Hi everyone,
I'm very new to this board, and I've spent the past few days just reading and reading. I can't believe what I've found. It seems like every single post I've read could have been written by me. Before last week, I didn't even know the name for NPD, there was never a coherent and collected way to put together all my confusing childhood (and adult) experiences. WOW.
My story is that I'm an only child of a single Nmother. She was adopted and abused by her adoptive parents. I found the list of N traits on a site last week, and she has every single one of them. Frighteningly, I seem to have some of them, too.
My father left her when I was only a few months old. She told me that she conceived me by covertly taking out her diaphragm and getting pregnant deliberately against the wishes of my father (who already had 5 children from another marriage). She raised me alone and never let me forget the "sacrifices she made for me". She treated me like her little baby doll, dressing me up and bleaching her own hair to look like mine, so that I'd be the perfect little reflection of her, the new, improved extension of herself.
Problems started when I was 10 yrs old, and started to think for myself. That's when the verbal abuse started. She was used to thinking for me, squashing my voice, not allowing me any free will. And in my first fledgling attempts to stand up and have a voice, she verbally beat me down.
She never physically abused me, but the verbal abuse was very strong.
When I was 10, she got breast cancer. She had never worked a day in her life (lived off a trustfund) and always had pipe dreams of businesses she would start, but nothing ever materialised. (Oh, except that she had business cards printed up calling herself an Art Consulant and handed those out to people she'd meet and try to charm.) The breat cancer was exactly the permission she needed to let loose with her full N traits. She had money, but refused to hire anyone to take care of her. I took care of her. I spent months out of school, looking after her. And she abused me as I took care of her. Social services were called, but (at her imprinted instruction) I told them that there was no problem.
She was probably back to full strength after chemo in about a year's time, but she ended up staying "bedridden" for 3 years, while I waited on her. She had a schoolteacher's bell that she would ring for me, and I would come running. I want to melt that bell down someday. She was able to leave the house if she wanted to, she just used her position to gain sympathy, and I always gave it to her. The "lesson" she learned was to be sick with something, and she would get attention. And she's been "sick" with one thing or another for the last 20 years since.
Eventually something must have given her a kick in the pants, because she got out of bed, went back to her routine of driving miles around town to find the best bargain. She would buy clothes, wear them for over a year with the tags on and then return them. She would steal things from stores, and give them to me like a cat bringing a mouse to it's owner. She would take a big bag and ziplock baggies to a buffet and load the bag full. This woman had hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank and jewellry in safe deposits that she'd take me to see.
In my teens, I started to wake up to her behaviour a little bit, but could never really put my finger on it. She controlled me to keep me to herself. She wouldn't let me out of the house to see friends. She bullied me academically and pushed me. She had me tested at age 6 and put in a gifted school and took me to agents to try to get me in commercials. I was going to be the smartest, most talented, famous, wealthy, attractive actress/doctor/married to royalty daughter ever. "She wanted the best for me and she was the best mother in the world. She was a good, kind, loving mother", she said. And in the next breath, she'd tell me I was a bitch, a whore, that she'd cut my head off and that I was ungrateful and a terrrible daughter. She waffled between hating me and loving me. She hated me when I disagreed with her, or pointed out a lie or didn't give her attention. She loved me when I gave her attention or reflected well on her.
She was image-obsessed in a wierd way. She wouldn't go swimming because then everyone would see how flat the back of her head was when her hair was wet. Even when she was in her late 60s, she would say how young she looked. She would be overweight and craggy looking, and say that she was beautiful and had great legs and how adorable she was when she was young compared to me and how small her breasts were compared to me.
I left home at age 17 and went to university. She kept her claws in me for another decade. She would insist that I call her at a specific time every day, so that she could talk to me incessantly for an hour about herself and her mundane day, only letting me talk enough to give her information she could use as ammo in the future. She never actually asked about me sincerely. I never, ever had a voice with her. I would get off the phone bawling every time, for years!
In my 20s, I went to therapy a few times, and didn't find it terribly successful. I remained loyal to my Nmom, because she had imprinted me with superlatives about herself ("my mom's the best, the most loving, she cares about me, i can't leave her"). Eventually, I realised that she was toxic for me, and that I had to break away. I've cut off contact with her for years at a time over the past 10 years, and currently, I haven't spoken to her directly in almost 4 years. I moved across the world, and the physical distance has been my saving grace. I've finally found a great therapist who I've been working with for a couple of years who has been helping me find my voice. In fact, the first thing we decided to work on was "finding my voice", and I had no idea about the existence of this board. I have been controlling my communication with my mom for a couple of years, and have been only sendig birthday and xmas cards (no Mother's Day!) and flowers when she was in hospital recently.
Over the years, I've watched her drain every person who's ever come into contact with her and then toss them aside. I never realised how she drained me. Now, I see it and I'm so angry! I recently got email from one of her current vampire victims. It was extremely helpful for me to see that my Nmom treats her the same way as she used to treat me. That I wasn't alone or crazy (she always denied any abuse, denied saying verbally abusive things and said that I was making it up, I used to write down as she was saying it, so I'd have a record).
I'm now working on recognising who I am, and have discovered that some of my Nmom's traits have rubbed off on me and have influenced my life with my fiance. It's tragic and I'm so glad to become aware of what I do. I'm hoping to discuss this type of thing on the board with all of you.
Thank you for reading this long message. There's so much I want to write about, but it takes a lot out of me to put the thoughts together, as I'm not really experienced with expressing myself.
hey_dahl
