Is this narcissism or something else?

[Gaining Strength]

We are watching Undercover Boss at my mother's house tonight.  We like the show and don't have television.  The corporation highlighted tonight is Norwegian Ocean Lines.  My mother says, "Your father and I went on a cruise on that line."  My parents took my brothers and me on a cruise a million years ago with my father's cousins and their children.  Does she actually forget that I was there?????

[seasons]

Hi GS,

Sounds like a "Classic N" moment. hugs

[sKePTiKal]

Could be something else (but still related to N)...

a.) revisionist memory - the further we are from the actual event the more we "interpret"; all of us do this to clarify the significance to us - of the event; it's neither good/bad and certainly not intentional... but it's definitely myopic! (and sometimes not accurate).

b.) alzheimers?

c.) BioNic Mom may think you were too small to remember (I know I never got credit from my BM for remembering what I remembered and she did her best to tell me her version!!)

Sounds like you're on a mission to observe her more closely, GS. How was your holiday?

[Guest]

GS
wondering, did they go on two cruises? Did you ask?

[Gaining Strength]

Seasons - it does doesn't it!

PR - no alzheimers - none - nada.  It would be a great excuse for her though but not so.  And my brothers and I were teenagers.  It has nothing to do with anything other than self-focused.

Guest - I have to confess that your comment is precisely the kind of thing I come here to avoid.  I don't know your story but I'm guessing that you don't have a N parent.

[Guest]

GS
what is it about my comment that you wish to avoid?

I'm confused.

edit: and GS, there's no need to be aggressive, which you were, above.

[Gaining Strength]

Guest - your sense of aggressive and mine are not on par.

[Guest]

GS
rather than leave this item hanging in the air, I'm here to say I have nothing more to say on this subject given what has been said so far. The conversation appears to have stopped. If it resumes and I have something to say, I will say it. I hope that makes sense to you.

[Izzy_*now*]

GS,

Might I ask how old you were when you were on that trip? --or if not into giving ages, how much time has passed since your actual trip and the statement about your parents taking the trip?

I will tell you something that happened to me, and I most certainly am not an N.  My first born grandson was 4˝, when his N father, SIL to me, kicked me out of their lives. At 4˝ he had a white blond mullet and the bluest of eyes. He climbed all over me and loved me to death. That is the grandson I remember in 1991

In 2004, at 18, he rode his motorcycle 2000 miles to see me, but I was not the main reason. He had other people in this province to see, and spent 2 nights here. His eyes were darker: he was a tall, grown young man, with dark blond hair. As we chatted I began to ask about certaian things that I hoped he remembered, but he didn't!! How Sad for me. So I told him stories about the 2 of us, the way I had seen him, the things he had done, and I would be saying...

..and then there was one time 'he climbed up a pine tree and was trapped..." (should have been ˙ou"...) or "....the time that he and Ma....(should have been you and Mags..)

The little boy and the teenager were 2 different people.

I realized then that I no longer had any idea what my grandson was like, after missiing 14 years of his life. (He's now 24... missed 1991-2011)

I have missed 19 years of his sister's life (She's now 21... missed 1989-2011)

and ALL of the younger brother's life.(He's now 18... missed 1992-2011)


I don't know them, and to talk to a grown up one of them would be, and was, like talking with a stranger.

Might that scenario help?
xx
Izzy

[bearwithme]

If this is N'ism then I have my answer!  Same sort of thing happens to me with my N mom all the time.  Example:  when I was little (I'm talking from age 5 through 13) she used to call my cousin, who was the same age as me, a name that referred to my cousin's crazy-absentee father.  Let's say his name was Ted.  Well, she would call my cousin "Little Ted" all the freakin' time, mostly behind her back, and usually when she was acting fiesty and out of control like him: "oh that Little Ted, she's all Ted!"  Just last year, my N mom said, "Bear, you don't know this but you're cousin had a father that was crazy and was never around...he caused your cousin a lot of emotional problems and his name was Ted."  REALLY?? NO WAY!!

I wish I could have taped recorded the whole conversation because you would have heard a big "thud" which would have been my forehead hitting the kitchen table.

Sorry you N is an N GS

Bear

[getnbtr]

G.S. I get what you are saying. My NM told me that I was a rebellious child and went to Wood Stock!
I was only 9 years old during Wood Stock...didn't she notice that I was never gone?

N's get something in their head and it's very REAL!!!

My N-MIL tells everyone she talks to that she raised her son from the age of 4 by herself after her husband died. Her son, my husband, lost his father when he was 16 and moved in with his grandfather.

You really do not know how crazy making they can be until you have lived with one! They have no idea how crazy they make the rest of us because their reality shifts constantly!

[Hopalong]

That's a lot of missing, ((((((((((Izzy)))))))))).

How are you? How are your parts?

Bear and GetnBtr -- those are SUCH classic examples.
Every N must deep inside be a novelist.
It's just so soul-exhausting to be one of their characters.

xo
Hops