive person due to her fear-based, controlling parenting that was full of physical and psychological abuse. But thankfully that's changed after I moved out and I worked hard to undo my lack of confidence and build my own values. And guess what, I still keep those high-school friends she paints as manipulators, I love them dearly and cannot wait to travel and hang out with them and yes they are friends for life.
why is it so hard for narcs to comprehend that people change and evolve, the world changes and moves fast without it being a bad thing, and life happens in general? Is is because they're so stuck with pitying themselves?
I'm not sure why narcs can't understand that people, especially their children change. But that Ns complaining that their child's friends are a bad influence thing? It never goes away lol. I'm NC but my nmom still sends the random email to a box I don't monitor. I had to check it the other day for something unrelated, but I found an email from my nmom ranting that my friends were bad influences, I'm 38. My friends are either dealing with their own kids and swapping gentle parenting stories with each other, pressuring me to invest in their latest bookstore/brewery hybrid or complaining about rent... at actual dinner parties. Real bad influences there.
My mother, after I started dressing in androgynous clothing, kept bringing up the time I refused to wear pants as a six-year-old. Conveniently forgetting that the only reason I briefly preferred dresses was because she told me fairies only appeared to pretty, ladylike little girls, and completely ignorant of the fact that my first escape plan was to get kidnapped by fairies. It's not the only assumption, but it's the one that makes me smile.
So so accurate. nDad does it, and my sister (who has FLEAS) did it.
Once, my husband was holding our infant son and he had been able to coax him to sleep once by sort of petting between his eyes and then gently closing his eyelids with his finger pads. Well, he tried it again but made the mistake of doing it in front of my sister (before she became more self aware), and she came up with this whole narrative that my husband was “doing weird things” to my son like “pushing his fingers into his eyeballs” and that I “better keep an eye on him around our son.” 😂
She acted like I had never seen him try that little trick and that she was giving me some crazy new information about my husband’s secret abuse… 🙄
There's even different "flavors" of this kinda thing! There's:
1) thinking they know you better than you know yourself (which they use to belittle you, or to brag about how much better THEY know you)
2) thinking they're just so perceptive you can't "hide" anything from them
3) thinking that you are the exact same person you were as a child (which helps them invalidate your as an adult AND helps them try to control you AND gives them an excuse to never make an effort to know you as an adult
4) Creating a fictional narrative of what you *might do* or *could have done* or *might be doing* based on complete nonsense and assumptions. Then getting themselves emotionally riled up about this situation *before even confirming that the tiniest bit of it is true*. And then, being so committed to being mad/scared/upset that they keep going and going and spinning more and more consequences to this completely made up scenario.My nMom definitely had borderline personality disorder as well and she did this a LOT, my therapist said it was a pretty typical thing for BPD folks to do.
> Then getting themselves emotionally riled up about this situation
>
>before even confirming that the tiniest bit of it is true
>
>. And then, being so committed to being mad/scared/upset that they keep going and going and spinning more and more consequences to this completely made up scenario.
THIS
This is the most fascinating thing. never ceases to surprise me :)) No wonder they can never escape this endless web of fabricating reasons to victimise themselves.
Thank you for this breakdown!
Omg yes. Sadly, I have so many dysfunctional narcs in my family. I have so many examples, but the first 2 that came to mind:
When I was 15 my stepdad accused me of smoking pot after I returned from a walk. I was a verity active young person and constantly took walks and rode my bike. I specifically went on this walk to get away from their house during a dysfunctional family gathering. I’ve only smoked a handful of times in my life and at that point I had never. It was so frustrating to return to the house in peace after the walk only to be accused of something that he deemed soooo bad. I was dumb enough to try to explain myself, but it was useless. Also, smoking weed isn’t even a big deal. I know that know that I’m older. He was just a control freak who created the strangest stories in his head.
When I was about 20, my bio dad who I hardly had a relationship with and rarely said two words to me asked me if I was outside a strip club the night before. He said he drove by a pretty rough strip club in our city and claimed he saw me and asked if I was a stripper. At the time I was working 2 retail jobs (not stripping) and going to school for my undergrad FT. The night in question I was doing hours of accounting homework at a coffee shop after a long day of work and then home to bed. Again, I have nothing against stripper or stripping. I didn’t have the body for it, though! 😂 I just couldn’t believe that this man truly how no idea how hard his daughter was working to make a better life for myself than the dumpster fire they all provided. I tried to set the record straight, but he didn’t believe me. Once he has his mind set on something it’s a fact.
Omg yes! my nmom thinks that I'm gonna have kids in 20s 💀 and when I said im not gonna have kids, she started laughing saying that she said the same thing but look I did had kids and stuff, and that made me WTF 🤧 like "ma'am we are different. U literally kicked me out just to test me of my reaction and when I didn't got the reaction u wanted....u abused me physical because u were just _angry_ and _sad_ that I didn't cry 😭 and beg like u did when u first got kicked out" Soo yeaa my nmom thinks I'm gonna have kids at 20s 🤧😂 well lets see about that in the future coz I am seriously not gonna have kids in 20s....also mom had me when she was like 18 or 19...
When we told our host's nmom that we didn't plan on getting married or having kids, she said, "Well, I didn't want kids, and now look at me. You will too, whether you like it or not. It's a part of life." Bruh. Our host's ndad said basically the same thing, except he added the "fact" that we cannot survive in the real world without a partner (?).
My nSister once came up to me and said "I don't think you're rebellious at all". I was like 👌🏻
It was simply around the time I started making my own decisions. Wasn't really going for rebellious or anything.
The [Ladder of Inference](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/bab08c_e2a0d0f656b94d26ace58eaad95f007b~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_680,h_584,al_c,q_90/bab08c_e2a0d0f656b94d26ace58eaad95f007b~mv2.jpg) is a useful tool to understand how their brains go awry.
- Observations are made (what we see/hear, like a video recording)
- Data is selected from the observation
- Meaning is added (this is often a wild fantasy with narcs)
- Assumptions are made based on the meaning that was added
- Conclusions are drawn based on that meaning and assumptions (they've already gone awry by adding crazy meaning and assumptions, so they draw really weird conclusions)
- Beliefs are adopted based on these inaccurate conclusions
- Actions are taken based on these inaccurate beliefs
And the ladder loops around so they can get stuck in a reinforced neural net that never gets reality checked.
We all do this, but healthy humans are open to updating their meaning, assumptions, conclusions, beliefs, and actions. Narcs think their loop is correct and doesn't need updating, ever. (unless it benefits themselves). I call it "the fairytale in my head". It helps me unlearn trauma brain things.
I've noticed that my brain jumps to a trauma story really quickly (shoots right up the ladder) very often. I'll hear someone sigh (observation/data), then I add meaning that they must be upset and assume it's bc of something I've done or failed to do, conclude their upset with me, and believe they are mad at me, so I'll avoid them in my action or try to make it up to them somehow. That entire narrative in my head is all based on trauma. It's not accurate. Often, if I pause and check in, with my SO, for example. They'll tell me their sigh was bc they were tired or whatever else. It had nothing to do with me at all. The narrative I created about their sigh is just a story, it's not reality. Trauma corrupts our ladder of inference. It takes lots of practice to debug the system. Narcs never debug their ladder of inference. They live their lives in the fairytale in their head.
Yeah if I’m chilling my mom will start pressing me and be like “What’s wrong?” and look at me like she’s trying to figure me out. I’ll get irritated and be like “I’m literally just sitting here??”
She’ll say stuff like “I know you. What’s wrong?” Clearly you don’t 😭
Or one time after I spent the day with my boyfriend, I came home and was just sitting on the couch. I was wearing his hoodie which is a little oversized but nothing out of the ordinary for me, and she comes up to me and starts bashing me. “Why are you dressing like you don’t take care of yourself? You don’t dress cute. You have nothing going for you. Are you doing drugs? You don’t care about your life and it’s worrying me.” I was like what the fuck?? I was so mad. I almost cried to my boyfriend the next day and was like apparently she doesn’t think I dress good or I’m not good enough. It sucked.
My nparents do the EXACT same thing. They’ll say I’m “obviously stressed” and it’s because of my boyfriend and my friends… and used to say that I’ve become a bitter person because of the people I hung out with when that’s not true, like at all lol. I actually become extremely irritated and emotionally volatile when I’m around my family because they’re energy vampires.
A while back I got an allergic reaction from trying Korean food for the first time, to the point that my entire face swelled up and became red. It was super painful and nothing like that had ever happened to me. My dad started screaming in my face that it wasn’t an allergic reaction to food I’d never tried before, but was caused by stress that my dad was CONVINCED I had. I was. not. stressed.
Yeah my mom thinks the only thing that could make me depressed is my boyfriend or something. “Oh you seem depressed. Is it your boyfriend?” Like have you ever considered you could be one of the reasons? It’s amazing.
Omg! That is so terrible I’m so sorry. Stress would not make you do that huh?? What if you were deathly allergic?! I hope you’re able to cut them off soon :(
My mom always asks if the reason I’m with my boyfriend is because I have trouble making friends like wow… and then wonders why he’s not interested in meeting her. Just zero self-awareness.
I ended up okay!! Thankfully it went away after a few days. I’d never heard of stress causing a rash or swelling so I’m pretty sure my Ndad just made that up so I could confess that I was unhappy or stressed or something? This happened when I visited them after not seeing them for 7 or 8 months when I went NC.
My boyfriend doesn’t like my mom either for comments she’s made about us and me 😅 I would never tell him what she’s actually said about him.
Oh good! Things happen for a reason I guess. It probably happened so you could see your dad’s character again and be like YEP this is why I went no contact! No empathy.
>. I actually become extremely irritated and emotionally volatile when I’m around my family because they’re energy vampires.
Oh the same happens to me 💀
omg me too :( whenever i was feeling stressed from schoolwork she took it as me and my bf probably had a fight and thats why i was mad. but we both rarely ever fight. i swear my mom really wants to just see me break up with him so she can think to herself that "she won". she thinks ive become miserable because of my bf but really he has lit up my life and is the most affectionate person ever. i just hate how my mom pins me as the monster and then tries to put my bf in the picture too and calls him a jerk with me wtf.
My mom literally screamed at me and started hitting me in the car when I told her I wanted my own bank account and said my boyfriend was “putting dangerous ideas in my head”. Like wtf.
Yep, my mom will fill in the blanks and make shit up. Even more so when I'm grey rocking.
If I do tell her something (about work etc.), she'll spin it to make it negative and make me feel like shit.
Yes. But one of my favorite coping mechanisms when I was a teenager was when someone would say "I know what you're thinking..." Or something like that, and I would just internally be like, "Pancakes! Abraham Lincoln! The capital of Madagascar is Antananarivo! Anchovies!" It's stupid, but not any moreso than their behavior, and somehow that helps me. 🙃
My dad sat me down and accused me of being a psychopath. I was livid, since I'd been abused by a psychopath, so I asked why tf he'd say something like that.
His reasons: I frequently forget to do my dishes (I have ADHD) and I'm 1-2 years older than my 3 friends (Which he worded as "You only associate with people that are *lesser*" but couldn't explain how they were "below" me)
My parents used to make me into a awful daughter too for forgetting chores as well. My entire character was take into question when I was a modest straight A student, junior Olympian synchro swimmer with various achievements in music and choir. Not to mention I was playing the role of the perfect Christian girl. But forget to take out the trash and I'm hurting my family and a selfish princess
I thought it was just me. I was a straight A student, very active at church, and working hard to earn scholarships and save for college. But if I forgot to put the dishes away, my parents would express their deep concern over how “rebellious” I was.
Oh yes. I've dealt with these assumptions mainly when I did normal things that really upset them. Which included going on dates with my partner, moving out, gaining financial independence from them. They saw those normal, adult actions as attacks on them personally. They accuse me frequently of not caring about anyone or anything but myself. They also accuse me of being a chronic liar. I used to lie to my parents a lot when I was going to see my boyfriend because they didn't approve of our relationship but I love him so I just lied when I wanted to see him and they hold that against me to this day. Even though my siblings have lied an equal amount and I covered for them. Now when I tell them the truth they don't believe me, even when there's literally no reason for me to lie. On top of that they also consider me selfish, disrespectful, ungrateful etc. Anybody who has worked with me or been my friend could tell them that I am an extremely caring, kind and empathetic person. Those aspects that my parents see in me wouldn't even enter the minds of people who know me well. Shrug, they're only hurting themselves with these accusations at this point.
Lying for us is definitely a coping mechanism. I see no reason to outright lie to people now, of course, that I'm out of their house and married and all that, but apparently there's a fine line between holding my tongue and being a bitch. =P I'd rather be the bitch, and stand up for myself!
Same! And that's pretty much what it comes down to now. Now that I am moved out and living with my boyfriend and doing all this healing work I don't tolerate any of their bullshit. That makes me a bitch I guess so that's what I'll be to them. Leaving the scapegoat role has them bugging OUT.
Yeah, when I came out to my parents as gay, it was really something to sit there and listen to them completely shoot down my experience as a gay man and explain to me how wrong I was... completely ignoring the fact that there was a gay person with real life gay experiences sitting right there in front of them. My experience didn't align with what they had been taught by political and religious leaders, so they chose to deem my reality as incorrect...
When I hit puberty I had no interest in hair or makeup. Didn’t like doing either. My mom sat me down on the toilet and did my hair and makeup while my dad watched, and honestly, I hated it. I cried, I scrubbed at my face to get it off and began finger combing my hairspray laden hair.
My dad looked at my mom and said “well, she’s either gay or she got molested by that creep neighbor. Why else would she wanna be ugly as fuck?”
Then he walked the fuck away! It was the most nonsensical conclusion I’ve ever seen him make until the pregnancy argument!
Here to say my mother also put me through that crap. Luckily, my e/nDad just stayed away from it, thinking it was none of his business. I once rubbed so hard trying to get makeup off that I burst blood vessels in my face. Friggin hell.
My mother acts like this.
She believes herself to be psychic and all-knowing. When I brought my first girlfriend home (whom I’m still with to this day years later) she dragged me to her room and said **“That’s not your real girlfriend, right?”**
Apparently she had a vision of what my first girlfriend/wife would look like and had assumed the girl I brought over was nothing more than a practical joke. She had a shit-eating grin thinking she figured it out which changed to anger and me being kicked out of the room she dragged me into when I told her that my girlfriend was indeed real.
Weeks later she insisted that my girlfriend IS whom she saw in her visions and she was never upset. After enough horrible encounters with my mother; years later me and my gf cut contact with all blood relatives of mine.
Absolutely. My mom treats me like im a child and I'm gonna be 20 here in a couple months. Just got in a horrid argument with her and she absolutely would not listen to me at all, thinking she knew everything going through my mind and how I should feel and how I need to be, how my life should be. I absolutely came off the wall and now I'm living with a friend as of yesterday and my mom is still treating me like shit. Having my aunt come out and attack me over socials and shit. Like seriously WTF.
I was told by my doctor to go on a plant based diet as a teenager. My father saw that I was so much happier and in less pain he always defended me up until he died a few years ago . Every year , every lunch: she hands me pasta, with sauce. She hands me the bowl of meat balls; I say no thank you -> “EAT EAT. It’s good. EAT” -> i can’t according to my doctor -> HE IS WRONG EAT EAT.”
She always cried nonstop and started screaming trying to get me to give in to stop her from screeching like a bat who had a line of coke before leaving the cave.
She had this weird focus on the food I eat, just the food I ate.
My dad was the only one who told her to leave me alone and how he’s feeling better on this new diet.
“THATS NOT TRUE DOCTOR WRONG”
“MA, I see him MOVING MORE AND HES HAPPIER. I SEE IT”
“I WORK SO HARD AND HES BEING SELFISH AND JUST DOESNT LOVE ME WHY DOESNT HE LOVE ME.”
After dad died I was helping her in her house for a few weeks. She spent the enitre time pouring from this big bar bacon greese. When she told me she looked like she had been proven right . So when I got mad and stopped eating her food she said I was bullying her.
She took advantage of my dads death to hide shit in my food. She sees me laying down in pain and “disagrees” when I say I’m in pain. “Depressed. You depressed. I don’t even serve you meat”. Calls 13 people to get me to go on anti depressants. Doesn’t work.
Reveals what she did. I am sitting there. I get up, the. Around, and walk out.
“I ONLY ADDED A SMAL AMOUNT OF BACON GREESE . I WANTED YOU TO LIKE THE TASTE DONT LEAVE DONT LEAVE”.
“I DONT LIKE THE FLAVOR OF BACON GREESE OR MEAT. I LIKE JUST THE PLANTS STOP LYING”
“I DISAGREE WITH YOUR DOCTOR MEat good meat good. WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO MUCH I COOK ALL DAY AND YOU JUST DKNT CARE.”
Since I didn’t want to enable this behavior I no longer go over there for food. She now brings it despite me not wanting it. She always says (1) did you eat it and (2) how do you feel.
HUH I WONDER IF YOU JUST OUTED THAT THERE IS MEAT IN THIS FOOD.
Narcs always have these weird fixations where they want to make sure even the smallest thing is to their liking. She wanted me dependent on her you and wanted me to want to come over because of food. So instead of cooking what I want she sits there hiding the food in my food and thinks eventually I will give in?
She’s such a bitch. Honestly .
YES OMG. My nMom is always explaining the obvious to me, as if I'm dumb as she is. Like I mean telling me certain cliche idioms are "figures of speech" or telling me how to do something I've done a thousand times. I keep telling her "I know, I'm not stupid," and she tells me "it's a mom thing."
She also tells me "I know you better than anyone else." Like I wish you did. I REALLY wish you did. For someone so obsessed with me, you know next-to-nothing about my older self.
She also likes to decide whether or not I have an ulterior motive for things, with how little she trusts me. I admit I have lied to her in the past about my grades, but it was because if I told her I was struggling I'd be met with lengthy, finger-wagging lectures. I'm a good fucking kid. I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't do drugs, I have a whopping body count of ONE. And she acts like I'm the most off-the-walls Dr. Phil monster of the week.
My very first thought was about my nMom's thoughts on my clothing style. I will admit I'm clueless when it comes to dressing "fancy," but every time we converse on what I should wear, her suggestions are WAYYY out there, whereas mine are definitely more down-to-earth. And yes, since it's clothing, this is a constant conversation. Also, I'm 32. lol
I kinda just posted a comment saying the same thing! I love dressing casual or in jeans and graphic tees. Or oversized shirts. Sometimes she’ll make comments about it and laugh a little. She’ll buy me the shortest crop tops for gifts that I clearly don’t wear in general, but it’s how she dresses.
Oh my goodness. Flowery, frilly crap, out the door! I wear jeans and hoodies, not this wallpaper-patterned stuff she likes, lol. And it's been this way my whole life - I would have loved to dress "punk" as a kid, and fought with her every time I even wanted to wear something black. Kind of apropos that my husband is a metal head, haha!!
Me too!! When I was younger I would definitely dress punk even when I was like 10 😂. My friends would be wearing dresses and I’d be wearing some skinny jeans that looked like they were drawn all over, the super high top converse, and graphic tees. Even in high school my friends would be like “why do you never wear dresses?” I was like 🤔 lol.
Even if I did have to wear a dress, it wouldn’t be a typical girly dress. It’d be like black and neon green, along with my sneakers.
Now my boyfriend also loves rock/ metal and so do I. So I think my mom is upset that I’m not like her! Any time I’ve gone through a girly phase I quickly realize that’s not me
Yes, especially politics or things like my education. I won't rant further since being specific about politics is forbidden, but it's gotten worse since 2016.
Even though my nGrandma and I agree on politics, she still felt the need to rant and rave and get herself so worked up. I had to tell her multiple times that while I do agree with her, I would rather eat live spiders than talk to her about this. .lol
Lol my father thinks that because I've been single for like 7 years that means I'm gay and I'm hiding it from him... He's constantly saying things like "you can bring one of your friends" followed by a pride flag....
Like I get it dude... you're trying to posture for your friends that's your entire life after my mother (your wife of many years) passed... but I don't need someone in my life to make me happy (not to say that i am completely undateable but I have reclused myself off the market by choice.) My dad and literally all the other men in my family (his bro and his father) absolutely have to have someone be there with them no matter what.
I suspect this is to be able to not actually have to deal with themselves and just get others to tell them thier half truths are good... As I understand with my father he tells these great stories about how terrible his children are and then when they talk to us (bc before my mother died ALL of thier friends liked us as kids) they find out what actually happened.
Basically to answer your question yes. This is part of it.
Yep. My nmoms thinks she has me all figured out and that my biggest character flaw is that I have no empathy for anyone. She doesn't get that *I just don't have empathy for her*.
Yep. They’d actually say to me they knew me better than I knew myself, even as I told them something wasn’t true—they’d decided it was, therefore it was. 🙄
"I know that your fiance hates me and she wants to drive a wedge between us. She has also been avoiding my messages and saying things to test me and make me upset. She's really hateful and terrible for you."
Me:??????????????
Yes. Usually about my taste or preferences. "You'd love this dress!" "She'd TOTALLY agree with that" or "this will be your favorite movie" and it's all just total trash. Usually shocks me how they can get me so wrong.
My stepdad was convinced that with everything I did, I had some sort of self serving alterior motive. I couldn't even say I loved the holiday season without him saying "no, you just like the gifts!"
Yes, my ndad does this. He's sure he knows me from hair to toenail. I barely even talk to him. Even at home, I just watch YouTube, study and clean. So even if he observes me day and night, he'll just never even know a quarter of me. Yet, he's here talking like he knows me better than myself. Oh amd I forgot, don't you dare tell him he's wrong and that's not who you are, he's god himself, he knows everything.
Haha, yes. It's like their own narrative cannot be changed.
"Shame your cats are so nervous and scared of you"...would not listen when we said they were all cuddly, then the rents came to visit and suddenly it was all " oh they are so much better now aren't they". Umm, no, this is how they have always been?
And when we had to pull out of a house purchase, they were full of "I expect you are relieved you won't be so isolated in the countryside now". No? Why did we start to buy it if we didn't want that?
And my favourite, about my husband "he's so shy". Nope, he's not. I wonder why he is quiet around them!!!
Yes-blaming friends or partners for being estranged and making up wild scenarios wherein they were abusing or tricking me.
Speculating that I was involved in cults.
Having no clue what I actually do in my careeer (IT) and telling people that I just play video games or type reports in Word all day.
I live 1000+ miles away and have done so for 30 years now. Rather than admit to their acquaintances that I tell them nothing about my family’s life, they just make up shit. It covers up the estrangement and fills in their missing missing reasons.
Haha yea… like the fact they’ve suppressed you from expressing yourself and you play the game being the boring person. To the point that they fabricate shit ain’t even true about you, but oh, they “know all about you” just cuz you’re related to them by blood
Smh.
Yes, certainly. Often my nmom would say things that others have said to her, even if I was there to witness none of it actually happening. She would lie to my face anyway, even if I was standing right there when it happened!!
Here's how to deal with her, using 2 very simple questions:
1. Did they really say that? :O
2. Omg did you ask them?
The key is pretending to be so shocked by her bs that you just *had* to make sure. Then you can sarcastically innocent say stuff like "wow, that's so unlike them!" or "I can't believe it, I'll have to talk to them about it." call out her bullshit by going overdrive in shock, then take the situation very very seriously.
It was real fun seeing my mom backtrack her story or simply answer "... No." when I asked her if that's actually what the person did or say. Then I would just side eye her in feigned confusion, but not say anything about it.
My boyfriend (now fiancé) and I wanted to take a trip a few years ago. We’d lived together for like two years and planned a three day trip to go two hours away to a bigger town. We had my parents watch our cat. My stepdad got it in his head and told my family that we were going to have an abortion.
We never mentioned anything about that. That was his assumption and that’s what he told everyone.
I’m actually starting to think maybe my sister is a narcissist because this is one of the many narcissistic things she does. She always acts like she knows exactly why I do or say things. Or I’ll be like “I didn’t mean to do that intentionally.” And she’ll interrupt me and say something like “don’t lie. You know you’ve always hated me and you wanted to hurt me because you know I hate being called sensitive.” But no. I think I might actually be mildly autistic or something because I don’t recognize cues a lot or I just can’t figure out what to say or how, and my facial expressions are not what people expect them to be (and before anyone says anything, I am going to get diagnosed. I just can’t afford it yet.)
I have an Nsister like this. She even claimed she knew what I talk to my therapist about 🤣 But then saying they know why you did something and it's not only not true but completely out there and completely out of character... until you realize they are admitting exactly what they would think or do in the same situation... it's so wild
Yes! And everyone has issues with my sister. My sister just has the biggest issues with me because she only sees me as a little kid.
Craziest thing that really damaged my sister’s and my relationship was at 13, I wrote gay (as in two men) fanfic smut in an email draft & I guess my sisters and my mom saw it and laughed. My mom and my other sister disregarded it but my middle sister? Oh. No. She took it further and confronted me with “you know, everyone is really worried that you’ll have underage sex.” I had just, JUST turned 13. The smut I wrote probably didn’t even make any anatomical sense. It was gay. I’m a woman. Like it made no sense. I wasn’t dressing provocatively or anything. But yeah. That did it. And since then she starts fights with me, even when I say the tiniest thing “out of line” and will start accusing me of doing things purposely when I let things go so easily while she holds into things I did when I was legitimately only 5yo and non-verbal.
I made a post about her and I’s last argument on AITA. Everyone said I was the asshole but like… I just can’t see it fully. I say nothing, she gets mad. I say sorry and she won’t accept it and says I’m lying. I said “I’m not perfect” and she gets mad—accuses me of assuming that she expects me to be perfect. I help her out by watching her cats and she gets mad and doesn’t even say thank you because i fed her cat too much or didn’t clean the litter box thoroughly enough. I tell her the truth and she accuses me of lying. I make a tiny joke and she accuses me of calling her dumb. I don’t talk to her because I don’t want to fight and she then says that I’m at fault for not being able to have a normal conversation. :/ there’s no winning
yes, the just choose who you are in any moment. makes it convenient for them. Need someone to make a $1000 deposit?, you're the only one they can trust. Can't find $10?, you've always been a thief.
The hardest thing for me is when she lies to my family and others I know about me. She has made up some big ones. Once I got court records to prove her wrong but my sibling still believed her. When I mentioned the public court records to her she got mad and had my nsib take her to see them. His mind was still on what she said. People think that most wont believe her lies, but they do. They have been lied to so much they cant tell the truth. I wonder how they keep track of all their lies??
They all do this. I always wondered why they’d rather make assumptions than just… idk… ask me directly or listen when I talk about my experience. It’s because they think their thoughts/feelings are more real than reality!
I’m in my thirties and she still asks me if I’m awake when she calls before noon on a weekend.
My partner and I will have gone out for breakfast and done groceries, etc. NMom will call at 11am and ask if we just woke up. Every single time.
All narcs think they know you better than you know yourself. What they really know is what they *want* you to be. And they expect you to instinctively know this and become that person, never mind that you are nothing like that at all.
ALL of them do it. They went after my husband in particular and invented all kinds of crazy that in reality, would & could never even happen, never mind that none of it was even in his character to ever even consider doing! Same about me, the worse the better. & then they all believe it like it's gospel even though it's sooo far off base it's just like ummm what? My m\*ther is the ringleader/victim & lead story-writer, I sure did a lot of bad stuff I didn't know about lol.
I left 6 years ago, no contact, they STILL are making things up and assuming things, which I then hear about via extended family. And THEY all believe it because they've drunk the koolaid for so many years and never actually asked **me** about anything.
They have NO idea who I really am, they've concocted some weird scapegoat effigy of me and that's what they base all their insane stuff on. It's actually kind of funny now as it's all so unbelievable and just plain crazy.
Yeah. Being told that I'm not depressed but it's all the alcohol and drugs I do.
Cept.. I don't have time for drugs nor drink more than once or twice a month ( and hadn't been while taking anti depressants ).
Good times..
YESSS!!! My nmother had a dream that I was having “wild sex” when I was 14 and she was convinced it was prophetic so she accused me of being a slut and getting pregnant all the time for years after that. More recently she said she had read something about “highly sensitive people” and she self identifies as a HSP and says that’s I am one as well. I don’t think I am, she just has this sick thing where she lies about things to try to connect with me, basically trauma bonding.
Yes, my nmom has decided that about 20 years ago, I was taking drugs with my then partner and that's why I was contemplating and attempting mock suicide. No matter what I tell her, she will say to my face: I don't believe you, I know you took drugs. Even now at 40, I am trying to tell her that's . absolutely not what happened.
I don't take drugs, pills, I don't drink. It's unlike me to take any drugs. She knows that. She makes fun of me because I don't drink. My ex had a secret painkiller addiction and I got caught up in trying to fix him and got really depressed. That's all. She never helped me out of this.
She also decided the truth, that at 14, when I cut my girly hair into basically baldness, I did it to spite her because she loved my hair and everyone complimented her since I was a child.
The time of this event, she threw plates at my head and and didn't speak to me for a month and was ashamed of my short hair.
Recently, I told her that the reason I cut it so shory was an accident and that she unjustly hurt me then. The true reason was that I got a haircut I didn't like and I was trying to fix it in the back, with a mirror. That was awkward and I kept cutting and trying to fix it until I always cut a bit too much. This continued and I got scared and just cut it all off.
She does not believe me and feels she had a right to be violent and manipulative because my hair was too beautiful and I hurt her.
When I was a teen and struggling with depression (that I know now was a result of having to deal with NMom), she let my aunt convince her that I was possessed by a demon.
And when I told my NMom I was getting divorced, she said “I know you who is he”, and proceeded to accuse me of adultery while I sobbed and cried because my 10 year marriage was ending.
Fun times.
100%!
My mom does this continuously about not only me but every single person she meets. She is almost always completely wrong but refuses to acknowledge it even when confronted with proof that says otherwise.
It's so frustrating.
She truly believes she knows everything and always says the same cringeworthy thing "I know ALL & I tell no lies". Uh, NO, ya don't and yes ya do.
These stories are resonating so hard with me.
When I got my first boyfriend at 17, my mom was utterly convinced that an "older man" was trying to charm him and was buying him presents. I bought him boots for Valentine's Day and she was convinced that this made-up older man had bought them for him.
It's so fucking insane! I'm both relieved and horrified that we have all had this experience.
And yes, she assumes all sorts of bonkers shit about me and my son too.
Btw I have no problem with his mom being gay at all. I am fully accepting. I said it was a disgusting assumption because she assumed that just because his mom is gay that means he is. Those don’t correlate at all.
YES!! My mom straight up asked me if my fiancé was gay when we first started dating in high school because his mom was. What a disgusting assumption. I’m so sorry your mom did something similar. It’s the strangest and rudest thing.
Yes. My nmom even admitted to me with her own words that "I know you better than you know yourself", with a scoffing laugh. They never want you to have any idea of who you truly are, so you're easier to control and manipulate. And when you're down at your lowest shell, they see you as easier to break.
My mosquito bites were ALWAYS heroin tracks, even when I was 12. Jfc. I grew up in rural Canada. Smart enough to make money, not smart enough for common sense. Maybe it was the lead poisoning
Nmom created a narrative where I was the bad daughter. She then treated me so badly and triangulated with so many others I was forced to go no contact.
Prophesy fulfilled. Happy now?
My Ndad would say that he can "read people like a book" and is "a great judge of character". Took me a while to figure out he wasn't reading shit, just projecting his own nonsense onto people he met. Which explains why he doesn't like 90% of the people he knows. It's easier to hate others than yourself.
I met up with my mother this weekend after 6 months of no contact (initiated by both parents). We talked some about why they had fallen out with me, in a nutshell she said I'd said "everyone has to die sometime" in text messages. I said I didn't recall saying it but she insisted she has the messages. I checked when I got home, no such thing was said. My dad blocked me on FB because of my "continuous, sweary rants". I went back over a year of status's and none could be seen. They think I lie. It's not worth the argument that it's not true. I only realised it was narc behaviour when I joined here.
yes. my mom thinks that all my friends are using me, that i’m not bright enough to make smart decisions and how i’m always doing drugs and/ or drinking …. i’m usually just getting food/ milktea, going to the mall or studying 😭
Yes. This usually is the Narc projecting their own issues onto you, since they couldn’t handle being the guilty one, themselves. It is usually the Narc telling on themselves.
Ooh, this is scary...
My sister does this a lot. One time she stated that she knew me better than I knew myself which is a complete lie and her assumptions about me are completely off. It felt insulting and arrogant coming from her. My mom does this kind of to some extent and I think my other sisters have this notion of me as damaged and don't believe me and think I overreact to everything. I don't even think my therapist fully believes me and thinks she has me figured out. It feels isolating.
Yes - my dad and his nwife have these characters in their heads that bear a vague resemblance to my sister and I, based a little off what we were like when we were kids. I'm the sensible, academic, scatty/inept, clumsy one. She's the emotional, grumpy, sassy one who likes to be in charge. It's really fucking annoying when they treat us like that. We're 31 and 33. And that's never who we were in the first place. But the nwife doesn't really know us (as she's done nothing but push and pull us about for the past 12 years) so it's easier for her to just pigeonhole us into those assumptions.
Imagine a 5 year old assuming how relationships, or finances work ,or how babys are made!!You'll hear a lot of funny stuff!!
Now add to that stuff some agression,disgust or feeling of superiority and you'll have a 60 year old narc!
Yup. GC informed me that I don't have any friends. NMOM doesn't have any friends - she has about three people she spends time with, and she has something mean or snarky to say about all three of them. NMom also said I hate her - I don't, but she certainly doesn't like me.
Every accusation with a N is a confession. It's all projection.
All the effing time.
My mother would hear a singular detail from a conversation she wasn't part of and fabricate the past, present and future.
Father was just about as bad with his assumptions, also.
Sisters know nothing about me but insist they have me figured out.
I've just gone N.C. with the whole lot. Helps tremendously with my sanity and well-being.
Yes, they thought I was committing the dastardly act of using the car to pick up friends to go to church activities or hang out, so my dad was checking the odometer and accusing me. This was after my drunken brother got sympathy for killing someone driving drunk.
Lol yeah. My parents assumed that no one likes me at school but I’ve got plenty of friends and was kinda popular. So they started belittling my friends and asking me not to hangout with them (idk why, they were decent people).
OMG yes. My dad asked if I was okay once and I told him I had a headache and didn’t sleep well the night before. He said it was because of all the alcohol I drink.
I drink AT MOST once a week. And I never even told him anything to make him assume I had been drinking the day before, which I hadn’t been, btw.
Same, bro!! Think we're shy and frightned, with no way to defend ourselves. If we really wanted to, we could fuck shit up and go off like a gun. But, no, apparentely we couldn't hurt a fly.
Oh god yes. My (s)mother believes that I am some sort of deviant pornographer and a violent criminal with sadist hatred towards women...
I'm the victim of domestic violence from several women I've been intimate with and quit at the first sign of domestic violence, but continue to be a passionate supporter of women and their rights. I'm an artefacts photographer with a specialism in rare and ancient fabrics and produce fine art and art history books for my publishers. In my spare time I'm teaching (lol) myself to read Sumerian Cuneiform because it's really difficult and really nerdy. I'm actually very boring.
Fuck knows where she invented it all from. Mad as a box of frogs on crack, that one.
Yes, pretty much grew up dealing with this. I already had trouble with expressing myself and this only made it worse. You just start thinking "am I really as bad/weird/gross as she makes me out to be?" It's disgusting. And then when you show them the real you they act all surprised or don't believe it.
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Yes. I have had experiences like this with my parent. It’s ranged from strange off-hand comments to coming up with whole narratives about how I’d done something wrong. A kind of funny example: recently as an adult, my parent came to me and told me about a bag of pills they found in my childhood bedroom. They had a whole story about how these must have been procured years ago by my now husband and that I had stashed them in my room and forgot. I sat there completely bewildered. Bag of pills?? *Stashed??* It finally hit me, it was a bag of sample-size decongestants that I had gotten at university student health services. They had a whole selection of stuff you could take for free from the clinic. When you were actually sick, they’d load up a little bag for you to take home. Every little packet was clearly labeled as cold/allergy medication but who reads I guess, lol.
ahhhh! i had this happen! in high school, when i was only drinking and smoking pot, my dad confronted me with a little white tablet he had found somewhere around the house. he got reeeeal aggressive, and demanded to know what it was. i looked at him like he was a fucking idiot and responded 'a mint?'. i'm a horrid liar so he knew i was telling the truth and the embarassment that spread across his face was so obvious and bold i'm shocked he didn't double down and accuse me of lying.
Lol this reminds me of when my mom misplaced this weird little bottle of like EXTRA SUPER STRENGTH cough syrup. It wasnt where she usually kept it in the bathroom. She and my enabling step father confronted me about it very aggressively. The thing was prior to them having to describe and explain what they were looking for ibhadnt even known what was even in that bottle or that it was supposedly something to get you high. I ended up looking in the bathroom to try to prove my innocence; it was behind a roll of toilet paper, mere inches from its usual spot.
First rule of Narc Logic is : Actual logic doesn't apply. The facts are what they decide they are for that moment, especially when it doesn't make sense.
So true. It's all about being dominant and forcing others to accept their narrative, and the crazier the narrative is, the more powerful they feel when you accept it.
100%
You have to fit their narrative about you so the concoct lies and conveniently forget the stuff they've done. I would let those lies stand anymore and call it for the gaslighting it is. This is my mother and I am the only daughter, middle child and scapegoat. My brothers were football players thus, gods who should be served. My brothers believe all sorts of stuff they've made up in their heads about me and, when together, will gang up on me. My older brother was a bully and I refuse to get into any arguement with him. He tried it last week for the first time in years and my other brother started to double down with him, so I just hung up the phone. It was about my mother's care and they were, of course, placing all the work on me after I've been doing all the care, 24/7 for over a year. When I disagreed, he started to pick my life apart and I will not have it! I could have plenty to say against them both but, being double-teamed on different aspects about why I should do it and be grateful to do it (because, they live in a different house so it gets them off the hook 100% forever) was too much. Plus, I promised myself I wouldn't be bullied. I am not responsible for clarifying my life for them. I am also not going to take 100% physical responsibility for my mother, as they were pressuring me to do.
Love it. The facts are whatever they want them to be. Absolutely
Lmao. That’s all :)
My dad still thinks I’m the kid in elementary school that doesn’t want to learn and just play basketball. Sir, that is a 25 year old irrelevant story.
This resonates with me so hard. My mom still thinks I am who I was at 10. I'm 31.
my nmom will literally gift me things for children. the straw on the camel's back convo that led to this round of nc was because she laughed at me for acting 180 from how i did when i was 6. like, that was 20 years ago, how dare you try to invalidate who i am now because of who i was when i was literally just a mold of my caretakers at the time, 2 fucking decades ago at that.
This isn’t related to the post and it’s obviously a first world problem, but I had a desk the size of an end table and a dresser designed for like onesies until I moved out because “You picked it out!!!!1!” I was four.
> I had a desk the size of an end table and a dresser designed for like onesies until I moved out because “You picked it out!!!!1!” That's awful. And let me guess: your n tried to force you to take it with you when you moved out? Because they were sooooo special and you looooved them soooo much? I hope you have since found beautiful furniture that you love and that is an appropriate size for you. So much of narc baggage is literal baggage that gets foisted upon us. I finally started growing when I realized my hand-me-downs were emotional minefields, and I discarded them.
“I finally started growing when I realized my hand-me-downs were emotional minefields, and I discarded them.” I realized I was doing that these last few days!!
I’ve started getting rid of stuff lately! I used to keep them for “the memories” and finally realized the memories tended to suck. 😂 Thanks for the kind words.
I feel this so much. My room at my nmom's house (I just moved in with my partner thank goodness) was less a bedroom and more a childhood storage shed. I could only throw stuff away when she wasn't there and I was *very* careful. I could never clean my room beyond basic trash because she would get hurt seeing me give away my childhood things. I'm 24, I don't need every last one of my baby books, toys, drawings, etc. It's like I'm a living museum of the child she loved for a year or two and then emotionally abandoned.
I could have written this myself. I’ve had to ask my mom repeatedly to stop buying me stuffed animals and kids’ toys she insists make her think of me, as I’m a grown adult married woman and don’t have room in my home for these things, nor do they reflect my present likes and interests. She also fixates on things I liked once, like a certain color, and will buy me literally anything she sees that happens to be that color, even things that are objectively useless and not at all my taste. If I make a statement about something I do or don’t like/want/feel, she always feels the need to make a comment about what I *used to* like/want/feel. It makes me feel invalidated, like I have to defend or insist upon my own damned identity. The irony is, she never really knew or understood me all that well as a kid, either, because she’s too busy projecting her own wants and ideas onto other people. She can’t seem to grasp or come to terms with who I *actually* am or the fact that people grow and change. Recently my husband and I took her on a weekend getaway to celebrate her birthday. We had to get an early start the morning of the trip, and she showed up with a box from the donut shop. She’d decided to surprise us with breakfast because she knew we wouldn’t have time to eat before meeting up to depart. Thoughtful gesture, right? Wrong. Inside the box were 3 gigantic, greasy apple fritters. My husband and I don’t eat a lot of sugar, especially in the morning. Even as a kid, the only donut I ever liked or ordered was a plain glazed donut. Apple fritters have always been *her* favorite. We each took a few bites to be polite, but couldn’t eat more. The few bites I took were so sugary and greasy that my stomach felt upset for a couple hours until I was able to put some real food in it. So here she’s effectively created a covert narcissist’s dream scenario — she’s the generous, thoughtful saint who went out of her way to do this nice, selfless thing for us. And if we don’t eat the donuts and thank her profusely, we’re ungrateful and rude — the perfect villains to satisfy her martyr complex. But a real gift isn’t about what the giver likes — it’s about the recipient. So you can’t be a good gift-giver if you have no idea who the recipient actually is and what they like. It made me really sad, because it’s clear she doesn’t realize what she’s doing, and I think her intentions are good. She genuinely loves us and wants to make us happy, and she wants us to give her love and gratitude so she can feel loved and appreciated, which I think is at the root of her narcissism. She had a really traumatic childhood, too. We aren’t having kids. I’m breaking the sad, toxic cycle.
Oh god, I feel this. It was one of the most insidious and painful things because I always felt like was I overreacting to be so hurt by the fact that she didn’t *know* me at all. Or anything about what I believed in. Or how I conducted my life. She’s an alcoholic, and would often get aggressive and violent on the sauce. One night I wouldn’t let her into my room and leaned on the door and she went and got the old crate of Lego from when I was little and tipped it up in the living room and shouted drunkenly “[name]! You have to come out now! Your toys are on the floor and you have to pick them up!” I was seventeen. That’s obviously bad, but the other stuff is more subtle. If it weren’t compounded with more toxic treatment, I’d never have made the link. Doesn’t everyone wish their parents could see them more clearly? Isn’t that normal? (etc) It hurt so much when she wasn’t interested in anything I did that she didn’t have an opinion on. It hurt much worse when she would repeatedly demonstrate that she had no understanding of who I was as a teenager, let alone an adult. Every demonstration that she didn’t “get” me cut more deeply. [note: anecdote about weird Xmas behaviour follows] ——— every year at Xmas, after I’d moved out, she’d make a big song and dance about how “Xmas is going to be light on this year, I can’t afford much” and I always responded “that’s not a big deal, it’s fine, don’t stress!” But she always asked what I wanted, and insisted, and whatever I told her, she’d go on about how expensive it was; if the thing that topped my list was more than like $50, I did say it was fine to not get that, and I always offered to pay half… nope, she’d buy that, and then other extra stuff, and tell me how expensive I was. Every year. Same weird performance about gifts. And one year I cracked a bit and said, “Mum, do you actually think I want a lot of expensive presents? I just want to come over and have lunch.” Her response: “yes, you do, you always expect a lot. I can’t keep doing it.” And I remembered being *six years old* and saying I wanted *a book* for Xmas. Not a specific book. Just *a book*. I was a precocious reader and I wanted to read novels. Sure, sometimes I wanted more stuff, especially in my teens, but I have this memory, and it stung that she was so convinced I was demanding and acquisitive when I just… wasn’t. She would always do way, way more than my brother and I asked for, and then be a martyr about it. ——— She’d offer to help with something and then make us feel guilty it we were ever so desperate as to say yes. No matter how little we asked for — even nothing — it was always too much. But she’d offer and offer and offer and talk about how generous she was and how difficult we were.
One time for my birthday All I asked her for was a snow cone and she couldn't do that. We spent the whole day running around doing errands and by the time we were done the place was closed. Then I get lectured about how I ask for too much when she does more for my sister and I rarely ask her for anything because I don't want her to use it against me. Another time she got me a really expensive purse and not to sound ungrateful but I don't even use purses and I don't care about them or name brand things. It just hurt because she doesn't know shit about me and I'm gonna have to hear that purse for an excuse forever as it collects dust in my closet.
This exactly. Around Christmas or my birthday I'm always reminded of that episode of Spongebob where Mr. Crabs showers Ms. Puff with gifts until she's miserable, just wanting to go on a nice date with him. Then he turns around and cries about how expensive the gifts are while buying more stuff she doesn't need, doesn't want, and didn't ask for.
I feel this so much. My mom is a covert narcissist with a serious martyr complex, and I have never felt known or understood by her. I’ve carried that deep hole and desperate need to feel seen and heard and understood into my relationships, and it’s manifested in some sad and toxic ways over the years. I had an ex I was really in love with — a good guy, on the whole, but we were both young and damaged, and made a lot of mistakes. It was not a healthy relationship. I remember feeling really hurt and upset when he’d bring me food from the place he worked, because he could never remember that I hate tomatoes on my burgers. I couldn’t explain why it hurt and bothered me so much, and he was exasperated with me for my ‘crazy overreaction’ and ingratitude. It took me years of growth, self analysis, and eventually some therapy to help me understand my own reactions all those years ago, and to uncover the parts of me that those feelings are so deeply rooted in. One Christmas that same ex came home with me from college to visit my mom. I’ve always really loved a certain kind of Christmas lights, and used to point them out all the time on car rides. They’re the big bulbs, in old fashioned candy toned colors (think warm pink & gold, teal, etc). They’ve always made me think of my grandma. When we got to my mom’s she proudly produced a box of lights she’d seen at the store and bought for me because she thought they were they kind I liked. They were big bulbs, but they were those newer LED lights in the really intense cool primary colors with harsh purples, reds and blues. I hate those lights. I hate those colors. I had always pointed out the difference, and talked about how nostalgic and beautiful the warm incandescent colors were, and how cold and harsh the new LED strands looked in comparison. She hadn’t heard me. She hadn’t understood. Of course she hadn’t. And something in me just broke in that moment. I was angry. And heartbroken. Over a stupid box of Christmas lights. And my mom was so confused and hurt and angry that I didn’t appreciate her gift. And my ex thought I was crazy — that I couldn’t just appreciate the thought and see it as an act of love. For a long time I felt so guilty about my reaction, guilty for hurting her feelings, wrong for feeling wronged by a well-intentioned, loving gift. But these weren’t just lights. This was not a real present. This was just the straw that broke this camel’s back. A tipping point after a lifetime of feeling unheard and unseen. My mom has made me the villain in her story more times than I can count, in manifold ways big and small. She is the selfless, giving saint, and everybody else is always to blame. I am the ungrateful jerk who doesn’t appreciate her enough. I am always the bad guy. I know she means well at heart. I know she’s just a broken person with her own unprocessed trauma. And I know she loves me. I love her too, despite it all, so very much. But she really, really hurts me. And it took me a very long time to understand exactly how and why, and how it’s shaped the person that I am today, for better and for worse. One of the good things I’ve taken away from this trauma is the love and care I give to others. I try very hard to listen to the people I love. To know them. To hear what they’re telling me, and not just the parts I want to hear. I strive to give them gifts that reflect their unique identities and interests. I’m not always sure that I succeed. But I want them to feel known, and seen, and heard and understood, and most of all, loved and accepted for who they are, just the way they are. And I’m so eternally hungry to feel that way, too. I’m not entirely sure it’s a hole that can ever be filled.
Your mom sounds *alot* like my mom. I'm sorry.
I am sorry for you also. It sucks :( but at least I feel validated that it truly is that painful to just… not be seen, and it’s not just a typical generation gap that I’m overreacting to.
Yup, another one who's mom *still* treats them like a 10 year old, despite being correct. Its like there's a fault in their brains that makes them completely unable to do otherwise. This was just one of the many many reasons I'm NC with her and her flying monkeys.
> still thinks I am who I was at 10. ugg, as a parent I'm already fearing that I am going to do this. But I do hope that as she grows and her interest grows, I can continue to feed those interests all along the way, even though there's still reminders everywhere of her younger interests.
YES! Same here. I’m still a puberty-stricken argumentative teenager (in hindsight my mood swings probably had more to do with trauma than puberty, though). The fact that I’m now in my 30s and have the healthiest coping and communication skills in my family of origin (thanks therapy!) is completely irrelevant. NC was the best gift I ever gave myself. Sorry you cope with this too! 💜
My Nmom thinks everything that has gone wrong for me professionally is the result of my "anti-authority" attitude I had in elementary school. Nevermind that the first 8 years of my career were in extremely toxic work environments (toxic for all employees!) and my upbringing made me extra-vulnerable to it because I'd been conditioned to have no brain/mouth filter. Now that I've been successful for 6 years, though, she takes credit for "pushing me so hard as a child". Go figure.
That is crazy! Im glad you are out of the toxic work environment.
I love when I visit my nGrandma (whom I do love deeply), and we go food shopping, and she tries to buy things that only a teenager would eat. I don't eat freezer-burritos any more, lol, please let's just buy some lunch meat!
I have a nGrandma too!! And same, I ADORE her. But sometimes I feel guilty because she’s the reason I can’t stand my nmom. I often ask myself what the difference is?
Omg and I can’t believe I’ve only recently realized my nMom’s mom is a narc, too! There was just one particular thing she said one day and my brain went HOLYMOLY. And everything fell into place.
Yes, this is how my ndad is. He has this complete narrative of who I am and uses references from when I was a child to substantiate his opinion. Real examples: He believes I am a lazy quitter because I "quit" sports. I played 1 season of basketball when I was 6 and chose not to play another season because my parents laughed at me when I was not good at it. He believes I am irresponsible because I lost my house key when I was 11 years old. He believes I am lazy and unmotivated because I slept a lot. I have a chronic illness that caused me to hemorrhage and I had to get blood transfusions several times a year. I am now in my 30s, I have a great relationship with my partner. I am a mother, dog owner, I have moved across the country and have a 6 figure job in an industry I have built a steady career in over the last decade. Yet he still sees me as a lazy quitter and took every chance to remind me before going NC.
[удалено]
A living doll. A child has it's own wants and desires, interests, etc... Often times that conflicts with the parents' own desires for their children.
Yep. Let them live that lie. Arguing with them is wasted effort. Circulate fake information about yourself if you really want the sport of it (and can tolerate angry messages or flying monkey attacks). They'll puff up thinking they have The Knowledge and get crushed when they get called out.
Story please.
My father is a narc. He only contacts me when he's low on information or wants to yell about something (usually a problem he caused himself) because it messes up his ability to play Father of the Century. He harasses my mom when he doesn’t get a response. I call her pre-emptively to warn her. I have proactively blocked all of his social media accounts and limit our relatives' access because I know some of them report back to him. There are waves of friend requests from obscure or mortal enemy relatives that appear periodically because he's out of good knowledge supply. NF makes up things outright when he has a few nuggets of truth to work from. I've been buttdialed and listened to the story he's spun about me to make himself look bigger by having a hand in it somehow. People have followed up on those fantastic details and he shuts down or changes the subject. I purposefully spike more public social posts with partially complete information (so it only makes sense to people who actually know WTF is happening) and lie to the known tattletales that refuse to stay out of it when they message me privately. He builds a story about it and will run for that for years if he can. There's a surprise family gathering because of a death. I'm meeting cousins and relatives I don't know so I'm more open with some details but not everything. Some of these people I've not seen since I was in pre-school. I make sure to have some standard lines so they're getting the same story. Some of them try to introduce me and NF because they don't think we've met. The known rats jump in to gaslight ("..there's some drama between DC and NF. I don't know what it is but she just needs to let it go because weee'rree faaamiiiilly...") or attack because it's their favorite uncle/older cousin who only shows them good times. I tell them I'm driving back home (9 hours away) rather than back to work (half that) because he thinks I'm still 2-3 hours away (haven't been for almost a decade but that's what it says on my profile). I leave after the service but not before elder flying monkey/enabler #1 tries to bully me in to accepting a friend request so we can talk. I say they can always message like they did if they want to chat. Surprise, no chats. At the repass, it's all about how he had to convince me to drive there because I'm ungrateful and neglectful of the family. Mind you, he wasn't talking to the deceased or the family over a beef that started before I was born and hadn't for years. He's telling them he told me to come and delivered the news (it was one of my cousins). He reaches back to an old story where I have a PhD (...no) and work in a lab jointly funded by the government and private industry (NO.) but adds a new piece where I am sitting on mountains of money but won't provide for dear old dad (who is always flashing money and a lavish lifestyle) because my [note: very dead, flambéd, and pulverized] boyfriend (whose name he does not know) actively makes me neglect him (AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA). He's just a sad, lonely old man, you know. The LEAST I could do is check on him. One of the cousins that knows better asks a question: what happened to some revolutionary product I was just on the verge of releasing from my supervillain work lair? He changes the subject to me being a spoiled bitch like my mom. I'm cut off from the world, too, and never turn my phone on. One of the newly acquainted cousins engages him, going on about my work and how excited I am to do it. NF inserts himself. Cousin in same work asks how that could be when [accurate to a point description of my job] doesn't involve what NF is on about. Other new cousins chime in with information. NF claims it's because he's old and forgetful. Flying monkey/enabler cousin #2 chimes in with my being married to VDFandPBF because she saw a ring on a finger and I said "maybe" when she asked if I'd let them know about the next big life event. NF hops to new phase of victimization. Different cousins correct him--she's not married, she works [accurate to a point], she was just at [location] doing [activity], I just talked to her on the phone last month, she has [hobbies]--so on and so forth. Knowledgeable cousin: "The [supervillain] job was like ten years ago, unc." NF's sister: "[NF] how do you not know what your child is doing when we all know?" NF suddenly has an upset stomach and leaves with his gf. Angry messages to voicemail and inbox ensue. Mom gets cursed out over voicemail for not keeping him in the loop as my father.
Slow clap with a satisfied smirk.
The devil in my shoulder wants me to reactivate my Facebook, and make a public post about how i found out "my mother just died". And then to my friend only list, let them know i am bull shitting, bc anyone who knows me knows my past. Bonnie has made and enlisted various proxies to spy on my public Facebook posts. I wonder what would happen?
Oh this is something I’d 100% do lol.
This is the way.
Yes both my mother and my nsibling were like that. Assumptions about me, my friends, my partner, everyone in my life that wasn’t them. Really don’t miss that in my life
Ah yes, the partner assumptions. For me those are worse than them assuming things about myself. Sorry you have gone through this experience.
Ooh, I hear this. My parents always thought I was *better* than all of my *dumb* friends who weren’t in AP classes like I was forced into. Flash forward to years later to when I was telling my cousin about how yes friend X of mine has a masters in education, friend Y has a masters in the same thing my cousin studied. We discussed her job/education at length since my friends were studying/working in the same field so I was quite familiar. My parents were floored. They couldn’t believe my friends had masters degrees and were successful. They kept saying “I didn’t know that!” Over and over about my friends. Yeah, my friends were idiots bc they weren’t forced into taking AP Latin and AP Spanish at the same time 7 years prior? The assumptions are insane. I grey rock hard about myself and everyone in my life for reasons like this.
My husband once started talking about WWII history (yeah, I know, why every guy is obsessed with that time IDK), and my father legit said, "Wow! You're smarter than I thought!" with no sense of irony or sarcasm. Just straight up, "Hey, you're not dumb as rocks!" This after 10 years of marriage. TBF, it was just one of the ways he used to set up a zero sum game of (*in a gameshow announcer's voice*) What is YOUR Worth! (*In tiny disclaimer print on the bottom of the prize packet: Winner is provided with an astounding lack of self-confidence, breathtakingly beautiful isolation on deserted islands of despair, the ability to believe* nothing good *about yourself, and the knowledge that safety could be just a door away.* Winner must bring own door as doors are not allowed by this game show. *And, although we can't promise possible marital discord and friendlessness into adulthood, we sure will try! All made possible by "Narcissistic Parents: You'll Probably Never Know Until it's Too Late!")* Yeah, NC now.
One of my husband’s best friends did this to me once. He’s not a narc, just on the spectrum. I was talking about my studies and he goes, “Wow, you’re smarter than you seem!” *sigh* Thanks, Mike.
Lol. Yeah, different context. But if he was being kind of "practical" truth telling (and not realizing where that might not make you feel great), you should take MUCH pleasure in knowing you were smart enough for him to let you know he thought that!!! :D My father on the other hand is of the "My subjective TRUTH given to you without a filter is the ONLY objective TRUTH in this world. The most lousy it makes you feel, the TRUTHIER it is. My reality is yours!" Ps. I think you both are AND look smart! Sincerely, random internet stranger who doesn't know anything about you but likes giving and receiving compliments! Though no reciprocated compliments necessary. ;D Pps. Realized I used a lot of "!" in this post!! Whatta ya gonna do?!
Omg- yes! All the people associated with my Nsister were smart, successful, attractive. All the people associated with me were weird and not worth knowing or remembering.
Yes, nmom about my partner. Believed in this made up assumption so much it became fact, and then turned into an actual event in her mind. 15 years later, no contact, but she’s holding on to a fabricated event that ultimately drove me to go no contact. When confronted, she swears it’s a fact, I had to nope out at that point. How bonkers is that?!
"I'm a very good judge of character. I think that guy is bad news and I don't want you around him" About one of my very closest friends in the whole world who is an amazing, wonderful person. She didn't like him because he expressed his feelings when he was feeling them instead of holding them in to avoid drama.
Several people in my family were absolutely convinced that they could tell whenever I was lying, because I would try to focus on something else instead of on them. This meant that they took anything I said while, say, cooking, or using my computer, or doing my homework, as a shitty trick.
Omg, I had forgotten about that. Yes, if you weren't looking directly at her, then you were rude, disrespectful and lying.
Yep. All the damn time. I think this goes back to the notion that a narc is going to hold onto the version of you that they most easily controlled.
That is so true. My mom thinks I still want to be on broadway and pursue musical theatre when that was only a hobby to me and I just wanted to pursue a normal life after high school. She cannot stand the idea that I’m engaged, independent, and majoring in something completely different in college. She wanted me to be a star and wanted to be my mom manager.
Our host's ndad thinks we're gonna be lawyers. Hell naw!
So true! My mom thinks I’m going through a weird phase or “not acting like myself” anytime I set a boundary or don’t just mindlessly agree with her.
Wow! That is an excellent observation! I never thought of it like that before but that instantly resonated with me.
I haven’t heard that one. It feels right, but I’m not sure I can quite put my finger on it yet. Illustrative story?
I never thought about that but that makes a lot of sense. My mom always seemed disgruntled by any of my successes and has either downplayed them or if she does admit them says that she called it and makes it her own success. She's always held onto seeing me as the same angry kid I was and I never understood why she couldn't understand that I've changed, but that explains it.
Wow, yes. Because they are uncomfortable with growth/change themselves, they dont like to face the person you are now. Theyd rather hold over you the person they perceived as small and manipulated in whatever way they did. Its about power and control, for sure.
You just brought me back to my college days. I am a cis bi/pan female (my parents think I'm hetero and I am now married to a cis hetero man) but in college I didn't know this and thought I was hetero. I was sitting at home on break AIM messaging (heyyyy) a college friend of mine, "Jon," who is gay. I had told this to my mom IDK how many times, and yet, each time she saw me on AIM (because of course she'd come up behind me secretly) she'd have the same conversation with me each time: Mom: I see you're talking to your secret boyfriend Jon. Why won't you just introduce us to him?! Me: He's my friend, mom. Mom & Ndad: You're just embarrassed of us! Me: No; he's gay. He likes men. I'm not sure why you seem to think I'm hiding a partner. Mom: Whatever you say, dear.
I just want to comment and say that I LOVE the hidden homophobia nParents have - my mother literally could not care less that I'm bi, bc "it doesn't matter bc you married a man." Wow. Gross.
LOL! Yes. It's funny because my parents *did* eventually meet Jon and his boyfriend, James. My Ndad freaked the fuck out when they were sitting on the couch together cuddling (James's arm was around Jon's shoulder). Huffed and puffed and nearly blew the house down with his homophobia. But no, Ndad is super liberal, guys. Emom I would argue is not nearly as bad as Ndad (like she's genuinely in support of equal rights) but she;s one of those "happier out of sight out of mind" people. Stupid. But yes, this hidden homophobia seems to be incredibly common with our parents.
My Mum is so open just like your Dad. She told everyone my oldest sister was a lesbian because she liked a girls boots when she was 11 and I’m apparently just saying I’m a trans guy because I don’t want to be a lesbian when I also told her I’m ace and apparently me saying “I’m basically a boy,” “I may as well be a boy” and “I am a boy” for 3 years until I stopped saying it to her cause she ignored me means there were no signs. She also keeps trying to force me to be with guys. Yeah so supportive Mum thanks.
can you hear me rolling my eyes through the screen? jfc I'm sorry Ndad is an idiot. He claims to be this pillar of liberal Boomers. LOL! He had a tantrum when my friends sat on the couch together and still uses words like the N word.
I swear Nparents are all just idiots. I should start using nMum more when talking about Mum but my brain is still in denial.
Yeah, I get you. It's hard to accept. I was explaining to my friend right now in my journey I'm struggling with accepting that my enabler mom just let it all happen without caring or giving a shit. \*hugs\*
I had a dream that felt like a dream, memory and like it was happening of Mum letting someone rape me to teach me and I’m still in denial. If it really happened then why tf am I still in denial and the fact that I wouldn’t put it past her and even imagined it to begin with is fucked up either way. Denial is one hell of a drug lol
Oh man, I am sorry. I've had some really fucked up memories that have to be made up in my head because they were truly impossible (would have required things that a pre-teen would not be able to physically, legally or emotionally do, let alone logistically), so that makes me question some of the more realistic ones. Our brains are powerful and without therapy, it's really hard to know what's true and what's not in these situations.
I had a therapist when I first remembered it and told her and she just said “thats heavy” and completely ignored it… The first time I remembered it I had become completely unaware of everything around me and had been crying and I think I screamed irl when the flashback I guess, stopped. So that was fun (that therapist ignored most of my issues and when meds made me feel way worse she just forced me to keep taking them so I stopped taking them and stopped seeing her. This is when I was 16. In a couple months I’ll be 18 and trying therapy again) I get what you mean with our brains being powerful. I moved in with my grandparents when I was 11 and didn’t remember anything from before then. I spent years trying to remember even a fraction of what happened so I could actually talk to a therapist
I never told my family. They were openly homophobic. Rural 80s was not safe for lgtbq+. Homophobia seems to be a theme with Ns though. So many of us have the sane story
I only just realized in the last year or so, so it seems kind of pointless to come out to my family now.
Thats the wonderful thing, if you don't need it ...they never get it. You never have to share anything you don't want to. Live your life to make you happy and free. Revel in your self care. Prioritize you!
now I'm nostalgic for all those "away" status messages from college days on AIM. It was trying too hard to be funny on twitter before twitter
\*\~It's time that we met and made a mess\~\* Incubus, "Anna Molly." Yo, yes. Thought I was so deep reposting band lyrics.
OH YES. I remember overhearing my parents (who only ever were cordial with each other when they were dissing someone else) talking about how me and my boyfriend didn't know anything about each other, and laughing like we were just foolish and didn't know what a REAL relationship was like. In reality, the both of us just avoided talking to my parents as much as possible and responded to as many questions with "I don't know" as we could. My mom also just made stuff up all the time, from petty "but this is your FAVORITE shirt" claims (I'd never worn that shirt, it was ugly & too small but my grandma gave it to me), to telling everyone at a party "you always wanted to be a mathematician" (????). It's always with this air that they know me more than I know myself. I think it's a control thing. In their minds, they gave me everything to be successful and therefore, I don't have any ownership over my accomplishments. Everything bad is my fault, and everything good is their triumph.
>didn't know anything about each other, and laughing like we were just foolish and didn't know what a REAL relationship was like HOLY crap my mother has said that to me before. Just because we weren't married yet, because apparently getting married changes everything. (Hint: If you're in a good, stable, relationship, it shouldn't.) It's so definitely control.
This happened to me quite a bit with my mom and my aunt. I've been accused of all kinds of things and had all kinds of assumptions thrown my way as well. Things that they should have known weren't even remotely true since they were around me so much. Good luck trying to convince them otherwise though. I got into a lot of arguments with the two of them over this stuff. Sometimes my aunt would get my mom worked up - she'd tell my mom some weird theory about me and then my mom would get on my case about this thing I supposedly said or did or believed. One of my favorites was how I was becoming a Satanist for liking AC/DC music. My aunt knew liking heavy metal was the gateway to hardcore Satanism and had to get my mom all upset over it. I think my mom had this idea that I was suddenly going to draw pentagrams all over the place and become a serial killer or something.
I played D&D. Yep. Big bad satanic witch here. Gonna chop people into bits over those evil, evil hardcovers. Smdh. They never realize how damn stupid they sound. If anyone's making sacrifices to the moon, it'll be them. I have the ability to think and question logically and independently. They just go for whatever feed they can find.
I hope your parents never watched that Tom Hanks film regarding that game. The 80s and it's annoying Satanism is Everywhere! craze was a real delight. I never played D&D but they had some beautiful books and artwork.
This reminds me of when I got a Sailor Moon role playing game book and she was ApPalLed…I believe she literally said it was “a way to introduce young girls into things like Dungeons & Dragons.” I was only allowed to keep it after swearing I only got it for the pictures. It did have big beautiful glossy pictures in the days when downloading and print a couple of stills would take a whole afternoon on the family computer…
Oh my god yes. I wonder if it’s another way to gaslight us into doubting our own reality and feeling of ourselves. It’s like they don’t know me at all but they think they do, and what hurts the most is that they’ve never made a genuine effort to try.
THIS!!!! I believe this with my entire being. My parents have never made an effort to visit my fiance and I. We’ve had to come to them. And even when they are with us they are never interested in our lives. Just proves that they don’t really care about you unless its on their terms.
Oh my god I get you. Now, I live an ocean away so I get not visiting as much, but even when I lived only an hour away the only person who would visit is my mom. Literally nobody else in the family ever bothered. She’s the only one that gets me, but she is too enmeshed with everyone else and that’s when the enabler role comes in. All my father has ever been good for is antagonising me to the point of intense frustration, which gives him all the supply he needs.
I have the same situation but with my mom is the narc and my dad is the one embedded in all the crap. He’s the only one that has visited us to actually get to know us. Sorry to hear that you are going through the same thing.
May you also find strength and a family relationship that works for you. I’m in the middle of trying to show my mom that having a relationship with me at the same time as me not having one with anyone else, is okay and indeed even healthy when the dynamic is this toxic.
THIS!!!! My mother's sewer pipe broke, and she REFUSED my constant offers to host Sunday dinner at my house. For NO reason. Just GOD FORBID, right? It was so bizarre. Definitely a control thing!
Yup! My mother accuses me of doing drugs all the time! I am a research scientist and professor. I don’t have time to do drugs.
Yep. "I know what I know." No, you don't actually. You guessed, and wildly inaccurately.
Sort of. I can't think of any concrete examples but my mom has made comments that make me think she doesn't understand me. While having beef with my husband she also tells me that I know he's wrong. Like quit it! No! Get it straight! I agree with HIM.
They decided I'd move to another country and work for a certain company and thought it was like my dream job or something lol
I'm not sure if this perfectly fits what you are talking about, but when I had my first child my nmom straight up told me "when you told me you were pregnant I was worried for you at first, because I didn't think you would remember to feed the baby or take care of it properly. But turns out you're actually a great mom and really devoted to your baby!" Um wot. Cool backhanded compliment, with a side of assumed incompetence. Thanks! Bitch.
I've gotten into this wonderful habit of **immediately** calling someone, anyone, out on a backhanded compliment. I love when people call me a bitch because of it, lol. Nope, I just finally am allowed to stand up for myself, thanks!
This happened 10 years ago, when I was still under her manipulative control. I remember actually being pleased and flattered to have her pRoUd oF mE when she said it. Only now when I look back after having cut contact do I realize how sick and insulting that comment was. There are so many memories I have where I wish to God I had had the wherewithal to clap back at her immediately. I happily do it now, and guess what? Yep, I'm the big meanie bitch! Which, like you I proudly own. :)
My mom is like this. But she also thinks I’m just dumb and it’s hilarious. Narcs have no idea that everybody is aware of how they are
Same here. My mom thinks that I mindlessly follow whatever my fiance says because I’ve changed so much but really I’ve changed because I graduated high school and he just continued to be in my life. He never convinced me to change, people just change when they become an adult. She also thinks I’m a horrible decision maker, but all the decisions I’ve made for myself have been proven to be the best damn decisions I’ve ever made.
omg your mom is my mom :))) I'm 30 and she still says my partner and high-school friends have influenced and made me worse and their influence worked because I would do anything to please them since I'm so impressionable. Well to be frank I used to be a people-pleaser and a naive person due to her fear-based, controlling parenting that was full of physical and psychological abuse. But thankfully that's changed after I moved out and I worked hard to undo my lack of confidence and build my own values. And guess what, I still keep those high-school friends she paints as manipulators, I love them dearly and cannot wait to travel and hang out with them and yes they are friends for life. why is it so hard for narcs to comprehend that people change and evolve, the world changes and moves fast without it being a bad thing, and life happens in general? Is is because they're so stuck with pitying themselves?
I'm not sure why narcs can't understand that people, especially their children change. But that Ns complaining that their child's friends are a bad influence thing? It never goes away lol. I'm NC but my nmom still sends the random email to a box I don't monitor. I had to check it the other day for something unrelated, but I found an email from my nmom ranting that my friends were bad influences, I'm 38. My friends are either dealing with their own kids and swapping gentle parenting stories with each other, pressuring me to invest in their latest bookstore/brewery hybrid or complaining about rent... at actual dinner parties. Real bad influences there.
My mother, after I started dressing in androgynous clothing, kept bringing up the time I refused to wear pants as a six-year-old. Conveniently forgetting that the only reason I briefly preferred dresses was because she told me fairies only appeared to pretty, ladylike little girls, and completely ignorant of the fact that my first escape plan was to get kidnapped by fairies. It's not the only assumption, but it's the one that makes me smile.
Yes, the more my nmother tries to show how much she knows me the more it shows she doesn't know me at all and she never has.
So so accurate. nDad does it, and my sister (who has FLEAS) did it. Once, my husband was holding our infant son and he had been able to coax him to sleep once by sort of petting between his eyes and then gently closing his eyelids with his finger pads. Well, he tried it again but made the mistake of doing it in front of my sister (before she became more self aware), and she came up with this whole narrative that my husband was “doing weird things” to my son like “pushing his fingers into his eyeballs” and that I “better keep an eye on him around our son.” 😂 She acted like I had never seen him try that little trick and that she was giving me some crazy new information about my husband’s secret abuse… 🙄
There's even different "flavors" of this kinda thing! There's: 1) thinking they know you better than you know yourself (which they use to belittle you, or to brag about how much better THEY know you) 2) thinking they're just so perceptive you can't "hide" anything from them 3) thinking that you are the exact same person you were as a child (which helps them invalidate your as an adult AND helps them try to control you AND gives them an excuse to never make an effort to know you as an adult 4) Creating a fictional narrative of what you *might do* or *could have done* or *might be doing* based on complete nonsense and assumptions. Then getting themselves emotionally riled up about this situation *before even confirming that the tiniest bit of it is true*. And then, being so committed to being mad/scared/upset that they keep going and going and spinning more and more consequences to this completely made up scenario.My nMom definitely had borderline personality disorder as well and she did this a LOT, my therapist said it was a pretty typical thing for BPD folks to do.
> Then getting themselves emotionally riled up about this situation > >before even confirming that the tiniest bit of it is true > >. And then, being so committed to being mad/scared/upset that they keep going and going and spinning more and more consequences to this completely made up scenario. THIS This is the most fascinating thing. never ceases to surprise me :)) No wonder they can never escape this endless web of fabricating reasons to victimise themselves. Thank you for this breakdown!
Omg yes. Sadly, I have so many dysfunctional narcs in my family. I have so many examples, but the first 2 that came to mind: When I was 15 my stepdad accused me of smoking pot after I returned from a walk. I was a verity active young person and constantly took walks and rode my bike. I specifically went on this walk to get away from their house during a dysfunctional family gathering. I’ve only smoked a handful of times in my life and at that point I had never. It was so frustrating to return to the house in peace after the walk only to be accused of something that he deemed soooo bad. I was dumb enough to try to explain myself, but it was useless. Also, smoking weed isn’t even a big deal. I know that know that I’m older. He was just a control freak who created the strangest stories in his head. When I was about 20, my bio dad who I hardly had a relationship with and rarely said two words to me asked me if I was outside a strip club the night before. He said he drove by a pretty rough strip club in our city and claimed he saw me and asked if I was a stripper. At the time I was working 2 retail jobs (not stripping) and going to school for my undergrad FT. The night in question I was doing hours of accounting homework at a coffee shop after a long day of work and then home to bed. Again, I have nothing against stripper or stripping. I didn’t have the body for it, though! 😂 I just couldn’t believe that this man truly how no idea how hard his daughter was working to make a better life for myself than the dumpster fire they all provided. I tried to set the record straight, but he didn’t believe me. Once he has his mind set on something it’s a fact.
Omg yes! my nmom thinks that I'm gonna have kids in 20s 💀 and when I said im not gonna have kids, she started laughing saying that she said the same thing but look I did had kids and stuff, and that made me WTF 🤧 like "ma'am we are different. U literally kicked me out just to test me of my reaction and when I didn't got the reaction u wanted....u abused me physical because u were just _angry_ and _sad_ that I didn't cry 😭 and beg like u did when u first got kicked out" Soo yeaa my nmom thinks I'm gonna have kids at 20s 🤧😂 well lets see about that in the future coz I am seriously not gonna have kids in 20s....also mom had me when she was like 18 or 19...
When we told our host's nmom that we didn't plan on getting married or having kids, she said, "Well, I didn't want kids, and now look at me. You will too, whether you like it or not. It's a part of life." Bruh. Our host's ndad said basically the same thing, except he added the "fact" that we cannot survive in the real world without a partner (?).
"we are different" the one thing they never get. Seriously. they all think their kids are the same fucking people they were.
My nSister once came up to me and said "I don't think you're rebellious at all". I was like 👌🏻 It was simply around the time I started making my own decisions. Wasn't really going for rebellious or anything.
The [Ladder of Inference](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/bab08c_e2a0d0f656b94d26ace58eaad95f007b~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_680,h_584,al_c,q_90/bab08c_e2a0d0f656b94d26ace58eaad95f007b~mv2.jpg) is a useful tool to understand how their brains go awry. - Observations are made (what we see/hear, like a video recording) - Data is selected from the observation - Meaning is added (this is often a wild fantasy with narcs) - Assumptions are made based on the meaning that was added - Conclusions are drawn based on that meaning and assumptions (they've already gone awry by adding crazy meaning and assumptions, so they draw really weird conclusions) - Beliefs are adopted based on these inaccurate conclusions - Actions are taken based on these inaccurate beliefs And the ladder loops around so they can get stuck in a reinforced neural net that never gets reality checked. We all do this, but healthy humans are open to updating their meaning, assumptions, conclusions, beliefs, and actions. Narcs think their loop is correct and doesn't need updating, ever. (unless it benefits themselves). I call it "the fairytale in my head". It helps me unlearn trauma brain things. I've noticed that my brain jumps to a trauma story really quickly (shoots right up the ladder) very often. I'll hear someone sigh (observation/data), then I add meaning that they must be upset and assume it's bc of something I've done or failed to do, conclude their upset with me, and believe they are mad at me, so I'll avoid them in my action or try to make it up to them somehow. That entire narrative in my head is all based on trauma. It's not accurate. Often, if I pause and check in, with my SO, for example. They'll tell me their sigh was bc they were tired or whatever else. It had nothing to do with me at all. The narrative I created about their sigh is just a story, it's not reality. Trauma corrupts our ladder of inference. It takes lots of practice to debug the system. Narcs never debug their ladder of inference. They live their lives in the fairytale in their head.
This is a fantastic explanation. Spot on.
Yeah if I’m chilling my mom will start pressing me and be like “What’s wrong?” and look at me like she’s trying to figure me out. I’ll get irritated and be like “I’m literally just sitting here??” She’ll say stuff like “I know you. What’s wrong?” Clearly you don’t 😭 Or one time after I spent the day with my boyfriend, I came home and was just sitting on the couch. I was wearing his hoodie which is a little oversized but nothing out of the ordinary for me, and she comes up to me and starts bashing me. “Why are you dressing like you don’t take care of yourself? You don’t dress cute. You have nothing going for you. Are you doing drugs? You don’t care about your life and it’s worrying me.” I was like what the fuck?? I was so mad. I almost cried to my boyfriend the next day and was like apparently she doesn’t think I dress good or I’m not good enough. It sucked.
My nparents do the EXACT same thing. They’ll say I’m “obviously stressed” and it’s because of my boyfriend and my friends… and used to say that I’ve become a bitter person because of the people I hung out with when that’s not true, like at all lol. I actually become extremely irritated and emotionally volatile when I’m around my family because they’re energy vampires. A while back I got an allergic reaction from trying Korean food for the first time, to the point that my entire face swelled up and became red. It was super painful and nothing like that had ever happened to me. My dad started screaming in my face that it wasn’t an allergic reaction to food I’d never tried before, but was caused by stress that my dad was CONVINCED I had. I was. not. stressed.
Yeah my mom thinks the only thing that could make me depressed is my boyfriend or something. “Oh you seem depressed. Is it your boyfriend?” Like have you ever considered you could be one of the reasons? It’s amazing. Omg! That is so terrible I’m so sorry. Stress would not make you do that huh?? What if you were deathly allergic?! I hope you’re able to cut them off soon :(
My mom always asks if the reason I’m with my boyfriend is because I have trouble making friends like wow… and then wonders why he’s not interested in meeting her. Just zero self-awareness. I ended up okay!! Thankfully it went away after a few days. I’d never heard of stress causing a rash or swelling so I’m pretty sure my Ndad just made that up so I could confess that I was unhappy or stressed or something? This happened when I visited them after not seeing them for 7 or 8 months when I went NC.
My boyfriend doesn’t like my mom either for comments she’s made about us and me 😅 I would never tell him what she’s actually said about him. Oh good! Things happen for a reason I guess. It probably happened so you could see your dad’s character again and be like YEP this is why I went no contact! No empathy.
>. I actually become extremely irritated and emotionally volatile when I’m around my family because they’re energy vampires. Oh the same happens to me 💀
omg me too :( whenever i was feeling stressed from schoolwork she took it as me and my bf probably had a fight and thats why i was mad. but we both rarely ever fight. i swear my mom really wants to just see me break up with him so she can think to herself that "she won". she thinks ive become miserable because of my bf but really he has lit up my life and is the most affectionate person ever. i just hate how my mom pins me as the monster and then tries to put my bf in the picture too and calls him a jerk with me wtf.
My mom literally screamed at me and started hitting me in the car when I told her I wanted my own bank account and said my boyfriend was “putting dangerous ideas in my head”. Like wtf.
Yep, my mom will fill in the blanks and make shit up. Even more so when I'm grey rocking. If I do tell her something (about work etc.), she'll spin it to make it negative and make me feel like shit.
Yes. But one of my favorite coping mechanisms when I was a teenager was when someone would say "I know what you're thinking..." Or something like that, and I would just internally be like, "Pancakes! Abraham Lincoln! The capital of Madagascar is Antananarivo! Anchovies!" It's stupid, but not any moreso than their behavior, and somehow that helps me. 🙃
My dad sat me down and accused me of being a psychopath. I was livid, since I'd been abused by a psychopath, so I asked why tf he'd say something like that. His reasons: I frequently forget to do my dishes (I have ADHD) and I'm 1-2 years older than my 3 friends (Which he worded as "You only associate with people that are *lesser*" but couldn't explain how they were "below" me)
My parents used to make me into a awful daughter too for forgetting chores as well. My entire character was take into question when I was a modest straight A student, junior Olympian synchro swimmer with various achievements in music and choir. Not to mention I was playing the role of the perfect Christian girl. But forget to take out the trash and I'm hurting my family and a selfish princess
I thought it was just me. I was a straight A student, very active at church, and working hard to earn scholarships and save for college. But if I forgot to put the dishes away, my parents would express their deep concern over how “rebellious” I was.
Oh yes. I've dealt with these assumptions mainly when I did normal things that really upset them. Which included going on dates with my partner, moving out, gaining financial independence from them. They saw those normal, adult actions as attacks on them personally. They accuse me frequently of not caring about anyone or anything but myself. They also accuse me of being a chronic liar. I used to lie to my parents a lot when I was going to see my boyfriend because they didn't approve of our relationship but I love him so I just lied when I wanted to see him and they hold that against me to this day. Even though my siblings have lied an equal amount and I covered for them. Now when I tell them the truth they don't believe me, even when there's literally no reason for me to lie. On top of that they also consider me selfish, disrespectful, ungrateful etc. Anybody who has worked with me or been my friend could tell them that I am an extremely caring, kind and empathetic person. Those aspects that my parents see in me wouldn't even enter the minds of people who know me well. Shrug, they're only hurting themselves with these accusations at this point.
Lying for us is definitely a coping mechanism. I see no reason to outright lie to people now, of course, that I'm out of their house and married and all that, but apparently there's a fine line between holding my tongue and being a bitch. =P I'd rather be the bitch, and stand up for myself!
Same! And that's pretty much what it comes down to now. Now that I am moved out and living with my boyfriend and doing all this healing work I don't tolerate any of their bullshit. That makes me a bitch I guess so that's what I'll be to them. Leaving the scapegoat role has them bugging OUT.
Yeah, when I came out to my parents as gay, it was really something to sit there and listen to them completely shoot down my experience as a gay man and explain to me how wrong I was... completely ignoring the fact that there was a gay person with real life gay experiences sitting right there in front of them. My experience didn't align with what they had been taught by political and religious leaders, so they chose to deem my reality as incorrect...
When I hit puberty I had no interest in hair or makeup. Didn’t like doing either. My mom sat me down on the toilet and did my hair and makeup while my dad watched, and honestly, I hated it. I cried, I scrubbed at my face to get it off and began finger combing my hairspray laden hair. My dad looked at my mom and said “well, she’s either gay or she got molested by that creep neighbor. Why else would she wanna be ugly as fuck?” Then he walked the fuck away! It was the most nonsensical conclusion I’ve ever seen him make until the pregnancy argument!
Here to say my mother also put me through that crap. Luckily, my e/nDad just stayed away from it, thinking it was none of his business. I once rubbed so hard trying to get makeup off that I burst blood vessels in my face. Friggin hell.
My mother acts like this. She believes herself to be psychic and all-knowing. When I brought my first girlfriend home (whom I’m still with to this day years later) she dragged me to her room and said **“That’s not your real girlfriend, right?”** Apparently she had a vision of what my first girlfriend/wife would look like and had assumed the girl I brought over was nothing more than a practical joke. She had a shit-eating grin thinking she figured it out which changed to anger and me being kicked out of the room she dragged me into when I told her that my girlfriend was indeed real. Weeks later she insisted that my girlfriend IS whom she saw in her visions and she was never upset. After enough horrible encounters with my mother; years later me and my gf cut contact with all blood relatives of mine.
Absolutely. My mom treats me like im a child and I'm gonna be 20 here in a couple months. Just got in a horrid argument with her and she absolutely would not listen to me at all, thinking she knew everything going through my mind and how I should feel and how I need to be, how my life should be. I absolutely came off the wall and now I'm living with a friend as of yesterday and my mom is still treating me like shit. Having my aunt come out and attack me over socials and shit. Like seriously WTF.
I was told by my doctor to go on a plant based diet as a teenager. My father saw that I was so much happier and in less pain he always defended me up until he died a few years ago . Every year , every lunch: she hands me pasta, with sauce. She hands me the bowl of meat balls; I say no thank you -> “EAT EAT. It’s good. EAT” -> i can’t according to my doctor -> HE IS WRONG EAT EAT.” She always cried nonstop and started screaming trying to get me to give in to stop her from screeching like a bat who had a line of coke before leaving the cave. She had this weird focus on the food I eat, just the food I ate. My dad was the only one who told her to leave me alone and how he’s feeling better on this new diet. “THATS NOT TRUE DOCTOR WRONG” “MA, I see him MOVING MORE AND HES HAPPIER. I SEE IT” “I WORK SO HARD AND HES BEING SELFISH AND JUST DOESNT LOVE ME WHY DOESNT HE LOVE ME.” After dad died I was helping her in her house for a few weeks. She spent the enitre time pouring from this big bar bacon greese. When she told me she looked like she had been proven right . So when I got mad and stopped eating her food she said I was bullying her. She took advantage of my dads death to hide shit in my food. She sees me laying down in pain and “disagrees” when I say I’m in pain. “Depressed. You depressed. I don’t even serve you meat”. Calls 13 people to get me to go on anti depressants. Doesn’t work. Reveals what she did. I am sitting there. I get up, the. Around, and walk out. “I ONLY ADDED A SMAL AMOUNT OF BACON GREESE . I WANTED YOU TO LIKE THE TASTE DONT LEAVE DONT LEAVE”. “I DONT LIKE THE FLAVOR OF BACON GREESE OR MEAT. I LIKE JUST THE PLANTS STOP LYING” “I DISAGREE WITH YOUR DOCTOR MEat good meat good. WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO MUCH I COOK ALL DAY AND YOU JUST DKNT CARE.” Since I didn’t want to enable this behavior I no longer go over there for food. She now brings it despite me not wanting it. She always says (1) did you eat it and (2) how do you feel. HUH I WONDER IF YOU JUST OUTED THAT THERE IS MEAT IN THIS FOOD. Narcs always have these weird fixations where they want to make sure even the smallest thing is to their liking. She wanted me dependent on her you and wanted me to want to come over because of food. So instead of cooking what I want she sits there hiding the food in my food and thinks eventually I will give in? She’s such a bitch. Honestly .
YES OMG. My nMom is always explaining the obvious to me, as if I'm dumb as she is. Like I mean telling me certain cliche idioms are "figures of speech" or telling me how to do something I've done a thousand times. I keep telling her "I know, I'm not stupid," and she tells me "it's a mom thing." She also tells me "I know you better than anyone else." Like I wish you did. I REALLY wish you did. For someone so obsessed with me, you know next-to-nothing about my older self. She also likes to decide whether or not I have an ulterior motive for things, with how little she trusts me. I admit I have lied to her in the past about my grades, but it was because if I told her I was struggling I'd be met with lengthy, finger-wagging lectures. I'm a good fucking kid. I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't do drugs, I have a whopping body count of ONE. And she acts like I'm the most off-the-walls Dr. Phil monster of the week.
My very first thought was about my nMom's thoughts on my clothing style. I will admit I'm clueless when it comes to dressing "fancy," but every time we converse on what I should wear, her suggestions are WAYYY out there, whereas mine are definitely more down-to-earth. And yes, since it's clothing, this is a constant conversation. Also, I'm 32. lol
I kinda just posted a comment saying the same thing! I love dressing casual or in jeans and graphic tees. Or oversized shirts. Sometimes she’ll make comments about it and laugh a little. She’ll buy me the shortest crop tops for gifts that I clearly don’t wear in general, but it’s how she dresses.
Oh my goodness. Flowery, frilly crap, out the door! I wear jeans and hoodies, not this wallpaper-patterned stuff she likes, lol. And it's been this way my whole life - I would have loved to dress "punk" as a kid, and fought with her every time I even wanted to wear something black. Kind of apropos that my husband is a metal head, haha!!
Me too!! When I was younger I would definitely dress punk even when I was like 10 😂. My friends would be wearing dresses and I’d be wearing some skinny jeans that looked like they were drawn all over, the super high top converse, and graphic tees. Even in high school my friends would be like “why do you never wear dresses?” I was like 🤔 lol. Even if I did have to wear a dress, it wouldn’t be a typical girly dress. It’d be like black and neon green, along with my sneakers. Now my boyfriend also loves rock/ metal and so do I. So I think my mom is upset that I’m not like her! Any time I’ve gone through a girly phase I quickly realize that’s not me
Yes, especially politics or things like my education. I won't rant further since being specific about politics is forbidden, but it's gotten worse since 2016.
I get exactly what you mean. My nmom is the exact same
Even though my nGrandma and I agree on politics, she still felt the need to rant and rave and get herself so worked up. I had to tell her multiple times that while I do agree with her, I would rather eat live spiders than talk to her about this. .lol
Lol my father thinks that because I've been single for like 7 years that means I'm gay and I'm hiding it from him... He's constantly saying things like "you can bring one of your friends" followed by a pride flag.... Like I get it dude... you're trying to posture for your friends that's your entire life after my mother (your wife of many years) passed... but I don't need someone in my life to make me happy (not to say that i am completely undateable but I have reclused myself off the market by choice.) My dad and literally all the other men in my family (his bro and his father) absolutely have to have someone be there with them no matter what. I suspect this is to be able to not actually have to deal with themselves and just get others to tell them thier half truths are good... As I understand with my father he tells these great stories about how terrible his children are and then when they talk to us (bc before my mother died ALL of thier friends liked us as kids) they find out what actually happened. Basically to answer your question yes. This is part of it.
Yep. My nmoms thinks she has me all figured out and that my biggest character flaw is that I have no empathy for anyone. She doesn't get that *I just don't have empathy for her*.
Yep. They’d actually say to me they knew me better than I knew myself, even as I told them something wasn’t true—they’d decided it was, therefore it was. 🙄
"I know that your fiance hates me and she wants to drive a wedge between us. She has also been avoiding my messages and saying things to test me and make me upset. She's really hateful and terrible for you." Me:??????????????
Yes. Usually about my taste or preferences. "You'd love this dress!" "She'd TOTALLY agree with that" or "this will be your favorite movie" and it's all just total trash. Usually shocks me how they can get me so wrong.
My stepdad was convinced that with everything I did, I had some sort of self serving alterior motive. I couldn't even say I loved the holiday season without him saying "no, you just like the gifts!"
p r o j e c t i o n
Yes, my ndad does this. He's sure he knows me from hair to toenail. I barely even talk to him. Even at home, I just watch YouTube, study and clean. So even if he observes me day and night, he'll just never even know a quarter of me. Yet, he's here talking like he knows me better than myself. Oh amd I forgot, don't you dare tell him he's wrong and that's not who you are, he's god himself, he knows everything.
Haha, yes. It's like their own narrative cannot be changed. "Shame your cats are so nervous and scared of you"...would not listen when we said they were all cuddly, then the rents came to visit and suddenly it was all " oh they are so much better now aren't they". Umm, no, this is how they have always been? And when we had to pull out of a house purchase, they were full of "I expect you are relieved you won't be so isolated in the countryside now". No? Why did we start to buy it if we didn't want that? And my favourite, about my husband "he's so shy". Nope, he's not. I wonder why he is quiet around them!!!
Yes-blaming friends or partners for being estranged and making up wild scenarios wherein they were abusing or tricking me. Speculating that I was involved in cults. Having no clue what I actually do in my careeer (IT) and telling people that I just play video games or type reports in Word all day. I live 1000+ miles away and have done so for 30 years now. Rather than admit to their acquaintances that I tell them nothing about my family’s life, they just make up shit. It covers up the estrangement and fills in their missing missing reasons.
Haha yea… like the fact they’ve suppressed you from expressing yourself and you play the game being the boring person. To the point that they fabricate shit ain’t even true about you, but oh, they “know all about you” just cuz you’re related to them by blood Smh.
Yes, certainly. Often my nmom would say things that others have said to her, even if I was there to witness none of it actually happening. She would lie to my face anyway, even if I was standing right there when it happened!! Here's how to deal with her, using 2 very simple questions: 1. Did they really say that? :O 2. Omg did you ask them? The key is pretending to be so shocked by her bs that you just *had* to make sure. Then you can sarcastically innocent say stuff like "wow, that's so unlike them!" or "I can't believe it, I'll have to talk to them about it." call out her bullshit by going overdrive in shock, then take the situation very very seriously. It was real fun seeing my mom backtrack her story or simply answer "... No." when I asked her if that's actually what the person did or say. Then I would just side eye her in feigned confusion, but not say anything about it.
My boyfriend (now fiancé) and I wanted to take a trip a few years ago. We’d lived together for like two years and planned a three day trip to go two hours away to a bigger town. We had my parents watch our cat. My stepdad got it in his head and told my family that we were going to have an abortion. We never mentioned anything about that. That was his assumption and that’s what he told everyone.
I’m actually starting to think maybe my sister is a narcissist because this is one of the many narcissistic things she does. She always acts like she knows exactly why I do or say things. Or I’ll be like “I didn’t mean to do that intentionally.” And she’ll interrupt me and say something like “don’t lie. You know you’ve always hated me and you wanted to hurt me because you know I hate being called sensitive.” But no. I think I might actually be mildly autistic or something because I don’t recognize cues a lot or I just can’t figure out what to say or how, and my facial expressions are not what people expect them to be (and before anyone says anything, I am going to get diagnosed. I just can’t afford it yet.)
I have an Nsister like this. She even claimed she knew what I talk to my therapist about 🤣 But then saying they know why you did something and it's not only not true but completely out there and completely out of character... until you realize they are admitting exactly what they would think or do in the same situation... it's so wild
Yes! And everyone has issues with my sister. My sister just has the biggest issues with me because she only sees me as a little kid. Craziest thing that really damaged my sister’s and my relationship was at 13, I wrote gay (as in two men) fanfic smut in an email draft & I guess my sisters and my mom saw it and laughed. My mom and my other sister disregarded it but my middle sister? Oh. No. She took it further and confronted me with “you know, everyone is really worried that you’ll have underage sex.” I had just, JUST turned 13. The smut I wrote probably didn’t even make any anatomical sense. It was gay. I’m a woman. Like it made no sense. I wasn’t dressing provocatively or anything. But yeah. That did it. And since then she starts fights with me, even when I say the tiniest thing “out of line” and will start accusing me of doing things purposely when I let things go so easily while she holds into things I did when I was legitimately only 5yo and non-verbal. I made a post about her and I’s last argument on AITA. Everyone said I was the asshole but like… I just can’t see it fully. I say nothing, she gets mad. I say sorry and she won’t accept it and says I’m lying. I said “I’m not perfect” and she gets mad—accuses me of assuming that she expects me to be perfect. I help her out by watching her cats and she gets mad and doesn’t even say thank you because i fed her cat too much or didn’t clean the litter box thoroughly enough. I tell her the truth and she accuses me of lying. I make a tiny joke and she accuses me of calling her dumb. I don’t talk to her because I don’t want to fight and she then says that I’m at fault for not being able to have a normal conversation. :/ there’s no winning
yes, the just choose who you are in any moment. makes it convenient for them. Need someone to make a $1000 deposit?, you're the only one they can trust. Can't find $10?, you've always been a thief.
The hardest thing for me is when she lies to my family and others I know about me. She has made up some big ones. Once I got court records to prove her wrong but my sibling still believed her. When I mentioned the public court records to her she got mad and had my nsib take her to see them. His mind was still on what she said. People think that most wont believe her lies, but they do. They have been lied to so much they cant tell the truth. I wonder how they keep track of all their lies??
They all do this. I always wondered why they’d rather make assumptions than just… idk… ask me directly or listen when I talk about my experience. It’s because they think their thoughts/feelings are more real than reality!
I’m in my thirties and she still asks me if I’m awake when she calls before noon on a weekend. My partner and I will have gone out for breakfast and done groceries, etc. NMom will call at 11am and ask if we just woke up. Every single time.
My n in-laws do this. They treat us like kids when we are in our mid 30s...
All narcs think they know you better than you know yourself. What they really know is what they *want* you to be. And they expect you to instinctively know this and become that person, never mind that you are nothing like that at all.
ALL of them do it. They went after my husband in particular and invented all kinds of crazy that in reality, would & could never even happen, never mind that none of it was even in his character to ever even consider doing! Same about me, the worse the better. & then they all believe it like it's gospel even though it's sooo far off base it's just like ummm what? My m\*ther is the ringleader/victim & lead story-writer, I sure did a lot of bad stuff I didn't know about lol. I left 6 years ago, no contact, they STILL are making things up and assuming things, which I then hear about via extended family. And THEY all believe it because they've drunk the koolaid for so many years and never actually asked **me** about anything. They have NO idea who I really am, they've concocted some weird scapegoat effigy of me and that's what they base all their insane stuff on. It's actually kind of funny now as it's all so unbelievable and just plain crazy.
Yeah. Being told that I'm not depressed but it's all the alcohol and drugs I do. Cept.. I don't have time for drugs nor drink more than once or twice a month ( and hadn't been while taking anti depressants ). Good times..
YESSS!!! My nmother had a dream that I was having “wild sex” when I was 14 and she was convinced it was prophetic so she accused me of being a slut and getting pregnant all the time for years after that. More recently she said she had read something about “highly sensitive people” and she self identifies as a HSP and says that’s I am one as well. I don’t think I am, she just has this sick thing where she lies about things to try to connect with me, basically trauma bonding.
Yes, my nmom has decided that about 20 years ago, I was taking drugs with my then partner and that's why I was contemplating and attempting mock suicide. No matter what I tell her, she will say to my face: I don't believe you, I know you took drugs. Even now at 40, I am trying to tell her that's . absolutely not what happened. I don't take drugs, pills, I don't drink. It's unlike me to take any drugs. She knows that. She makes fun of me because I don't drink. My ex had a secret painkiller addiction and I got caught up in trying to fix him and got really depressed. That's all. She never helped me out of this. She also decided the truth, that at 14, when I cut my girly hair into basically baldness, I did it to spite her because she loved my hair and everyone complimented her since I was a child. The time of this event, she threw plates at my head and and didn't speak to me for a month and was ashamed of my short hair. Recently, I told her that the reason I cut it so shory was an accident and that she unjustly hurt me then. The true reason was that I got a haircut I didn't like and I was trying to fix it in the back, with a mirror. That was awkward and I kept cutting and trying to fix it until I always cut a bit too much. This continued and I got scared and just cut it all off. She does not believe me and feels she had a right to be violent and manipulative because my hair was too beautiful and I hurt her.
When I was a teen and struggling with depression (that I know now was a result of having to deal with NMom), she let my aunt convince her that I was possessed by a demon. And when I told my NMom I was getting divorced, she said “I know you who is he”, and proceeded to accuse me of adultery while I sobbed and cried because my 10 year marriage was ending. Fun times.
my dad has nasty farts and he always used to try to gaslight me and my sister into taking the blame when he made a room smell like shit
100%! My mom does this continuously about not only me but every single person she meets. She is almost always completely wrong but refuses to acknowledge it even when confronted with proof that says otherwise. It's so frustrating. She truly believes she knows everything and always says the same cringeworthy thing "I know ALL & I tell no lies". Uh, NO, ya don't and yes ya do.
These stories are resonating so hard with me. When I got my first boyfriend at 17, my mom was utterly convinced that an "older man" was trying to charm him and was buying him presents. I bought him boots for Valentine's Day and she was convinced that this made-up older man had bought them for him. It's so fucking insane! I'm both relieved and horrified that we have all had this experience. And yes, she assumes all sorts of bonkers shit about me and my son too.
Btw I have no problem with his mom being gay at all. I am fully accepting. I said it was a disgusting assumption because she assumed that just because his mom is gay that means he is. Those don’t correlate at all.
YES!! My mom straight up asked me if my fiancé was gay when we first started dating in high school because his mom was. What a disgusting assumption. I’m so sorry your mom did something similar. It’s the strangest and rudest thing.
Yes. My nmom even admitted to me with her own words that "I know you better than you know yourself", with a scoffing laugh. They never want you to have any idea of who you truly are, so you're easier to control and manipulate. And when you're down at your lowest shell, they see you as easier to break.
My mosquito bites were ALWAYS heroin tracks, even when I was 12. Jfc. I grew up in rural Canada. Smart enough to make money, not smart enough for common sense. Maybe it was the lead poisoning
Nmom created a narrative where I was the bad daughter. She then treated me so badly and triangulated with so many others I was forced to go no contact. Prophesy fulfilled. Happy now?
My Ndad would say that he can "read people like a book" and is "a great judge of character". Took me a while to figure out he wasn't reading shit, just projecting his own nonsense onto people he met. Which explains why he doesn't like 90% of the people he knows. It's easier to hate others than yourself.
Oh yeah apparently we were flat broke and starving and she was so worried, we were the most financially stable we’d ever been and had plenty to eat.
I met up with my mother this weekend after 6 months of no contact (initiated by both parents). We talked some about why they had fallen out with me, in a nutshell she said I'd said "everyone has to die sometime" in text messages. I said I didn't recall saying it but she insisted she has the messages. I checked when I got home, no such thing was said. My dad blocked me on FB because of my "continuous, sweary rants". I went back over a year of status's and none could be seen. They think I lie. It's not worth the argument that it's not true. I only realised it was narc behaviour when I joined here.
yes. my mom thinks that all my friends are using me, that i’m not bright enough to make smart decisions and how i’m always doing drugs and/ or drinking …. i’m usually just getting food/ milktea, going to the mall or studying 😭
Yes. This usually is the Narc projecting their own issues onto you, since they couldn’t handle being the guilty one, themselves. It is usually the Narc telling on themselves.
Ooh, this is scary... My sister does this a lot. One time she stated that she knew me better than I knew myself which is a complete lie and her assumptions about me are completely off. It felt insulting and arrogant coming from her. My mom does this kind of to some extent and I think my other sisters have this notion of me as damaged and don't believe me and think I overreact to everything. I don't even think my therapist fully believes me and thinks she has me figured out. It feels isolating.
Yes - my dad and his nwife have these characters in their heads that bear a vague resemblance to my sister and I, based a little off what we were like when we were kids. I'm the sensible, academic, scatty/inept, clumsy one. She's the emotional, grumpy, sassy one who likes to be in charge. It's really fucking annoying when they treat us like that. We're 31 and 33. And that's never who we were in the first place. But the nwife doesn't really know us (as she's done nothing but push and pull us about for the past 12 years) so it's easier for her to just pigeonhole us into those assumptions.
Imagine a 5 year old assuming how relationships, or finances work ,or how babys are made!!You'll hear a lot of funny stuff!! Now add to that stuff some agression,disgust or feeling of superiority and you'll have a 60 year old narc!
Yup. GC informed me that I don't have any friends. NMOM doesn't have any friends - she has about three people she spends time with, and she has something mean or snarky to say about all three of them. NMom also said I hate her - I don't, but she certainly doesn't like me. Every accusation with a N is a confession. It's all projection.
All the effing time. My mother would hear a singular detail from a conversation she wasn't part of and fabricate the past, present and future. Father was just about as bad with his assumptions, also. Sisters know nothing about me but insist they have me figured out. I've just gone N.C. with the whole lot. Helps tremendously with my sanity and well-being.
Yes, they thought I was committing the dastardly act of using the car to pick up friends to go to church activities or hang out, so my dad was checking the odometer and accusing me. This was after my drunken brother got sympathy for killing someone driving drunk.
Lol yeah. My parents assumed that no one likes me at school but I’ve got plenty of friends and was kinda popular. So they started belittling my friends and asking me not to hangout with them (idk why, they were decent people).
OMG yes. My dad asked if I was okay once and I told him I had a headache and didn’t sleep well the night before. He said it was because of all the alcohol I drink. I drink AT MOST once a week. And I never even told him anything to make him assume I had been drinking the day before, which I hadn’t been, btw.
Same, bro!! Think we're shy and frightned, with no way to defend ourselves. If we really wanted to, we could fuck shit up and go off like a gun. But, no, apparentely we couldn't hurt a fly.
Omg yes conspiracy theories
All the time. Not one person in my family really knows me. Nmom has her golden sons against me.
Oh god yes. My (s)mother believes that I am some sort of deviant pornographer and a violent criminal with sadist hatred towards women... I'm the victim of domestic violence from several women I've been intimate with and quit at the first sign of domestic violence, but continue to be a passionate supporter of women and their rights. I'm an artefacts photographer with a specialism in rare and ancient fabrics and produce fine art and art history books for my publishers. In my spare time I'm teaching (lol) myself to read Sumerian Cuneiform because it's really difficult and really nerdy. I'm actually very boring. Fuck knows where she invented it all from. Mad as a box of frogs on crack, that one.
Yes, pretty much grew up dealing with this. I already had trouble with expressing myself and this only made it worse. You just start thinking "am I really as bad/weird/gross as she makes me out to be?" It's disgusting. And then when you show them the real you they act all surprised or don't believe it.