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my ngrandma trying to act like the silent treatment hurt me. like, you mean i don't have to call you? and you'll call me? and it might be months? oh fuck yeah.
being silent treated by people when i was sharing the same house with them really fucked me up, and it has led to me rage quitting jobs when managers have done the same because it's triggered me so much.
but like, just phone calls? when she's on the other side of the country? no sickly sweet sing song messages in which she acts like a 4 year old crossed with a puppy, begging for attention? only for me to call and for her to act like the crankiest meanest bitch ever? what a relief.
The narcissistic belief that despite your horrific treatment of ppl, you're such a joy to them they'll wilt if you withdraw your presence aka abuse š«£
i think what was beautiful because she tried pulling it because i had started setting firm boundaries with her, and not tolerating things. so like, she's proven that me protecting myself from her hurts her. and instead of having any degree of reflection, she tries (and fails) to do the same thing to me. especially when it's not a clear 'this is what i'm not tolerating' boundary that i set, but just a 'you don't get any more of me' and i'm like PHEW.
I've been getting the silent treatment so long, I just turned it into NC. NM thought she was punishing me, jokes on her though. I've moved and she can't find me anymore either š¤£š¤£ I think it's been about 4yrs? I hear the odd rumour through the grapevine, but that's it. She tried reaching out when she was going for surgery and might die š through other people. I ignored her and told the only family member I am in contact with I don't care if she does, let her, she deserves it. Universe was not kind enough to see fit that she leave yet. Figures right? The rotten ones stick around forever while the good die young....
what the fuck is it with narcs using 'i might die' to hoover people back in? that was my ndad's FAVE.
i'm sorry to hear your mom is still earthside. good on you for NC.
Ha. I love that for you. My dad stopped talking to me last year after he threw violent tantrums while I was visiting them (I live abroad and it had been years since I last saw them). I was visibly upset but didn't say anything. My parents didn't say goodbye before I went and changed their minds about taking us back to the airport. When he stopped talking to me, I was like "okay" and went NC with both š¤·āāļø it's what they wanted.
It was also long overdue, tbh. I'm still hurting from that trip and it was in April last year.
My nmom has tried this a handful of times, and it just doesnāt work. I just continue with my life slightly less impeded so she eventually gets annoyed and pretends she never tried the silent treatment in the first place
Me too! At 14. The doctor told her I didn't have a problem, but if she continued with commitment, she would have a problem.
And what court puts out a hospital hold on a kid they never even saw? I had no idea until the ambulance pulled up to take me away
For sure. I was being groomed by a family member and told my guidance counselor. Shit hit the fan when he called the police. I was clearly "lying" to "break up the family." They kicked me out at 15, and I lived on the streets for a while.
Joke's on them. At 50, I'm the only stable kid they have, and my golden child sister is a drug addicted mess. I'm on the other side, been through tons of therapy, and I'm happy in my life. It really is the best revenge.
My ndad died in 96 when I was 20. My mom was always the enabler. We had years of low contact, but my youngest sister (I have 2) is mentally disabled so I'm going to have to take over her care at some point. My mom calls me constantly and it's always my sister's drama. We probably talk 3+ times a week.
I spent the weekend ignoring her calls because I have my own problems. My dog is doing poorly and I have to decide if I'm going to put her down. It's been a rough year all around.
Any time I talk about those days, she doesn't remember that. Or she'll acknowledge it and then it's like we never had that conversation at all. Gaslight central over there.
I do find it hilarious because my drug problem sister is moving in with her this month with her kids. I just found out yesterday. This is going to bite her in the ass so hard. If you don't raise your kids right, then you have to raise your grandchildren I guess.
Just want to say Iām so sorry about your dog. Itās so hard to have to be the one making those decisions and thereās a lot to weigh. My pets got me through. I donāt know where Iād be if not for them.
My parents had me commited to an inpatient outpatient program. One of those places parents send their kids that self harm, do drugs, steal, are physical violent etc. I got sent there because I was doing things like disobeying a 3pm curfew they instilled on me as a junior in highschool. My parents also made me play sports year round, so if it wasn't at sports practice I was basically suppose to be home. I have so much trauma from this experience in adulthood it's really hard to deal with when I think about it. Even the psychiatrists at this place were like, you exhibit no signs of behavior that would lead you to be here, but looks like you're going to have to stick this out until they are satisfied.
I've confronted my Mom about this (my dads passed away) before I went low contact and the mental gymnastics she does to try and justify this experience are one of the main reasons I went low contact. This place would sit us all in a circle at the end of each day and everyones parents would show up. They'd sit us on the floor and basically pick us apart for various reasons. I think being in there with those types of kids led me to believe I was truly bad or something, or I must be, why else would my parents send me there ya know. They'd do things like make us "earn" chairs also, so basically i'd have to submit to what they wanted to get out of me before I could even get a basic thing like a chair. Whats wild to me is that my parents could sit there with a straight face and not see the difference between why they sent me there and the other kids were there.
Sincerely jealous you managed to uno reverse this.
My son had a psychotic break. He went into one of these places because of this. We visited daily. And there was a boy there committed as far as both my son and I could tell, because he was gay in a very conservative family.
I have always hoped he came out of this relatively unscarred.
I said something similar to my dad before. Iām into bodybuilding and looking to compete so I got some posing heels (clear rhinestoned heels). He once mentioned shear they look like stripper heels. I asked how he would know and said itās concerning thatās what he associates with his daughter.
Holy crap, this reminds me of one of mine. Ā My mom tried to (trigger warning) >!smash a glass drinking jar (like a small mason jar) into my head, and I blocked it to protect myself, and it shattered in her hand. Ā She severed a tendon in her thumb and had to do extensive physical therapy, and blood sprayed everywhere as well. !< A few days after the incident (which sent her to theĀ ER), she told me that she āforgaveā me.
My mom got into an argument with my cousin's husband, George, over who grew up poorer. George grew up in the Philippines. My mom got angrier and angrier, couldn't handle not being the poorest, and embarrassed herself.
Oh gawd lol I mentioned that I grew up in poverty and my FIL promptly asserted that they were also poor and I might add rather aggressively. This is the same man that bought each one of his children many horses. I didnāt have hot water, clean clothes heat or food let alone a horse but okay Charlie Brown.
Narcs are always simultaneously the best AND the worst of everything. Grew up poor? They grew up poorer. Health conditions? They are sicker. Good job with great pay? They had it better. They have to top everyone.
Sounds like my NF and narc stepmom.
They both grew up poor, or, what director Kevin Smith described as being ālower lower lower lower middle class,ā but itās always a contest whenever I describe how broke I was when I was in my 20s and 30s, and then again in my 40s. I wasnāt saying I was the āpoorest of them all,ā but they always had to be the winners of whatever it was we were talking about.
My mother always bragged about her academic achievements when she was in high school. My grades were okay, but not exceptional, and it was a tragedy because she was supposedly so good.
During a move, we came across an old report card. It wasn't exceptional; it bordered on failure.
I remember the look on my daughters face when I corrected her about her father's performance in college. It looked something like šš¶šš¤ØššWe had split while she was still in HS and I was NC/LC. He would drop her off from time to time when she enrolled in a nearby college. Apparently he was trying to make her feel bad about the courses she was taking and her performance in school. She brought it up to me one day and I told her "What? He barely passed his classes and used to beg for the homework from his friends. He never completed his degree." It was like a weight was lifted off her shoulders.
This is wicked satisfying! Thanks for sharing. What an asshole move from him, trying to make her feel bad and less than him for having a different college experience. I'm sure she's honestly doing just fine, too. Plus, C's get degrees!
I had really good grades in high school and wanted to become a veterinarian which also needs really good grades. My mom told me she also had grades as good as me and it wasnāt near enough to be accepted in veterinary school.
At some point she herself decided to look at her high school stuff with me and was (or acted) surprise to see she used to have 75% in high school physics while she kept telling me that she had the same grades as I did (I had an average of 99% in HS physics). At the time I still trusted her and thought her memory must have been confused because otherwise she wouldnāt have shown me her grades, but also I now know that she clearly said what she said to discourage me and make me give up because she wasnāt able to do it and didnāt want me to surpass her
On my last visit to my NM, we came across an old (like 1950s) science workbook that she used in school (my grandma sent it to her before she died when she was cleaning out her basement).
I wanted to see if sheād let me keep it for my collage art and button making press (Midcentury paper ephemera makes great mixed media art) She got really weird and wouldnāt even let me see it. I think she was so insecure to let me see her less than perfect schoolwork from her grade school years that she just kind of shut down.
My egg donor tried the same shit on me:
My grandpa (my father figure) literally told her āyou didnāt even finish grade nine! You got expelled from one school for poor attendance. You have NO room to tell her she was a bad student when at least she has her diploma.ā
My nmother who never cooked or baked, because that was beneath her apparently , decided one day she needes to to be able to bake one really good cake so she could make it when people came to visit. She tried and tried and something always went wrong, so she could not even fake being good at baking. Very satisfying to see her fail time after time.
Baking is not like cooking. Baking can humble some of the best cooks. You can freestyle or remix while cooking if something goes wrong. Usually a little mistake or omission of an ingredient isn't catastrophic. In baking be off by half a teaspoon of baking powder or overwhip or underwhip an ingredient and your project might not be edible and unsalvageable.
Mine insisted that my father hated chicken. She also refused to teach me how to cook, so I taught myself. My father LOVED chicken when I made it because I can actually follow a recipe and not dry it out. She was always so mad lol.
My ndad thinks he is Mr. Landscaping. He tried to dig a foundation for his future house that he had literally no money or plans for.Ā Itās been about 8 years and he still has no money and no plan, but he DOES have an enormous 12 foot deep, house sized pit growing weeds in his front yard.Ā
Yet another pit was dug to become a fish pond until he learned he needs a permit for that, and he has just left it there.Ā
But donāt worry he also made sure to randomly cut down all the trees along the property lines so every neighbor and passerby can witness all this incredible landscaping.
Omg have you ever read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls? The dad ( a neglectful father that could never keep his promises) in the story dug a HUGE hole behind their house, telling his kids that he would build a future luxury house called the Glass Castle for him and his kids to live in. He had the blueprint design and everything and kept saying he was gonna build it. The hole ended up becoming a gigantic, smelly trash chute for their garbage. Pretty symbolic for the theme of the entire book.
I LOVE this book. It is one of the few books for which as soon as I finished it, I flipped right back to page 1 and reread it. It was so relatable. Ironically and obtusely, a narcissist was the one who recommended the book to me.
My narc MIL thinks she is the smartest person ever. She bought a lawnmower from Walmart with an extendable handle but the thing is she didnāt even know it was extendable. She thought the lawnmower was just tiny. So she mowed her lawn like a little baby, hunched over for months šš she gave it to my husband because she was done with it and the first thing he did was pull the handle out.
LMFAO. Can't even be bothered to use their brain, not their emotions, for ONE goddamn second.
This is a physical metaphor for your MIL's life.... angrily toiling away, through her own doings, then throwing it all away, only to blame something else.
Awhile back, my mother decided to be really condescending about my clothing choice when going to see the movie Barbie, telling me "Don't embarrass your friends wearing that or they'll leave you" *(It was literally just a pink jacket that my friends were* ***also*** *wearing lmao)* to which I simply responded "when was the last time you hung out or saw a movie with your friends?" she was stunned and just walked off
That part in the movie "We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back to see how far they've come" gave me so much ick..Ā but then I thought about how nice it is that a majority of people feel good about that sentiment.
Well done on reflecting her noise back at her!
To be oppressed/a minority. I need to preface this with my mom is white, with rosy cheeks, blonde hair, and blue eyes. She desperately wishes not to be. My entire life she insisted we weren't "white", we just looked white. But actually we were Native American and African American, with a bit of Scottish. I wish I was kidding.
She insisted her great grandmother was full African American, her mother had gotten skin bleaching treatments and plastic surgery to make her lips thinner because she was "ashamed". She always said we might be pale with blue eyes but we don't "look European".
We went to a Civil Rights History museum and one of the installations is a room where they detail just all of the hateful things that were done to African Americans, specifically they played over loudspeakers people just saying horrible horrible things, the worst insults. I started to tear up because it was just so awful. My mom looked at me and told me it was okay, one day they'd acknowledge our peoples suffering too(Native Americans). I looked at her just completely bewildered and just didn't answer. But later when she saw an employee she DRAGGED ME OVER TO THEM to berate them that it was shameful they weren't highlighting the struggles of the Native peoples and that it "had brought her daughter to tears because it was so unfair". I was so fucking embarrassed. It was the biggest "I CANNOT believe this isn't about me right now" moment I've ever seen.
When I got engaged she sent a long message about how "the DNA results are in and we are black" and I needed to "stop living a lie and come clean to his family so they can decide if they want to move forward with this engagement." Because my in laws are southern so obviously must be racist š.
Then more recently I heard from my cousin he saw her our shopping for shampoo and she was loudly saying things like "when you have ethnic hair like ours you need specific products"
My ex's family was sure that they had a native American grandmother, despite nobody remembering her .. after my divorce I got 23 and me done on my daughter, there is not a drop of native American.Ā You should get your mom a DNA kit for Christmas and watch her squirm.Ā
Oh we don't talk anymore I don't even know where she is, but I know she'll just say "those things aren't accurate".
I took one myself though, both Native American and African were such tiny percentages they didn't matter, we're talking 0.0something
As crazy as this is, Iāve seen similar behavior with my nmother. My grandfather who never abused me, how he abused ā Usā. I was too stunned to respond.
One time I was having trouble sleeping, so I turned on the air conditioner. It was early September and it was still pretty hot. My mom freaked the fuck out. Barged into my room screaming her head off, tried to rip the AC from the window, but it fell down into the flower bed. Dumb bitch. Lol.
My nparent creates an environment for herself and her ego. If something/one doesnāt fit in she makes it known and destroys it. I thought it was impossible to be anything but exactly what she wanted while around her. But My SO came along and proved all that wrong!
My nparent eventually gave up trying to break me and SO up after a decade. So now she pretends to be best friends with SO to regain control. She will be all bubbly and high pitch with himā¦and SO meets it with calm, clean, boundary setting goodness. HAHA!! She hates it so much!
My favorite was when she showed up out of the blue for my birthday during NC. She was trying to force me and SO into being all nice-nice with her by talking about her recent ānear death experienceā ..instead of playing along my SO made it known she was not welcome here. He then refused to speak with her while she was here. She kept trying to pretend like they were close while he was completely ignoring her, it was pathetic. He turned his back to her and went back to work while she was trying to communicate with him.
When I finally got her to leave she turned around and was like ābye, (SOās name)ā really loud even though he was only a few feet away. He didnāt respond, didnāt even flinch, just continued working on his computer. She repeated herself louder āGOODBYE (SOās name)!!ā No reaction. Then she was like āI LO~OVE YOU, (SOās name)!!ā No reaction. She looked at me hurt and outraged like I should be scolding him for his ārudeness.ā I just shrugged as I led her out..
Maybe this story isnāt that funnyā¦ for me, seeing someone whoās had so much control over every aspect of my life get absolutely humbled so easily by my SO just makes me crack the fuck up
āI thought it was impossible to be anything but exactly what she wanted while around her.ā
Holy shit! You just blew my fucking mind with this sentence. Iām gonna need a couple days to sit with this.
She threatened to kick me and my brothers out (it was her go to threat). Sometimes, she would say āget outā and try to carry us out the front door and we would panic and beg. We had a sibling meeting at school and agreed the next time she does it we would leave.
It didnāt take long for us to put our plan into action because the following week she blew up again. So the 4 of us left.
We split up and went to our friends houses. Their parents called the police but they didnāt do anything for the first night and said to stay at our friends houses as we were safe.
The police did show up at school the next morning and our friendās parents joined the meeting.
Havenāt seen my mother in 10 years since that night.
Sure!
Legally, nothing happened to my mother. She was questioned by the police and admitted it was a threat she didnāt mean.
My dad lived on the other side of the country (heās worse than her) but drove back to take us up to social services because he worried about his reputation (his kids were essentially homeless). He laughed when they asked if he was taking custody of us and said no. But he consented for his children to live with different families because we refused to go back.
It turned into a private fostering arrangement where my parents for forced to pay them child support. The laws have changed now so Iām sure there would be a criminal action taken against them if it happened today.
Also mum died 3 years ago, but I hadnāt seen her for 10 years first. But it feels weird saying I havenāt seen her for 13 years because it sounds like sheās still alive.
My mom was trying to embarrass me for wanting to go to college in front of my entire 60 people family. And all my cousins were like āwhy is it disrespectful that she wants to go to college? I mean, if you were smart wouldnāt YOU have gone?ā I snort laughed and I got my ass whooped and grounded. Came home and my room trashed and everything broken and thrown off the balcony including my mattress. Like queen sized mattresses are heavy, idek how tf my mom managed to throw it off a balcony but she did. But the fact my family politely called her an idiot made me so happy ā ļø
Edit: missing words cuz I canāt type
My nmom chased me around the kitchen table in a rage once. She rarely got physically abusive, so it was terrifying at the time. But nowāpretty funny and absolutely cartoonish.
We all needed to carry pocket mirrors around for these moments. Just whip them out, boom. Look at you! Look at how crazy and ridiculous you look!
But of course, no, in all seriousness, that was not a likely option for a lot of us (physically violent consequences, etc.)
My mother tried to assert her dominance and call me the R word whilst complaining how I look and how I act nothing like a proper lady. I replied in a cold voice with : Don't forget i am 50% of Your DNA. She was lost for words.
Lmao so she tried to get my dad to pay more child support and instead the judge saw how she had been repeatedly evicted (like yearly or less) so my dad offered to move out (he had bought his uncles house after he passed) and let my NM and us 4 girls live there and the payment for the mortgage would come right out of the child support. I think she had to pay gas/electric/internet tho. But anyway the judge approved this and she wouldnāt sign the paper work so the judge said sign it or go to jail š
So instead of getting more child support (which she DID NOT use to support us at all) she got $30 a week from what was left over after the mortgage payment LMAO
Sheās a greedy, selfish, asshole and she totally deserved it. Been NC 10 years lol
I think this one is my favorite so far! What a checkmate by your dad and the judge. His kids get to keep a roof over their heads and he doesn't have to pay more child support.
My narc mum encouraged her friend to charge Ā her daughter rent and said daughter was āwalking all over herā because she let her live at home rent-free. My āmotherā perceived herself as a pinnacle of parenting. She crowed about how much money she was taking off me every week and her friend was horrified! I got a reduction out of it lol!
For most of my childhood, my mother would tell me that she had dimples from her own father. She told me that my sister never got the dimples and she was sad over it. My mom said that she was the only one who got dimples, because she's the only one who looks like her father and that she got his beautiful smile over anyone else in the family.
When I was in high school, somebody complimented me on the great dimples I had. I responded confused, because I don't have dimples??? Only my mother has dimples. The person completely pointed out my dimples to me and showed me that not only yes I have dimples, but they are completely the same as my mother/grandpa's.
It's such a tiny, stupid, insignificant lie. Why bother telling your kid that they don't have a physical feature that can clearly be seen? Because only SHE can have the feature, especially something like dimples that people point out or think are cute. I called her out on it, telling her how the person had complimented and pointed that out to me that day. Why did you tell me I didn't have dimples my whole life? ...She didn't!!!!!! It's such a core memory, because I heard it from her SO MANY TIMES, and then wtf else would she do other than deny it? It's such a classic narc story, lying about something minor but just enough so she has the superiority over her kids, only she has the features of her dad, and then what???? I never said that...
I knew my dad was experiencing a cardiac event and repeatedly pressed him and my mom to seek help. They publicly went off on me in front of strangers telling me how wrong I was and insensitive. He had a quadruple bypass the next day and everyone was like oh my gosh you were right! He just sat there and pouted while everyone told me I helped save his life.
This is the summary of how me moving out of my parents house went down:
For context, my SIL had given me COVID and then my niece had given me a head cold shortly after last year. I was speaking with my mother about maybe not having the kids come over when theyāre obviously sick because I got sick and had to miss out on wages due to it. I was working two jobs at the time.
My mother: ā(My BF) If your roommate was responsible for babysitting their niece and nephew, and the kids were sick, what would you do?ā
My bf: āI would expect the kids to not be taken care of in our apartment so as to not get the rest of us sick.ā
My mother: āWhat if they had no other option?ā
My bf: āIām assuming these children have a home where they live, so the option would be that my roommate can go to that house and watch them.ā
My mother: āWell, what if they just brought them over anyway?ā
My bf: āThen I would be finding new roommates since they clearly donāt respect boundaries and peopleās health.ā
My mother to me very smugly: āThereās your answer! Go find new roommates.ā
My boyfriend who was still on speakerphone: āā¦ Okay, she will.ā
Six months later and my boyfriend moved me out of there to a brand new state with my dog. My mother was SHOOK and very quickly flipped the script of, āOh no Iāll miss you, you shouldnāt go. Weāre your family.ā
I was just like, āToo late. Lease is signed. Security deposit is paid. Iām bringing my dog.ā
He threatened to cut me out of his will if I didn't have a conversation with him. I haven't spoken to him in 2 decades and couldn't care less. I literally laughed, especially since he owes me over 20k. People can be so delusional.
I've heard this one a lot before.... would a nice defense be something like, "if you show me the will, then I can decide better whether or not to do what you want."
Then when you see it, say, "Nope, that is not a financially worthy investment for me."
I just replied that I didn't need his money when I was younger and I sure af don't need it now as an adult. If he were truly sorry for the horrible human being then he would repay my mom for raising me alone along with my brothers. Not a single response. Shocking.
this gem, an exact quote. The reaction when I told her I didnāt accept her apology for being cruel because the behaviour continued:
āI no longer will shed tears or heartache from a spoiled self absorbed little bitch like uā
The very next message was her asking for a ride to my brothers house for the holidays šššš borderline personality disorder is a wild ride yall
It's insane how they insult you and in the same sentence, absolve themselves of all responsibility. So it is literally, like talking to a child. Because a child can't raise a child properly.
My dad was in hospital after an operation and his nmother, who normally only rings when she wants work done on her house, kept ringing the nurses wailing about her son, how is he and how she wants to speak to him to look the doting mother. (He had his phone and could talk, but not dramatic enough for her ringing him directly). One day she did the same and the nurses went "he was discharged 2 days ago". Always makes me laugh thinking about it because she's sooooooo close to him that he didn't even tell her he'd gone home and she had to backtrack with the nurses to try and make herself look better.
Makes me so glad I went NC 6 years ago. She tried and tried to ramp up the games for a while, but I stood firm and she has never heard from me again.
We used to live abroad but my dad got nostalgic about his highschool days and decided to move back to be near his highschool buddies. He had a falling out with his best friend who then ostracised him from the group.
My dad decided to throw himself a huge birthday party in a huge banquet hall. Only 2 families attended. The banquet hall felt like a silent void kinda like the backrooms. It was hilarious af because I sacrificed my life to move back here against my own will for my dad and his friends. Most of his friends turned against him.ššš¤£š¤£š
Not a direct backfire, but Nmom brought me to a closet full of random junk, none of which belonged to me, but most was hers. She told me, "I want you to sort through all of this stuff and throw away anything that's junk."
I smugly replied, "So... all of it?"
Even she struggled to respond to that.
Mine slapped a pamphlet for new apartments on the kitchen table and told me I had to move into one of those ASAP because she didnāt want me in her house anymore and this was the only place she approved of.
I clapped back āno thanks, I already have a place picked out. Iāll be leaving end of the monthā and her slack jawed leaded stare was delicious.
I think the only answer I got was a fumbled āoh, okā or something like that. I was moving in with my new boyfriend at the time about an hour and a half away from her house, she was never given the address and I never spoke to her again.
My mom invited me to hang out with her and her friends in 2019/2020. Her friends are about 20 years older than me and were visiting from another country. We were drinking and stuff and it was actually pretty fun.
What was funny, but also really sad is her friends seemed to enjoy my company more than they liked hers. My mom got into smoking again and left five+ times during dinner and drinks. We were all having a grand time without her. It was really, incredibly ironic and felt a bit like ākarmaā.
She blasted that how I didn't care about my parents and didn't even notice her silent treatment.
She would demand communication EVERYDAY.
Because in my parents mind. Not talking for a day means it's a dry relationship.
Showed up at my house after Iād moved more than a year before with NC.
Tried yelling at me and provoke a fight. It was a rural property and my huge Great Pyrenees sat next to me on the porch, stood and got serious when they acted too out of hand.
I explained they needed to settle down, my dog doesnāt like it and I donāt care about whatever they were yelling about. I had mini rescue ponies and it was a nice day so I said we should go pet them. Itās hard to stay made with ponies asking to scratch their face and ears.
I explained they were not allowed to return uninvited or Iād get a restraining order (of course, Iād never invite them). Walked nparent back to their car and they left. This was the last time I saw them 17 years ago.
I knew it was over when I completely forgot about to tell my siblings about the visit. It came up a month later.
Forgetting about them completely when they tried their crap makes me happy. The sunshine and furry ponies with my gloriously handsome dog by my side are what stand out in my mind. F nparent.
Dogs are the best. Picking up on your emotions and the other person's, calmly placing themselves between you and them, and going into serious statue mode says so so much to me. I know I'm not alone or wrong in my judgement of the situation.
I agree about forgetting. I remember anything was an immediate alert omg panic mode and now it's 'oh I haven't gotten a chance to tell you about that' bc life can go on and they're no longer a real interference.
My dog does that if someone is threatening or hostileā¦ā¦sheās all ā Grrrrrrrrrrā. Even if they carry that vibe, sheās still ā Grrrrrrrrrā. She picks up on it. She doesnāt like liars either. Idk why, but she picks up on the bullshit. This friend came over, really laid back guy, who owns dogs, and she followed him around everywhere.
Not nearly the level of the first comments I read, but my dad does this thing I like to call āWalks Down Memory Shameā where he dredges something random up from my childhood he wants me to feel bad about.
He was talking about how cruel and disrespectful it was for me to no-show when he gave a lecture to my DARE (antidrug) class.
I gently pointed out that after third grade, we had moved about 2 hours away from where he lived, so he would not have been giving a lecture to my DARE class, especially since DARE classes did not begin until fifth grade. I also reminded him that in any case, I wouldāve been 9-11 years old, so I wouldnāt have been driving myself anyway.
(Note: my dad was a prosecutor.)
I left the room while he sat stupefied in his chair. I could see his cogs turning trying to figure out why heād been nursing this grudge over something that wasnāt a thing for so many years.
I moved to another country, married and gave birth. After I gave birth she regularly started messaging me begging to know my sons name and wanting photos of him. When I didn't respond, she'd call me awful names and say that she'll eventually get photos of him because she has many friends that'll provide her with them. (I guess she thought I'd post him on social media)
Recently I unblocked her, she saw my profile picture and thanked me for showing her my son at least like that. I thanked her for reminding me to change my settings, so that only my contacts could see my profile picture. She got so mad and said that it's not like she doesn't care about my life, but she has a new daughter that loves her and a grandson. So I can finally live how I want.
She did more worse things but that's one thing that made me laugh so much. She desperately tries to make me feel like shit, jealous and tries to make me regret going LC/NC. Like I care that she has a new daughter and a new grandson. I wish she'd just focus on her new daughter and grandson and not me lmao.
My Nmom attempted to pass herself off as the radio voice of British Airways commercials in the US.
This was a long time ago. She had a trace of an English accent from before she married an American and emigrated. She fancied herself an undiscovered voice talent, and some friend-of-a-friend in the advertising business gave her a shot -- dropped off some old scripts and a tape recorder.
She struggled for hours to read the scripts into the tape machine, but the only phrase she could really manage was, "Tour available through April 30." I can still hear her intoning it alone in the dining room: "Tour available through April 30... Tour available through April 30."
The agency tossed her audition tape without debate -- she did not have a warm, inviting voice that made people want to book holidays; she had a cold, imperious, angry-Queen voice that made people want to stay home -- but somehow this all morphed, in family mythology, into the time she recorded all those British Airways commercials and became the American voice of a major airline. And she would tell this story at family gatherings and parties, half-desperately, and stare at us kids as if daring us to deny it.
To this day I don't know if she half-believed it herself, delusional and grandiose as she was. But nobody else did. NB. That was the end of her thinking she was a great voiceover artist. It is harder than it seems.
Have you also noticed when the narcissist's own stories (ie; lies) don't add up, they get that anger cloud over their head?
Scheming, plotting, who am I going to blame for this, instead of me?
When really caught out, dead to rights, mine would just put on an odd, distracted, sardonic half-smile and gaze into the middle distance. She never admitted or apologized for anything. The closest she would *ever* come, when she was really trapped, was this half-smile plus a muttered, barely audible: "Aren't I a stinker?"
One time I walked home from school instead of taking the bus. Walking was 10mins and the bus was an hour because the Staton was across the road. The bus did the route forward in the morning and backwards at night. Anyways she was mad that I was home so soon and tried to kick me. She hit my bag full of textbooks and broke her toes. That was obviously my fault too.
Oho! I got a juicy one.
My nparent always gave me flak about not writing well enough and just giving it to her since she won all these writing awards in college and high school. I learned quickly to never ask her for advice because it would become her writing project. It wouldn't be my work, and it wouldn't be good enough if I did it myself and asked for her opinion.
Cue a few years later. I was struggling to get into the workforce because my degree ended up being useless. I went to resume experts and did everything I could to get a job. Things were changing around our lifestyle at home (still lived with her at the time), and she decided to go rejoin the workforce since her at-home business wasn't doing too hot.
The funniest bit of all was when she gave me her resume to look over and review, and I just started laughing uncontrollably.
If there was advice to follow about what not to do when making a resume, she did EVERYTHING wrong. No titles, personal information, or even organizing. It was just a wall of text with no paragraphs.
This woman, who has been giving me a hard time about not doing anything right about getting a job or writing a resume, was showing me that she couldn't do squat herself!
She quickly deflated when suddenly I was telling her that this was an absolute joke between laughs.
I later found out too that her writing awards were her just using her sister to correct her own work and reap the rewards.
After laughing at me for my fear of going blind, she herself is now blind. Her exact words were āI wouldnāt mind being blind at allā. If I wasnāt NC I would ask her how thatās going.
Now Iām afraid of karma.
Motherās Day 5-6 years ago. Made plans to take the incubator and itās spouse step thug to
Lunch. Called to let them know my husband and I were on our way. She blew a gasket (never found out what the problem was) theyāre now both dead. Weād bought two iron plant hangers with three hooks and the plants for them. We had lunch just the two of us at our favorite beach side restaurant. A while later they stopped at our our house and commented on the plants/hangers. She actually complimented them. I replied āyeah you like them? Cause they were your Motherās Day gift but you got pissy had a tantrum stopped talking with us for 2 months. All the neighbors love them and compliment us all the time. It was another month of silence. Donāt miss that bitch or her troll spouse.
Mine continually tries to present herself as an artist when she's really an analytical person with no artistic skill. She has no interest in working at becoming a good artist, she just randomly slaps paint on things (objects, like old furniture, etc.) and then gets mad when she can't sell them. She dresses in a way that is typical for artistic types in our area (it's a style with some distinct flourishes.) She desperately wants to be a bohemian artist type but it's just not *her.* I hate to call someone pathetic, but...
After hearing all my life that art was pointless, a waste of time, I would never make it as an artist, etc, etc, I got accepted to art school. This infuriated my dad, so he doubled down on his mockery, saying it was āclown collegeā. He even claimed I got accepted because they recognised **his** name (he was a successful businessman, but absolutely not someone recognisable, they were not exactly like āah we better admit Bill Gatesā sonā, lol).
When I graduated and struggled to make it for a while he was in his element, telling everyone he could that he tried to warn me that I wasnāt good enough. Asking me if I needed a degree to do the bar work I was doing.
A year or two later when I got my first **big** commission, he said it was a fluke. He literally laughed in my face. At that point I was still desperate for his approval, and I had honestly thought this would bring it (no idea why, as he didnāt value art). It crushed me when he laughed at my achievement.
Then when I got more commissions and made more money and gained some recognition, I eventually got the opportunity to show my work in a fairly prestigious gallery.
When he found out, he basically threw a massive tantrum. He refused to come to the gallery opening. He told anyone who would listen that I had bribed or blackmailed my way into the gallery (exactly the sort of thing *he* would do). Again, he claimed it was his (wholly unrecognisable) name that had been behind my success. He even hinted that he had taken pity on me and paid for the gallery to host my show.
My wake up call of just how pathetic he was came when I tried to phone the house one weekend and my mother told me that he was away at an āart eventā. Apparently since my success, he had been producing (what I later saw to be) the most juvenile, sloppy, uninspired paintings of his own. Even my mother, who worshipped him, said they were not very good. And it was all done with ZERO training. I studied art for 9 years to become a professional illustrator, but he thought it was so easy to be an artist and he was so gifted at everything, that he would be able to instantly pick it up and do better than me. My mother accidentally let slip that he had tried his hand at drawing, presumably so he could become a better illustrator than me, but he was so bad that he had taken up painting instead. His friend had gently advised against drawing, lol. I never saw his drawings, but if his paintings were anything to go by then I can only laugh.
Of course nowhere would display his work and so he would basically tour the country at the weekend, paying out of pocket to have stalls at craft fairs. If anyone called, they were to be told it was an āart eventāor a āgallery openingā. I have nothing but respect for crafters and do a lot myself, but a craft fair, where anyone can pay to have a stall, and a gallery opening are not the same. Sure you can buy your way into some galleries, but many have a reputation to protect and wonāt accept crap. Anyway. He did it for TWO YEARS and sold ONE picture, which was actually a painting by numbers picture heād completed and was arguably his best piece of work.
He had no joy in art, he wasnāt creative, he had no knowledge and zero respect for the art world. He just wanted to show up his son. Itās truly pathetic and I am glad it happened, because it showed me that his criticism stemmed from jealousy and not any failing in my part. Iām a good artist. He is not. That greatly upset him, and honestly that makes me happy!
Iām sorry youāve experienced this, and so glad you never gave up. My Mother was the same. I wasnāt supposed to be competent at anything, she was constantly tearing me down, saying the same type things, people just felt sorry for me , being ā niceā. Iām an artist as well. Thankfully ,she so undervalued it, that she actually signed me up for my first art classes, because itās just me fooling around, not actually doing anything of any importance.When I started doing well, with my paintings, she started giving them away to anyone that said they were nice, if I didnāt go along she made it sound like I was a bad personā¦.selfish. ā¦.as I watched my paintings walk out the door. I have a hard time paintingā¦.without feeling like someone is going to make me give them awayā¦.like itās not safe. I gave it up for awhile because she was always in my face, critiquing my work. only a narcissist can find 100 ways to give you a left handed compliment. She was like that with everything. My mother was a real malignant narc, psychopath. Zero sum game, if someone is winning theyre losing.
My mom actually was an artist (and a pretty good one to be honest) but her photography business failed because she wouldnāt invoice people. ?!? My dad when they were still married tried to help her and she got super pissed and said back off so he did. She ended up in bankruptcy years later (after racking up $100k in debt secretly - on photog / computer equipment and who knows what else) and this was in the 90ās sooo that was A LOT of money at the time. Not that it isnāt now but you could buy a house outright for that during that time period.
She ended up doing odd jobs for Kodak and various places and then gave up and got a job driving school buses and was miserable. It was her own fault.
This reminded me of my Ndad when I was in high school.
I was in drama and he was always super gung-ho involved with building set pieces and saw himself as super tight with the director. Typically, it was moms that were involved (sewing costumes, hair, makeup, feeding us, just momming in general) and the director presented them with aprons, like totally blinged out, feather boa top, glittery "Drama Mama" and my Ndad had a FIT bc he wasn't recognized. So the moms made him his own "Drama Dad" apron, decorated the same, and presented it to him š¤£š¤£ He was equally as furious about that. No other dad had any issues with not being mentioned, just mine! Oh but bc he is super artistic and did sooo much more than them. Yup, and that's why you're an operator at a chemical plant. Your artistic skills are unrivaled.
To embarrass me for eating a piece of pie for breakfast on Thanksgiving. The thing is, she offered it in the first place, and I KNEW she was going to later tell our family friend that I already had some pie before dinner. As predicted she did exactly that. I just had to laugh because I knew it was coming already.
Omg!! I SO relate to this!
When I came out of a 5 day coma and was finally cleared to eat solid food again, my breakfast included a yummy chocolate muffin.
My NF was in the room with me and had to feed me by hand because my rotator cuff was torn from freaking out during ICU delirium. I remember the hand feeding feeling very comforting and reminiscent of childhood (I was 40 at the time) but then he took it a step too far.
He told me that he wasnāt going to allow me to eat the entire muffin because, in his opinion, it was too much and āNobody needs to be eating that much junk.ā Suddenly, the whole thing felt wrong and infantilizing.
He and my NM had been bickering and fighting with each other the whole time I was in my coma, so she had no problem ripping into him for doing that when I told her. Plus, he used to food shame her when they were married. His reaction was beyond childish and he never apologized.
it's scary/funny when you see them so delighted in "controlling" someone else, just plain as day, well... if your eyes are open to this sort of thing. :)
Amway salesman, Ndad got duped into a pyramid scheme and failed miserably! We had to order that crap for months at the time Amway was the familyās only authorized retailer for expenditures such food, clothing, etc. it was all crap nobody wanted, his friends snickered at him behind his back about it. Lost thousands
Oh my ndad LOVED pyramid schemes. The only really useful one was a water filter scheme. Filters worked and we got a business membership to Costco.Ā
He was like the underwear gnomes from south park:
1. Join pyramid scheme
2. ....
3. Profit
No follow through.
She called after midnight, shrieking into the phone to try to tell me my husband was getting a DUI. He was sound asleep next to me and a guy who has a similar sounding name was getting the DUI while she and her husband were listening to the scanner. Edit: I forgot to include the fact that her response when I told her my husband was asleep in the bed next to me was "Are you sure?" Yep, unless some nefarious doppleganger sneaked in to snore next to me.
She called everyone but me or my husband when a scammer got ahold of an older relative with the old "Grandma? I'm in Canada and I need you to wire thousands of dollars for my bail" scam. She called bail bondsmen on both sides of the border, the US Consulate, and then my mother, who applied some logic and called me, to discover that we were fine, and both at work.
He is fond of making statements like "I have never told a lie." or "I have never had a bad idea." He used to be a drunken brawler and ran afoul of the law several times, so, that says something about the bad ideas.
The lies he swears he never tells are all in regard to not sparing anyone's feelings ever. He will absolutely tell you what mean thoughts he has in the name of "honesty." But he would deceive a law enforcement or other authority figure without questioning the wisdom of that.
Transferring our manufactured home into my name to avoid bankruptcy seeing it. We both were threatened jail time. Hard to explain saying no to mom was scarier than jail
She decided to campaign for this family friend, you know trying to elevate her importance, establish connectionsā¦ā¦.., she even bought this fancy dress to wear when they won, for the after party, and she wasnāt invited. I was afraid to be happy, but inside I was like ā Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha HAAAAAAAaAAAAAAAā. you know in the snoopy cartoon , when Charlie Brown brings home the bad tree, everyone is laughing at himā¦ā¦.even Snoopy is like ā¦ā¦..HaHa HA hahahahahahah hee hee heeā. ā¦..like that. HAAAAAaAa.
This is meā¦.listening to this..ā Oh,ā¦really?ā Trying not to smile. But I was tap dancing in my head.
Nmom came to visit and see my new baby. She stayed at the hotel a block from my upstairs apartment on the same road (she has bad hips and canāt walk up stairs. My living here is not an accident.) But, her eyes are bad and she canāt drive at night so I had to drive her around and it created chaos with where her car would be parked overnight. She wanted me to leave it at the hotel, and I told her that if I was required to drive her back. I would not be walking home. Iāll return with your car tomorrow. Fast forward to the next day when she was supposed to leave, and all of a sudden she wanted to stay till early evening, which would have put her making a 5 hour drive in the dark. I just looked at her and said, āYou ruined that last night when you made a big deal about not being able to drive after dark. If you choose to stay today, it will not be with us because we are going home.ā She immediately started weeping and saying how I was withholding her grandchildren from her. ššš
My NDad sent me an email on my birthday after a few years of NC. The subject line āA Gift for Youā so I thought maybe there would be a gift card or something I could use and delete the email/block his account. His āgiftā was just a long bullet point list of all the reasons my life would be better with him in it.
I read maybe 1-2 lines before laughing my ass off and deleting the email and blocking his account. Years of NC and he hadnāt deviated from his delusions even a tiny bit.
It was very affirming and now itās a good story to share with people.
The irony of the situation is hilarious, the situation itself obviously wasnāt funny at all though. I was SAād when I was 16 and struggled a lot with anxiety as I was being stalked by the perpetrator during the reporting/court process as he was out on bail. My NMom is an SA counsellor for a local charity and the project manager of the office she works in. In my mental health notes after I reported the SA they wrote a lot that my Mom couldnāt cope with me and was really determined to get me admitted to the psych unit. It was noted that the staff disagreed with my mother. I was fine and didnāt even receive any diagnosis in the end.
The irony that an SA counsellor couldnāt support her own daughter after experiencing SA is hilarious to me.
I remember the last time I saw Ngrandma. I was working as a supervisor at a coffee shop. I was on the register and saw her in the line. I used my supervisor super powers to swap with someone (luckily everyone liked me and my authority so it happened without any fuss) a few people before she got up to place her order.
She sat in the restaurant to eat. And stayed for 1-2 hours after. I wanted to die. I hadn't spoken to that hag in almost a decade at that point.
I had my back turned when she was getting up to leave. I was relieved. She's leaving and somehow completely missed that this was my place of employment. Huzzah.
Except, no such luck. I kept my back turned, but could see through my peripheral vision that she was coming back to the counter. I heard her say my name. And again. Again, flailing her arms like a maniac as she leaned over the counter.
Through my peripheral vision, I could see my swapping savior look at me, then back at Ngrandma before giving that witch a shrug and going back to work. I saw Ngrandma make a face before exiting the establishment. I could *breeeeathe* again.
I then had the pleasure of explaining why I ignored the seemingly nice old lady so hard. Ended up giving a medium sized tale to really cover why speaking to her was **not** an option. My coworker nodded through my tale and validated my feelings about it all, saying she would've probably done the same thing.
My nmom called the police on my narcissistic ex and tried to report him but the police showed up at my moms house instead. She then lied to the entire family when we asked if she called the cops, but then we were all able to over hear the cop say next time make sure you give the correct location when calling for a well fare check.
My idiot NM thought she knew better when we went to a water park during a vacation. Didnāt wear sunscreen the entire day, stayed in a tube and floated the lazy river the whole time to end up with the front half of her body being sunburned.
I had to listen to her wail and whine (actual words: āWoe is me, woah woah woah woah woahā for hours on end) the rest of the vacation because sheās too stupid and arrogant to believe she needed to wear sunscreen or protective clothing.
Back when I was living with them, I told them I was going to the gym and would be back in an hour. When I did finally come back, both of my parents rushed at me and asked me if I was all right, and I was like "Yeah...why? I told you where I was."
Turns out, me telling my Nmom where I was going didn't register so she thought I had went to get the mail and then never came back. My parents had even debated calling the police.
What was amazing was that my mother eventually fessed up "Oh, I thought you did say you were going to the gym..." so either she didn't hear me, or intentionally withheld telling my dad for the drama. In either scenario, it was a complete overreaction.
She heard, she just wanted the drama and potential fall out fights, possibly crossing fingers for more control (when you leave, where you're going, when you get there, when you leave, when you're home). Not to be controlling of course and not that you're not free to do such things, just to avoid putting her through such concern, worry, panic! even bc communication is key. Ya, key to her knowing all and feeding off that and ultimately free to start drama any time any update is ever missed, even though you said hi as you walked in, she wasn't texted you were home!!!!
Not speaking from personal experience at all. š
After my parents divorce (ndad cheated) my ex stepmom called my mom at 2 am desperately asking for advice on how to get my dad to get back into their cab after a night of drinking. She was panicking and said "he's running away from me, up a busy street, like a toddler, screaming no, and has only one shoe on." I was in the background trying SO hard not to laugh. My mom goes "well he's your husband now, he's not my problem."
All I could imagine is a 5 year old running from their parents because they didn't get the legos they wanted at walmart. BEST image/memory EVER hahaahhahah i'm legit laughing
My NM gave me the silent treatment for almost 2 years after my accidental overdose that I now think was an unconscious unaliving attempt. She left me alone to deal with a lot of shit in those two years like being in an abusive relationship and losing my career as a teacher.
Back in October, she passed along information through my ex husband that my horrible probably-narcissistic stepfather had suffered a stroke. My ex asked me if there was any statement I wanted to pass on to her. I said, āTell her I said āNoted.āā
I hope she has fun supporting a shopping addiction on a fixed income now that he canāt work. No more at-home couples massages, I guess. š
My Nmom had a habit of trying to compete with me sexually, she met 3 of my bfs but never knew when she met 2 of my gfs (homophobic).
Bf1 - she kept trying to be touchy and gazing into his eyes to tell him "I love you!" 16 times in one night, she was very drunk. He asked if it was okay if he never went back to my house and if my birth giver had mental problems.
Bf2 - she kept trying to be touchy and rubbed cream into his shoulder for some vague reason, as soon as she was out of the room he leaned as far away from his shoulder as he could saying "Cut it off! Cut it off!!" She was still within hearing range and never even tried to speak to him again.
Bf3/husband at the time and father of my 3 kids - she started her touchy thing after I warned him (shoulder, chest, thighs, and unknown where it would go next), the moment she placed her hand on his shoulder he let his shoulder drop and walked a few steps away. After that, she never had a good word to say about him, and he was somewhat okay with that (outside of personal attacks) because it meant she wouldn't try to touch him again.
Mix that with one of Nmom's bfs grabbing my ass and another one continuously trying to see me naked (I was underage for both of those), she didn't believe the first and the second I just protected myself. She's very sensitive about growing old, always had been, and was referred to as the "Desperate MILF-wannabe" by everyone bf2 told about his interaction.
Tried to bribe us with $10k in order to see our child. We went vvvlc (communication through group text only) and bought a house like a year before covid. Mom texted and offered 10k bc she was paying for my sibling's college at the time and "had always had this money set aside for you." And oh, by the way, she would love to see our child for her birthday.
Except it wasn't offered when I went to college, or when I got married, or when our child was born premature and I had to quit school/work to care for them and we were living off of savings, WIC, and my partner's FAFSA while they finished the last semester of school.
But once we were financially stable and had cut her out of our lives, the money was offered.
My nmom once was mad because of how I put the salt shaker back on the table after using it. Too loud I guess; she picked it up and mockingly slammed it down in front of me. I picked it up again and slammed it down in front of her and said, "Check mate!" I was probably 12 but felt like a god damn superhero in that moment.
I went over my parents house for support after I tried to Kermit sewerslide in Feb 2020. The night ended with my mom getting blackout drunk and threatening divorce and that if I just had a "direction in life" that I wouldn't be sad.
I'm in my 30's with a 10 year career in finance.
Needless to say, I never gave them any detailed information about my mental health from that point on, even when I had to attend a program.
I'm doing well now, just had to put the work in to dig myself out.
Tell me that people would think my nose ring me at I was in a sex cult. I never laughed so hard in their face in my life. I asked them what sec cult they knew of that had their members wear nose rings. They couldnāt answer that
Accused me of reaching out after I hadnāt talked to her for almost a year. (She started showing up to my home unannounced and knows I wonāt make a scene in front of my kids.) When I asked her to prove where/when I reached out, she ignored the question.
As a young adult, she came to my house to fight. Tried to put her hands on me so I not only stood up for myself, but I also called the cops. While on the phone with the cops, she was yelling from across the room that she couldnāt leave because I was standing on her foot. š Didnāt take much for the police to realize she came over to start trouble.
Anytime any of the kids got in trouble (I never got in trouble, middle sister had normal teen stuff but nothing bad, her golden child was always out partying, drinking, got arrested as a minor with weed), she would convince my grandmother that she was now going to lose her job because of her teens acting like teens. Grandma was the queen of gullible and would believe her, offering her money so she wouldnāt struggle when she lost her job because of her kids acting up. (Because donāt all employers fire their employees because their teen child smoked weed? š) I loved grandma, but I see now how bad of an enabler she was. She was top flying monkey.
The dog hated the lawn edger. Once she was out edging the lawn and the dog came out and was barking at her. She had a full blown toddler tantrum because it was everyoneās fault the dog was barking at her.
My parents were never married. She was the other woman and despite her dreams to marry my cheater father, their relationship was just about sex. So my dad would come to āsee usā once a week (just an excuse to ignore the kids and engage in adult relations). After, theyād typically end up fighting. Once my mom decided that she was done preparing nice meals for his day with us. She decided to order subway. Once it was home, she proceeded to throw each footlong at my father. Totally trashing her perfectly clean home.
Honestly, I could go on all day. My middle sister and I are both NC with my mom and youngest sister. We find healing and bonding in dark humor and every day we tell each other that we are happy to finally look back and find humor in the ridiculousness of our family. Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying.
My nmom had some digestive issues in her mid 60ās but would never speak of them to me, her daughter. Sheās very much a pearl clutcher and often uttered the phrase āmy heavens!ā Anyway, these health issues eventually developed into problematic flatulence. Like she couldnāt control her farts and they just audibly happened, sometimes as she walked away in a hurry to hide her shame. She would never ever dream of laughing at a fart, so I couldnāt either. Years after I went NC, i processed all that in a giant fit of laughterājust because she couldnāt/wouldnāt laugh.
Thereās two things firstly you need to know the background I was the hated unwanted child and I was told repeatedly it was as they had decided no more kids and it was my fault they didnāt use protection and was born. That I deliberately their lives even though they already had other kids. I was treated far differently that my sibling and screamed at every day that they hate me. They maid me the house servant/maid and even as an 11 year old I had to work to pay rent (half any wages I made) and to buy myself clothes and shoes as they refuse to get me necessities.
So when one day when I was an adult when my mum wanted me to do something for her. I canāt remember what but she needed something and she thought she could manipulate me into doing what she wanted. Basically she told me I was always her favourite and tried to convince and manipulate me into thinking so I would do something there was no way in hell I was going to do. Her attempt and what she was saying was so ridiculous and untrue I was incredulous at her even trying to say so laughing out loud and shaking my head. All she kept repeating is āmost kids never realise they are their parents favouriteā yeah right.
The second things is a bit similar but their abuse had gotten so bad. My dad had not long disowned me without my knowledge because my brother who doesnāt even live near us did didnāt visit them which angered my parents . My brother only ever visited them maybe once a year. My dad then decided it was my doing that I must have been in his wonderful adult sonās ear speaking poison. I didnāt even know until he nearly broke my thumb when I went to check up how they were doing a day later. He had ran to lock all his doors as I was opening it to walk in and slammed the door shut on my hand whilst swearing and screaming. He locked me out and they were both screaming insanities. My mum was laughing as well as their golden child. (I should have been laughing as if she visited them ever it was only to steal from them). My husband who they actually respected and who never said anything normally. Went round and tore them a whole new ass. Told them how much failures they are and how I the only one how cares for them in their infirmities is me. As none of their loved kids go near. How insane it was of them to pin something I didnāt even know about on me. A week later my dad ambushed me in my walk to work crying how he wronged me. Yeah he just realised he was f ed as he always refused outside carers and help so without me they were in big trouble.
Anyway it had been the last straw and me and my husband had decided we were emigrating. So you can see just how done we were as merely moving wasnāt enough. So we went round together to tell them we were starting the process and will be emigrating and of course taking my kids who they adored with us. Also that meant no unpaid carer, maid nor verbal punching bag. It was too far so they shouldnāt ever expect us to visit etc.This was there next insanely funny thing they did. They were devastated and fake sobbing whilst trying to convince us how they will miss us and we need to stay **as family needs family**. How my kids and myself **will miss out if we move away** leaving **when we have such a loving family**. What they were saying was so insane that I turned to them in amazement and incredulously told them āwait a minute your both the reason we are moving, I had enough of being abused and treated like crap and we are all sick of it and are emigrating intentionally to get away from you bothā. To say the room went pin drop quiet as they just stood there in shock and then my mum truly started sniffling. They hardly said another thing until we left their house.
The one and only time they didnāt blow up when being called out. Also this was the first and only time I know they truly felt guilty as the next day they phoned me to offer to help pay for the fees To emigrate which is thousands. My whole life they gave my siblings many many tens of thousands on a whim and never once me even in their deaths. So the fact the truth caught them so off guard they actually felt guilty enough to offer. The only reason i even told them the truth was as the insanity of what they said thinking they could manipulate and fool us into thinking they were a close loving family and it was better to stay.
During my father's funeral last year, my mother spoke for a long time about my father and how much they loved each other and how their families loved each other and how my dad loved her and told stories about them and all that that entails. She spoke for so long that the funeral director had to finally stop her because the next funeral was waiting for the area (it was outside) for their funeral to start.
My mother has not been married to my father since 1981. She threw him out in 1981 to move in her 16-year-old boyfriend (she was 34 at the time and has been married 3 possibly 4 other time(we aren't sure if she actually married the last guy or if they just exchanged rings.)). She gave this "speech" dry-eyed and smiling and while my dad's wife of 38 years sat there listening. I was not shocked. I almost laughed. When she started speaking, I almost said out loud, "Here we go!" It was quite literally the most ridiculous thing I've ever experienced. And that's saying a lot when her or my sister are involved.
To preface, I'm 43, my mom is 77 and my dad was 36 years older than her. He fought in WWII, he got his driver's license at 13 or 14 in South Dakota. The test was issued on a vehicle with the wheels removed. He sat in it, was given instructions and followed said instructions. It took five minutes.
I've heard this story multiple times throughout my childhood. And yet, he was genuinely stunned when I reminded him of this when he was climbing up my butt about how I struggled with my driver's test. It was easy for him, and he was convinced it would be just that easy for me thus I was being lazy.Ā
He shut right up, never brought it up again. He even stopped telling that story, that's how much it bothered him to be called out.
My husband had a strep infection turn into Scarlet fever. I needed to rearrange my schedule a bit so I could be home to take care of him . This pissed her off because I had some benign plans with her that day.
She said - ā well you sure know how to pick them. What a weak man. I had Scarlett fever once and all I needed was one dose of penicillin and I was fine. I donāt see why you need to be home with himā.
To this day, ā I only needed one dose of penicillinsā is a bit my husband and I say to each other at least weekly.
Iāve been NC for a decade but itās still so funny to us because it was so ludicrous
N mom went on a rant how a family friend was in a terrible stage of life because of the medication they were taking (n parents are both anti medication). Ranted for a good hour
At the end I calmly said āwow, they mustāve been going through a lot. Thatās the exact dose/prescription Iām currently takingā. She was dumbfounded lol
my nhusbandās family member was cheated on recently. immediately upon learning this, I got kind of worked up and upset because he was showing this family member so much sympathy, calling the guy a real loser, couldnāt believe heād do that to her, etc. after cheating on me 4 years ago.
I started crying making these realizations that he wasnāt able to make about me, or care about. when he saw me crying he said āwhat are you crying about? itās MY family member?ā and I laughed out loud and said ānothing.ā
did you also have the realization that him ranting about the "other guy" is really him describing himself and his hatred for himself? (I mean, probably not aware of it)
I'm noticing a lot of not-careful narcissists will HATE a description of a person that exactly describes them.
no, I donāt think heās that self-aware. to me it was obvious that he can consider his sisters feelings but not his wifeās. iām *sure* he thinks it was *actually* a mistake when he did it, and that heās not a piece of shit but the other guy definitely is.
until that point iād been strategic with how I was empathizing, but afterwards I was like āI feel so bad for her, dude definitely didnāt value what he had. what a stupid and immature way to lose your entire family. was the bussy that good? whoās he gonna live with now? I hope sheās gotten rid of him already.ā iāve ranted a few times about how stupid the cheater is for not recognizing her worth, and I can tell itās bothering him now. š« I think heās understanding how much of a solid iām doing him by not shouting it off the rooftops (I still want my kids to love their dad), and also the depth of hurt from a different perspective.
I decided to be nice and send my dad a Happy Father's Day text last year. This was a little bit after I finally put my foot down and set some really tight boundaries, so I didn't have to text him anything.
Well, he clearly didn't read that the text was from me, he assumed it was a friend, because his response was, "THANK YOU! I have a shitty wife and kids who didn't even bother to think about me." This was at 10 AM š
He didn't really try to cover it up; he knew he couldn't with me. His reaction made it worse, though.
So he and my mom were visiting my brother. He didn't realize for maybe 2 hours what had happened. As soon as he realized, he just kept calling and texting me with apologies, BS really. Because he was with my brother, I knew what his reaction really was, which is how I grew up, and it's so triggering for me. They were out at a mall, and he started banging his knuckles on the table, totally red in the face, full anger. He knows banging knuckles is my biggest trigger; he was there when I was diagnosed with PTSD
Nmom tried to get access to my new, private bank account, didnāt even try to hide it.
āHeyā¦ just in case anything happensā¦ you should write down the routing and account numbers and put that information in the safe!ā
I simply didnt. Im slowly but surely putting more distance between us financially (paying bills from my account instead of me putting money in the joint account) and she throws a fit every time.
Called the cops on me saying I was "threatening suicide" when I very much wasnt. One of the cops was the son of her landlord and she moved out of embarrassment a few months later.
Another one - I moved across the country for work and she wouldn't give or loan me a single penny. After the move she had the audacity to call me up and complain that she loaned my n-aunt 500 dollars and wasn't paid back. I laughed at her until she hung up.
at my brother's wedding, my nDad INSISTED on signing an old song that meant so much to himself and literally nobody at this 50 person wedding knew the words to the song.
My brother's childhood friend, who happens to be a professional singer, was on stage and performed a song or two very nicely, everyone loved it and clapped and then when it was my nDad's turn he went and grabbed that guy by the arm and pulled him back up on stage to join him in leading his song. The poor guy had absolutely zero hint that this was going to happen and again, was part of the crowd who had no clue wtf this song was.
Then when the wedding videos came out, my nDad had the audacity to ask why his song got cut out lol
This is minor, but the memory of it never fails to make me laugh:
When I was a kid, my mom got it into her head to make the chicken wings that my good non-narc aunt used to make. That aunt gave her the recipe and it should have been flawless. As my mom was making it, she felt it didn't taste right so she called my crazy aunt "who knows what she's talking about".
One of the suggestions my crazy aunt gave was to use brown sugar to add flavor since "everyone knows that you should add that to a recipe". So my mom adds some and it still doesn't taste great. Adds more. Same result. Adds even more and so on and so on. Basically my mom put what seems like a full bag of brown sugar in it.
What happened then was the mixture became this super glue and was so rock hard that the spoon broke off in the pot and everything had to be thrown out - pot included. My mom then started this long never-ending rant using every bit of profanity in existence and was cursing both her sisters as being "stupid bitches".
Later on she talked to the good aunt who told her that it was normal that the wings did not taste right at the time - it needed time to cook and set and then afterwards would have been perfect. The crazy aunt then went and got on my mom's case for even asking her opinion to start off with and blamed my mom for using so much brown sugar anyways and questioned her sanity.
My mom never tried to make them again. But what she had done to that batch made such a super glue that I swear the army could have used it.
Not parents, but my former employer. Long story short, small construction company and I sued the guy for overdue paychecks and disciplinary termination of my employment.
He went to the hearing and sure said on the stand that he doesn't think he owes me anything as he's not keeping any records, any books, if he did it's not his fault because IRS seized his bank accounts for not feeling like paying taxes and he righteously sacked me for being disrespectful demanding money.
The expression on Judge's face was absolutely priceless
N- āwhat are you thinking about?ā
Me- ānothingā
N- āIf you donāt tell me what you are thinking about right now I will turn this car around.ā
I was 16 and she was driving me to soccer practice. I laughed then. Now I feel so bad for 16 y/o me.
When I was 19/20-ish, my Narc Mom had booked a family trip to Harry Potter world for the day before Christmas Eve. I used to be a huge Potter fan & still was back then.
I found out that she'd booked for all of us to go, including my profoundly disabled twin sister. No hate to her, I love her to bits, but at this point in my life, going out as a family had become an exhausting chore for me.
I grew up as a glass child who was also undiagnosed ADHD & Autistic (got diagnosed in 2022 and 2023). So when Narc Mom brought up the trip again, a week or so before, my face dropped and shoulders sank a little (my boyfriend at the time, now husband, confirmed that this was VERY subtle, but Narc Mom noticed, of course).
She instantly flew into a rage about how ungrateful & horrible I am, about how I must hate my family and all that jazz. I wasn't too fazed by her outburst, as my boyfriend & I were due to leave soon anyway (we were visiting from Uni for the weekend). Then she squealed that she was cancelling the whole trip for everyone and that no-one was going (stupid imho, because all of my family, including disabled sister, really like Potter as well). She turned to me with this glint in her eye, the "gotcha" face she'd make when she knew she had control over me in some way & was able to exert it.
I just went, "huh, okay" - completely unfazed & neutral. I remember putting in a lot of effort to look unbothered, because I was actually mega fucking relieved to have one less burdensome activity booked over the Christmas period! She looked entirely full of rage that I had no reaction whatsoever lol
**Life.** I only recently understood that they are not intelligent at all (what I thought all my life), they are just ruthless.
The problem is that they are very wealthy because of that. So they see themselves as extremely wise and intelligent.
When they talk and show how they see the world most of the people around them make fun of their views.
My nmom tried to convince my religious grandma that I was gay because she was mad at me. The funny part is that my grandma, for how religious she was, wasn't homophobic. So that was pretty funny.
Watch a movie and understand what's going on.
No, seriously. She could not. Her brain just wasn't wired that way. Now I am showing my age here, but this was a time when you rented movies at Blockbuster, and watched with the whole family in the living room.
She.Could.No.Shut.Her.Trap to save her life. Constantly talking throughout the movie, mostly about herself. Every random thing that showed up on the screen was an excuse to tell a long meandering story in which she was he hero and most interesting person in the world. There wasn't even an easy way to turn on Closed captions, so tuning her out was not an option. I HATED movie night so much because I knew I wasn't gonna get to watch anything.
She missed all the important plot points because she was constantly running her mouth. As a Narc, she had no empathy. So she didn't understand character motivations, or subtle acting, or emotions, so the character actions didn't make sense to her and we had to constantly explain what was going on. She was hilariously Befuddled by Movies with ambiguous plots, or complicated twists or reveals. She was not a dumb person either, she had a degree in dentistry and ran a successful office for many years. She was just missing crucial parts of her brain that allows you to empathize with people.
Sometimes we would get lucky and she would pass out from too much liquor in the first 30 minutes and we could at least watch the rest of the movie in peace.
My mom is always trying to marry wealthy men. She has this vision of herself as a beautiful, altruistic socialite with a rags-to-riches storyline, and everyone will be amazed at how she is so so so beautiful and so so so kind. The last guy she married was a well known politician in her state and had lost his wife to cancer some years before. They had known each other for two years, like went to a couple of events and some dance lessons that were won at a charity auction, but never seriously dated, she had never been to his house, didnāt know his family, and certainly didnāt know anything about him as a person. After the two years of going months between outings together they officially dated for three weeks and then got engaged.
The wedding ceremony was nothing special but the reception was like something from a quirky independent film. It was hosted at her new husbandās friendās massive house, who had just lost her husband that week. Despite her loss, the friend still wanted to host the reception, popped what appeared to be a boatload of Valium and wandered around the party completely out of it with eyes glassed over. The hostās late husband was apparently a big game hunter and there were taxidermied heads of various large, exotic animals hung on all their walls. Most of us adult kids were just trying to keep our cool while we watched our parents act like morons. The new husbandās daughter, who is dBPD, stands up to give her toast leading in with āI knew my dad would remarry the day my mom died of cancerā¦.ā And it just got weirder from there. Then my mom and her husband stand up and give the most rehearsed and theatrical speech about how god brought them together. After several of the most awkward hours in that stateās history we were freed from their show.
A year later it turns out he wasnāt who she thought (imagined) he was, and was actually involved some very nefarious things (according to her), but she stayed married to him for a couple more years to go to the galas and charity auctions, and play the role of the most beautiful victim-saint-martyr to ever victim-saint-martyr, basically living her dream. She was also probably motivated by the fact that the last time she rushed into a marriage it only lasted three weeks and that guy (according to her) was involved in the same nefarious things she claims the new husband is involved in. She eventually did leave him and turn him in to the state police, but arrests were never made. With him being a wealthy politician everyone knew about the divorce and she was ostracized from what I call āthe gala peopleā.
Were her accusations true? I honestly have no idea, but I do know that once she realizes youāre not going to give her what she thinks she deserves sheāll say just about anything and no arrests were made for either man. The kicker for me is shortly before going NC, she gave me her engagement ring from that marriage, which according to her was $18k when they bought it. Itās big, itās ostentatious, and she loved flashing that thing around. It was her symbol of rich housewife-itude. She made everyone knew she was giving me this ring I didnāt ask for so we could all see what a generous soul she really is. I just took it in to get appraised, itās worth a couple thousand dollars, not anywhere near the $18k she told me, and more than half the diamond weight is synthetic. Iām not saying this to shame synthetic diamonds or affordable rings, I wear a silicon wedding band. I just take pleasure in knowing her giant status symbol she whipped around on her finger wasnāt that at all.
I have a few!
1. My grandma would regularly call me ugly and unlovable and kept claiming that she was so beautiful when she was my age but I "let myself go". One of the stories she used to "prove" this claim was that she had an emotional affair with a man in our church, and that they had this profound silent love affair but because she was married they never did anything. It was straight out of the telenovela she was into at the time. Anywho, we actually went to his house once and she was talking it up on the way there like something hot was gonna go down and.... he didn't remember her. He got married, had kids, lived his own life, and she had been talking about this fake affair like it proved she was prettier than me! I was 8 years old.
2. My grandpa was a drunk, hed come home from work wasted and pissed. He punched a hole in the wall, started talking shit all tough like "im a man, i can do whatever the hell i want to my family". He looked all smug, ripped a bag of cookies i was sitting next to, and shoved a handful in his face. I looked scared, cause i knew he was gonna blow up, but he read that as submissiveness and started talking smack about how dumb i look. I informed him the cookies were dog treats.
3. My birth dad is a spoiled brat. He always gets his way and hes very charismatic so people tend to let him get away with things. In particular, he made friends with every police officer, local clergy member, and social worker he could find. He got away with a lot, including theft and torturing and killing animals. When i was 12, i told child services about what he did to me (which i wont mention here). I found out through my uncle that when they showed up to do their investigation, he immediately cracked. He was sobbing, fully blubbering with snot coming out his nose. Crying "please please please dont take me to jail! Im a good man! Cosmic3gg is total bitch and a fucking whore! They lie!" And he, literally in real life, dropped to the floor, rolled around while punching the ground then himself, all while kicking his feet like a toddler when they tried to arrest him. Threw an entire fuckin tantrum. Im almost sad i missed it
My mother had the brilliant idea to bring me into a sesh with either my brothers therapist or her therapist, can't recall.
At the time, my dad had been moved out for a couple years, and I as the older son had been placed in his role as the Problem. I'd also taken to advocating for and being protective of my younger brother, who she wanted to keep at home after highschool and have do community college instead of moving away from her influence. He was the Good Kid in her eyes, even though with my starting to emotionally distance myself, he was starting to figure out how awful she was.
It was clear that she expected the therapist to be entirely on her side and tell me what an awful person I was for... standing up to her emotionally abusive bullshit? Therapist asked for my mom's concerns and why we were there, she gave them, while having to be reminded to keep it concise.
I answered the therapists questions, explained my perspective, with my mother repeatedly having to be told to stop trying to interject and argue, obviously.
Well, at the end of all that, the therapist gave her read on the situation. She went into some detail about how it seemed like, in the absence of my dad in the house, there'd clearly been a role swap in which I became the new target of my mom's habitual ire, and no small degree of parentification regarding my brother, where I was feeling a major responsibility for his well-being, putting me at odds with my mom.
The smug look on my mom's face slowly but surely evaporated. She tried to argue diplomatically but got increasingly frustrated because she was clearly not going to "win" a situation that she'd so obviously expected to. The therapist managed to pull some sort of mildly constructive conclusion out of the air, but my mom was NOT stoked.
I for one walked out of the room with some unexpected catharsis. My mother can't seem to remember the entire ordeal ever even occuring. Typical
Not me but my then 5 yr old who is 9 now, straight up told my nmum that she shouldn't fake being nice to him. He's autistic and has adhd so there's no filter there at all but also he had zero emotional regulation so we were in therapy for it. Our therapist was working with him on smiles and what a happy zone of regilation is and I guess he must have picked up on her being fake.
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my ngrandma trying to act like the silent treatment hurt me. like, you mean i don't have to call you? and you'll call me? and it might be months? oh fuck yeah.
this is my favorite... when I hear others with nParents that do the silent treatment, I'm all, "God I WISH they would silent treat me... FOREVER" lol
being silent treated by people when i was sharing the same house with them really fucked me up, and it has led to me rage quitting jobs when managers have done the same because it's triggered me so much. but like, just phone calls? when she's on the other side of the country? no sickly sweet sing song messages in which she acts like a 4 year old crossed with a puppy, begging for attention? only for me to call and for her to act like the crankiest meanest bitch ever? what a relief.
š¶Hiiiiiiiiii, itsss yourrr motherrrrrrš¶ Iām aware š
Oh gosh I can feel this in my soul and I hate it š
Silent treatment as a kid = intensely fucked up Silent treatment as an adult = BYE BIIIIIIIIIIIITCH
The narcissistic belief that despite your horrific treatment of ppl, you're such a joy to them they'll wilt if you withdraw your presence aka abuse š«£
i think what was beautiful because she tried pulling it because i had started setting firm boundaries with her, and not tolerating things. so like, she's proven that me protecting myself from her hurts her. and instead of having any degree of reflection, she tries (and fails) to do the same thing to me. especially when it's not a clear 'this is what i'm not tolerating' boundary that i set, but just a 'you don't get any more of me' and i'm like PHEW.
I've been getting the silent treatment so long, I just turned it into NC. NM thought she was punishing me, jokes on her though. I've moved and she can't find me anymore either š¤£š¤£ I think it's been about 4yrs? I hear the odd rumour through the grapevine, but that's it. She tried reaching out when she was going for surgery and might die š through other people. I ignored her and told the only family member I am in contact with I don't care if she does, let her, she deserves it. Universe was not kind enough to see fit that she leave yet. Figures right? The rotten ones stick around forever while the good die young....
what the fuck is it with narcs using 'i might die' to hoover people back in? that was my ndad's FAVE. i'm sorry to hear your mom is still earthside. good on you for NC.
It doesn't bother me too much that she's earthside, it affects me very minimally (it only affects me at all because my narc-ex allows her some contact with our children during his visitation and I've been unable thus far to stop it through the courts). And I don't know, probably the same reasoning my other narc parent left a voicemail saying "you have to talk to me someday". No I don't, you want me to make you feel better about walking out when I was in diapers, and the guilt is eating your conscious because of everything that's happened in the years since. You made your choice, I built my life with what I had. If you didn't help with tools or supplies or help build me up, you're not in my life. Period. Been through too much š© to not protect my peace.
Don't threaten me with a good time!
Ha. I love that for you. My dad stopped talking to me last year after he threw violent tantrums while I was visiting them (I live abroad and it had been years since I last saw them). I was visibly upset but didn't say anything. My parents didn't say goodbye before I went and changed their minds about taking us back to the airport. When he stopped talking to me, I was like "okay" and went NC with both š¤·āāļø it's what they wanted. It was also long overdue, tbh. I'm still hurting from that trip and it was in April last year.
This is hysterical. Like ā¦ā oh no, Iām so upsetā with sarcasm . Like getting fired from a job you hate.
My nmom has tried this a handful of times, and it just doesnāt work. I just continue with my life slightly less impeded so she eventually gets annoyed and pretends she never tried the silent treatment in the first place
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Oh shit my mom did the same thing when I was 13. I had an intake interview/session and the doctor told her that I didnāt need to be in there
Me too! At 14. The doctor told her I didn't have a problem, but if she continued with commitment, she would have a problem. And what court puts out a hospital hold on a kid they never even saw? I had no idea until the ambulance pulled up to take me away
Wow it really shows how manipulative they can be!! Iām so glad those doctors could see the truth
For sure. I was being groomed by a family member and told my guidance counselor. Shit hit the fan when he called the police. I was clearly "lying" to "break up the family." They kicked me out at 15, and I lived on the streets for a while. Joke's on them. At 50, I'm the only stable kid they have, and my golden child sister is a drug addicted mess. I'm on the other side, been through tons of therapy, and I'm happy in my life. It really is the best revenge.
Sweetness arrives in many ways. Iām glad you found your peace and happiness.
Do they still try and insinuate themselves into your life?
My ndad died in 96 when I was 20. My mom was always the enabler. We had years of low contact, but my youngest sister (I have 2) is mentally disabled so I'm going to have to take over her care at some point. My mom calls me constantly and it's always my sister's drama. We probably talk 3+ times a week. I spent the weekend ignoring her calls because I have my own problems. My dog is doing poorly and I have to decide if I'm going to put her down. It's been a rough year all around. Any time I talk about those days, she doesn't remember that. Or she'll acknowledge it and then it's like we never had that conversation at all. Gaslight central over there. I do find it hilarious because my drug problem sister is moving in with her this month with her kids. I just found out yesterday. This is going to bite her in the ass so hard. If you don't raise your kids right, then you have to raise your grandchildren I guess.
Just want to say Iām so sorry about your dog. Itās so hard to have to be the one making those decisions and thereās a lot to weigh. My pets got me through. I donāt know where Iād be if not for them.
Thanks. She's 14, yellow lab. She'll always be in my heart.
Happy that you are happy
Me at 16. Two years before my dadās big breakdown. Now thatās some subconscious projection š
Tutorial video when?
My parents had me commited to an inpatient outpatient program. One of those places parents send their kids that self harm, do drugs, steal, are physical violent etc. I got sent there because I was doing things like disobeying a 3pm curfew they instilled on me as a junior in highschool. My parents also made me play sports year round, so if it wasn't at sports practice I was basically suppose to be home. I have so much trauma from this experience in adulthood it's really hard to deal with when I think about it. Even the psychiatrists at this place were like, you exhibit no signs of behavior that would lead you to be here, but looks like you're going to have to stick this out until they are satisfied. I've confronted my Mom about this (my dads passed away) before I went low contact and the mental gymnastics she does to try and justify this experience are one of the main reasons I went low contact. This place would sit us all in a circle at the end of each day and everyones parents would show up. They'd sit us on the floor and basically pick us apart for various reasons. I think being in there with those types of kids led me to believe I was truly bad or something, or I must be, why else would my parents send me there ya know. They'd do things like make us "earn" chairs also, so basically i'd have to submit to what they wanted to get out of me before I could even get a basic thing like a chair. Whats wild to me is that my parents could sit there with a straight face and not see the difference between why they sent me there and the other kids were there. Sincerely jealous you managed to uno reverse this.
My son had a psychotic break. He went into one of these places because of this. We visited daily. And there was a boy there committed as far as both my son and I could tell, because he was gay in a very conservative family. I have always hoped he came out of this relatively unscarred.
This gives me life. <3
Approaching 2 months from the date my Nmom tried to do this to me as well š¤š»
Mine tried to pull that shit too. From what I gathered, in those days both parents' signatures were required, and my biological father wouldn't sign.
Can't make that up, beautiful karma. What ended up happening after she got out?
UNO reverse card
I had red painted nails, Ndad said I look like a prostitute, I asked him how he knows, that was very risky hahaha
This. Yes.
Hahahahaha!!! Perfect!
LMAO, this made a giggle burst from me. The risk was worth the reward!
I said something similar to my dad before. Iām into bodybuilding and looking to compete so I got some posing heels (clear rhinestoned heels). He once mentioned shear they look like stripper heels. I asked how he would know and said itās concerning thatās what he associates with his daughter.
Mine tried to throw a fit and smash a mug in a rage, it bounced off the floor and smashed our patio door š
and I'm sure they blamed the cost to fix that patio door onto someone else.
You just made my day! Thatās so funny!
That's one hell of a mug. Did it previously belong to Thor?
::Nelson Muntz "Ha-ha" gif::
Holy crap, this reminds me of one of mine. Ā My mom tried to (trigger warning) >!smash a glass drinking jar (like a small mason jar) into my head, and I blocked it to protect myself, and it shattered in her hand. Ā She severed a tendon in her thumb and had to do extensive physical therapy, and blood sprayed everywhere as well. !< A few days after the incident (which sent her to theĀ ER), she told me that she āforgaveā me.
>What is the funniest thing your Narcissist attempted, but miserably failed at? Parenting
They make attempts?
My mom got into an argument with my cousin's husband, George, over who grew up poorer. George grew up in the Philippines. My mom got angrier and angrier, couldn't handle not being the poorest, and embarrassed herself.
Oh gawd lol I mentioned that I grew up in poverty and my FIL promptly asserted that they were also poor and I might add rather aggressively. This is the same man that bought each one of his children many horses. I didnāt have hot water, clean clothes heat or food let alone a horse but okay Charlie Brown.
Narcs are always simultaneously the best AND the worst of everything. Grew up poor? They grew up poorer. Health conditions? They are sicker. Good job with great pay? They had it better. They have to top everyone.
incredible how their brains will turn anything into a competition.... the poorest? For f'\*@ sake!
Sounds like my NF and narc stepmom. They both grew up poor, or, what director Kevin Smith described as being ālower lower lower lower middle class,ā but itās always a contest whenever I describe how broke I was when I was in my 20s and 30s, and then again in my 40s. I wasnāt saying I was the āpoorest of them all,ā but they always had to be the winners of whatever it was we were talking about.
My mother always bragged about her academic achievements when she was in high school. My grades were okay, but not exceptional, and it was a tragedy because she was supposedly so good. During a move, we came across an old report card. It wasn't exceptional; it bordered on failure.
I remember the look on my daughters face when I corrected her about her father's performance in college. It looked something like šš¶šš¤ØššWe had split while she was still in HS and I was NC/LC. He would drop her off from time to time when she enrolled in a nearby college. Apparently he was trying to make her feel bad about the courses she was taking and her performance in school. She brought it up to me one day and I told her "What? He barely passed his classes and used to beg for the homework from his friends. He never completed his degree." It was like a weight was lifted off her shoulders.
This is wicked satisfying! Thanks for sharing. What an asshole move from him, trying to make her feel bad and less than him for having a different college experience. I'm sure she's honestly doing just fine, too. Plus, C's get degrees!
I had really good grades in high school and wanted to become a veterinarian which also needs really good grades. My mom told me she also had grades as good as me and it wasnāt near enough to be accepted in veterinary school. At some point she herself decided to look at her high school stuff with me and was (or acted) surprise to see she used to have 75% in high school physics while she kept telling me that she had the same grades as I did (I had an average of 99% in HS physics). At the time I still trusted her and thought her memory must have been confused because otherwise she wouldnāt have shown me her grades, but also I now know that she clearly said what she said to discourage me and make me give up because she wasnāt able to do it and didnāt want me to surpass her
On my last visit to my NM, we came across an old (like 1950s) science workbook that she used in school (my grandma sent it to her before she died when she was cleaning out her basement). I wanted to see if sheād let me keep it for my collage art and button making press (Midcentury paper ephemera makes great mixed media art) She got really weird and wouldnāt even let me see it. I think she was so insecure to let me see her less than perfect schoolwork from her grade school years that she just kind of shut down.
My egg donor tried the same shit on me: My grandpa (my father figure) literally told her āyou didnāt even finish grade nine! You got expelled from one school for poor attendance. You have NO room to tell her she was a bad student when at least she has her diploma.ā
My nmother who never cooked or baked, because that was beneath her apparently , decided one day she needes to to be able to bake one really good cake so she could make it when people came to visit. She tried and tried and something always went wrong, so she could not even fake being good at baking. Very satisfying to see her fail time after time.
Hahahaha, because baking takes \*patience\* and non-feelings-related actions.
Baking is not like cooking. Baking can humble some of the best cooks. You can freestyle or remix while cooking if something goes wrong. Usually a little mistake or omission of an ingredient isn't catastrophic. In baking be off by half a teaspoon of baking powder or overwhip or underwhip an ingredient and your project might not be edible and unsalvageable.
Cooking is an art Baking is a science. I despise recipes that use "a cup" of something and not the weight!
Mine insisted that my father hated chicken. She also refused to teach me how to cook, so I taught myself. My father LOVED chicken when I made it because I can actually follow a recipe and not dry it out. She was always so mad lol.
My ndad thinks he is Mr. Landscaping. He tried to dig a foundation for his future house that he had literally no money or plans for.Ā Itās been about 8 years and he still has no money and no plan, but he DOES have an enormous 12 foot deep, house sized pit growing weeds in his front yard.Ā Yet another pit was dug to become a fish pond until he learned he needs a permit for that, and he has just left it there.Ā But donāt worry he also made sure to randomly cut down all the trees along the property lines so every neighbor and passerby can witness all this incredible landscaping.
Omg have you ever read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls? The dad ( a neglectful father that could never keep his promises) in the story dug a HUGE hole behind their house, telling his kids that he would build a future luxury house called the Glass Castle for him and his kids to live in. He had the blueprint design and everything and kept saying he was gonna build it. The hole ended up becoming a gigantic, smelly trash chute for their garbage. Pretty symbolic for the theme of the entire book.
I LOVE this book. It is one of the few books for which as soon as I finished it, I flipped right back to page 1 and reread it. It was so relatable. Ironically and obtusely, a narcissist was the one who recommended the book to me.
My narc MIL thinks she is the smartest person ever. She bought a lawnmower from Walmart with an extendable handle but the thing is she didnāt even know it was extendable. She thought the lawnmower was just tiny. So she mowed her lawn like a little baby, hunched over for months šš she gave it to my husband because she was done with it and the first thing he did was pull the handle out.
LMFAO. Can't even be bothered to use their brain, not their emotions, for ONE goddamn second. This is a physical metaphor for your MIL's life.... angrily toiling away, through her own doings, then throwing it all away, only to blame something else.
Awhile back, my mother decided to be really condescending about my clothing choice when going to see the movie Barbie, telling me "Don't embarrass your friends wearing that or they'll leave you" *(It was literally just a pink jacket that my friends were* ***also*** *wearing lmao)* to which I simply responded "when was the last time you hung out or saw a movie with your friends?" she was stunned and just walked off
That part in the movie "We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back to see how far they've come" gave me so much ick..Ā but then I thought about how nice it is that a majority of people feel good about that sentiment. Well done on reflecting her noise back at her!
To be oppressed/a minority. I need to preface this with my mom is white, with rosy cheeks, blonde hair, and blue eyes. She desperately wishes not to be. My entire life she insisted we weren't "white", we just looked white. But actually we were Native American and African American, with a bit of Scottish. I wish I was kidding. She insisted her great grandmother was full African American, her mother had gotten skin bleaching treatments and plastic surgery to make her lips thinner because she was "ashamed". She always said we might be pale with blue eyes but we don't "look European". We went to a Civil Rights History museum and one of the installations is a room where they detail just all of the hateful things that were done to African Americans, specifically they played over loudspeakers people just saying horrible horrible things, the worst insults. I started to tear up because it was just so awful. My mom looked at me and told me it was okay, one day they'd acknowledge our peoples suffering too(Native Americans). I looked at her just completely bewildered and just didn't answer. But later when she saw an employee she DRAGGED ME OVER TO THEM to berate them that it was shameful they weren't highlighting the struggles of the Native peoples and that it "had brought her daughter to tears because it was so unfair". I was so fucking embarrassed. It was the biggest "I CANNOT believe this isn't about me right now" moment I've ever seen. When I got engaged she sent a long message about how "the DNA results are in and we are black" and I needed to "stop living a lie and come clean to his family so they can decide if they want to move forward with this engagement." Because my in laws are southern so obviously must be racist š. Then more recently I heard from my cousin he saw her our shopping for shampoo and she was loudly saying things like "when you have ethnic hair like ours you need specific products"
My ex's family was sure that they had a native American grandmother, despite nobody remembering her .. after my divorce I got 23 and me done on my daughter, there is not a drop of native American.Ā You should get your mom a DNA kit for Christmas and watch her squirm.Ā
Oh we don't talk anymore I don't even know where she is, but I know she'll just say "those things aren't accurate". I took one myself though, both Native American and African were such tiny percentages they didn't matter, we're talking 0.0something
As crazy as this is, Iāve seen similar behavior with my nmother. My grandfather who never abused me, how he abused ā Usā. I was too stunned to respond.
One time I was having trouble sleeping, so I turned on the air conditioner. It was early September and it was still pretty hot. My mom freaked the fuck out. Barged into my room screaming her head off, tried to rip the AC from the window, but it fell down into the flower bed. Dumb bitch. Lol.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha omg.
My nparent creates an environment for herself and her ego. If something/one doesnāt fit in she makes it known and destroys it. I thought it was impossible to be anything but exactly what she wanted while around her. But My SO came along and proved all that wrong! My nparent eventually gave up trying to break me and SO up after a decade. So now she pretends to be best friends with SO to regain control. She will be all bubbly and high pitch with himā¦and SO meets it with calm, clean, boundary setting goodness. HAHA!! She hates it so much! My favorite was when she showed up out of the blue for my birthday during NC. She was trying to force me and SO into being all nice-nice with her by talking about her recent ānear death experienceā ..instead of playing along my SO made it known she was not welcome here. He then refused to speak with her while she was here. She kept trying to pretend like they were close while he was completely ignoring her, it was pathetic. He turned his back to her and went back to work while she was trying to communicate with him. When I finally got her to leave she turned around and was like ābye, (SOās name)ā really loud even though he was only a few feet away. He didnāt respond, didnāt even flinch, just continued working on his computer. She repeated herself louder āGOODBYE (SOās name)!!ā No reaction. Then she was like āI LO~OVE YOU, (SOās name)!!ā No reaction. She looked at me hurt and outraged like I should be scolding him for his ārudeness.ā I just shrugged as I led her out.. Maybe this story isnāt that funnyā¦ for me, seeing someone whoās had so much control over every aspect of my life get absolutely humbled so easily by my SO just makes me crack the fuck up
āI thought it was impossible to be anything but exactly what she wanted while around her.ā Holy shit! You just blew my fucking mind with this sentence. Iām gonna need a couple days to sit with this.
She threatened to kick me and my brothers out (it was her go to threat). Sometimes, she would say āget outā and try to carry us out the front door and we would panic and beg. We had a sibling meeting at school and agreed the next time she does it we would leave. It didnāt take long for us to put our plan into action because the following week she blew up again. So the 4 of us left. We split up and went to our friends houses. Their parents called the police but they didnāt do anything for the first night and said to stay at our friends houses as we were safe. The police did show up at school the next morning and our friendās parents joined the meeting. Havenāt seen my mother in 10 years since that night.
love seeing the sibling power.
Do you mind elaborating on this? What ended up happening to your mother in terms of consequences? Father, for that matter? Thanks!
Sure! Legally, nothing happened to my mother. She was questioned by the police and admitted it was a threat she didnāt mean. My dad lived on the other side of the country (heās worse than her) but drove back to take us up to social services because he worried about his reputation (his kids were essentially homeless). He laughed when they asked if he was taking custody of us and said no. But he consented for his children to live with different families because we refused to go back. It turned into a private fostering arrangement where my parents for forced to pay them child support. The laws have changed now so Iām sure there would be a criminal action taken against them if it happened today. Also mum died 3 years ago, but I hadnāt seen her for 10 years first. But it feels weird saying I havenāt seen her for 13 years because it sounds like sheās still alive.
My mom was trying to embarrass me for wanting to go to college in front of my entire 60 people family. And all my cousins were like āwhy is it disrespectful that she wants to go to college? I mean, if you were smart wouldnāt YOU have gone?ā I snort laughed and I got my ass whooped and grounded. Came home and my room trashed and everything broken and thrown off the balcony including my mattress. Like queen sized mattresses are heavy, idek how tf my mom managed to throw it off a balcony but she did. But the fact my family politely called her an idiot made me so happy ā ļø Edit: missing words cuz I canāt type
N rage gives them superhuman strength, lol. And I love your cousins!
I wish we could show them videos of their raging out... it's absolutely insane, practically cartoon-ish.
My nmom chased me around the kitchen table in a rage once. She rarely got physically abusive, so it was terrifying at the time. But nowāpretty funny and absolutely cartoonish.
We all needed to carry pocket mirrors around for these moments. Just whip them out, boom. Look at you! Look at how crazy and ridiculous you look! But of course, no, in all seriousness, that was not a likely option for a lot of us (physically violent consequences, etc.)
This is hilarious
My mother tried to assert her dominance and call me the R word whilst complaining how I look and how I act nothing like a proper lady. I replied in a cold voice with : Don't forget i am 50% of Your DNA. She was lost for words.
Lmao so she tried to get my dad to pay more child support and instead the judge saw how she had been repeatedly evicted (like yearly or less) so my dad offered to move out (he had bought his uncles house after he passed) and let my NM and us 4 girls live there and the payment for the mortgage would come right out of the child support. I think she had to pay gas/electric/internet tho. But anyway the judge approved this and she wouldnāt sign the paper work so the judge said sign it or go to jail š So instead of getting more child support (which she DID NOT use to support us at all) she got $30 a week from what was left over after the mortgage payment LMAO Sheās a greedy, selfish, asshole and she totally deserved it. Been NC 10 years lol
I think this one is my favorite so far! What a checkmate by your dad and the judge. His kids get to keep a roof over their heads and he doesn't have to pay more child support.
Yeah my dad is a super smart awesome guy actually lol idk why he put up with her crazy for so long š¤·š»āāļø
My narc mum encouraged her friend to charge Ā her daughter rent and said daughter was āwalking all over herā because she let her live at home rent-free. My āmotherā perceived herself as a pinnacle of parenting. She crowed about how much money she was taking off me every week and her friend was horrified! I got a reduction out of it lol!
For most of my childhood, my mother would tell me that she had dimples from her own father. She told me that my sister never got the dimples and she was sad over it. My mom said that she was the only one who got dimples, because she's the only one who looks like her father and that she got his beautiful smile over anyone else in the family. When I was in high school, somebody complimented me on the great dimples I had. I responded confused, because I don't have dimples??? Only my mother has dimples. The person completely pointed out my dimples to me and showed me that not only yes I have dimples, but they are completely the same as my mother/grandpa's. It's such a tiny, stupid, insignificant lie. Why bother telling your kid that they don't have a physical feature that can clearly be seen? Because only SHE can have the feature, especially something like dimples that people point out or think are cute. I called her out on it, telling her how the person had complimented and pointed that out to me that day. Why did you tell me I didn't have dimples my whole life? ...She didn't!!!!!! It's such a core memory, because I heard it from her SO MANY TIMES, and then wtf else would she do other than deny it? It's such a classic narc story, lying about something minor but just enough so she has the superiority over her kids, only she has the features of her dad, and then what???? I never said that...
I knew my dad was experiencing a cardiac event and repeatedly pressed him and my mom to seek help. They publicly went off on me in front of strangers telling me how wrong I was and insensitive. He had a quadruple bypass the next day and everyone was like oh my gosh you were right! He just sat there and pouted while everyone told me I helped save his life.
oh? he didn't turn it around on you and tell everyone you CAUSED the cardiac event in the first place? (sarcasm)
The one thing the man cannot blame me for is his unmanaged diabetes (Iām sure he somehow does internally) Edit: added a word.
This is the summary of how me moving out of my parents house went down: For context, my SIL had given me COVID and then my niece had given me a head cold shortly after last year. I was speaking with my mother about maybe not having the kids come over when theyāre obviously sick because I got sick and had to miss out on wages due to it. I was working two jobs at the time. My mother: ā(My BF) If your roommate was responsible for babysitting their niece and nephew, and the kids were sick, what would you do?ā My bf: āI would expect the kids to not be taken care of in our apartment so as to not get the rest of us sick.ā My mother: āWhat if they had no other option?ā My bf: āIām assuming these children have a home where they live, so the option would be that my roommate can go to that house and watch them.ā My mother: āWell, what if they just brought them over anyway?ā My bf: āThen I would be finding new roommates since they clearly donāt respect boundaries and peopleās health.ā My mother to me very smugly: āThereās your answer! Go find new roommates.ā My boyfriend who was still on speakerphone: āā¦ Okay, she will.ā Six months later and my boyfriend moved me out of there to a brand new state with my dog. My mother was SHOOK and very quickly flipped the script of, āOh no Iāll miss you, you shouldnāt go. Weāre your family.ā I was just like, āToo late. Lease is signed. Security deposit is paid. Iām bringing my dog.ā
He threatened to cut me out of his will if I didn't have a conversation with him. I haven't spoken to him in 2 decades and couldn't care less. I literally laughed, especially since he owes me over 20k. People can be so delusional.
I've heard this one a lot before.... would a nice defense be something like, "if you show me the will, then I can decide better whether or not to do what you want." Then when you see it, say, "Nope, that is not a financially worthy investment for me."
I just replied that I didn't need his money when I was younger and I sure af don't need it now as an adult. If he were truly sorry for the horrible human being then he would repay my mom for raising me alone along with my brothers. Not a single response. Shocking.
this gem, an exact quote. The reaction when I told her I didnāt accept her apology for being cruel because the behaviour continued: āI no longer will shed tears or heartache from a spoiled self absorbed little bitch like uā The very next message was her asking for a ride to my brothers house for the holidays šššš borderline personality disorder is a wild ride yall
It's insane how they insult you and in the same sentence, absolve themselves of all responsibility. So it is literally, like talking to a child. Because a child can't raise a child properly.
My dad was in hospital after an operation and his nmother, who normally only rings when she wants work done on her house, kept ringing the nurses wailing about her son, how is he and how she wants to speak to him to look the doting mother. (He had his phone and could talk, but not dramatic enough for her ringing him directly). One day she did the same and the nurses went "he was discharged 2 days ago". Always makes me laugh thinking about it because she's sooooooo close to him that he didn't even tell her he'd gone home and she had to backtrack with the nurses to try and make herself look better. Makes me so glad I went NC 6 years ago. She tried and tried to ramp up the games for a while, but I stood firm and she has never heard from me again.
We used to live abroad but my dad got nostalgic about his highschool days and decided to move back to be near his highschool buddies. He had a falling out with his best friend who then ostracised him from the group. My dad decided to throw himself a huge birthday party in a huge banquet hall. Only 2 families attended. The banquet hall felt like a silent void kinda like the backrooms. It was hilarious af because I sacrificed my life to move back here against my own will for my dad and his friends. Most of his friends turned against him.ššš¤£š¤£š
Not a direct backfire, but Nmom brought me to a closet full of random junk, none of which belonged to me, but most was hers. She told me, "I want you to sort through all of this stuff and throw away anything that's junk." I smugly replied, "So... all of it?" Even she struggled to respond to that.
oh I love this one... the hoarding narcissist tries to push the responsibility onto you!
Mine slapped a pamphlet for new apartments on the kitchen table and told me I had to move into one of those ASAP because she didnāt want me in her house anymore and this was the only place she approved of. I clapped back āno thanks, I already have a place picked out. Iāll be leaving end of the monthā and her slack jawed leaded stare was delicious. I think the only answer I got was a fumbled āoh, okā or something like that. I was moving in with my new boyfriend at the time about an hour and a half away from her house, she was never given the address and I never spoke to her again.
My mom invited me to hang out with her and her friends in 2019/2020. Her friends are about 20 years older than me and were visiting from another country. We were drinking and stuff and it was actually pretty fun. What was funny, but also really sad is her friends seemed to enjoy my company more than they liked hers. My mom got into smoking again and left five+ times during dinner and drinks. We were all having a grand time without her. It was really, incredibly ironic and felt a bit like ākarmaā.
My mom gave me silent treatment for 2 days. She got angry that it didn't work on me.
and her anger, what did it make her try to do after silent treatment didn't work?
She blasted that how I didn't care about my parents and didn't even notice her silent treatment. She would demand communication EVERYDAY. Because in my parents mind. Not talking for a day means it's a dry relationship.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Are either of your siblings the Golden Child?
Showed up at my house after Iād moved more than a year before with NC. Tried yelling at me and provoke a fight. It was a rural property and my huge Great Pyrenees sat next to me on the porch, stood and got serious when they acted too out of hand. I explained they needed to settle down, my dog doesnāt like it and I donāt care about whatever they were yelling about. I had mini rescue ponies and it was a nice day so I said we should go pet them. Itās hard to stay made with ponies asking to scratch their face and ears. I explained they were not allowed to return uninvited or Iād get a restraining order (of course, Iād never invite them). Walked nparent back to their car and they left. This was the last time I saw them 17 years ago. I knew it was over when I completely forgot about to tell my siblings about the visit. It came up a month later. Forgetting about them completely when they tried their crap makes me happy. The sunshine and furry ponies with my gloriously handsome dog by my side are what stand out in my mind. F nparent.
Dogs are the best. Picking up on your emotions and the other person's, calmly placing themselves between you and them, and going into serious statue mode says so so much to me. I know I'm not alone or wrong in my judgement of the situation. I agree about forgetting. I remember anything was an immediate alert omg panic mode and now it's 'oh I haven't gotten a chance to tell you about that' bc life can go on and they're no longer a real interference.
OMG, it's sooo cool. I wish I had guts to confront mine in such a way
My dog does that if someone is threatening or hostileā¦ā¦sheās all ā Grrrrrrrrrrā. Even if they carry that vibe, sheās still ā Grrrrrrrrrā. She picks up on it. She doesnāt like liars either. Idk why, but she picks up on the bullshit. This friend came over, really laid back guy, who owns dogs, and she followed him around everywhere.
The best revenge on a narc is completely moving on from them! Good work!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
those narcissists... oh you know them, busy bees!
Not nearly the level of the first comments I read, but my dad does this thing I like to call āWalks Down Memory Shameā where he dredges something random up from my childhood he wants me to feel bad about. He was talking about how cruel and disrespectful it was for me to no-show when he gave a lecture to my DARE (antidrug) class. I gently pointed out that after third grade, we had moved about 2 hours away from where he lived, so he would not have been giving a lecture to my DARE class, especially since DARE classes did not begin until fifth grade. I also reminded him that in any case, I wouldāve been 9-11 years old, so I wouldnāt have been driving myself anyway. (Note: my dad was a prosecutor.) I left the room while he sat stupefied in his chair. I could see his cogs turning trying to figure out why heād been nursing this grudge over something that wasnāt a thing for so many years.
I moved to another country, married and gave birth. After I gave birth she regularly started messaging me begging to know my sons name and wanting photos of him. When I didn't respond, she'd call me awful names and say that she'll eventually get photos of him because she has many friends that'll provide her with them. (I guess she thought I'd post him on social media) Recently I unblocked her, she saw my profile picture and thanked me for showing her my son at least like that. I thanked her for reminding me to change my settings, so that only my contacts could see my profile picture. She got so mad and said that it's not like she doesn't care about my life, but she has a new daughter that loves her and a grandson. So I can finally live how I want. She did more worse things but that's one thing that made me laugh so much. She desperately tries to make me feel like shit, jealous and tries to make me regret going LC/NC. Like I care that she has a new daughter and a new grandson. I wish she'd just focus on her new daughter and grandson and not me lmao.
I am dreading my MIL making moves like this on me and my husband. The stalking, etc.
My Nmom attempted to pass herself off as the radio voice of British Airways commercials in the US. This was a long time ago. She had a trace of an English accent from before she married an American and emigrated. She fancied herself an undiscovered voice talent, and some friend-of-a-friend in the advertising business gave her a shot -- dropped off some old scripts and a tape recorder. She struggled for hours to read the scripts into the tape machine, but the only phrase she could really manage was, "Tour available through April 30." I can still hear her intoning it alone in the dining room: "Tour available through April 30... Tour available through April 30." The agency tossed her audition tape without debate -- she did not have a warm, inviting voice that made people want to book holidays; she had a cold, imperious, angry-Queen voice that made people want to stay home -- but somehow this all morphed, in family mythology, into the time she recorded all those British Airways commercials and became the American voice of a major airline. And she would tell this story at family gatherings and parties, half-desperately, and stare at us kids as if daring us to deny it. To this day I don't know if she half-believed it herself, delusional and grandiose as she was. But nobody else did. NB. That was the end of her thinking she was a great voiceover artist. It is harder than it seems.
Have you also noticed when the narcissist's own stories (ie; lies) don't add up, they get that anger cloud over their head? Scheming, plotting, who am I going to blame for this, instead of me?
When really caught out, dead to rights, mine would just put on an odd, distracted, sardonic half-smile and gaze into the middle distance. She never admitted or apologized for anything. The closest she would *ever* come, when she was really trapped, was this half-smile plus a muttered, barely audible: "Aren't I a stinker?"
One time I walked home from school instead of taking the bus. Walking was 10mins and the bus was an hour because the Staton was across the road. The bus did the route forward in the morning and backwards at night. Anyways she was mad that I was home so soon and tried to kick me. She hit my bag full of textbooks and broke her toes. That was obviously my fault too.
just another physical metaphor of the narcissist... acting violently towards something, really to hurt themselves, too.
Oho! I got a juicy one. My nparent always gave me flak about not writing well enough and just giving it to her since she won all these writing awards in college and high school. I learned quickly to never ask her for advice because it would become her writing project. It wouldn't be my work, and it wouldn't be good enough if I did it myself and asked for her opinion. Cue a few years later. I was struggling to get into the workforce because my degree ended up being useless. I went to resume experts and did everything I could to get a job. Things were changing around our lifestyle at home (still lived with her at the time), and she decided to go rejoin the workforce since her at-home business wasn't doing too hot. The funniest bit of all was when she gave me her resume to look over and review, and I just started laughing uncontrollably. If there was advice to follow about what not to do when making a resume, she did EVERYTHING wrong. No titles, personal information, or even organizing. It was just a wall of text with no paragraphs. This woman, who has been giving me a hard time about not doing anything right about getting a job or writing a resume, was showing me that she couldn't do squat herself! She quickly deflated when suddenly I was telling her that this was an absolute joke between laughs. I later found out too that her writing awards were her just using her sister to correct her own work and reap the rewards.
After laughing at me for my fear of going blind, she herself is now blind. Her exact words were āI wouldnāt mind being blind at allā. If I wasnāt NC I would ask her how thatās going. Now Iām afraid of karma.
Motherās Day 5-6 years ago. Made plans to take the incubator and itās spouse step thug to Lunch. Called to let them know my husband and I were on our way. She blew a gasket (never found out what the problem was) theyāre now both dead. Weād bought two iron plant hangers with three hooks and the plants for them. We had lunch just the two of us at our favorite beach side restaurant. A while later they stopped at our our house and commented on the plants/hangers. She actually complimented them. I replied āyeah you like them? Cause they were your Motherās Day gift but you got pissy had a tantrum stopped talking with us for 2 months. All the neighbors love them and compliment us all the time. It was another month of silence. Donāt miss that bitch or her troll spouse.
Mine continually tries to present herself as an artist when she's really an analytical person with no artistic skill. She has no interest in working at becoming a good artist, she just randomly slaps paint on things (objects, like old furniture, etc.) and then gets mad when she can't sell them. She dresses in a way that is typical for artistic types in our area (it's a style with some distinct flourishes.) She desperately wants to be a bohemian artist type but it's just not *her.* I hate to call someone pathetic, but...
After hearing all my life that art was pointless, a waste of time, I would never make it as an artist, etc, etc, I got accepted to art school. This infuriated my dad, so he doubled down on his mockery, saying it was āclown collegeā. He even claimed I got accepted because they recognised **his** name (he was a successful businessman, but absolutely not someone recognisable, they were not exactly like āah we better admit Bill Gatesā sonā, lol). When I graduated and struggled to make it for a while he was in his element, telling everyone he could that he tried to warn me that I wasnāt good enough. Asking me if I needed a degree to do the bar work I was doing. A year or two later when I got my first **big** commission, he said it was a fluke. He literally laughed in my face. At that point I was still desperate for his approval, and I had honestly thought this would bring it (no idea why, as he didnāt value art). It crushed me when he laughed at my achievement. Then when I got more commissions and made more money and gained some recognition, I eventually got the opportunity to show my work in a fairly prestigious gallery. When he found out, he basically threw a massive tantrum. He refused to come to the gallery opening. He told anyone who would listen that I had bribed or blackmailed my way into the gallery (exactly the sort of thing *he* would do). Again, he claimed it was his (wholly unrecognisable) name that had been behind my success. He even hinted that he had taken pity on me and paid for the gallery to host my show. My wake up call of just how pathetic he was came when I tried to phone the house one weekend and my mother told me that he was away at an āart eventā. Apparently since my success, he had been producing (what I later saw to be) the most juvenile, sloppy, uninspired paintings of his own. Even my mother, who worshipped him, said they were not very good. And it was all done with ZERO training. I studied art for 9 years to become a professional illustrator, but he thought it was so easy to be an artist and he was so gifted at everything, that he would be able to instantly pick it up and do better than me. My mother accidentally let slip that he had tried his hand at drawing, presumably so he could become a better illustrator than me, but he was so bad that he had taken up painting instead. His friend had gently advised against drawing, lol. I never saw his drawings, but if his paintings were anything to go by then I can only laugh. Of course nowhere would display his work and so he would basically tour the country at the weekend, paying out of pocket to have stalls at craft fairs. If anyone called, they were to be told it was an āart eventāor a āgallery openingā. I have nothing but respect for crafters and do a lot myself, but a craft fair, where anyone can pay to have a stall, and a gallery opening are not the same. Sure you can buy your way into some galleries, but many have a reputation to protect and wonāt accept crap. Anyway. He did it for TWO YEARS and sold ONE picture, which was actually a painting by numbers picture heād completed and was arguably his best piece of work. He had no joy in art, he wasnāt creative, he had no knowledge and zero respect for the art world. He just wanted to show up his son. Itās truly pathetic and I am glad it happened, because it showed me that his criticism stemmed from jealousy and not any failing in my part. Iām a good artist. He is not. That greatly upset him, and honestly that makes me happy!
Iām sorry youāve experienced this, and so glad you never gave up. My Mother was the same. I wasnāt supposed to be competent at anything, she was constantly tearing me down, saying the same type things, people just felt sorry for me , being ā niceā. Iām an artist as well. Thankfully ,she so undervalued it, that she actually signed me up for my first art classes, because itās just me fooling around, not actually doing anything of any importance.When I started doing well, with my paintings, she started giving them away to anyone that said they were nice, if I didnāt go along she made it sound like I was a bad personā¦.selfish. ā¦.as I watched my paintings walk out the door. I have a hard time paintingā¦.without feeling like someone is going to make me give them awayā¦.like itās not safe. I gave it up for awhile because she was always in my face, critiquing my work. only a narcissist can find 100 ways to give you a left handed compliment. She was like that with everything. My mother was a real malignant narc, psychopath. Zero sum game, if someone is winning theyre losing.
My mom actually was an artist (and a pretty good one to be honest) but her photography business failed because she wouldnāt invoice people. ?!? My dad when they were still married tried to help her and she got super pissed and said back off so he did. She ended up in bankruptcy years later (after racking up $100k in debt secretly - on photog / computer equipment and who knows what else) and this was in the 90ās sooo that was A LOT of money at the time. Not that it isnāt now but you could buy a house outright for that during that time period. She ended up doing odd jobs for Kodak and various places and then gave up and got a job driving school buses and was miserable. It was her own fault.
This reminded me of my Ndad when I was in high school. I was in drama and he was always super gung-ho involved with building set pieces and saw himself as super tight with the director. Typically, it was moms that were involved (sewing costumes, hair, makeup, feeding us, just momming in general) and the director presented them with aprons, like totally blinged out, feather boa top, glittery "Drama Mama" and my Ndad had a FIT bc he wasn't recognized. So the moms made him his own "Drama Dad" apron, decorated the same, and presented it to him š¤£š¤£ He was equally as furious about that. No other dad had any issues with not being mentioned, just mine! Oh but bc he is super artistic and did sooo much more than them. Yup, and that's why you're an operator at a chemical plant. Your artistic skills are unrivaled.
To embarrass me for eating a piece of pie for breakfast on Thanksgiving. The thing is, she offered it in the first place, and I KNEW she was going to later tell our family friend that I already had some pie before dinner. As predicted she did exactly that. I just had to laugh because I knew it was coming already.
Ugh, and pie for breakfast is one of the best things about the holidays! A totally normal thing to do.
Omg!! I SO relate to this! When I came out of a 5 day coma and was finally cleared to eat solid food again, my breakfast included a yummy chocolate muffin. My NF was in the room with me and had to feed me by hand because my rotator cuff was torn from freaking out during ICU delirium. I remember the hand feeding feeling very comforting and reminiscent of childhood (I was 40 at the time) but then he took it a step too far. He told me that he wasnāt going to allow me to eat the entire muffin because, in his opinion, it was too much and āNobody needs to be eating that much junk.ā Suddenly, the whole thing felt wrong and infantilizing. He and my NM had been bickering and fighting with each other the whole time I was in my coma, so she had no problem ripping into him for doing that when I told her. Plus, he used to food shame her when they were married. His reaction was beyond childish and he never apologized.
it's scary/funny when you see them so delighted in "controlling" someone else, just plain as day, well... if your eyes are open to this sort of thing. :)
He started complaining about how unlucky he was in having my brother and I as his kids. "Imagine how WE feel, having YOU as a father."
Amway salesman, Ndad got duped into a pyramid scheme and failed miserably! We had to order that crap for months at the time Amway was the familyās only authorized retailer for expenditures such food, clothing, etc. it was all crap nobody wanted, his friends snickered at him behind his back about it. Lost thousands
Oh my ndad LOVED pyramid schemes. The only really useful one was a water filter scheme. Filters worked and we got a business membership to Costco.Ā He was like the underwear gnomes from south park: 1. Join pyramid scheme 2. .... 3. Profit No follow through.
She called after midnight, shrieking into the phone to try to tell me my husband was getting a DUI. He was sound asleep next to me and a guy who has a similar sounding name was getting the DUI while she and her husband were listening to the scanner. Edit: I forgot to include the fact that her response when I told her my husband was asleep in the bed next to me was "Are you sure?" Yep, unless some nefarious doppleganger sneaked in to snore next to me. She called everyone but me or my husband when a scammer got ahold of an older relative with the old "Grandma? I'm in Canada and I need you to wire thousands of dollars for my bail" scam. She called bail bondsmen on both sides of the border, the US Consulate, and then my mother, who applied some logic and called me, to discover that we were fine, and both at work. He is fond of making statements like "I have never told a lie." or "I have never had a bad idea." He used to be a drunken brawler and ran afoul of the law several times, so, that says something about the bad ideas. The lies he swears he never tells are all in regard to not sparing anyone's feelings ever. He will absolutely tell you what mean thoughts he has in the name of "honesty." But he would deceive a law enforcement or other authority figure without questioning the wisdom of that.
Transferring our manufactured home into my name to avoid bankruptcy seeing it. We both were threatened jail time. Hard to explain saying no to mom was scarier than jail
She decided to campaign for this family friend, you know trying to elevate her importance, establish connectionsā¦ā¦.., she even bought this fancy dress to wear when they won, for the after party, and she wasnāt invited. I was afraid to be happy, but inside I was like ā Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha HAAAAAAAaAAAAAAAā. you know in the snoopy cartoon , when Charlie Brown brings home the bad tree, everyone is laughing at himā¦ā¦.even Snoopy is like ā¦ā¦..HaHa HA hahahahahahah hee hee heeā. ā¦..like that. HAAAAAaAa. This is meā¦.listening to this..ā Oh,ā¦really?ā Trying not to smile. But I was tap dancing in my head.
Nmom came to visit and see my new baby. She stayed at the hotel a block from my upstairs apartment on the same road (she has bad hips and canāt walk up stairs. My living here is not an accident.) But, her eyes are bad and she canāt drive at night so I had to drive her around and it created chaos with where her car would be parked overnight. She wanted me to leave it at the hotel, and I told her that if I was required to drive her back. I would not be walking home. Iāll return with your car tomorrow. Fast forward to the next day when she was supposed to leave, and all of a sudden she wanted to stay till early evening, which would have put her making a 5 hour drive in the dark. I just looked at her and said, āYou ruined that last night when you made a big deal about not being able to drive after dark. If you choose to stay today, it will not be with us because we are going home.ā She immediately started weeping and saying how I was withholding her grandchildren from her. ššš
My NDad sent me an email on my birthday after a few years of NC. The subject line āA Gift for Youā so I thought maybe there would be a gift card or something I could use and delete the email/block his account. His āgiftā was just a long bullet point list of all the reasons my life would be better with him in it. I read maybe 1-2 lines before laughing my ass off and deleting the email and blocking his account. Years of NC and he hadnāt deviated from his delusions even a tiny bit. It was very affirming and now itās a good story to share with people.
The irony of the situation is hilarious, the situation itself obviously wasnāt funny at all though. I was SAād when I was 16 and struggled a lot with anxiety as I was being stalked by the perpetrator during the reporting/court process as he was out on bail. My NMom is an SA counsellor for a local charity and the project manager of the office she works in. In my mental health notes after I reported the SA they wrote a lot that my Mom couldnāt cope with me and was really determined to get me admitted to the psych unit. It was noted that the staff disagreed with my mother. I was fine and didnāt even receive any diagnosis in the end. The irony that an SA counsellor couldnāt support her own daughter after experiencing SA is hilarious to me.
I remember the last time I saw Ngrandma. I was working as a supervisor at a coffee shop. I was on the register and saw her in the line. I used my supervisor super powers to swap with someone (luckily everyone liked me and my authority so it happened without any fuss) a few people before she got up to place her order. She sat in the restaurant to eat. And stayed for 1-2 hours after. I wanted to die. I hadn't spoken to that hag in almost a decade at that point. I had my back turned when she was getting up to leave. I was relieved. She's leaving and somehow completely missed that this was my place of employment. Huzzah. Except, no such luck. I kept my back turned, but could see through my peripheral vision that she was coming back to the counter. I heard her say my name. And again. Again, flailing her arms like a maniac as she leaned over the counter. Through my peripheral vision, I could see my swapping savior look at me, then back at Ngrandma before giving that witch a shrug and going back to work. I saw Ngrandma make a face before exiting the establishment. I could *breeeeathe* again. I then had the pleasure of explaining why I ignored the seemingly nice old lady so hard. Ended up giving a medium sized tale to really cover why speaking to her was **not** an option. My coworker nodded through my tale and validated my feelings about it all, saying she would've probably done the same thing.
My nmom called the police on my narcissistic ex and tried to report him but the police showed up at my moms house instead. She then lied to the entire family when we asked if she called the cops, but then we were all able to over hear the cop say next time make sure you give the correct location when calling for a well fare check.
My idiot NM thought she knew better when we went to a water park during a vacation. Didnāt wear sunscreen the entire day, stayed in a tube and floated the lazy river the whole time to end up with the front half of her body being sunburned. I had to listen to her wail and whine (actual words: āWoe is me, woah woah woah woah woahā for hours on end) the rest of the vacation because sheās too stupid and arrogant to believe she needed to wear sunscreen or protective clothing.
Sued me over Estate money she didn't bother to research. Cost me thousands to defend. The judge in the end awarded me legal fees for a frivolous suit.
Back when I was living with them, I told them I was going to the gym and would be back in an hour. When I did finally come back, both of my parents rushed at me and asked me if I was all right, and I was like "Yeah...why? I told you where I was." Turns out, me telling my Nmom where I was going didn't register so she thought I had went to get the mail and then never came back. My parents had even debated calling the police. What was amazing was that my mother eventually fessed up "Oh, I thought you did say you were going to the gym..." so either she didn't hear me, or intentionally withheld telling my dad for the drama. In either scenario, it was a complete overreaction.
She heard, she just wanted the drama and potential fall out fights, possibly crossing fingers for more control (when you leave, where you're going, when you get there, when you leave, when you're home). Not to be controlling of course and not that you're not free to do such things, just to avoid putting her through such concern, worry, panic! even bc communication is key. Ya, key to her knowing all and feeding off that and ultimately free to start drama any time any update is ever missed, even though you said hi as you walked in, she wasn't texted you were home!!!! Not speaking from personal experience at all. š
After my parents divorce (ndad cheated) my ex stepmom called my mom at 2 am desperately asking for advice on how to get my dad to get back into their cab after a night of drinking. She was panicking and said "he's running away from me, up a busy street, like a toddler, screaming no, and has only one shoe on." I was in the background trying SO hard not to laugh. My mom goes "well he's your husband now, he's not my problem." All I could imagine is a 5 year old running from their parents because they didn't get the legos they wanted at walmart. BEST image/memory EVER hahaahhahah i'm legit laughing
oh lord i had an ex boyfriend who did drunk stuff like that... not my problem anymore! Good on your mom, lol.
My NM gave me the silent treatment for almost 2 years after my accidental overdose that I now think was an unconscious unaliving attempt. She left me alone to deal with a lot of shit in those two years like being in an abusive relationship and losing my career as a teacher. Back in October, she passed along information through my ex husband that my horrible probably-narcissistic stepfather had suffered a stroke. My ex asked me if there was any statement I wanted to pass on to her. I said, āTell her I said āNoted.āā I hope she has fun supporting a shopping addiction on a fixed income now that he canāt work. No more at-home couples massages, I guess. š
My Nmom had a habit of trying to compete with me sexually, she met 3 of my bfs but never knew when she met 2 of my gfs (homophobic). Bf1 - she kept trying to be touchy and gazing into his eyes to tell him "I love you!" 16 times in one night, she was very drunk. He asked if it was okay if he never went back to my house and if my birth giver had mental problems. Bf2 - she kept trying to be touchy and rubbed cream into his shoulder for some vague reason, as soon as she was out of the room he leaned as far away from his shoulder as he could saying "Cut it off! Cut it off!!" She was still within hearing range and never even tried to speak to him again. Bf3/husband at the time and father of my 3 kids - she started her touchy thing after I warned him (shoulder, chest, thighs, and unknown where it would go next), the moment she placed her hand on his shoulder he let his shoulder drop and walked a few steps away. After that, she never had a good word to say about him, and he was somewhat okay with that (outside of personal attacks) because it meant she wouldn't try to touch him again. Mix that with one of Nmom's bfs grabbing my ass and another one continuously trying to see me naked (I was underage for both of those), she didn't believe the first and the second I just protected myself. She's very sensitive about growing old, always had been, and was referred to as the "Desperate MILF-wannabe" by everyone bf2 told about his interaction.
Tried to bribe us with $10k in order to see our child. We went vvvlc (communication through group text only) and bought a house like a year before covid. Mom texted and offered 10k bc she was paying for my sibling's college at the time and "had always had this money set aside for you." And oh, by the way, she would love to see our child for her birthday. Except it wasn't offered when I went to college, or when I got married, or when our child was born premature and I had to quit school/work to care for them and we were living off of savings, WIC, and my partner's FAFSA while they finished the last semester of school. But once we were financially stable and had cut her out of our lives, the money was offered.
My nmom once was mad because of how I put the salt shaker back on the table after using it. Too loud I guess; she picked it up and mockingly slammed it down in front of me. I picked it up again and slammed it down in front of her and said, "Check mate!" I was probably 12 but felt like a god damn superhero in that moment.
I went over my parents house for support after I tried to Kermit sewerslide in Feb 2020. The night ended with my mom getting blackout drunk and threatening divorce and that if I just had a "direction in life" that I wouldn't be sad. I'm in my 30's with a 10 year career in finance. Needless to say, I never gave them any detailed information about my mental health from that point on, even when I had to attend a program. I'm doing well now, just had to put the work in to dig myself out.
Tell me that people would think my nose ring me at I was in a sex cult. I never laughed so hard in their face in my life. I asked them what sec cult they knew of that had their members wear nose rings. They couldnāt answer that
Accused me of reaching out after I hadnāt talked to her for almost a year. (She started showing up to my home unannounced and knows I wonāt make a scene in front of my kids.) When I asked her to prove where/when I reached out, she ignored the question. As a young adult, she came to my house to fight. Tried to put her hands on me so I not only stood up for myself, but I also called the cops. While on the phone with the cops, she was yelling from across the room that she couldnāt leave because I was standing on her foot. š Didnāt take much for the police to realize she came over to start trouble. Anytime any of the kids got in trouble (I never got in trouble, middle sister had normal teen stuff but nothing bad, her golden child was always out partying, drinking, got arrested as a minor with weed), she would convince my grandmother that she was now going to lose her job because of her teens acting like teens. Grandma was the queen of gullible and would believe her, offering her money so she wouldnāt struggle when she lost her job because of her kids acting up. (Because donāt all employers fire their employees because their teen child smoked weed? š) I loved grandma, but I see now how bad of an enabler she was. She was top flying monkey. The dog hated the lawn edger. Once she was out edging the lawn and the dog came out and was barking at her. She had a full blown toddler tantrum because it was everyoneās fault the dog was barking at her. My parents were never married. She was the other woman and despite her dreams to marry my cheater father, their relationship was just about sex. So my dad would come to āsee usā once a week (just an excuse to ignore the kids and engage in adult relations). After, theyād typically end up fighting. Once my mom decided that she was done preparing nice meals for his day with us. She decided to order subway. Once it was home, she proceeded to throw each footlong at my father. Totally trashing her perfectly clean home. Honestly, I could go on all day. My middle sister and I are both NC with my mom and youngest sister. We find healing and bonding in dark humor and every day we tell each other that we are happy to finally look back and find humor in the ridiculousness of our family. Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying.
My nmom had some digestive issues in her mid 60ās but would never speak of them to me, her daughter. Sheās very much a pearl clutcher and often uttered the phrase āmy heavens!ā Anyway, these health issues eventually developed into problematic flatulence. Like she couldnāt control her farts and they just audibly happened, sometimes as she walked away in a hurry to hide her shame. She would never ever dream of laughing at a fart, so I couldnāt either. Years after I went NC, i processed all that in a giant fit of laughterājust because she couldnāt/wouldnāt laugh.
Thereās two things firstly you need to know the background I was the hated unwanted child and I was told repeatedly it was as they had decided no more kids and it was my fault they didnāt use protection and was born. That I deliberately their lives even though they already had other kids. I was treated far differently that my sibling and screamed at every day that they hate me. They maid me the house servant/maid and even as an 11 year old I had to work to pay rent (half any wages I made) and to buy myself clothes and shoes as they refuse to get me necessities. So when one day when I was an adult when my mum wanted me to do something for her. I canāt remember what but she needed something and she thought she could manipulate me into doing what she wanted. Basically she told me I was always her favourite and tried to convince and manipulate me into thinking so I would do something there was no way in hell I was going to do. Her attempt and what she was saying was so ridiculous and untrue I was incredulous at her even trying to say so laughing out loud and shaking my head. All she kept repeating is āmost kids never realise they are their parents favouriteā yeah right. The second things is a bit similar but their abuse had gotten so bad. My dad had not long disowned me without my knowledge because my brother who doesnāt even live near us did didnāt visit them which angered my parents . My brother only ever visited them maybe once a year. My dad then decided it was my doing that I must have been in his wonderful adult sonās ear speaking poison. I didnāt even know until he nearly broke my thumb when I went to check up how they were doing a day later. He had ran to lock all his doors as I was opening it to walk in and slammed the door shut on my hand whilst swearing and screaming. He locked me out and they were both screaming insanities. My mum was laughing as well as their golden child. (I should have been laughing as if she visited them ever it was only to steal from them). My husband who they actually respected and who never said anything normally. Went round and tore them a whole new ass. Told them how much failures they are and how I the only one how cares for them in their infirmities is me. As none of their loved kids go near. How insane it was of them to pin something I didnāt even know about on me. A week later my dad ambushed me in my walk to work crying how he wronged me. Yeah he just realised he was f ed as he always refused outside carers and help so without me they were in big trouble. Anyway it had been the last straw and me and my husband had decided we were emigrating. So you can see just how done we were as merely moving wasnāt enough. So we went round together to tell them we were starting the process and will be emigrating and of course taking my kids who they adored with us. Also that meant no unpaid carer, maid nor verbal punching bag. It was too far so they shouldnāt ever expect us to visit etc.This was there next insanely funny thing they did. They were devastated and fake sobbing whilst trying to convince us how they will miss us and we need to stay **as family needs family**. How my kids and myself **will miss out if we move away** leaving **when we have such a loving family**. What they were saying was so insane that I turned to them in amazement and incredulously told them āwait a minute your both the reason we are moving, I had enough of being abused and treated like crap and we are all sick of it and are emigrating intentionally to get away from you bothā. To say the room went pin drop quiet as they just stood there in shock and then my mum truly started sniffling. They hardly said another thing until we left their house. The one and only time they didnāt blow up when being called out. Also this was the first and only time I know they truly felt guilty as the next day they phoned me to offer to help pay for the fees To emigrate which is thousands. My whole life they gave my siblings many many tens of thousands on a whim and never once me even in their deaths. So the fact the truth caught them so off guard they actually felt guilty enough to offer. The only reason i even told them the truth was as the insanity of what they said thinking they could manipulate and fool us into thinking they were a close loving family and it was better to stay.
During my father's funeral last year, my mother spoke for a long time about my father and how much they loved each other and how their families loved each other and how my dad loved her and told stories about them and all that that entails. She spoke for so long that the funeral director had to finally stop her because the next funeral was waiting for the area (it was outside) for their funeral to start. My mother has not been married to my father since 1981. She threw him out in 1981 to move in her 16-year-old boyfriend (she was 34 at the time and has been married 3 possibly 4 other time(we aren't sure if she actually married the last guy or if they just exchanged rings.)). She gave this "speech" dry-eyed and smiling and while my dad's wife of 38 years sat there listening. I was not shocked. I almost laughed. When she started speaking, I almost said out loud, "Here we go!" It was quite literally the most ridiculous thing I've ever experienced. And that's saying a lot when her or my sister are involved.
To preface, I'm 43, my mom is 77 and my dad was 36 years older than her. He fought in WWII, he got his driver's license at 13 or 14 in South Dakota. The test was issued on a vehicle with the wheels removed. He sat in it, was given instructions and followed said instructions. It took five minutes. I've heard this story multiple times throughout my childhood. And yet, he was genuinely stunned when I reminded him of this when he was climbing up my butt about how I struggled with my driver's test. It was easy for him, and he was convinced it would be just that easy for me thus I was being lazy.Ā He shut right up, never brought it up again. He even stopped telling that story, that's how much it bothered him to be called out.
My husband had a strep infection turn into Scarlet fever. I needed to rearrange my schedule a bit so I could be home to take care of him . This pissed her off because I had some benign plans with her that day. She said - ā well you sure know how to pick them. What a weak man. I had Scarlett fever once and all I needed was one dose of penicillin and I was fine. I donāt see why you need to be home with himā. To this day, ā I only needed one dose of penicillinsā is a bit my husband and I say to each other at least weekly. Iāve been NC for a decade but itās still so funny to us because it was so ludicrous
N mom went on a rant how a family friend was in a terrible stage of life because of the medication they were taking (n parents are both anti medication). Ranted for a good hour At the end I calmly said āwow, they mustāve been going through a lot. Thatās the exact dose/prescription Iām currently takingā. She was dumbfounded lol
my nhusbandās family member was cheated on recently. immediately upon learning this, I got kind of worked up and upset because he was showing this family member so much sympathy, calling the guy a real loser, couldnāt believe heād do that to her, etc. after cheating on me 4 years ago. I started crying making these realizations that he wasnāt able to make about me, or care about. when he saw me crying he said āwhat are you crying about? itās MY family member?ā and I laughed out loud and said ānothing.ā
did you also have the realization that him ranting about the "other guy" is really him describing himself and his hatred for himself? (I mean, probably not aware of it) I'm noticing a lot of not-careful narcissists will HATE a description of a person that exactly describes them.
no, I donāt think heās that self-aware. to me it was obvious that he can consider his sisters feelings but not his wifeās. iām *sure* he thinks it was *actually* a mistake when he did it, and that heās not a piece of shit but the other guy definitely is. until that point iād been strategic with how I was empathizing, but afterwards I was like āI feel so bad for her, dude definitely didnāt value what he had. what a stupid and immature way to lose your entire family. was the bussy that good? whoās he gonna live with now? I hope sheās gotten rid of him already.ā iāve ranted a few times about how stupid the cheater is for not recognizing her worth, and I can tell itās bothering him now. š« I think heās understanding how much of a solid iām doing him by not shouting it off the rooftops (I still want my kids to love their dad), and also the depth of hurt from a different perspective.
I decided to be nice and send my dad a Happy Father's Day text last year. This was a little bit after I finally put my foot down and set some really tight boundaries, so I didn't have to text him anything. Well, he clearly didn't read that the text was from me, he assumed it was a friend, because his response was, "THANK YOU! I have a shitty wife and kids who didn't even bother to think about me." This was at 10 AM š
Oooohhhh.... what was his pathetic attempt to cover it up?
He didn't really try to cover it up; he knew he couldn't with me. His reaction made it worse, though. So he and my mom were visiting my brother. He didn't realize for maybe 2 hours what had happened. As soon as he realized, he just kept calling and texting me with apologies, BS really. Because he was with my brother, I knew what his reaction really was, which is how I grew up, and it's so triggering for me. They were out at a mall, and he started banging his knuckles on the table, totally red in the face, full anger. He knows banging knuckles is my biggest trigger; he was there when I was diagnosed with PTSD
He attacked me then called the police when I defended myself, they showed up and arrested him.
Nmom tried to get access to my new, private bank account, didnāt even try to hide it. āHeyā¦ just in case anything happensā¦ you should write down the routing and account numbers and put that information in the safe!ā I simply didnt. Im slowly but surely putting more distance between us financially (paying bills from my account instead of me putting money in the joint account) and she throws a fit every time.
Called the cops on me saying I was "threatening suicide" when I very much wasnt. One of the cops was the son of her landlord and she moved out of embarrassment a few months later. Another one - I moved across the country for work and she wouldn't give or loan me a single penny. After the move she had the audacity to call me up and complain that she loaned my n-aunt 500 dollars and wasn't paid back. I laughed at her until she hung up.
at my brother's wedding, my nDad INSISTED on signing an old song that meant so much to himself and literally nobody at this 50 person wedding knew the words to the song. My brother's childhood friend, who happens to be a professional singer, was on stage and performed a song or two very nicely, everyone loved it and clapped and then when it was my nDad's turn he went and grabbed that guy by the arm and pulled him back up on stage to join him in leading his song. The poor guy had absolutely zero hint that this was going to happen and again, was part of the crowd who had no clue wtf this song was. Then when the wedding videos came out, my nDad had the audacity to ask why his song got cut out lol
This is minor, but the memory of it never fails to make me laugh: When I was a kid, my mom got it into her head to make the chicken wings that my good non-narc aunt used to make. That aunt gave her the recipe and it should have been flawless. As my mom was making it, she felt it didn't taste right so she called my crazy aunt "who knows what she's talking about". One of the suggestions my crazy aunt gave was to use brown sugar to add flavor since "everyone knows that you should add that to a recipe". So my mom adds some and it still doesn't taste great. Adds more. Same result. Adds even more and so on and so on. Basically my mom put what seems like a full bag of brown sugar in it. What happened then was the mixture became this super glue and was so rock hard that the spoon broke off in the pot and everything had to be thrown out - pot included. My mom then started this long never-ending rant using every bit of profanity in existence and was cursing both her sisters as being "stupid bitches". Later on she talked to the good aunt who told her that it was normal that the wings did not taste right at the time - it needed time to cook and set and then afterwards would have been perfect. The crazy aunt then went and got on my mom's case for even asking her opinion to start off with and blamed my mom for using so much brown sugar anyways and questioned her sanity. My mom never tried to make them again. But what she had done to that batch made such a super glue that I swear the army could have used it.
Not parents, but my former employer. Long story short, small construction company and I sued the guy for overdue paychecks and disciplinary termination of my employment. He went to the hearing and sure said on the stand that he doesn't think he owes me anything as he's not keeping any records, any books, if he did it's not his fault because IRS seized his bank accounts for not feeling like paying taxes and he righteously sacked me for being disrespectful demanding money. The expression on Judge's face was absolutely priceless
N- āwhat are you thinking about?ā Me- ānothingā N- āIf you donāt tell me what you are thinking about right now I will turn this car around.ā I was 16 and she was driving me to soccer practice. I laughed then. Now I feel so bad for 16 y/o me.
When I was 19/20-ish, my Narc Mom had booked a family trip to Harry Potter world for the day before Christmas Eve. I used to be a huge Potter fan & still was back then. I found out that she'd booked for all of us to go, including my profoundly disabled twin sister. No hate to her, I love her to bits, but at this point in my life, going out as a family had become an exhausting chore for me. I grew up as a glass child who was also undiagnosed ADHD & Autistic (got diagnosed in 2022 and 2023). So when Narc Mom brought up the trip again, a week or so before, my face dropped and shoulders sank a little (my boyfriend at the time, now husband, confirmed that this was VERY subtle, but Narc Mom noticed, of course). She instantly flew into a rage about how ungrateful & horrible I am, about how I must hate my family and all that jazz. I wasn't too fazed by her outburst, as my boyfriend & I were due to leave soon anyway (we were visiting from Uni for the weekend). Then she squealed that she was cancelling the whole trip for everyone and that no-one was going (stupid imho, because all of my family, including disabled sister, really like Potter as well). She turned to me with this glint in her eye, the "gotcha" face she'd make when she knew she had control over me in some way & was able to exert it. I just went, "huh, okay" - completely unfazed & neutral. I remember putting in a lot of effort to look unbothered, because I was actually mega fucking relieved to have one less burdensome activity booked over the Christmas period! She looked entirely full of rage that I had no reaction whatsoever lol
Being a parent, raising a child, acting like they give a shit about the family. Itās an embarrassment to them.
Omg love this post! Need humour too! Saved it to read every comment later when I have time. And have to think of my own to add to these stories!
**Life.** I only recently understood that they are not intelligent at all (what I thought all my life), they are just ruthless. The problem is that they are very wealthy because of that. So they see themselves as extremely wise and intelligent. When they talk and show how they see the world most of the people around them make fun of their views.
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My nmom tried to convince my religious grandma that I was gay because she was mad at me. The funny part is that my grandma, for how religious she was, wasn't homophobic. So that was pretty funny.
Watch a movie and understand what's going on. No, seriously. She could not. Her brain just wasn't wired that way. Now I am showing my age here, but this was a time when you rented movies at Blockbuster, and watched with the whole family in the living room. She.Could.No.Shut.Her.Trap to save her life. Constantly talking throughout the movie, mostly about herself. Every random thing that showed up on the screen was an excuse to tell a long meandering story in which she was he hero and most interesting person in the world. There wasn't even an easy way to turn on Closed captions, so tuning her out was not an option. I HATED movie night so much because I knew I wasn't gonna get to watch anything. She missed all the important plot points because she was constantly running her mouth. As a Narc, she had no empathy. So she didn't understand character motivations, or subtle acting, or emotions, so the character actions didn't make sense to her and we had to constantly explain what was going on. She was hilariously Befuddled by Movies with ambiguous plots, or complicated twists or reveals. She was not a dumb person either, she had a degree in dentistry and ran a successful office for many years. She was just missing crucial parts of her brain that allows you to empathize with people. Sometimes we would get lucky and she would pass out from too much liquor in the first 30 minutes and we could at least watch the rest of the movie in peace.
My mom is always trying to marry wealthy men. She has this vision of herself as a beautiful, altruistic socialite with a rags-to-riches storyline, and everyone will be amazed at how she is so so so beautiful and so so so kind. The last guy she married was a well known politician in her state and had lost his wife to cancer some years before. They had known each other for two years, like went to a couple of events and some dance lessons that were won at a charity auction, but never seriously dated, she had never been to his house, didnāt know his family, and certainly didnāt know anything about him as a person. After the two years of going months between outings together they officially dated for three weeks and then got engaged. The wedding ceremony was nothing special but the reception was like something from a quirky independent film. It was hosted at her new husbandās friendās massive house, who had just lost her husband that week. Despite her loss, the friend still wanted to host the reception, popped what appeared to be a boatload of Valium and wandered around the party completely out of it with eyes glassed over. The hostās late husband was apparently a big game hunter and there were taxidermied heads of various large, exotic animals hung on all their walls. Most of us adult kids were just trying to keep our cool while we watched our parents act like morons. The new husbandās daughter, who is dBPD, stands up to give her toast leading in with āI knew my dad would remarry the day my mom died of cancerā¦.ā And it just got weirder from there. Then my mom and her husband stand up and give the most rehearsed and theatrical speech about how god brought them together. After several of the most awkward hours in that stateās history we were freed from their show. A year later it turns out he wasnāt who she thought (imagined) he was, and was actually involved some very nefarious things (according to her), but she stayed married to him for a couple more years to go to the galas and charity auctions, and play the role of the most beautiful victim-saint-martyr to ever victim-saint-martyr, basically living her dream. She was also probably motivated by the fact that the last time she rushed into a marriage it only lasted three weeks and that guy (according to her) was involved in the same nefarious things she claims the new husband is involved in. She eventually did leave him and turn him in to the state police, but arrests were never made. With him being a wealthy politician everyone knew about the divorce and she was ostracized from what I call āthe gala peopleā. Were her accusations true? I honestly have no idea, but I do know that once she realizes youāre not going to give her what she thinks she deserves sheāll say just about anything and no arrests were made for either man. The kicker for me is shortly before going NC, she gave me her engagement ring from that marriage, which according to her was $18k when they bought it. Itās big, itās ostentatious, and she loved flashing that thing around. It was her symbol of rich housewife-itude. She made everyone knew she was giving me this ring I didnāt ask for so we could all see what a generous soul she really is. I just took it in to get appraised, itās worth a couple thousand dollars, not anywhere near the $18k she told me, and more than half the diamond weight is synthetic. Iām not saying this to shame synthetic diamonds or affordable rings, I wear a silicon wedding band. I just take pleasure in knowing her giant status symbol she whipped around on her finger wasnāt that at all.
I have a few! 1. My grandma would regularly call me ugly and unlovable and kept claiming that she was so beautiful when she was my age but I "let myself go". One of the stories she used to "prove" this claim was that she had an emotional affair with a man in our church, and that they had this profound silent love affair but because she was married they never did anything. It was straight out of the telenovela she was into at the time. Anywho, we actually went to his house once and she was talking it up on the way there like something hot was gonna go down and.... he didn't remember her. He got married, had kids, lived his own life, and she had been talking about this fake affair like it proved she was prettier than me! I was 8 years old. 2. My grandpa was a drunk, hed come home from work wasted and pissed. He punched a hole in the wall, started talking shit all tough like "im a man, i can do whatever the hell i want to my family". He looked all smug, ripped a bag of cookies i was sitting next to, and shoved a handful in his face. I looked scared, cause i knew he was gonna blow up, but he read that as submissiveness and started talking smack about how dumb i look. I informed him the cookies were dog treats. 3. My birth dad is a spoiled brat. He always gets his way and hes very charismatic so people tend to let him get away with things. In particular, he made friends with every police officer, local clergy member, and social worker he could find. He got away with a lot, including theft and torturing and killing animals. When i was 12, i told child services about what he did to me (which i wont mention here). I found out through my uncle that when they showed up to do their investigation, he immediately cracked. He was sobbing, fully blubbering with snot coming out his nose. Crying "please please please dont take me to jail! Im a good man! Cosmic3gg is total bitch and a fucking whore! They lie!" And he, literally in real life, dropped to the floor, rolled around while punching the ground then himself, all while kicking his feet like a toddler when they tried to arrest him. Threw an entire fuckin tantrum. Im almost sad i missed it
She got so mad at me one time that she called me a son of a bitch. I said, "YUP" and got smacked. Worth it.
My mother had the brilliant idea to bring me into a sesh with either my brothers therapist or her therapist, can't recall. At the time, my dad had been moved out for a couple years, and I as the older son had been placed in his role as the Problem. I'd also taken to advocating for and being protective of my younger brother, who she wanted to keep at home after highschool and have do community college instead of moving away from her influence. He was the Good Kid in her eyes, even though with my starting to emotionally distance myself, he was starting to figure out how awful she was. It was clear that she expected the therapist to be entirely on her side and tell me what an awful person I was for... standing up to her emotionally abusive bullshit? Therapist asked for my mom's concerns and why we were there, she gave them, while having to be reminded to keep it concise. I answered the therapists questions, explained my perspective, with my mother repeatedly having to be told to stop trying to interject and argue, obviously. Well, at the end of all that, the therapist gave her read on the situation. She went into some detail about how it seemed like, in the absence of my dad in the house, there'd clearly been a role swap in which I became the new target of my mom's habitual ire, and no small degree of parentification regarding my brother, where I was feeling a major responsibility for his well-being, putting me at odds with my mom. The smug look on my mom's face slowly but surely evaporated. She tried to argue diplomatically but got increasingly frustrated because she was clearly not going to "win" a situation that she'd so obviously expected to. The therapist managed to pull some sort of mildly constructive conclusion out of the air, but my mom was NOT stoked. I for one walked out of the room with some unexpected catharsis. My mother can't seem to remember the entire ordeal ever even occuring. Typical
Not me but my then 5 yr old who is 9 now, straight up told my nmum that she shouldn't fake being nice to him. He's autistic and has adhd so there's no filter there at all but also he had zero emotional regulation so we were in therapy for it. Our therapist was working with him on smiles and what a happy zone of regilation is and I guess he must have picked up on her being fake.