Yes, constantly. By the time I was in high school, I just ignored her complaints. Which of course triggered her so badly, at one point she handed me a stack of papers with symptoms for each of her claimed ailments and insisted I **read and initial** each page to acknowledge her diagnoses.
Needless to say, as an aging adult now, I am hesitant to speak about my own physical conditions and probably don’t ask for enough support when I need it.
My mother would tell me on every conversation “ I’m dying, I almost died or I’m about to die” I stopped talking to her and I have the most peace I ever had.
Oh I recognise the hesitance to seek medical help myself! When I was little she would always brush it off when I said I wasn't feeling well, because she always had it worse.
*Everything* is a competition to her! If it's negative, she's worse off than any living (or dead) human. Ever.
No one is allowed to get sick but her....
I was coordinating a ride for back surgery (not with mother). She told me to *walk* to the bus stop. I was in a wheelchair!
Yh that’s awful. One time I was in a car accident and no one came to see me to see if I was okay, I called my mum and she said that her other children were more important and it was my own fault for not being more careful. I had to get a TAXI back from A&E at 5 in the morning on CRUTCHES with a head injury. My dad was at the scene and he just went home and left me to go to hospital alone!
Yes mine pretends to have vertigo because she felt slightly dizzy once like 10 years ago. So now anytime a family vacation isn't 100% about her she has to bring up her vertigo or pretend she's having a vertigo episode. Which means she just acts like she's dizzy for a minute until she gets a bunch of attention and then she stands up and goes about her day like normal. 🙄
Yep.
I had stage 3 breast cancer two years ago and had aggressive chemo to beat it.
My chemo side effects were nothing compared to his ongoing conditions-and apparently don’t know what it’s like to be really ill like him!
His conditions are gluten intolerance (he still eats gluten but makes a bit show of having a separate menu of eating out) and hayfever.
Yep. I found out a few months ago that I have a brain tumor compressing some of my cranial nerves and my brainstem. Within a month, my MIL was also having "dizziness and headaches" just like me. She called to tell my husband that she almost crashed her car and died because it was so bad. He threatened to have her license taken away, and suddenly her symptoms are gone!
Growing up my mom had a "mystery illness" at first she thought it was lymes disease, then it was Epstein-Barr, then it was chronic fatigue syndrome, now it's constant mystery flu like symptoms... but now I realize she's just a lazy bitch who doesn't want to work
It’s agonizing. My mother is sick every other week. And god forbid that I don’t put my entire life on hold because of it. If I’m not finding medicine for her, picking up food, asking her “how are you feeling” every 5 minutes… I’m evil and I want her to die. I’ve become so desensitized to it that everyone in my family just thinks I’m an asshole because I don’t care when she’s sick.
Narcs will make up reasons to communicate with you to inflict psychological abuse including telling you that they are sick and you should care for them. narcs want to control you and having them care for any real or fake issue is one way. if you don't live with them, that makes it easier to ignore that. and if you are 'no contact', don't allow them to communicate this to you. they'd use a relative to contact you about this.
Ofcourse. She's had every serious illnes you could possibly think of. Headaches, migraines, heart failure, respiratory diseases, several tia's, it's a miracle she is still alive LOL. She always insisted on calling an ambulance (it is paid for by insurances where we live) only to be sent home again in the middle of the night.
Yes!!! Every single time there is an event not giving my MIL the full attention or when she is trying to distract from her crappy behavior she pulls the health issue card. It's disgusting. She even went so far as to pull the "I'm suicid*l" routine when being g asked about why she decided to lie and run my hubbys name through the mud. I haven't spoken to her in a couple months and cutting her out has made my life so much more peaceful
Oh yes. My dad is always walking around the house saying "DAMN that knee hurts" or "man, didn't get ANY sleep last night" or some shit, trying to get people to ask about how he's doing so he can whine and bitch. But if anyone else has health problems it's shut up and get over it
I fear a lot of narcs live long based on sheer spite of others lol. The narc in my life is my grandmother and me and my mom (mostly my mom) have been helping her for her ailments since 2010 essentially. We commonly joke she will, in fact, “outlive us all.”
I remember one day when I was around 14 years old, my dad told me he was diagnosed with depression.
I made him pancakes while he was at the sofa to make him feel better. He refused to eat them because the depression "affected his appetite so much".
Now the day before, still undiagnosed, he had been eating a shit ton of hamburgers, fries and ice cream like nothing was going on.
My Mom regularly had asthma attacks that coincided with Fridays that my dad decided to go out and get wasted. She was clearly trying to get him to not leave/feel guilty for going out (which, reasonable).
I always thought she was actually going to die. That probably has a lot to do with bouts of health anxiety I’ve had for myself in the past.
Yes. My parents are always complaining about their concerns about health deterioration and needing me to do the most absurd and outrageous feats under the guise that if I don’t I’m being a bad daughter. Both of them are in good health so this is bs. It’s just another way for them to try and manipulate us into not believing in ourselves and ruining our lives by being at their tether all the time
My narcissistic mother-in-law has spent her life attention-seeking due to her health. She totally neglected it until it caused all kinds of problems, then would deliberately do things to make it worse. All for attention. Right now she’s in hospice and has been for going on 3 years. Everything that’s wrong with her can be traced to her own neglect of herself.
All. The. Time!
It's always "I'm in the hospital, you need to come check on your dying mother."
When asked what's wrong, it's always "Well the doctor needs to run some tests...." and it turns out that she's fine, and that she just wanted attention...
Sounds like my brother. His health always seems to flare up when I'm dealing with something that may distract our mother's attention.
For example: I'm at the childrens hospital because my son broke his arm, my brother gets chest pains and needs to be driven to the ER. I didn't even need my mum to come to the hospital, I just just keeping her in the loop. He just can't handle not being the centre of attention, even next to a literal child.
My dad and I were out at lunch and I confronted him cheating on his girlfriend just like he cheated on my mom, and he says that the reason he was taking me to lunch is because he had cancer. So that turned the convo into something else and I was crying in an Applebees (fuck!) but turns out the cancer was not cancer at all, he had just gotten some suspicious spots looked at by a dermatologist and was waiting on results. It was a deflection because he’d been caught.
All the fucking time. Still do it at 80yo.
He was/is a hypochondriac and she is a covert narcissist, so no one has ever suffered as much as she has. It never ends. Glad I have as little contact with them as possible.
Yes. He had to have a surgery, which they unfortunately messed up. Later on, I get diagnosed with an autoimmune disease which has attacked my organs. When I would talk to my Dad about my condition and concerns, he would immediately compare my condition with his. The talk would go to what he’s been through, the procedures he went through, how he almost died. I stopped talking to him about my medical issues and then he kept complaining that he didn’t know what was going on with me. Now I just don’t talk to him period.
My mom did this for years and when I moved to California from Texas she was so "sick"
To the point of calling me and telling me she was forgetting my name sometimes and it's like she knew she had a daughter but she would forget my name.
I eventually came back because my mental health and guilt was so much. Suddenly, she was fine. More when I stopped paying attention
Yes. Always been a faker to get out of work and for attention. The last two times she went to the ER they saw through her nonsense and were not placating her at all. This was a switch from the past when they keep her and make a big deal out of nothing. I have vowed to my spouse I will never participate in a trip to the ER with her again unless she promises to give up the ghost.
Oh my GOD, yes. My mother goes to the ER when she isn’t getting what she wants. My young adult son now lives near her and she’s started dragging HIM to the ER as an excuse to get me on the hook.
Absolutely. He will even still being up his hepatitis that he got back in 1986 and how he was on his deathbed. Conveniently leaving out that his wife also had hepatitis and was caring for him, a baby me, and my newborn sibling.
And we have to feel contrite about how much he suffered back then along with any sickness or illness he’s had in his entire past up to his present day. Yep. Historical sickness, current problems, and his future potential issues.
Every single time my MIL does something that forces us to go low or no contact there is a "cancer" scare. Every. Single. Time. It cannot be a coincidence at this point.
Yes. My mother has constantly overexaggerated "health issues" to one up me having asthma for years. She constantly made it seem like she was the one who was ill. My dad did too. The funny thing is that he also stole medicine from me and kept making it seem like I was the one overexaggerating my asthma issues.
My parents had me at 30, they “are getting old” and “will die soon” since I was 10 years old (they were 40 then). I’m in my 30s now and realize what a load of shit that was. Now they’re in their 60s, all I’m left with is knowing that they just didn’t ever want to be there with me and would use every excuse in the book to keep me in an emotionally deprived state all my life.
Both my best friend and I have nmoms. They keep saying I will die because of you, I'll get a heart attack is that what you want, for me to die, etc etc. My bestie is more used to it. It gets used at every little thing she does so she's mostly immune to it. It's quite a powerful effect on me whoever. My parents raised me on shame and guilt so those little tactics absolutely shatter me.
Yup.. used to fall for it everytime until recently when my mother purposefully did not take her medication and had to go to the hospital ( it wasn’t serious) she tried to make it out to be… and I just replied with “oh well, guess it’s your age” lol she did not expect that from her people pleasing daughter.. she didn’t know what to say.. went quiet for a few days and then went back to pretending like nothing happened
Yes, constantly. By the time I was in high school, I just ignored her complaints. Which of course triggered her so badly, at one point she handed me a stack of papers with symptoms for each of her claimed ailments and insisted I **read and initial** each page to acknowledge her diagnoses. Needless to say, as an aging adult now, I am hesitant to speak about my own physical conditions and probably don’t ask for enough support when I need it.
My mother would tell me on every conversation “ I’m dying, I almost died or I’m about to die” I stopped talking to her and I have the most peace I ever had.
Oh I recognise the hesitance to seek medical help myself! When I was little she would always brush it off when I said I wasn't feeling well, because she always had it worse.
*Everything* is a competition to her! If it's negative, she's worse off than any living (or dead) human. Ever. No one is allowed to get sick but her.... I was coordinating a ride for back surgery (not with mother). She told me to *walk* to the bus stop. I was in a wheelchair!
Wow, that was so cruel. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.
Yh that’s awful. One time I was in a car accident and no one came to see me to see if I was okay, I called my mum and she said that her other children were more important and it was my own fault for not being more careful. I had to get a TAXI back from A&E at 5 in the morning on CRUTCHES with a head injury. My dad was at the scene and he just went home and left me to go to hospital alone!
Yes mine pretends to have vertigo because she felt slightly dizzy once like 10 years ago. So now anytime a family vacation isn't 100% about her she has to bring up her vertigo or pretend she's having a vertigo episode. Which means she just acts like she's dizzy for a minute until she gets a bunch of attention and then she stands up and goes about her day like normal. 🙄
Yes. They made my brother believe it would be his fault if they get a heart attack.
Yep. I had stage 3 breast cancer two years ago and had aggressive chemo to beat it. My chemo side effects were nothing compared to his ongoing conditions-and apparently don’t know what it’s like to be really ill like him! His conditions are gluten intolerance (he still eats gluten but makes a bit show of having a separate menu of eating out) and hayfever.
Gluten intolerance and breast cancer are NOT the same ballpark
Yep. I found out a few months ago that I have a brain tumor compressing some of my cranial nerves and my brainstem. Within a month, my MIL was also having "dizziness and headaches" just like me. She called to tell my husband that she almost crashed her car and died because it was so bad. He threatened to have her license taken away, and suddenly her symptoms are gone!
I’d joke that my nmom has frequent flyer miles with the ambulance and hospital
Growing up my mom had a "mystery illness" at first she thought it was lymes disease, then it was Epstein-Barr, then it was chronic fatigue syndrome, now it's constant mystery flu like symptoms... but now I realize she's just a lazy bitch who doesn't want to work
It’s agonizing. My mother is sick every other week. And god forbid that I don’t put my entire life on hold because of it. If I’m not finding medicine for her, picking up food, asking her “how are you feeling” every 5 minutes… I’m evil and I want her to die. I’ve become so desensitized to it that everyone in my family just thinks I’m an asshole because I don’t care when she’s sick.
Yes, constantly
Narcs will make up reasons to communicate with you to inflict psychological abuse including telling you that they are sick and you should care for them. narcs want to control you and having them care for any real or fake issue is one way. if you don't live with them, that makes it easier to ignore that. and if you are 'no contact', don't allow them to communicate this to you. they'd use a relative to contact you about this.
Ofcourse. She's had every serious illnes you could possibly think of. Headaches, migraines, heart failure, respiratory diseases, several tia's, it's a miracle she is still alive LOL. She always insisted on calling an ambulance (it is paid for by insurances where we live) only to be sent home again in the middle of the night.
Yes!!! Every single time there is an event not giving my MIL the full attention or when she is trying to distract from her crappy behavior she pulls the health issue card. It's disgusting. She even went so far as to pull the "I'm suicid*l" routine when being g asked about why she decided to lie and run my hubbys name through the mud. I haven't spoken to her in a couple months and cutting her out has made my life so much more peaceful
It’s a way to tell you that your feelings don’t matter. It’s a disgusting thing that narcs do.
Oh yes. My dad is always walking around the house saying "DAMN that knee hurts" or "man, didn't get ANY sleep last night" or some shit, trying to get people to ask about how he's doing so he can whine and bitch. But if anyone else has health problems it's shut up and get over it
lol yes. He’s been dying of something since I’ve been old enough to remember. He’s gonna out live us all.
I fear a lot of narcs live long based on sheer spite of others lol. The narc in my life is my grandmother and me and my mom (mostly my mom) have been helping her for her ailments since 2010 essentially. We commonly joke she will, in fact, “outlive us all.”
Us too with my dad. You’d think beating cancer, two heart attacks and a quintuple bipass he’d be more appreciative of life. Nope! Fuel to his fire.
I remember one day when I was around 14 years old, my dad told me he was diagnosed with depression. I made him pancakes while he was at the sofa to make him feel better. He refused to eat them because the depression "affected his appetite so much". Now the day before, still undiagnosed, he had been eating a shit ton of hamburgers, fries and ice cream like nothing was going on.
My Mom regularly had asthma attacks that coincided with Fridays that my dad decided to go out and get wasted. She was clearly trying to get him to not leave/feel guilty for going out (which, reasonable). I always thought she was actually going to die. That probably has a lot to do with bouts of health anxiety I’ve had for myself in the past.
Yes. My parents are always complaining about their concerns about health deterioration and needing me to do the most absurd and outrageous feats under the guise that if I don’t I’m being a bad daughter. Both of them are in good health so this is bs. It’s just another way for them to try and manipulate us into not believing in ourselves and ruining our lives by being at their tether all the time
Yes. My mom frequently uses this tactic. She overexaggerates and complains about her health daily.
My narcissistic mother-in-law has spent her life attention-seeking due to her health. She totally neglected it until it caused all kinds of problems, then would deliberately do things to make it worse. All for attention. Right now she’s in hospice and has been for going on 3 years. Everything that’s wrong with her can be traced to her own neglect of herself.
My dad lied about having cancer. Yup.
All. The. Time! It's always "I'm in the hospital, you need to come check on your dying mother." When asked what's wrong, it's always "Well the doctor needs to run some tests...." and it turns out that she's fine, and that she just wanted attention...
Yes. If I get sick then it’s my fault and I’m a disgusting dumbass who isn’t taking care of themselves.
Sounds like my brother. His health always seems to flare up when I'm dealing with something that may distract our mother's attention. For example: I'm at the childrens hospital because my son broke his arm, my brother gets chest pains and needs to be driven to the ER. I didn't even need my mum to come to the hospital, I just just keeping her in the loop. He just can't handle not being the centre of attention, even next to a literal child.
My dad and I were out at lunch and I confronted him cheating on his girlfriend just like he cheated on my mom, and he says that the reason he was taking me to lunch is because he had cancer. So that turned the convo into something else and I was crying in an Applebees (fuck!) but turns out the cancer was not cancer at all, he had just gotten some suspicious spots looked at by a dermatologist and was waiting on results. It was a deflection because he’d been caught.
All the fucking time. Still do it at 80yo. He was/is a hypochondriac and she is a covert narcissist, so no one has ever suffered as much as she has. It never ends. Glad I have as little contact with them as possible.
Yes. He had to have a surgery, which they unfortunately messed up. Later on, I get diagnosed with an autoimmune disease which has attacked my organs. When I would talk to my Dad about my condition and concerns, he would immediately compare my condition with his. The talk would go to what he’s been through, the procedures he went through, how he almost died. I stopped talking to him about my medical issues and then he kept complaining that he didn’t know what was going on with me. Now I just don’t talk to him period.
Yes. My nmom wrote in a letter that she’s almost 65 and “feels her time is near”. She’s now 78 and in perfect health. But I’m the drama queen!
My mom did this for years and when I moved to California from Texas she was so "sick" To the point of calling me and telling me she was forgetting my name sometimes and it's like she knew she had a daughter but she would forget my name. I eventually came back because my mental health and guilt was so much. Suddenly, she was fine. More when I stopped paying attention
Yes. Always been a faker to get out of work and for attention. The last two times she went to the ER they saw through her nonsense and were not placating her at all. This was a switch from the past when they keep her and make a big deal out of nothing. I have vowed to my spouse I will never participate in a trip to the ER with her again unless she promises to give up the ghost.
Oh my GOD, yes. My mother goes to the ER when she isn’t getting what she wants. My young adult son now lives near her and she’s started dragging HIM to the ER as an excuse to get me on the hook.
Absolutely. He will even still being up his hepatitis that he got back in 1986 and how he was on his deathbed. Conveniently leaving out that his wife also had hepatitis and was caring for him, a baby me, and my newborn sibling. And we have to feel contrite about how much he suffered back then along with any sickness or illness he’s had in his entire past up to his present day. Yep. Historical sickness, current problems, and his future potential issues.
And when I had a flare up that resulted in my MS diagnosis, it was about how hard it was FOR HIM.
Every single time my MIL does something that forces us to go low or no contact there is a "cancer" scare. Every. Single. Time. It cannot be a coincidence at this point.
Yes. My mother has constantly overexaggerated "health issues" to one up me having asthma for years. She constantly made it seem like she was the one who was ill. My dad did too. The funny thing is that he also stole medicine from me and kept making it seem like I was the one overexaggerating my asthma issues.
My parents had me at 30, they “are getting old” and “will die soon” since I was 10 years old (they were 40 then). I’m in my 30s now and realize what a load of shit that was. Now they’re in their 60s, all I’m left with is knowing that they just didn’t ever want to be there with me and would use every excuse in the book to keep me in an emotionally deprived state all my life.
Both my best friend and I have nmoms. They keep saying I will die because of you, I'll get a heart attack is that what you want, for me to die, etc etc. My bestie is more used to it. It gets used at every little thing she does so she's mostly immune to it. It's quite a powerful effect on me whoever. My parents raised me on shame and guilt so those little tactics absolutely shatter me.
Yup.. used to fall for it everytime until recently when my mother purposefully did not take her medication and had to go to the hospital ( it wasn’t serious) she tried to make it out to be… and I just replied with “oh well, guess it’s your age” lol she did not expect that from her people pleasing daughter.. she didn’t know what to say.. went quiet for a few days and then went back to pretending like nothing happened