When is enough enough with narcissistic parents?

Sad1, there is - if not safety then - consolation in numbers, thank you! I was 20, too; only miserable, clueless and arrogant with it; and like you I'd never even met a baby. I agree that very very few parents get everything right, and sometimes, sod's law being what it is, even those angels get landed with horrible children who still go off the rails… It's not a project, I know.

My therapist - gosh, poor woman - once tried to grasp the nettle and told me firmly "I want you to say to yourself, every day, 'I love and approve of myself.'" After a stunned, goggle-eyed silence I'm afraid I squealed with laughter and she was quite offended - but, honestly, had she been listening to a word I'd said?

I think I did emotionally abuse my children. Or at least I think that with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight. Like many people, I would give anything to have another go at it. Among the panic, fear and stress all that love - and I do count my blessings, bonding wasn't a problem - got buried under an overwhelming urge to control, which was never going to sit well with an adventurous little boy, or with an iron-willed little girl (daughter in the middle was a happy breeze. Go figure). I yelled, smacked and nagged from dawn to dusk; or that's what I remember, of course. And it's not so much self-blame as bitter regret. Once I've told my son properly how proud of him I am, how much I loved him even when it least looked like it, and how sorry I am that I was so horrible to him… then I can stop saying I was a terrible mother. There's only so much you can make up for with chocolate cakes.

50schild, I'm sorry I haven't replied properly to your lovely hug - it's a work in progress, but my goodness what food for thought.

Here's something I'd like ideas for, please: middle daughter, the breeze, is however worrying me. She's 28, a junior doctor i.e. working every hour God sends. She has a nice-sounding boyfriend (haven't met him yet) who also has very little free time (he's a baby lawyer, big City firm). Now then. There's a rare week off coming up for both of them. HOW has she got wheedled into spending two days of that precious time with her father's family, notably her NPD grandmother? Why is she succumbing to FOG in a way that her siblings don't, and how do I stop this becoming a dangerous habit? She certainly is a people-pleaser, it's true, but normally she's realistic about boundaries - just not with that lot.

everyone makes mistakes. not everyone admits them. very few ask forgiveness for them.
#1) narcs never make any mistakes
#2) if they do, it is someone else's fault, especially the victim's fault.
#3) all else fails, see rule# 1.
two cents ¢¢

CM, my daughter, like yours, is smart and kind. She knew what my mom did re:my sister and I, but maintained that her relationship with Mom was separate from that. The gma she experienced was warm, loving and attentive, and she couldn't quite reconcile that as a mother, she was controlling, nasty and selfish. She continued to take her to lunch, go visit until one day she took a dvd she bought to watch with Mom. It was a Disney she watched many times with my mom and she had these wonderful memories attached to it. I think she had this Hallmark moment envisioned. Instead, my mother took the opportunity to totally dump on her. It was the first time my daughter had had my mom launch at her. And it was the last time she spent one on one time with my mom. Point is that sometimes they have to get to that place on their own, in their time.

Linda that's so sad. Poor lovely girl. That was a really awful thing to happen to her. I suppose there's some consolation in that a) now she knows what you were talking about and b) now she can be on her guard; I just wish it could have happened more gently. :•(

CM, TwoCents said it perfectly with her three rules. Notice how very different you are from obeying those rules. You have self-awareness (SA) and I need to believe that there is a beneficial non-verbal that your offspring will pick up on from your SA. Where love intentions are, the bad memories you have of your possible over-controllingness and knee-jerk pained reactions will blend nicely with your good intentions in others' minds once they understand you. You give them plenty of opportunity for that, unlike a true hopeless BPD/Narc. I suspect your perceived nastiness/over-controllingness wasn't as bad as you thought, or perhaps was your own grasping for their own thriving without knowing how desperately you did. Now you do. You gave them a lot, too. They need their anger to separate, they will come 'round, because you are a sensitive person, sharing your self-awareness. You have walked through a storm.

Thank you! I think I'm lucky they didn't shoot me and bury me in the garden… there's just been a terrible case in the news tonight of exactly that happening, a daughter and SIL shooting her parents dead and burying them out the back of their own house. Years ago, it was, and carrying on claiming their pension, and sending their friends and family forged Christmas cards, and so on. The lady's defence was that she had lost it when she came home to find that her father had shot her mother, so she shot him, then they panicked and buried both of them. The jury took six hours to convict them both - they must have had to finish a rubber of bridge or something.

I know it can't have been all bad, though I'd still like to do it again better. It's in the nature of depressives to believe that the bits we got wrong were HUGE and the bits we got right were teeny-weeny and either incredibly easy or to somebody else's credit…

It really does get quite wearing mentally and emotionally and it's time I grew out of it. But I'm still going to apologise to my boy.

Twocents, if we all try really really hard do you think we could get to live by those rules too? Sounds cool! - nothing would ever be our fault again...

CM, yes, it was a shame as my mom was a terrific gma to all the kids. She was fun, loving and attentive. They're wonderful adults and would be terrific grandkids to her. But as they grew and didn't have the time for her (that they did as children), she changed her demeanor with them, now subjecting them to the attitude previously reserved for Dad and my sister and I. It's been hurtful to them to have her change from their dear gma.

Depressives my best folk: Growing out of it is impossible when you see and feel so much. If BPD/Narcs teach us anything, it is denial. They exemplify the best in physical evolution, yes or no? CM, please don't grow out of it (not a monk with hairshirt and where did they get those whips from?). You are a Re-Actor and Lady-Who-Stood-Up. And goes over and over it. And our culture runs all over everything, as it did to our parents and our grandparents. My witness of my Mom's demise, and my Sis and nephews (limited world view it is) -- is that each generation is over-assaulted with things protective Moms and Dad could not fathom. In in their "could not," they shut out the struggles of others they could not know. I mean Could Not. I guess you are old enough to have seen the Technicolor Fiddler on the Roof with Zero Mostel. Family rejected the daughter who left the cleft. Yet, in the end, Zero gave her a blessing, though could not speak to her. Dear CM, I suspect you Left the Cleft. You did just fine, better than I ever could, as once pregnant, I aborted. I knew I couldn't handle it. YOU DID. You brought kids into this world and now you are thinking about them without rest and without peace. You did it woman. The best thing maybe you can do for them now is to find what grace (I am so anti-religion as my bro was molested) you can, and stand up right now for the dignity you embrace by your self-doubts. Self-doubt is your blessing. Don't ever doubt it. You did what you did, and if Jesus were truly a Man, he would be standing right where you are now. So would millions of women with children in these times. Don't doubt that your sensitivies to your children, are received by them. They may have to punish you. And you'll take it. But your inspirational stand-up-ed-ness will prevail. You have already given them so much more than most from your past can acknowledge. Going to call you my Saint right now.

Grandma was doting and stimulating to "rug rats" (as sharecropper Dad called them with a twinkle in his eye). Never did anyone know that Mom's grandchildren were AS TERRIFIED of Grandma as Sis and I were. Grandma took them to expensive venues, and on vacations that were awesome (Dad towed along like he was even younger than Grandma, paying all $$). Grandkids took those memories way-in, yet have no memories of them. Instead, "Grandma was a bitch." They remember Grandma tormenting my sister. And in Grandma's last month on earth, sending the most horrible letters to grandsons, indicting them for unspeakable things young men cannot understand. Since they were 11 years old, they never opened Grandma's letters. They burned them. ELEVEN years old. One thing Gma said that gets me: "You will never have another mother." Referring to Sis. They threw it away like everything else, but Mom told me about it, with her scary penetrating eyes, telling me in so many words that her own mother sacrificed her female life, and deserved something better. Smoke and stinking up the suffocating kitchen with this, which endeared me. She pointed her long-fingernails at me, and said it again and again. "The Only Mother You Will Ever Have." Terrifyingly. And her last standing voice. She was a terrorist, but still my Mom, and god knows what her life was (only hints). So CM, god only knows knows what your offsprings' life are. We have to acquiesce to cultural, psychological and social evolutions we cannot understand. In our times, a little counseling went a long way. Now, I don't think Counseling is respected by younger folk. They truly feel they are on their own, without understanding. I doubt highly you would never want to understand. But it is like putting it in [Cod's] hands. Cod is my little joke from a family abused by religion. Cod is a little sigh we passed on a wayward drive to a little lake in Michigan. The poor church did not do the "G" right, and it looked like "Cod." An appropriate Michigan joke, from a Missouri Synod Lutheran who can no longer trust church. You know your evils, but your adult children only want to see how you fare year-to-year, and they will be watching. Your "evils" don't count now, ok? Evil R Us.

Fishing for compliments. That's what I need to avoid in mending things with Son. Here is the Spelling Test Tale.

Until age 13, Son went to a Good School. Where we came from, that meant an academic hot-house for precocious little Jewish and Asian boys, all of them clever, good and bad-at-games. I never questioned the choice: his father had gone there, nobody even considered alternatives.

Son was - well, is - dyslexic. I felt, in my heart, that he had done it on purpose to defy me. Of all the learning disabilities in the world, he chose the one that made him naturally terrible at the one thing I am naturally good at.

At his Good School, every Friday, pupils were set 50 new or challenging words to learn. On Monday morning there was a test of 25 of the words, pass mark 20, lower than that and there were re-sits all week long until you passed.

So Friday night, Saturday morning (after his extra tuition for dyslexics), Saturday afternoon, Saturday night, Sunday morning (before rugby), Sunday afternoon, Sunday before bed and Monday on the drive to school were devoted to learning to spell and understand these words. And maybe one week in three he would scrape through the test first time.

Fast forward ten years: peaceful day at home, I'm going through a drawer and get sidetracked into reading his old school reports. Comment from the English teacher: "… spelling is still very hit-and-miss. He can do it when he tries."

He can do it when he tries. The injustice of that comment was heart-breaking and outrageous, and I'd supported it all the way. Son happening to be at home I went to him and said that I was sorry for what I'd put him through. "No!" he said. "I'm glad you did. Otherwise I'd be like all the other dyslexics and it would be really embarrassing."

Well, that was very sweet of him to say, and partially consoling. But it could not possibly have been everything he felt about it. What about the utter failure to acknowledge how hard he was working, or praise him for overcoming a disability which was not his fault? What about the frustrated rage and blame heaped on him for something he couldn't begin to help? What about the adamant assertion that something he couldn't do was fundamental to civilised existence? I would like to start again. We'd still do the work, but this time around I would remember to add approval and love.

Not long after that, he was being interviewed about choices of regiment in the Army; and the interviewer said to him: "well, with your academic record you should be aiming high - " The interviewer couldn't understand what Son was so amused about, not realising that this was the first time in his life that anyone had ever remarked positively on his academic record.

He still can't bloody spell, though. "Is there one S in lettuce, or two?" English is a terrible language.

So that's the thing - not so much questioning whether I got things right, as seeing very clearly what I got terribly wrong and not knowing what to do about it. Ideally, you learn from those things; but you cannot undo them however much you would like to.

(I did not, ever, punish him physically for poor schoolwork, by the way. Just in case anybody's wondering. I wasn't that raving mad.)

And I have wandered so far off topic I'm on a different planet - apologies, all further hand-wringing about children will move elsewhere, promise.

Little Feigele, wasn't it, 50s - such a complicated theme they were touching on. Love that film. But I'm afraid we're in less optimistic times - people are killing their children rather than letting them leave. And then when you look at some of the causes the children are leaving for, you can see why. Idealism isn't what it was in our young day.

Well you learn something every day! I only saw the film with Topol and was thinking "Zero Mostel??? You're kidding!" But now, yes, I can see he'd have been brilliant too, may he rest in peace.

"You will never have another mother!" - ?

Thinks: Well I hope not, anyway. Not if they're all like this one...

Went to visit mom in the nursing home after taking a couple weeks of no-contact time that I desperately needed.

She was in the hallway using her walker, and passed me! Physically she's never been this healthy. She's quite vigorous and robust these days. Cognitively, we're on the downhill slide. She didn't say hello, boo, just "When are you going to take me out of here and get this hair cut? I'm gonna need...blah blahblahblahblahblabhalbhablahblahblahblahblhah" all the way into her room.

We brought her a TV, some PJs, sugar free candy & treats, some sugar/caffeine free pop. You'd think she would be claipping her hands like a 5 year old on Christmas morning. Nope. She yanked the bag out of my hand, looked in it, and hung it on her walker. Not a word about it. Nothing.

Then she launched into her list of demands, complaints, and whining. Everything starts with "I'm gonna need...." It's all useless wants, not needs. She used to "list" me to death when I still lived at home. Grocery lists, chore lists, you name it. List list list list list. We never had a conversation about anything. She dictated and I wrote it down. She was always the supervisor and I was always the dumb employee. Forever.

She's gonna need all new bathrobes, all new pants, all new shoes, and on & on. She's got to have a phone. She's got to have a different room. It's like being hit with machine gun spray that never lets up because her style is so rapid fire and merciless. Her synapses were firing really well yesterday.

Then we get her news of the world. That I guess she downloads from the mothership via her tinfoil antenna. She had no TV or radio until yesterday. Her room-mate has a tv adn watches sports, but mom can't go on that side of the room (smart lady!) According to mom, the place she is at now is going to fire everybody and bring in 19,000 Nigerians. 90% of the people who claim to be doctors aren't. All the nurses are going to be let go and replaced with Nigerians. (What is with her fixation on Nigerian people?) She watches rats run around at night. She's going to move soon. Blah blah blah blah blah.

Somebody call Paul Harvey because my mom has the rest of the story for him. (I don't know if Paul Harvey's show ever crossed the Atlantic, but he was a famous radio guy here in the US for decades.)

I tried several times to change the subject and ask her who painted her fingernails, and if she'd been outside, or to the church service. The answer is always a very short "NO [you stupid idiot]." And then she launches back into her needs & wants lists. This time a nurse was in the room, and she told me what I wanted to know, and that mom *had* been to activities last week. I stepped into the hall to talk to the nurse some more about mom & how the staff has my utmost sympathy. They deserve hazard pay.

After about half an hour of time with mom, I decided it was time to go, so my husband & I tolder we had to get back home to chores. She looked at me like I had two heads - "What kind of chores do YOU have? You don't have any chores to do. You don't even work!" Ugg. No point arguing with her, she's the only one in the world. (Yes I work. Full time + family + house + life in general.) She was still listing to-dos for us as we went down the hall. Good luck with those lists mom.

We have to go back in 2 weeks to drop off a birthday card and a cupcake. I asked her what she wanted for her birthday and she said "not a ____ thing" but then immediately commenced with the "I gotta have....." lists.

You have to laugh. It's exhausting, draining, and soul-sucking. Laughing with my husband, my kids, and my friends is the best defence I have. Happiness is the best revenge.

*tolder = told her. My keyboard is not cooperative!

Sandwich... I understand the demands of your mother. You're so lucky to have support around you... Some of us don't have any... Be very happy (also) that she doesn't live with you.

Sandwich I thought about adding "editor's notes" to your post, but you know what? I'm not laughing. It's not f***ing funny, is it.

You do have a case for estranging yourself from her, you know. If you can hack all this then I take my hat off to you, and well done; but you don't have to. Just give it some thought. For example, you CAN go back in two weeks with cards and cakes. But no, you don't have to. I think that's the key point she's been missing all these years. You don't have to lift a damn finger if you don't choose to.

And may all those Nigerians be fully paid-up boko haram members...

Sandwich, just...WOW. The upside, I guess, is that cognitively she is going downhill, so there's a good chance that your visits can become shorter, and rarer, and she won't really notice. Sure, she'll complain and accuse, but she probably won't notice if your visits and time spent with her decrease.

Good grief Sandwich, and I thought my mother was bad enough! Mind you as she's in poor shape physically and her mind is away with the fairies. Personally I'd ensure Mommie Dearest is clean, safe, fed and has what she needs (not wants!) and stay the heck away from her. I's sure she has a ton of "friends" who would happily run her errands (not).

I am so very thankful to be reading the posts. This is my first time here and I feel I am going crazy. I not only live with (in the same house) my narcissistic mother but husband also. My mother is mean-spirited and I stay in my bedroom most of the time to avoid her. She is bi-polar also and I have problems too with anxiety attacks. My husband is an alcoholic who is becoming increasingly less able to speak a word to without argument. I am 65 yrs old and am really at my wits end. I must admit sometimes I think I am just not doing enough to make a calmness for myself. I'm trying meditation and plan on going to a support group for the first time soon. Thanks for letting me see in writing that others have my same feelings. I have told my children that I will not be at my mother's funeral so they better be ready to jump in and handle it. Besides she will more than likely outlive me. I no longer feel guilty for these thoughts because I have feel I have done all I can do. My mother has always, always been this way. She has lived with us for over 15 yrs and most of that rent free, until recently when I told her she was going to have to pitch in since I'm retired and on limited income. I could go on and on but it appears most of you on here know the feelings I have.

Overwhelmed my mother wants to be cremated on her passing and her ashes scattered in a certain spot, however it's really the only option as there is no family and she has no friends so there would be nobody at a funeral or service. Over her life time she's alienated and trampled on anyone who had the misfortune to cross her path. The day she dies absolutely no-one will care. Sad that almost 90 years of life hasn't meant a thing to anyone in this world. Hopefully in the next world she can find the happiness she could never find in this one.

So, why do you all take care of these hated abusive "narcissistic" mothers? Why not just throw them in a nursing home and be done with it. You must have reasons why you do it?

I wish I had my answer to that.

Whitehorses, therein lies the angst you have so pointed out. We love them and the ties that bind create untold guilts. Our very existence depends on Them being ok with us. Most of us are painfully aware of options, but "throwing them in a nursing home" does not absolve the acute sense of responsibility one feels for a mentally ill loved one, particularly where you have failed to redeem someone's very life.

Sandwich42, "my mother used to 'list' me to death..." too! She's been dead a year and a half and now I find myself "on break" making a list of my "dad care" for this week ::sigh::

Whitehorse, easier said than done. My NPD mom wouldn't have gone into assisted living. She had her faculties, didn't need skilled care that a nursing home. It was her way or the highway, which for me meant boundaries and limited contact.

Heart2Heart - Well, if it weren't for my heroic husband, I would probably be in a psych ward myself. I have no brothers or sisters. Mom's sisters & brother have zero to do with her and didn't help in her move to my state one iota. They lifted not one finger. They don't even check on her now. So it's really my husband & me figuring it all out one day at a time.

Mom lived in my house 3 1/2 weeks while her apartment was being made ready. We (husband & 2 teenagers) were all near suidical by the end. What a big needy baby. It was super toxic for all of us, especially my daughter, that I was on the verge of putting her in a hotel until her apartment opened up. She finally went into a senior independent apartment with 20 meals in the dining room, free utilities, cable, and wifi. It was not a nursing home. But there were nursing & helper services that can be added on as you need them, and we did. She had stopped walking the 20 steps to the dining room because she had all kinds of criticism about it. When I ate there it was delicious. Apparently she only ever got a bowl of water with a piece of potato in it. She was also hallucinating, not remembering to take her meds, not eating, not showering, not dressing. We added on as many services as we could in the independent unit.
We were on a waiting list to move her into the Assisted unit, down a floor and around a corner.

After a bad fall in May and a stint in rehab, she is now in the nursing home unit permanently, and is safe from herself & the world. We skipped the assisted living unit. I no longer have to do anything for her at all. I get to decide when I visit and how long it lasts. I am no longer the unpaid help and taxi service. My home is my sanctuary. She has not set foot in it since she left 11/19/13 and she won't as long as I have a say. She knows she lost the apartment, but does not accept that she has to be where she is. She is the biggest pain in the tush possible and is mean and nasty to all the non-white staff.

My mom didn't want to go into a senior residence, but I didn't give her a choice. I arranged for movers, our trip to her state, and took care of all details. I was able to get POA the second day we were there. I wrote the checks for all this out of her checkbook. We put her in the car, in hysterics, with full dramatic scene in effect. She was fine after I stopped and got her a Happy Meal with a milkshake. I kid you not. She stopped blubbering and sounding like a 3 year old in my back seat and quietly took a nap for a few hours.

I found her a place to live, I made the arrangements, I filled out the forms. She got to pick which side of the hallway her apartment would be on. That was her one single choice in the whole deal. I unpacked, I did the laundry, I did the grocery shopping. It was all me with my husband's help. I manage what little money she has, and will be the one to apply for Medicaid when the time comes. I am not paying for any of this. I am the one who cleaned out her apartment by myself and had movers take it all to my house & garage. I am the one taking boxes and bags of clothes & stuff to donate. She sits on her butt and is cranky, mean, demanding, and obstinate while people bring her food, medicine, and wipe her old behind. She lives like the Queen of Egypt but can't find the good in anything.

If I had waited until it was OK with mom, she might be dead by now, alone, in that filthy disgusting hoarding house of hers. I had to take over because it had to be done. Any protest on her part was just ignored, plain and simple. This was not a cooperative process where she could guide along the way. If it had been, nothing would have changed for her, and I probably would have been to her funeral by now.

Nobody *wants* to go into a nursing home, but sometimes it has to happen. It's not Disneyland is it? I prioritized my family over her wants. Her wants never end and you will never satisfy them as long as you live and try. I am more interested in her safety than anything else. She was NOT SAFE in that house by herself. She was NOT SAFE in my home because of fall hazards. We were NOT SAFE around her! I refused to give up my job for her, my marriage, my family, and my home. Absolutely not. That was NEVER on the table.

Maybe it was a little bit easier because she went into a senior apartment first, not directly from her home to a nursing home ward. I don't know. Every step of this has been as difficult as possible, uphill, and emotionally upsetting. But I hope I'm nearing the end of that and we can find a period of stability - at least on my end. Mom is going to rage like Godzilla over Tokyo until she drops.

Sorry for another post after a long one....

I decided one day that for me to keep loving mom, it was going to have to be at a distance. I had 1800 miles for almost 20 years. Now I have one mile and a secured elevator she can't get into when she wants to escape. So, I love ya mom, but I'm going to be doing that from way over here.

Distance is Cod.

Today's young adults would never do what you are all doing. If you have been treated badly and have no financial hold on you, you have no guilt in this.

I know this is easier said than done. It is a trap from being abused all your life.
I am so sorry about all of this. I can care for my mom. I could never care for my Dad. Don't know if he is a Naricsissit, but he was abusive physically, verbally and emotionally. He is 91 and thankfully married to a younger woman who takes care of him. I could not and I would not. He never stopped the abuse to this day. Only three months ago, he said mean things to me. I am never mean in return though I certainly could be.

You are far better people than I am. That is for sure.

I've visited my NPD mother in the NH the last couple of days and her deterioration, even from a week or two ago, is awful. She's bed ridden, eats and drinks little, can barely speak and is basically just fading away. I make sure she has a stock of apple juice, V8 and bottled water. She eats a little breakfast, refuses lunch and picks a few bites for supper. As she eats so little she doesn't poop for days so then they give her an enema.

Staff bring juice around several times a day. While I was there a PSW brought in a small glass of juice with a straw. Previously my mother would drink it but now the PSW stands over her, holding the straw to her mouth and, with a lot of coaxing, she'll sip maybe 3/4 of it. For lunch she'd eaten an apple sauce pudding cup - I'd brought her a pack of them the day before.

For a lifetime I've loathed her and avoided her if at all possible so I can't understand why this is affecting me so badly - nightmares, diarrhea, pounding stomach and so on. I feel that she will pass soon and, in a way, I hope she does for both our sakes as she has absolutely no quality of life.