Other Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers Here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When she looks at you before your wedding day and asks if your dress is still going to fit.

When you are 13 and get your first period, you go straight to her and she tells you, "figure it out". When you talk back (as teenagers do) she says, "if I knew you'd be like this, I would've had an abortion!". Things like that.

My mother’s first words when I told her my boyfriend had proposed were, “Well, I like him okay, but I don’t think he likes me very much.”
For those trying to understand, it is about having to, from a young age, take care of the wants and needs of your parent and not being allowed to have any wants and needs of your own. My mother would scream at us when she didn’t get her way, and holidays usually ended in a narcissistic rage about how one of us had “ruined” her day. It’s very hard for those who had decent childhoods to get how soul-crushing it is.

This resonates. I was a bit homely as a teen and my mom wouldn’t give me the money or help to look more pulled together. I didn’t have a ton of friends and boys were not interested in me. In a moment of stupid vulnerability I expressed to my mom that I wished I had a homecoming date. My mom volunteered that maybe I was a lesbian and that’s why boys didn’t like me, and if I wore lipstick I wouldn’t look as plain and then I wouldn’t be a lesbian. But also she wouldn’t buy it for me or let me wear makeup.

When I was engaged and called my mom to tell her and share our plans for a small but lovely wedding (to a man, bc still not a lesbian), my mom went silent for a full 30 seconds. Then she said “oh.” And went silent again. Finally she said, “well, this isn’t the wedding I wanted. I feel disappointed.” That was literally her first response to the news!

She’s been married twice herself and already had two weddings.

This reminds me of when I called my mom to tell her I was engaged, and she basically said “oh” and then launched into her monologue, as she always does.

That is my mom’s reaction for almost everything momentous—going off to college, passed a very difficult test, getting married, having a baby, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do any other daughters of narcissistic mothers have mothers who blatantly favor your brothers over you?

My mother shows zero interest in me or my life. She probably couldn't even tell you where I work or what I do for a living but she knows every minute detail about my under-achieving younger brother and will talk about him at length if given the chance. She has never given any indication that she is proud of me or even so much as acknowledged my achievements in spite the fact that on-paper, I'm clearly the more successful child. The favoritism is so obvious and in-your-face that other people have pointed it out.

Yes. My mom told me she wanted sons. She favored my brothers and abused me. She treated my dh as her own son. I felt loke I was an outsider.

When my older son was born we attended a family party. My mom took my son and positioned herself front and center in the photo and stood in front of me, practically blocking me out from the photo. Even my husband noticed what she did. From then on he got her number. It was obvious that she was parading herself around as grandma. She had little to nothing to say to me. She wanted to validation from her friends that she was now in their club.

Do we have the same mom? I posted once, if anyone remembers, about having a baby and when the baby was five days old, my mom invited several family members (including toddlers who were always sick) over to my house without telling me until they were almost there. When they arrived, she grabbed my baby to introduce him as if he were hers. This was after my pediatrician said to avoid crowds because babies require a spinal tap if they spike a fever under two weeks old. I cried and was so hormonal. She wrote me a scathing email (which I also posted) where she told me I was too inflexible and need to be able to go with the flow now that I was a parent, and roll with the punches and gracious accept guests on a whim.

I don't know if my mom is a narcissist but she definitely has 0 boundaries with me. She has also done nice things for me, gotten me nice stuff, been on my side in certain situations, which I think she feels has afforded her the right to cross normal boundaries.

So she's human. Got it. We would never label someone a narcissist for stuff like this. We'd just call out the event and say mom was ignoring my wishes.

The labels are what are crazy these days.

❌❌❌ wrong, wrong, and wrong again. This is classic narcissistic behavior. The sense of entitlement, lack of empathy, exploiting her daughter who just gave birth so she can parade the new baby in front of other family members, gaslighting with the “scathing email” instead of admitting what she did was wrong, lack of respecting emotional and physical boundaries. You sound like you don’t have a narcissistic mom and can’t related to what OP is expressing. This isn’t just labeling someone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. It's really rough.

And to the PP who thinks therapy fixes it, it doesn't for some.

Dp. Just out of a therapy session where we discussed my narc mom, who abused, neglected and didn't love me. I have a good marriage and I am kind to my kids. I will never heal from the wounds she inflicted. I don't care what made her that way, there is no excuse for what she did. Worst of all is the feeling of worthlessness because even my own mother didn't love me.

Dp, agree. I’m there, too. I am just moving on. I’m not taking on the emotional burdens of people who aren’t willing to work on themselves.

I have found the relationships that I do maintain to be a lot better since I learned this. A lot of people use boundaries as an excuse to reject people but that’s not really what they are for. They are to help you maintain relationships that are mutually valued.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do any other daughters of narcissistic mothers have mothers who blatantly favor your brothers over you?

My mother shows zero interest in me or my life. She probably couldn't even tell you where I work or what I do for a living but she knows every minute detail about my under-achieving younger brother and will talk about him at length if given the chance. She has never given any indication that she is proud of me or even so much as acknowledged my achievements in spite the fact that on-paper, I'm clearly the more successful child. The favoritism is so obvious and in-your-face that other people have pointed it out.

Yes. My mom told me she wanted sons. She favored my brothers and abused me. She treated my dh as her own son. I felt loke I was an outsider.

When my older son was born we attended a family party. My mom took my son and positioned herself front and center in the photo and stood in front of me, practically blocking me out from the photo. Even my husband noticed what she did. From then on he got her number. It was obvious that she was parading herself around as grandma. She had little to nothing to say to me. She wanted to validation from her friends that she was now in their club.

Do we have the same mom? I posted once, if anyone remembers, about having a baby and when the baby was five days old, my mom invited several family members (including toddlers who were always sick) over to my house without telling me until they were almost there. When they arrived, she grabbed my baby to introduce him as if he were hers. This was after my pediatrician said to avoid crowds because babies require a spinal tap if they spike a fever under two weeks old. I cried and was so hormonal. She wrote me a scathing email (which I also posted) where she told me I was too inflexible and need to be able to go with the flow now that I was a parent, and roll with the punches and gracious accept guests on a whim.

I don't know if my mom is a narcissist but she definitely has 0 boundaries with me. She has also done nice things for me, gotten me nice stuff, been on my side in certain situations, which I think she feels has afforded her the right to cross normal boundaries.

So she's human. Got it. We would never label someone a narcissist for stuff like this. We'd just call out the event and say mom was ignoring my wishes.

The labels are what are crazy these days.

Fine She's selfish, uncaring, and self-absorbed. Do you like this better? To me these are still labels.

[Anonymous]

I know it's another label, but some mothers are just main character syndrome women who don't know how to have an equal relationship with their child. They didn't switch from mother child to mother teen to mother adult relationships. The ones that are still mother child relationships invert this often becoming the tantrum like child more than the adult to adult relationship moms.

Other moms are narcissistic and truly want the worst for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When she looks at you before your wedding day and asks if your dress is still going to fit.

When you are 13 and get your first period, you go straight to her and she tells you, "figure it out". When you talk back (as teenagers do) she says, "if I knew you'd be like this, I would've had an abortion!". Things like that.

My mother’s first words when I told her my boyfriend had proposed were, “Well, I like him okay, but I don’t think he likes me very much.”
For those trying to understand, it is about having to, from a young age, take care of the wants and needs of your parent and not being allowed to have any wants and needs of your own. My mother would scream at us when she didn’t get her way, and holidays usually ended in a narcissistic rage about how one of us had “ruined” her day. It’s very hard for those who had decent childhoods to get how soul-crushing it is.

I feel this! Every holiday was a fit of hysteria and not fun at all.

[Anonymous]

+1
yes, every holiday had to celebrate HER and woe to you if you were away at college and forgot to send her a card and flowers on HER BIRTHDAY or HER ANNIVERSARY
so many miserable Mother’s Day brunches (she is obsessed with BRUNCH( with her scene-making

[Anonymous]

How about narcissistic daughters of narcissistic mothers? That's my SiL. There's conflict between the two of them, but no reflection on SiL's part on how she may also have these tendencies. It's very hard to have a MiL and SiL both making it all about them, starting with our wedding. That said, MiL is not as difficult in some ways. I think it may be that she tries to observe a line between her and her IL children that she is not as successful in doing with her own kids. Perhaps I'm also better at handling this with an adult than I am with a peer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When she looks at you before your wedding day and asks if your dress is still going to fit.

When you are 13 and get your first period, you go straight to her and she tells you, "figure it out". When you talk back (as teenagers do) she says, "if I knew you'd be like this, I would've had an abortion!". Things like that.

My mother’s first words when I told her my boyfriend had proposed were, “Well, I like him okay, but I don’t think he likes me very much.”
For those trying to understand, it is about having to, from a young age, take care of the wants and needs of your parent and not being allowed to have any wants and needs of your own. My mother would scream at us when she didn’t get her way, and holidays usually ended in a narcissistic rage about how one of us had “ruined” her day. It’s very hard for those who had decent childhoods to get how soul-crushing it is.

This resonates. I was a bit homely as a teen and my mom wouldn’t give me the money or help to look more pulled together. I didn’t have a ton of friends and boys were not interested in me. In a moment of stupid vulnerability I expressed to my mom that I wished I had a homecoming date. My mom volunteered that maybe I was a lesbian and that’s why boys didn’t like me, and if I wore lipstick I wouldn’t look as plain and then I wouldn’t be a lesbian. But also she wouldn’t buy it for me or let me wear makeup.

When I was engaged and called my mom to tell her and share our plans for a small but lovely wedding (to a man, bc still not a lesbian), my mom went silent for a full 30 seconds. Then she said “oh.” And went silent again. Finally she said, “well, this isn’t the wedding I wanted. I feel disappointed.” That was literally her first response to the news!

She’s been married twice herself and already had two weddings.

This reminds me of when I called my mom to tell her I was engaged, and she basically said “oh” and then launched into her monologue, as she always does.

That is my mom’s reaction for almost everything momentous—going off to college, passed a very difficult test, getting married, having a baby, etc.

We were just with college friends of DH. The mom was talking about something their DC wanted, something quite benign, then following up with telling us how she sees it as a very aggressive move directed at her. It was one of those, "I didn't think that would be the next point in the convo."

[Anonymous]

It appears I have found my people! I can relate to so much of what has been said. My mom is a complete narc. The most selfish person I know. She is constantly jealous of her own daughter it's sickening. She can never be happy for someone else or let them have a moment. She literally decided to announce she was newly engaged at my engagement party. I finally decided to cut her off 3 years ago. It was the best decision of my life! It was a little hard at first but now I have the hang of it. I feel so much peace. No more walking on eggshells. No more hellish Mother's Day brunches of shitty Thanksgiving dinners. I am free!!!