I don't like my mother!

meritaten

its heartrending reading these stories - but, as i found posting so cathartic I believe that posting can help in a way that no other can do. its almost like joining a counselling group and finding that 'you are NOT alone - OTHER PEOPLE have gone through it and THEY UNDERSTAND!
happy - this thread and the ones before it have enabled people to tell 'secrets' they couldnt tell before. Who would believe them? only others who have had to live with narcissists! I had my SIL and she shared the burden with me and yes we laughed at MILs 'games'! that kept me sane. how on earth all you people who had to live with this alone have managed I have no idea. You all have my greatest respect!
and then there are all those who are living with narcissists and dont realise it - and then they read this thread and a lightbulb goes off! and for the first time they dont question thier own sanity - but rather the narcissists!
I hope this thread runs forever and that more people will be empowered to take their lives back!

happyhaddock_2

Well said meritaten x

POPPYOSCAR

meritaten wrote: »

its heartrending reading these stories - but, as i found posting so cathartic I believe that posting can help in a way that no other can do. its almost like joining a counselling group and finding that 'you are NOT alone - OTHER PEOPLE have gone through it and THEY UNDERSTAND!
happy - this thread and the ones before it have enabled people to tell 'secrets' they couldnt tell before. Who would believe them? only others who have had to live with narcissists! I had my SIL and she shared the burden with me and yes we laughed at MILs 'games'! that kept me sane. how on earth all you people who had to live with this alone have managed I have no idea. You all have my greatest respect!
and then there are all those who are living with narcissists and dont realise it - and then they read this thread and a lightbulb goes off! and for the first time they dont question thier own sanity - but rather the narcissists!
I hope this thread runs forever and that more people will be empowered to take their lives back!

I hope so as well.

happyhaddock_2

Well a momentous week, my sister confronted mum!. She asked her straight out if she knew about the abuse as she is desperate to get some answers. Mums reaction was astounding even by her standards. All she kept saying was "if it had happened, she didn't know anything about it"!. No shock at hearing my sister say the words out loud. No anger if she thought she was making it up. No remorse or anguish that she failed to stop it happening, absolutely nothing.

At the end she simply said to sis, so is that it over with now! I think she knows what the truth is and has had ample time to prepare her response. I also think she never in a million years thought my sister would ever be brave enough to bring the subject up.

My sister rang her again today and mum didn't mention the conversation at all, it's just not normal. Mum managed to speak to her in her normal nasty manner though, and get her to agree to go round on sunday. I've told sis that if she goes she will just fall back into the same trap as before and everything she's just gone through will be for nothing

I'll see if I can get her to post iin her own words.

londonsurrey

I have had my own scapegoat sister, calling me in the past, crying, asking "Why would a mother say this to her own daughter?"

And I'd tell her, calmly, "We discussed this. I told you that she has been nasty to me, which is why I don't speak to her. I also warned you that if you choose to speak to her, she'll be nasty to you."

She would then call/email me again in a day/week/month, crying, asking "Why is mother so cruel to me"?

My response would be repeated, and the whole thing would start again.

I've tried. I've tried spelling it out veeery slowly. I've tried explaining it over and over again. I don't know what else one can say.

bobble_hat

happyhaddock wrote: »

Bobblehat, I'm so sorry for your loss, your mums reaction is just typical and then to rub salt in the wounds by going to an unknown child's grave! Words fail me. I remember when I told my mum I was expecting my third child, her first words were "oh dear" as if it was unwanted

Thanks HH and how crap for you, when I told NM I was expecting my DD (It was at my sister's house, she and my Hubby hid out the back on the pretext of my sis showing my Hubby something :rotfl:).

She said "I didn't think you wanted children, is this what Mr B wants?" No congratulations, no other questions, nothing, and she visited us twice in DD's first year (no complaints from me though, I would have found it a lot harder to deal with if she'd been attentive).

bobble_hat

anastasia666 wrote: »

I've been reading this thread with interest for some time now. My grandmother is, I believe, a narcisist. She has controlled and manipulated my mother her entire life, to the point where my mother is completely dependant on her and cannot go out anywhere without her. She suffers anxiety and panic attacks if she goes out.

We all lived together when I was a child, and she also controlled me. I suffered a lot of emotional abuse from her, and my mother just let it happen. All my grandmother and my own mother care about are themselves and how things affect them and how they lok to the outside world (e.g. they tried to stop me going to university as they didn't want me to leave or have any life that didn't revolve around them).

I won't go into all the details as I've tried to block so much of it out. I rarely have contact with them anymore. If I do it's a quick phonecall and I don't take the nonsense from them anymore.

My mother has been very disturbed most of my life. A good example would be that she used to tell me a lot that she wished she would go to bed and not wake up. I was around 8 when she first started saying this to me.

For my grandmother, nothing I did was ever good enough, everyone else was better. I was allowed no friends and no life outside of school. I was allowed to do nothing while at home, without having to beg first. I wasn't even allowed to get a glass of water when I was thirsty. I had to wait until she wanted a drink and then she would make one. She tried her best to make me completely dependant on her. There are so many things I could write about, but I don't want to think about them all anymore as this has dominated so much of my life (I'm 33).

Luckily I met my husband when I was 18, and he helped give me the strength to stand up to them and go to university. I now have a good job, my own house and I've come a long way with my confidence issues. I have a very long way to go though. I still have low self esteem and I still feel ugly and never good enough. I am getting over it a little, and certainly I have a lot more confidence in myself in relation to my job. What I really need to work on now is liking myself.

I remember the night before my wedding (which I paid for with my savings and organised completely myself, with a little help from hubby). They came up and stayed at the place where I was getting married and I stayed in a room with my mum. My grandmother saw the seating plan and hit the roof as they were nt sat next to me (we had a U shape for the tables, with me, hubby his best man and girlfriend and my best friend and bridesmaid all sat in the middle part, and then parent were at the sides and then other friends.) She had me in tears, which she really loved and then she started saying she loved me and all that nonsense. She;d done nothing but criticise all my decisions about the wedding in the run up to it anyway (those that I told her about). In fact, I rang them to tell them we were getting married and my mother said "why" and my grandmother said "well we've got no money to give you to pay for that". I didn't want anything from them at all. That really upset me, on a day when I had been so happy.

She won't admit any of the things that she did to me, and seems to have selective memory. My mother will never change either. She expects that she will live with me when my grandmother dies, despite having been told that won't happen. I'm expected to give up my life for someone who couldn't even be bothered to protect me when I was a child. lol And it wasn't just my mother. My grandfather who I idolised as a child sat back and let it all happen.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I have great sympathy for everyone else that has suffered at the hands of these sorts of people. It's scarred me emotionally and I doubt I will ever feel normal or ever really like myself. But letting go of them and getting on with my life has made a huge difference to me. I hope that perhaps one day I might like myself a little.

Bless you, and thank goodness for your lovely Hubby. The fact that you can see that the behaviors from your Mum and Grandmother are typical with NPD will go someway towards you helping to like yourself, I think this will help me, as it's difficult to let yourself like yourself when the one person who you expect to like/love you unconditionally doesn't. Once we accept that these women have an illness and it's not because we are unlovable, we will heal, it's a massive thing to accept though, we should start a Daughters of NPD mother's support groups around the country. :A

happyhaddock_2

Thanks LS its very hard because I know my sister needs answers to help her move on, but I don't think mum will ever give her the help she needs though. I am so proud of her standing up to mum though, she said it just came out and once she started she couldn't stop.

Bobblehat: I know exactly where you're coming from re-being pregnant and having children. Mum and Dad showed virtually no interest in our kids, whereas my niece could do no wrong and was showered with gifts.

I think a support group would be a lovely idea in principle, but don't know if I would be brave enough to say all this in 'real life'. I find it hard to even talk to my OH about it, and haven't managed to tell him about yesterday yet

londonsurrey

bobble_hat wrote: »

Once we accept that these women have an illness and it's not because we are unlovable, we will heal, it's a massive thing to accept though, we should start a Daughters of NPD mother's support groups around the country. :A

That sounds like an excellent idea. There are all kinds of support groups that are so very appreciated and used, for the strangest "niche" requirements. There's even one called Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide.

spirit

happyhaddock wrote: »

Well a momentous week, my sister confronted mum!. She asked her straight out if she knew about the abuse as she is desperate to get some answers. Mums reaction was astounding even by her standards. All she kept saying was "if it had happened, she didn't know anything about it"!. No shock at hearing my sister say the words out loud. No anger if she thought she was making it up. No remorse or anguish that she failed to stop it happening, absolutely nothing.

At the end she simply said to sis, so is that it over with now! I think she knows what the truth is and has had ample time to prepare her response. I also think she never in a million years thought my sister would ever be brave enough to bring the subject up.

Exactly the same with younger sister and me. I have guilt though because I ran away from home the minute I could to escape 'him'. I was 16 and working so transferred my job to another location and my bf's family helped me find lodgings near them. My guilt is that I didn't stop to think that with me gone that he would start on YS, her being 8 years younger than me.

If only, if only what though. If only mum had believed me when I told her what he'd done. If only she hadn't stood in front of the front door to stop me going to the police.

Years later when I spoke to her about it, she denies all knowledge of it and it was all in my mind.