Reply to Narcissistic Mothers

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "Narcissistic Mothers"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
I own the book also. [b]It's devestating to realize you will never have the mother you want: caring, loving, kind, and concerned with your well-being. [/b]For too long, as with any abusive dynamic, I truly felt as though I was fatally flawed, and if only I were thinner/prettier/more successful/more interesting my mother would finally love me the way I'd always wanted and needed to be loved. Of course, no day like this came. If I was down on my luck, my mother would se to take some sort of perverse pleasure in that and/ or pile on. If I was riding high, my mother would make subtle commments to disparage me and my situation, or somehow compare herself (favorably) to me.

It took a long time to reaalize this unhealthy dynamic - she's my mom, and this is how I was raised, so [b]for me it was normal to be constantly criticized, belittled, demeaned, or otherwise ignored. [/b]Having a daughter of my own is what it took for me to see how truly deranged she was and is.

I no longer have any sort of contact or relationship with her.

I'm sorry, OP. Good luck on your journey.[/quote]

I knew I shouldn't have opened this thread.  I'm tearing up at this.  The bold is exactly my experience.  I try not to think about it, but, for example, my daughter and I spent Easter at a friend's house.  Seeing my friend with her mother and their perfectly normal interactions made me feel a little sorry for myself all over again.  [/quote]

This was my experience as well.  I look at my relationship with my mother as before (I knew about NPD) and after.  Until I read McBride's checklist, I wouldn't have put the "narcissistic" label on my mother because she is SO MUCH the MARTYR.  But it's all an act.  She is a full blown NDP on every checklist I've now read, not just McBride's.

I have not gone NC because I have a child who loves his grandma.  He was 5 or so and I was in my early 40s when I found the McBride book and started figuring this out.  What I have done is limit the number of times we see her.  I make sure I'm never alone with her.  I don't really talk to her at all, I just say enough, "mmms" or "hmmms" to be polite.

I could write pages on her cruel and ABUSIVE behavior and the different things she did to me at every stage of my life.  Of course, she was preoccupied with my weight, and when (at the age of 10) I finally lost weight, she both refused to acknowledge it and sabotaged my efforts to keep the weight off.  That's the tip of the iceburg.

I HATE that I spent so many years trying to be someone she would find acceptable.  The truth is that nothing I ever could have done would put me in that category.  Even now, when she must know I can hardly stand to be within ten feet of her, she does not stop with the "digs" or any of her other game playing bs.

I think the only answer is therapy, which I've been putting off due to the cost.
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics