it is extremely difficult to explain to other people what is so bad about her.
I find it a mystery that anyone can tolerate her.
I cannot figure out how my parents social lives have been not at all effected by their behavior. My friends all dropped me over time. It still hurts but I have come to understand why. I was so very negative and my whole world view was twisted, but it still hurts. Now that I get it and have begun to see real differences in the way I interact with people I do hope to begin building friends again. Isn't is a strange kind of irony that those who suffer the most as children pay such a huge price as adults.
1. Everything she does is deniable. There is always a facile excuse or an explanation. Cruelties are couched in loving terms. Aggressive and hostile acts are paraded as thoughtfulness. Selfish manipulations are presented as gifts. Criticism and slander is slyly disguised as concern. She only wants what is best for you. She only wants to help you.
She rarely says right out that she thinks you’re inadequate. Instead, any time that you tell her you’ve done something good, she counters with something your sibling did that was better or she simply ignores you or she hears you out without saying anything, then in a short time does something cruel to you so you understand not to get above yourself. She will carefully separate cause (your joy in your accomplishment) from effect (refusing to let you borrow the car to go to the awards ceremony) by enough time that someone who didn’t live through her abuse would never believe the connection.
Many of her putdowns are simply by comparison. She’ll talk about how wonderful someone else is or what a wonderful job they did on something you’ve also done or how highly she thinks of them. The contrast is left up to you. She has let you know that you’re no good without saying a word.
She’s very secretive, a characteristic of almost all abusers (“Don’t wash our dirty laundry in public!”) and will punish you for telling anyone else what she’s done.
she will seem like a completely different person in public.
She’ll slam you to other people, but will always embed her devaluing nuggets of snide gossip in protestations of concern, love and understanding (“I feel so sorry for poor Cynthia. She always seems to have such a hard time, but I just don’t know what I can do for her!”)
As a consequence the children of narcissists universally report that no one believes them (“I have to tell you that she always talks about YOU in the most caring way!).Oh yes, definitely! "Jodi loves you so much...she still talks about you and how she cares."
2. She violates your boundaries.
You feel like an extension of her.
Your property is given away without your consent, sometimes in front of you.
You are discussed in your presence as though you are not there.
She keeps tabs on your bodily functions and humiliates you by divulging the information she gleans, especially when it can be used to demonstrate her devotion and highlight her martyrdom to your needs (“
She will want to dig into your feelings, particularly painful ones and is always looking for negative information on you which can be used against you. She does things against your expressed wishes frequently. All of this is done without seeming embarrassment or thought.
Any attempt at autonomy on your part is strongly resisted.
3. She favoritizes. Narcissistic mothers commonly choose one (sometimes more) child to be the golden child and one (sometimes more) to be the scapegoat.
Any time you are to be center stage and there is no opportunity for her to be the center of attention, she will try to prevent the occasion altogether, or she doesn’t come, or she leaves early, or she acts like it’s no big deal, or she steals the spotlight or she slips in little wounding comments about how much better someone else did or how what you did wasn’t as much as you could have done or as you think it is.
She will be nasty to you about things that are peripherally connected with your successes so that you find your joy in what you’ve done is tarnished, without her ever saying anything directly about it. No matter what your success, she has to take you down a peg about it.
5. She demeans, criticizes and denigrates. She lets you know in all sorts of little ways that she thinks less of you than she does of your siblings or of other people in general. If you complain about mistreatment by someone else, she will take that person’s side even if she doesn’t know them at all. She doesn’t care about those people or the justice of your complaints. She just wants to let you know that you’re never right.
As always, this combines criticism with deniability.
She will slip little comments into conversation that she really enjoyed something she did with someone else - something she did with you too, but didn’t like as much. She’ll let you know that her relationship with some other person you both know is wonderful in a way your relationship with her isn’t - the carefully unspoken message being that you don’t matter much to her.
She minimizes, discounts or ignores your opinions and experiences. Your insights are met with condescension, denials and accusations (“I think you read too much!”) and she will brush off your information even on subjects on which you are an acknowledged expert.
6. She makes you look crazy.
Once she’s constructed these fantasies of your emotional pathologies, she’ll tell others about them, as always, presenting her smears as expressions of concern and declaring her own helpless victimhood. She didn’t do anything. She has no idea why you’re so irrationally angry with her. You’ve hurt her terribly. She thinks you may need psychotherapy. She loves you very much and would do anything to make you happy, but she just doesn’t know what to do. You keep pushing her away when all she wants to do is help you.
She has simultaneously absolved herself of any responsibility for your obvious antipathy towards her, implied that it’s something fundamentally wrong with you that makes you angry with her, and undermined your credibility with her listeners. She plays the role of the doting mother so perfectly that no one will believe you.
Your parents choose people to interact with who tolerate their behavior. These people are not terribly healthy. They may seem healthy, but they run on denial. They're enablers; they may be very very nice, but they don't know how to say no to Ns.
[Added on edit: re the 'coldness' of the sheltered healthy; it occurs to me that there is a significant difference between those who are healthy because they have never been hurt, and those who are healthy because they have healed.]
I agree with you, abuse by Ns definitely has that twisted, evil, premeditated and relished flavor to it. Ns are mean, but it goes so far beyond simple meanness that there should be a special word for it.
It was only after the death of my severely narcissistic mother that I discovered, because others began to feel guilty and to tell me, just what a depth of hatred she had for me, all my life.
After his death, after I broke off contact with her, she died within the year from a Munchausen's episode gone bad. And then I learned the extent to which she had maligned me to everyone within earshot - all behind my back, of course, while whining and demanding and sulking and you know the drill, whenever I was within reach.
The psychologists and psychiatrists who write on this subject don't know. They mope about how we, the children of narcissists, were just not loved enough even though our parents really tried, and they really did their best. Not one of them has said "They really do hate these kids." Why not? If someone lies about you and treats you contemptuously, and hates it when you do well and tries to ruin your life, why on earth would someone say "she really loved you?" I read this stuff and think "You don't have any idea at all." My mother knew what she was doing. She enjoyed it. She relished it. She hated me and loved my pain. You're right, it was the breath of life to her. She didn't "try" and she didn't "do her best." (Nina Brown is on my blacklist forever for exactly that exculpatory attitude).
A narcissistic hateful parent is their own little microcosmic permanent bad neighborhood.
QuoteA narcissistic hateful parent is their own little microcosmic permanent bad neighborhood.
You probaly ought to copyright that Stormy, because I'm thinking of stealing it. :wink:
mud
Does someone have a large magic marker and a big huge piece of paper, I'm going to make a sign and carry it around with me where ever I go:QuoteWe as a society paper over the evidence with lies [denial] and close our eyes to the reality. Oh, no, this can't be true! Why? Basically, because we don't want it to be; if we admitted it, we'd have to DEAL with it. Therefore, it isn't.
Do you think people will notice?
jac
Thanks, GS. And I am very sorry that this was painful for you to experience, even vicariously.
Both Stephen King [in the novel Delores Claiborne] and M. Scott Peck [in his novel A Bed By The Window, about nursing home residents] have recognized that, at times, adult incontinence is actually adult hostility, expressed in the most primitive, most direct of ways.
GS - at times it is psychological; at times it is physical. A lot of leaky older ladies are simply paying the price of longevity... and I have been surprised to learn how many new mothers leak, for awhile after, too. Not something our society wants to have open understanding about, obviously.
But in my mother's case, in the situation I describe, there was no question what was going on... in your son's case, it will be important to find out what he is trying to control by losing control [or, if he holds and holds and then can't hold any longer and lets go, why he holds and holds for so long - what he is trying to control so strongly].
Good luck with this; you will be in my prayers and so will your son.
My father had very rigid black and white thinking... My father had pronouncements about everything. We couldn't eat catfish, or jello or milkshakes. We couldn' read Dr. Seuss or comic books, and on and on..I am certain that this is part of his NPD.
Gaining Strength
That N-mother description was amazing. A few pieces of it fit Mom to an exaggerated T.
She worked very hard to be a good mother: her home made clothes were beautiful. She did dress me up to show me off but it is hard for me to view decades of her feeding, clothing, reading to and trying all she knew to care for me (though she couldn't be empathic much) and write it off as purely N. I don't think so. I think she was doing the best she could. So I realize I am fortunate.
I still wonder if this description is narcissism conflated with a sadistic personality type.
Plus, she was pregnant. With me.
I do learn and that is what will save me in the end. That is what all of us here do as well, and that is one of the most important things that will make the difference for each of us.
PP
Immaturity, lack of empathy, I don't know what this is. I see there is a pattern. But I don't know what to call it. I have heard all the stories of her own childhood where she had several severe illnesses or conditions due to her parents having waited too long to seek medical or dental care, due to lack of money. Was she too traumitized at this point to trust doctors? Too uncared for to be able to care for me? My sister was not denied care or medical attention when it was obviously needed. She was the one who acted out. I was the one who could take care of myself. Maybe it was as simple as that.
It makes it easier to share such stories in a somewhat anonymous way.The anonymity is such a gift, such freedom. No one here can use what I say against me. No one can compare what I say with someone else to come back and say that I am exaggerating.
These Ns seem pitiful to me. Sad little creatures with hearts of stone.I feel the same way. I truly pity my father. I look on him as a child who had such extraordinary potential beaten out of him by rigid, miserable, self-righteous snobs of parents. I pitied him enough to name my only child after him, as though somehow this might touch him and he might really understand what I had always tried to tell him, "That I love him." (I didn't know about NPD when I did this.) My litlle boy asked me this weekend, "Mom why did you name me Richard?" "Well sweet heart I named you after your grandfather." "Why would you do that? Can I change my name." "Well darling you have brought light to that name." "Grandfather made it dark but you make it light again."
He hates her because she was so mean to you.What a wonderful insight! How touching PP that your husband really cares about you and deeply wants to protect you from your pain. I am so glad for you - your mother didn't do that for you but now you have someone who will.
Mostly I think that the main problem with my mother is that she is completely unable to grow and change and learn from the past. She just never puts two and two together, is never willing to adjust her beliefs and behaviors in a real enough way to make a difference. It's one thing to resent me for coming along too early, precipitating a marriage that didn't last, whatever. But when I asked her in my thirties, wasn't she glad afterall to have had me since I turned out well? And she said, no, I still wouldn't have had kids if I had it to do over again. She is truly incapable of learning anything important.
I do learn and that is what will save me in the end. That is what all of us here do as well, and that is one of the most important things that will make the difference for each of us.
PP
Chris2,
I don't recall seeing in your essay any mention of Hypochondria. I've seen it used on several occasions to manipulate. A facet of it that I have experienced first hand and very often with my Nmom is her using it to one up anyone else who may have a serious, temporary ailment. Before they can describe their own sickness the Nmom overrides, bumps in to give her skewed version of the same illness, except of course hers is much more severe and debilitating. Or she will hatch up a more exotic version of something that she is suffering with in the moment. The gist of it all is to one up with whatever story comes to mind, real or imagined. I was born when she was seventeen. In all those years I've have never heard her respond to how are you doing, with anything other than an organ recital, i.e., my stomach aches, everything aches, I can hardly go. If you knew how I feel and on and on. It took me a few years, but I finally figured our that she couldn't possible do all the work she's done over the years and even now (working harder than the next is another form of one-up) iif she felt half as bad as she describes. I learned two things from this. 1) The boy who cried Wolf, wolf! 2) not to give an organ recital when someone asks how I'm doing. When she gives a litany of physical complaints, I remember that it has always been like that, yet she is 87 and manages her business and tries to mnage me and mine.. I broke free six years ago, though, so the managing me part isn't going as smoothly as it used to. :D
teartracks
It feels like I'm still too close to it. Still not able to separate out the traits from just plain old having been so used to my upbringing that I thought it was normal all those years. Now I know it was not. But I'm still somewhat at the beginning of the discovery stage, I think. Having a hard time understanding how I could have parents who perhaps truly did not care about me anywhere in there.
One time I was riding on the back of my sister's bike and fell off. She accidently ran over my arm. I freaked out because I was afraid it was broken and a blue lump immediately appeared on my elbow. I ran crying to show my mother and she reacted by pointing at me, laughing hysterically at me and basically making fun of my tearful, frightened reaction to having been hurt. She sent me back out to play.
This next story is the hardest one to tell about. My husband is the only one I have ever told this one to. I was about three. My sister was about two. It was winter and my mother was trying to go somewhere with us, probably the grocery store or laundrymat. But the car got stuck in the snowy driveway and she just couldn't budge it. She was incredibly frustrated and angry. Any young mother in that situation would be.
I understand that part so well. We went back in the house again, in defeat. And something small I did, or my sister did, was the last straw. It set her off in a rage. We were in the kitchen. My mother was sitting in a chair spanking me but it just wasn't enough punishment. So, she grabbed me and held me under the shoulders as high as she could and dropped me to the floor from that height. I landed on my tailbone. It took my breath away and I could hardly cry, just moaned. She did the same thing again and maybe one or two more times until she came to her senses and realized that I might be severely hurt. So, then she was frantic and made me get up and walk it off. I remember how wobbly my left leg felt in my hip joint. She made me keep walking around in a circular path through the house until she was satisfied that I didn't need to go to the doctor or hospital.
This particular incident has never been talked about. I'm sure if I confronted her about it now she would deny it completely.
Immaturity, lack of empathy, I don't know what this is. I see there is a pattern. But I don't know what to call it. I have heard all the stories of her own childhood where she had several severe illnesses or conditions due to her parents having waited too long to seek medical or dental care, due to lack of money. Was she too traumitized at this point to trust doctors? Too uncared for to be able to care for me?
My sister was not denied care or medical attention when it was obviously needed. She was the one who acted out. I was the one who could take care of myself. Maybe it was as simple as that.
My mother's mother suffered from untreated depression her entire life, perhaps even post-partum depression. There was no mother/daughter bond between my Grandmother and any of her four daughters. Period. Anything they did with her or for her was through a sense of duty or obedience only. Grandmother's brother was diagnosed bi-polar but refused any treatment. So, serious chemical imbalance runs in the family. My mother was raised in this atmosphere.
I don't think she has a chemical imbalance herself. She is very selfish, materialistic, etc.
She never got excited by our accomplishments as children. Only worried about how much effort she would have to make to attend a concert or ceremony of some sort.
Then I remember that summer she got mad about my friends who often bragged about themselves and what nice things their family had. So, she made me wear this award medal to the park one day so these friends could see how smart I was. I felt stupid. It was so inappropriate. Nobody even noticed my stupid medal, luckily. But what an odd thing for her to make me do. And how obedient I was to go through with it even though it made me very uncomfortable to do it.
I couldn't have certain colors of clothing, red or purple, because they would "clash" with my red hair.
My sister had to wear a lot of brown because brown was a good color for her.
Another color memory: When we made Christmas cookie cutouts, we could not have any blue frosting, even though there was blue food coloring, because there is no such thing as blue food. It probably only came up as a subject because blue was my favorite color. My mistake.
"Rules" like these made me even more self-conscious than I already naturally was.
Made me a very tense, uptight child. And a very entertaining target for neighborhood bullies. Of which there were many on my block.
My parents told me to ignore it. What clueless people they were. My father did actually have some sympathy for my plight. My mother did not seem to have any sympathy or understanding.
Afterall, she had been fairly popular growing up. What was wrong with me? She often wondered that aloud.
My father was afraid it was because I was like him, and that idea made him feel guilty and gave him a lot of grief.
My mother always said I was like my father's side of the family and not like her at all. She would pick on characteristics of mine that were like my father. Anything about me that was like her, she just didn't see or acknowledge. "Look at how you hold a sandwich just like your father!" "Your eyebrows sweat like like your father's!" "You are just like your Aunt Polly!" (my father's sister, who my mother didn't like). It is true that I take after my aunt in many ways, but it sounded like an insult when my mother said it.
I never was just me. I was never fine just the way I was. There was always something that should be fixed. If anyone was paying attention at all that is.
Thank you for taking a look at my story and pointing out the specific red flags of N'ism. That is the thing I have been unable to do so far, being so close to it, I suppose.
Tonight that sadness is kind of coloring everything. But.....I have always been more interested in real than fake. Which makes me quite the opposite of the Ns in my life :? . Too bad I let them into my heart before I found out they won't do anything good in there.
I have read your post a couple times already and will read it again. You are quite a survivor yourself. And here you are able to write it out and explain it so clearly. Thank you for that.
I know that pp and hope have shared some bad experiences..and I wanted to give you a hug and to say I'm sorry. You did not deserve your N mothers.
I think when I think of my N Mom now, I remember mostly the good things about her, and I guess I'm concentrating on those (since there are some good things, believe it or not). But I certainly have not forgotten that she's just a Bad person, plain and simple. Bad for me, not healthy for me to be around. It is getting easier for me, I mean...I think. Focusing on the positive more and more each day.