found out my mom lied about her past

[Anonymous]

As I've become an adult raising children of my own, I've realized that a lot of the things my mother did during my childhood weren't the behaviors of the kind of person my mom always claimed she was. She really left me without support at critical times in life and forced me into situations that I shouldn't have been involved in (having to mediate my parents fights at 7, being told that if they divorced it would be my fault but if they stayed together it was because I was selfish and wouldn't grow up, etc). As I got older I wasn't allowed to socialize, had to beg rides off of people, and go without things I needed because my mom wouldn't give me a ride to a drugstore or pocket money for personal hygiene essentials. It took me years to realize that she wasn't "giving me more than any parent at your school" but was actually weirdly neglectful and self-centered. She never had friends and thought she was better than everyone in our town and it left me isolated, too. She would go into rages out of nowhere and was unpredictable and verbally cruel.

Anyway, as I've watched my mom brag about how she's a great grandmother but basically ignore my children, I've started to question how she describes things vs. how they actually were. On a hunch I did a Google search of her maiden name and was stunned.

My mom is really secretive about her past but I know bits and pieces because we have a big extended family and have always lived in the same town. I always knew she'd been married in her 20s to someone before my father. She was actually married twice before and in both cases to people who did some shady stuff. She married the first man when she was 27 despite always telling me that she married out of college and hounding me constantly while I was single in my early 20s. She criticized me for not getting great jobs right off the bat "like she had" but the wedding announcements suggest that she didn't work for years. There's more but it involves her exes and I wouldn't want to drag them into this, except that now I get why she hated the name I originally wanted for DS- it was her first husband's name!

I'm not going to confront her but I suddenly have this crystal clear understanding of how her past and insecurities influenced how she raised me. I wish I could throw my new knowledge in her face but that would be pointless and I don't have siblings so I can't run to them with this info. all of her insults over the years seem like they were criticisms of herself, and I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I kind of feel freed because I have this outside proof that she's not the person she always said she was and I don't feel crazy anymore.

I don't have a question, just wanted to get it off my chest and ask if anyone else had to reassess who they thought they were after discovering family secrets.

[Anonymous]

I would confront her and ask her,

[Anonymous]

Ask her to describe the jobs she has in her 20's.

[Anonymous]

I learned a lot about my mom's early life when I was a young adult. It was hard. The things I learn challenged a lot of the assumptions I realized I'd made about my mom over the years.

However, for me, the things I learned made me feel more sympathetic toward her and the choices she made when I was growing up. I don't know that I would've felt that way when I was 12 and wondering where my mom was when I needed her, but now, from where I'm sitting, I realize that she did the best she could and protected me and my siblings from a LOT of stuff that would've been hard for us to handle.

I'm sorry your mom has been so terrible to you and I'm glad that you are feeling like you're not crazy.

[Anonymous]

Look up daughters of mothers with narcissistic personality disorder. It will blow your mind.

[Anonymous]

OP here- a friend just suggested researching NPD. I know it's everyone's favorite diagnosis here, but yeah, I was blown away. Seems like a strong possibility but it puts the burden on working through this squarely on me (which is fine, just a lot to process!).

[Anonymous]

Yeah, op, ypur mom sounds like a NPD textbook case.

[Anonymous]

OP,

Whether it's NPD or something else, clearly no sane person would act like her. Accepting she is ill means letting go of useless resentment. You can tell her you know she lied if it makes you feel better, but it won't change her at all.

You might want to seek out a good therapist if you can't power through this by yourself. That, and creating boundaries and not contacting her too often, will help a lot.

[Anonymous]

My advice ? Let it go. You can't change anything, just be a better mother.

My Grandmother told everyone she was raped twice and it produced two kids. My mother and her brother. The truth was she was the town ho that liked married men. My mother lived her life ashamed and opposite of everything her mother was. That meant she was very hard on us. Let's just say I grew up hating her. She was a selfish self centered person.

It changed nothing when I found all this out. I raised my kids in a different way. LOL, I think they hate me too.

I sleep well.

[Anonymous]

How do wedding announcements suggest someone didn't work for years?

[Anonymous]

The wedding announcements were of the old-school, small town paper type. They described the bride's dress, the shower, bridesmaids' backgrounds, and where the bride/groom where going to work (or in this case, "homemaker"). The dates of the announcements covered at least two years in which my mom was "working" but said she was going to be a homemaker in a town I never heard of, and it's during a time when my mom was always vague about her whereabouts. I had always just attributed it to her being a boring grownup for so long that the years just ran together. Nope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would confront her and ask her,

No way!

Make your peace, let her say what she wants and let it go. She hardly sees the kids anyway so don't make it any easier.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't bother talking to her about any of these things, OP, because it will just frustrate you and make you feel worse.

She does sound personality disordered, and they don't like to let go of their distorted ideas and made-up worlds. Don't be surprised if her response to you is, "Oh I never said that. Are you crazy? You're imagining it."

We get this all the time from our NPD moms. They make up myths of what amazing moms and people they are, and anyone who won't go along with them is in for a lot of trouble. To support their narrative, they make up absurd things about what you and others are like and how you feel and what you've said and done. When they feel threatened, or just want to feel better, they'll say or do oddly cruel things that catch you off guard, and when you're a child, make you feel like you must have done something wrong, except you can't figure out what it was.

Don't focus on her. Focus on reading some good books about the subject and getting some therapy, and work on building strong boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Are you sure that the info you found is about her? You would be surprised how many people have the same exact name.

[Anonymous]

Yup, no room for doubt, unfortunately. there were pictures of her with my grandparents captioned with their (unique and ethnic) names in the scan of one of the newspaper pages! My grandparents were of the generation who looked and dressed exactly the same from age 30 until their deaths. I can't imagine what poor news conglomerate intern got stuck scanning backissues of this tiny newspaper, but they were thorough.

The things the poster said about NPD moms making stuff up and telling you what you think is very accurate. "Oddly cruel" is also accurate- for a few weeks while my dad was traveling and I was in late elementary school my mom told me I was adopted, even though I am not. She kept the tale going for days and had me convinced it was true. when she let my dad in on the "joke" I think he forced her to drop it.

More flippant but illustrative: I remember loving certain things as a kid but suppressing them or choosing the exact opposite of what I preferred because my mom would say I liked x, or was a so-and-so kind of person. Choosing my adult wardrobe when I finally had a paycheck was so confusing and I spent a few years changing my style completely every 6 months. I still feel like I'm trying on identities and figuring out what's me versus what she's said is me. Whew.