Lollie, it was very eye-opening and a reminder to me, to read about how "right on cue" you became depressed from being so closely knit with your Npd mother.
First of all, I had an NPD mentor for about 2 years who I felt very knit to. She very much WAS a mother-figure to me, and, in some ways, reminded me of my bio mother. I DO understand about feeling depressed from such a tie with an NPD female. Even now, I have to admit, when I see her online, my heart beats fast and I fight off wanting to connect with her.
I also have a daughter who might be NPD; at least she has a lot of the traits of it. She is 18, pregnant, and very cold toward me. She will sit for hours and talk to her father, but if I come and try to be part of the conversation or if I even try to HAVE a convo with her, I will be met with a snotty attitude. The thing is, my daughter's coldness flips either every few days or throughout some days. It is rather unpredictable as far as in general, however, I've been charting her, and around certain dates, she is guaranteed to flip back into Mr Hyde again.
The thing is, when she got pregnant by her 16 year old boyfriend, I was very understanding and kind. I was interested in the baby and her feelings, but when I'd even try to talk to her, she would turn to her father and say "mom is more into this pregnancy than I am. You'd think it was HER that was pregnant!" Later, she told me "you're just jealous of me, cause I have a hot guy and I'm pregnant!" Finally, I stopped asking or showing interest because I was sick of being kicked in the teeth, and she said "you are no kind of mother to me! You don't even CARE about your grandchild!" No matter what, my daughter stays very close to her father and snaps at me no matter how kind I am to her (on her "down" days, that is, which are most of the month)
i have always thought my daughter needed counseling and at one point I took her, around 3 or 4 years old, to learn how to manage her physically violent anger episodes. As she got older, I wanted to put her back into counseling, but her father would not make her go and told her that. The whole family was instructed to see me as mentally ill and all "into labeling people and counseling." Counseling was/is seen as a weakness in this family by the rest of them, whereas, I see a definite NEED for it.
I have come to a place that I realize my husband is mentally ill and our children all show signs of it as well in some forms.
On my side of the family, there were the problems with cancer, heart murmurs and depression, on my husband's side there is mental illness, not mood disorders, but delusional thinking, narcissism, borderline issues. All of his family sort of lives in a La La Land. It's very frustrating being married to someone with those problems, but I grew up with it, so I naturally gravitated toward the "familiar" without realizing it till years later.
~Laura
