Other Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers Here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents did a number on me. The damage has limited my horizons for relationships and even career. I wish I could know who I would have been if I grew up in a healthy environment.

Despite that, I have chosen to forgive and my life is greatly improved because of it. Staying angry at someone who is troubled is like holding a hot coal and expecting them to feel the pain. They won't, it only hurts you.

NP. I can relate so much to the first part. I wonder who I would have been. I had so much potential but 've been hampered in so many areas of my life (relationship, work). I can't relate to the second paragraph, though. I haven't reached forgiveness. Not sure I will.

A lot of people misunderstand forgiveness.

It just means acceptance of what you cannot change and learning to go on anyway.

[Anonymous]

I wish more people wold learn this. So much therapy and they don't even master this basic concept.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents did a number on me. The damage has limited my horizons for relationships and even career. I wish I could know who I would have been if I grew up in a healthy environment.

Despite that, I have chosen to forgive and my life is greatly improved because of it. Staying angry at someone who is troubled is like holding a hot coal and expecting them to feel the pain. They won't, it only hurts you.

NP. I can relate so much to the first part. I wonder who I would have been. I had so much potential but 've been hampered in so many areas of my life (relationship, work). I can't relate to the second paragraph, though. I haven't reached forgiveness. Not sure I will.

A lot of people misunderstand forgiveness.

It just means acceptance of what you cannot change and learning to go on anyway.

That's not forgiveness, that's healing or, perhaps, resignation. It's moving on because you have no other choice. It's accepting that people won't change, that you can't change the past, but that you can choose how you live your life. Forgiveness isn't what you describe.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents did a number on me. The damage has limited my horizons for relationships and even career. I wish I could know who I would have been if I grew up in a healthy environment.

Despite that, I have chosen to forgive and my life is greatly improved because of it. Staying angry at someone who is troubled is like holding a hot coal and expecting them to feel the pain. They won't, it only hurts you.

NP but this really resonates

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents did a number on me. The damage has limited my horizons for relationships and even career. I wish I could know who I would have been if I grew up in a healthy environment.

Despite that, I have chosen to forgive and my life is greatly improved because of it. Staying angry at someone who is troubled is like holding a hot coal and expecting them to feel the pain. They won't, it only hurts you.

NP. I can relate so much to the first part. I wonder who I would have been. I had so much potential but 've been hampered in so many areas of my life (relationship, work). I can't relate to the second paragraph, though. I haven't reached forgiveness. Not sure I will.

A lot of people misunderstand forgiveness.

It just means acceptance of what you cannot change and learning to go on anyway.

That's not forgiveness, that's healing or, perhaps, resignation. It's moving on because you have no other choice. It's accepting that people won't change, that you can't change the past, but that you can choose how you live your life. Forgiveness isn't what you describe.

The forgiveness is forgiving your misunderstandings that led you to experience this and understanding that the other person is flawed and still human.

[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.

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are some of the things narcissistic mothers say and do?

She writes on the second page of the pad of paper by the telephone a long “fictional” story about someone with a first initial that’s the same as yours and it describes in detail explicit criticisms of your awkwardly styled hair and embarrassing outfit that you wore to your first middle school dance. Except that she never taught you to do your hair and buys all of your clothing.

Narcissistic mothers see their children as extensions of themselves and competition at the same time, so you’re constantly caught bring both a projection of their lost dreams for themselves and their self-loathing.

I posted this and I should add after seeing other posts that my mother is also a clinical psychologist, although she hasn’t practiced in a while. I think many narcissists seek out similar professions because they do have a unconscious hunch that something is off with their lives, but they assume it is caused by everyone around them so they seek out psychology as a way to try to understand others. But they can never see what every distorted interaction they experience has in common- them!

My psychologist narcissist mother’s worst use of her “professional” training was circumventing medical privacy laws and getting my therapist in college to release all of his notes to her. I was financially independent and had not signed releases. I was too young and overwhelmed to take action against the two of them. I never sought professional help again.

[Anonymous]

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.

Some of these stories seem a bit fanciful. If you knew your mom was a narcissist why would you call up with your happy news? I don't know. But some people do also like to spin yarns.

[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.

Some of these stories seem a bit fanciful. If you knew your mom was a narcissist why would you call up with your happy news? I don't know. But some people do also like to spin yarns.

I shouldn’t reply to you because you’re being a troll, but someone else might be in my situation and maybe this can help them, so I will reply:

I was 30 and didn’t know what was wrong with my mom. I didn’t even know that her behavior was unusual. In fact, I had only had one mother my entire life, just like many on this thread! I mostly assumed I was indeed a disappointment and all of the other things my mother told me- because generally people trust their mothers. When you’re 11 or 13 or 17 and the internet doesn’t exist yet, how would you even have to vocabulary to start, say, library research to understand what was wrong?

Once I had a MIL and then met other mothers of adults after I had a child, I was shocked by how different my mother was from typical mothers. Only then did I seek a definition and understanding of my life.

[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.

Some of these stories seem a bit fanciful. If you knew your mom was a narcissist why would you call up with your happy news? I don't know. But some people do also like to spin yarns.

Honestly, I’m really glad you don’t believe these stories because it means you didn’t experience it. But they aren’t made up, I assure you.

To the pp who asked why would you call your narcissist mom with happy news, it’s a weird dynamic. You still want to please your parents. I strove my whole life to make my mom proud of me. I was in my 30s before it clicked that the bigger my accomplishment or greater my happiness, the meaner her response would be. I can never make her proud. She isn’t happy that I’m happy. She’s in constant competition with me.

[Anonymous]

My mom took a college psychology class and her final paper was a study of me, age 6. She wrote about how I was weak and a crybaby, smart but not popular. Too clingy and emotional and needy. Then when I was 13 she gave me a copy of it and said she had been right about me because I am still like she wrote in her paper. “See? Don’t you agree? Isn’t it funny? Ha ha ha.”

[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.

Some of these stories seem a bit fanciful. If you knew your mom was a narcissist why would you call up with your happy news? I don't know. But some people do also like to spin yarns.

Honestly, I’m really glad you don’t believe these stories because it means you didn’t experience it. But they aren’t made up, I assure you.

To the pp who asked why would you call your narcissist mom with happy news, it’s a weird dynamic. You still want to please your parents. I strove my whole life to make my mom proud of me. I was in my 30s before it clicked that the bigger my accomplishment or greater my happiness, the meaner her response would be. I can never make her proud. She isn’t happy that I’m happy. She’s in constant competition with me.

I was also slow to realize that even though my mom wanted to live through my accomplishments, she also resented them and wanted to diminish them. She is not academically inclined and had a secretarial job after going to a lower tier state school in our home state. I was desperate to get away from home and total grind in high school. My final choice came down to Yale or Stanford. For years after when someone asked where I went to school and found out that I went to Yale, she would shake her head with disappointment and announce to them that she would have gone to Stanford instead (as if it were her choice or she had had the opportunity herself!) and that she got into a masters’ program at her alma mater but chose not to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom took a college psychology class and her final paper was a study of me, age 6. She wrote about how I was weak and a crybaby, smart but not popular. Too clingy and emotional and needy. Then when I was 13 she gave me a copy of it and said she had been right about me because I am still like she wrote in her paper. “See? Don’t you agree? Isn’t it funny? Ha ha ha.”

I’m sorry, that’s twisted. I’m the PP whose mom wrote the lightly disguised critique of me and a fellow psychologist’s daughter. I wonder if my mom was inspired by some kind of study. It’s so weird to be detached enough from your own child that you try to write a critical objective study of them as a person!