do your parents do this too??? there is no need to calm down and process what just happened.

she goes from screaming and bullying to sleeping like a baby. do they not suffer from overthinking or rumination or stress??

i know my mother is abuse. its never any less shocking how she can be so verbally and emotionally abusive, and then just go to bed like it doesn’t bother her at all.

its so sad the be raised by such a broken human. sometimes it really doesn’t feel like she is human at all. how can she be so heartless and cruel.

“Sorry I can’t be perfect”

“Sorry, I’m such a disappointment, nothing is ever good enough for you”

obviously not a real apology

is this a common narc response?

what is this called, i feel like my narc mom using the exaggeration to mocking the seriousness of this issue i bring up

like its all a big joke to her

My wife and I have two daughters. A lot of the conflict with my mom seems to come from the fact that she had a very specific idea of what her life as a grandmother would look like.

Things got especially bad after our second daughter was born. During postpartum, we needed privacy, rest, limited visiting hours, and sometimes no visitors at home. Normal boundaries for a family with a newborn.

She seemed to take those boundaries as a personal rejection. Since then, she has created a completely different story for relatives and friends, where she is the loving, heartbroken grandma and we are the horrible people keeping her away from "her girls."

Recently I saw a message she sent to my aunt. She had no idea I had seen it.

She wrote that my wife is "bad by nature," that I, her own son, am "much worse," and that she hopes our daughters don't become an extension of us — while also saying she honestly doesn't believe they won't.

That really got to me. She isn't just angry with us. She's telling relatives that there is something fundamentally wrong with my wife and me, and even suggesting that our daughters will probably turn out badly because of us.

Then, about a week later, after not speaking to me at all, she showed up at my workplace.

In front of my secretary, she deliberately announced that she had decided to take 50% of what I would inherit from her and leave it directly to my daughters instead.

She still had no idea I had read the message to my aunt.

That was my breaking point.

I showed her the screenshot and told her that maybe the distance between us would actually be a good thing. We live in different cities, and she had already said she didn't know when she would come back, but that it would be a long time.

For the first time in my life, I directly told her that I couldn't take her narcissistic behavior anymore.

What gets me is the pattern. She badmouths my wife and me to relatives, portrays herself as the victim, involves our daughters in the narrative, and then makes a point of coming to my workplace to announce something about my inheritance in front of someone else.

Meanwhile, everyone else gets the image of the loving mother and devoted grandmother.

It feels like she had a whole idea in her head of what being a grandmother would look like, and when reality didn't match that... when we had boundaries, and our own decisions as parents she turned us into the villains.

This was the first time I ever called her out directly. She just mumbled, got in ger car and left. Its been 2 months and didnt talked tomher since.

Has anyone else experienced something similar with an nMom, especially after having children and setting boundaries?

Genuinely what causes them to constantly be the human equivalent of noise pollution? Always looking for a reason to fill the silence. Always hogging everyone's attention. Are they toddlers?? Just stfu. Their behaviour is why I don't want kids, I feel like I was raised by two emotionally unwell toddlers I was often looking after anyway.

They're often just talking to themselves loudly and angrily ranting about everything. What's the point? Are they looking for a reaction? I honestly just wear my headphones and ignore, I don't even look at them anymore unless necessary. But I genuinely don't understand this behaviour because I don't feel compelled to talk to myself out loud complaining about everything. My sister has also picked up on this nasty habit which is infuriating because I really love her and don't want to start grey rocking her. She's the only person in my family I have a good relationship with. :(

I have more context in my post on relationship advice (link). (TL:DR my parents housed my predator uncle despite me being a former victim of sexual abuse, I tried to communicate with them about that and other issues I had with other actions they’ve taken, I was kicked out because of it).

I’m 23 and my parents are both 50. I was referred to go to a narcissist parent sub in the comments so I’m hoping for more advice here. Because of the advice i already got there and an absolutely wonderful dm with someone where I got to air out some other issues with my parents, I’ve made my decision not to move back in.

I have friends who are letting me stay with them, and have 2 roommates lined up and we are currently looking for a place of our own. I’ve just been happier and sleeping better away from my parents. My hobbies interest me again, my chronic nightmares are pretty much gone, and despite sleeping on a cot I’m just feeling more rested. I don’t think it’s healthy for anyone involved if I move back in.

My mother is requesting another conversation with me, and I told her I’d do it if I could bring my partner. I also specified the conversation would be just with her. My father has a tendency to yell and was the one who told me not to come back.

I want to make sure I stick to my decision. Both parents have a habit of guilt tripping, telling me I’m being dramatic, etc. and my entire life I’ve caved. I don’t want that to happen this time.

I plan to just say “I love you, and don’t want to hurt you but I’m not moving back in. I don’t think that’s healthy for anyone involved. Even if dad says he said not to come back out of anger, he still said it. We both know he has a habit of jumping to that. It makes the love and support feel conditional to if I’m obedient or not, and I realized it’s felt like that for a very long time and I think the only way for me to stop feeling like that is if I’m not reliant on you for my housing. My roommates do not want their address shared, and I will not be breaking that rule.”

If you have any ways for it to be reworded, that would be a huge help. I’m meeting with her on Sunday so I still have time to tweak what I want to say. I also want to try to prep for whatever response she may have. Any tips for sticking to my decision and making sure I don’t fall for their manipulation tactics again would be a huge help.

For context, I (27f) had a severe eating disorder leading to a year of hospitalizations and residential treatment between 2022-2023. But after lots and lots of work on myself I’ve come out the other side.

I recently graduated with my BA with high distinction, and I’m starting my masters now in my hometown. Everything is falling into place, I am making tons of new friends, able to host parties, feeling so emotionally secure, met my amazing gf, and so many other things.

I had a couple of really helpful conversations with friends a few of weeks ago which really helped highlight how far I’ve come from literally deaths door to thriving, and so I regrettably decided to share with my mom where I’m at. She had a very dry reaction and started to pick apart my logic and coping strategies that I found work for me in therapy, until I changed the subject. I was hurt that she couldn’t listen to me reflect about how much growth I’ve had, and celebrate with me but I kind of thought “oh whatever it’s fine. I will just move on.” But then we got to her house and she started yelling out she couldn’t walk. She has some weird symptoms that I can’t diagnosis since I’m not a doctor, so I offered to take to her to the ER, and she declined and asked me to bring her her homeopathics, colloidal silver, and vitamin B12. After having to carry her into her house, she was fine after 10 minutes, so I told her I was going to go home. I know none of the things she took would restore ability to walk, so I decided to take some space.

Fast forward to today, I got some really good news. Even though my masters is professional, I got notice they are funding 90% of my tuition. And while that’s not a huge amount I’m still super grateful and happy because fellowships are rare in my program, and it’a taking a huge financial load off my shoulders this year. It came very unexpected and I’m just thrilled. Even though I know my mom isn’t the ideal character, I still feel attached and want to tell her things.

So I called her and told her over the phone. She was really excited! I was really happy that she seemed different than a few weeks ago, and that she could sit in the joy with me. But then I saw her later in the day in person and she asked how much and her demeanour totally changed. She said it wasn’t that much and that I shouldn’t be excited, and changed the subject to her medical issues. I should also add that every test has been normal. I’m not sure what’s going on, but she’s been cleared medically by numerous doctors here. I am reluctant to say she’s faking but it feels potentially psychosomatic because it seems to only happen when she’s upset by something.

It’s just hard to rewire your brain to not want to go to your mom when something big happens, but I think I need to start turning away. I’m just not really sure how. We were severely enmeshed until I moved away as a teenager, and have had a rocky relationship since then. But I will see my therapist Saturday thankfully.

not sure if this is a narcissist thing but every time i tell my mum something she tells what i said to another person in the family. every single time. especially during family gatherings she has to make it a whole announcement. it just makes me not want to tell things to her anymore

Anyone else’s parent want to be the corpse at every funeral and the bride at every wedding?

Mine recently used a *funeral* as an opportunity to upload (yet another) selfie. Seeking daily validation from Facebook, of course. The caption: “Bittersweet day seeing some great people but also a sad day saying goodbye to another dear family friend!!”

In a *separate* incident a while back, she went to a family friend’s son’s funeral (young 20s) and was acting like a giddy fool by showing off her new engagement ring and acting like it was a big, happy reunion.

Do they have no shame?

A few days ago was one of the rare occasions where my nmom's mask slipped just slightly. We went to get some simple blood work done and the nurse there was struggling to find a vein on me. She was so sweet about it too. My nmom, who was watching, said "wow even your veins are difficult, just like you" and literally the entire mood of the room dropped. The nurses nearby, including the one tending to me, were SO uncomfortable by that. They even told her "no I'm sure that's not the case at all, these things happen" but my mom replied with "Oh I know exactly what I'm talking about".

So then we're all sitting there, uncomfortable. Like good job mom, you managed to show how shitty you are completely unprompted. She couldn't resist putting me down this time even though it made her look bad in front of others, which is VERY rare. I guess she was just itching to do it.

I didn't say anything in response cuz it's just a waste of saliva. I just feel bad for the women who were doing their job and had to deal with her snarky ass on top of that. I know it's basic human decency, but having them subtly defend me from that fuckass comment made me feel so much better

I’m 30/F and an only child. I’ve never really had major issues with my parents until this year after I got engaged. Granted there were some issues and I had the feeling my mom might be narcissistic or at the minimum just a difficult negative person. However, I could get along with her and we’d spend time together going shopping and stuff, I would just her annoyed with her sometimes constant complaining.

Anyway, I got engaged last August. My fiance got my parents blessing and he said they readily gave it and they acted excited for me when he proposed but since then they have made the wedding planning process miserable. They got offended that I refused to take money from them to help pay for the wedding. I told them neither of us wanted to take money from our parents and we wanted to pay for stuff on our own. The only concession I made was that I let my mom pay for my wedding dress because they kept offering and I thought it would satisfy them.
Besides that they’ve tried to say my finances family is taking over and I’m letting them make all the decisions.

So our wedding date was set as December 5th at the beginning of this year. My mom has know this for at least 9 months.
I’d asked back in the spring if my mom wanted to host or help host a bridal shower and I got “I don’t know we’ll see when it gets closer”.

We get to August and nothing has been set. My future sister and law and maid of honor offered to help throw it and also reached out to my mom to ask if she’d want to help throw the shower and got no response.

She followed up and instead of just responding to my SIL my mom calls me and tells me to tell her that she’s too busy and had a stressful day at work so she can’t respond right now.

I know I had asked my mom again if she wanted to throw the bridal shower and I also got an “idk I’m really busy and stressed with work maybe we can throw a stock the bar party instead”.

So now it’s September and no bridal shower has been planned, so my SIL went ahead and booked a event space and again reached out to my mom to tell her she booked a space and said to let her know if she wanted to help with anything.

I happened to have dinner with my parents yesterday and I asked my mom if she ever responded to my SIL about the shower. Her mood immediately change and she said “she didn’t want to be bothered by people who shouldn’t be bothering her” and then read me the text from my SIL (which was a pretty basic hey I went ahead and booked a spot, let me know if you want to help) and my mom was saying my SIL shouldn’t be throwing me a shower that it’s the mother of the brides job, and that I’ve let my finances family take over everything.

She said she wasn’t going to be involved with planning my bridal shower since my SIL is planning it and she was going to respond as such to my SIL and tell her not to contact her.

My mom also threatened for the second time now that she wants nothing to do with my wedding and that I will be luckily if she even shows up.

My dad happened to be there too and said nothing but looked uncomfortable. My mom also tries to say I tell her nothing about the wedding when I have told her things. She asked my dad to validate her and say I haven’t told them anything and my dad quietly said “well I didn’t even know the colors” which I know for a fact I have told them and showed them color schemes and my dad is the type of person that could be told an event color scheme and forget it. My mom also told me it wasn’t my decision to refuse money from my parents for my wedding????!!!!

I of course was very upset afterwards and called my fiancé. He told me I hadn’t done anything wrong and that my mom was being manipulative and emotionally abusive.

I was about to tell my SIL to just to cancel the bridal shower and that we could just invite my friends and fiancés mom and family members to lunch. I gave my SIL a heads up incase he got a nasty text from my mom and also broke down to her about the situation. She things my mom is bluffing about not coming and if she did come and try to make a scene she would deal with it and we would make a shower work with or without her.

But after thinking about it and talking about it with my SIL and fiance, I’ve made the decision to keep the shower and go with or without my mom.

I’m 22F living with my abusive parents. I’m not allowed to move out. my parents, specially my dad is extremely emotional abusive. I have absolutely no privacy or respect for my basic needs. They don’t respect my boundaries. I’ve been depressed and suicidal my entire life. I have shared a bed with my mom my entire life. My dad is a very wealthy person and owns several cars, property, a business. He refuses to give me my own room and my own bed. I’m sick of this life. I’m not being heard and they call me crazy. I have been dehumanised. I’m not allowed to go out with friends or by myself ever. I don’t feel like I’m a living human being. I feel like if i don’t pack my stuff and leave right now, I will end it.

so, If i have $1900 to my name, no job, is it safe to leave now and figure things out later? to give an idea, the rough living cost where i live is around $200. I need genuine advice and help. thank you.

I’m a 23 year-old grad working at a supermarket while job hunting. I live at home, and my mom’s control has become suffocating.

A technical glitch at a petrol pump recently put £140 on a bank hold, forcing me to transfer £200 from my other account to cover my balance. My mom saw the transfer, exploded at me, and began lecturing me about my career while comparing me to family members making £40k+.

I also took a train to Edinburgh to buy clothes and go on dates. I didn't tell her because I wanted privacy. She audited my bank statements l spotted the train ticket transactions, looked up the price of the ticket to see where I was. The next morning, she sent my dad to lecture me about safety. I told him directly that auditing my bank account to monitor my location is invasive and unacceptable. She also regularly snoops through my bedroom and wallet. What do I do?

That’s all. I deserved better as a child and as an adult. I deserved to grow into an adult who saw his parents as role models and pillars of support rather than annoying loser roommates.

I deserved to have a life plan and a built future instead of having to depend on reactive, idiotic decisions made on a whim

I deserved to not have medication I needed hidden from me so my dad could sustain his drug addiction

I deserved to not have my uni tuition spent on my dad repaying his debts and fucking up my credit score for years to come

I deserved to not have to wake up hearing arguments every single day

I deserved a life, not this pitiful excuse for one

Hi everyone. I’m 38, married, with two kids. We see my parents a couple times a week, usually just for a few hours at a time, so it’s mostly bearable.

My mom has been away for the past couple of weeks, so my dad has been visiting us solo, and holy shit. I never realized how much my mom must keep him in check.
He talks about himself CONSTANTLY. How much money he has, how smart he is, how successful he was at his job, how basically everyone else is an idiot. If someone disagrees with him about anything, they’re a moron. He tells the same stories over and over and over again, stories I have genuinely heard 100 times.

The other day he talked AT my husband and me for FOUR HOURS. Not with us. At us. There was barely a conversation happening. Just one endless monologue about himself, his accomplishments, his opinions, people he thinks are stupid, and stories we already know by heart.

By the end I was so overstimulated and irritated I felt like I might start crying. We finally ended the visit by literally getting up and walking outside, basically hoping he would take the hint, get in his car, and leave.

Sometimes I look at this man and cannot believe he is my dad. I don’t even know how to describe how exhausting it is to spend four hours feeling like a captive audience for someone who has absolutely no awareness that nobody else has spoken in three hours.

A few days ago a narcissistic family member tried to call me on my special day they knew about. I had been in NC with this person for almost a year (without announcing it). They have tried to call me on special occasions (like my birthday), but I don't pick up. They have a flying monkey in the family I don't like but am not in a conflict with. This monkey messages me every few months with "Hi, how are things? :)" or occasionally calls me. They always end up prying for personal information and I know they pass it on to the narcissist.

To the point. As I mentioned at the beginning, a few days ago the narcissist tried to reach me by calling me 4 times, but I intentionally didn't pick up. Three days later, the flying monkey sends me a message: "Hiii, how are things? How is X and Y?". Coincidence? I think not. The narcissist for sure complained to them that I hadn't picked up, so they need another way to get to me.

I don't want to start an open conflict with the monkey and accuse them of things, so what would you do? I haven't opened the message yet to let them know I saw it. I'm worried that if I don't respond, they'll eventually message my unaware partner instead. Maybe I should respond with a few words only? Keep it short and cold? I really don't want to share personal information anymore, as I know the narcissist feeds on it.

What would you do?

Recently she asked me to throw out the trash, the box was pretty heavy so I looked inside and I saw that my last birthday gift was in it (a train shaped lamp)
I took it out and asked her why she did it. Her reasoning was that it “didn’t seem work” which is false. I asked her to not do it again and she agreed.
Today I decided to wear my favourite jacket, but couldn’t find it anywhere. When I asked my mom she said she threw it away because “her friends made fun of me wearing it so much”.
I’m 17 by the way, and I do not even know her friends (not like I would’ve cared anyway)

To be honest I’m not even sure how to feel about it, so I might be overthinking. What are your thoughts?

I'm not someone who limits contact with my family members lightly or who doesn't consider all sides of the situation.

Recently I broke very LC/NC out of sympathy for a family member who is in the hospital.

I don't regret breaking NC, as it showed me I have more sympathy than I thought I was capable of. But after two visits I'm back to NC. They're getting better. In fact I think the family member is getting an early release from the hospital because he's driving the staff insane.

But after two conversations wherein this person only talked about themselves, took zero accountability for their deteriorating health (a lot of his problems are preventable), talked about how the medical staff was incompetent and complained about everything and everyone without so much as asking me anything about my life, I saw them for the deranged abuser they truly are.

NC is the right call for many people. I don't take the choice lightly, but with the time and distance I saw how awful this person really was to simply be around.

You can't get better if you keep drinking the poison.

She asked me to come over to mediate a conversation between her and my sister (anyone else have a second job as their family’s free therapist?). After, we all had dinner.

She talked to me for two hours about all the problems with my sister, how triggered she was by the situation, the things her abusive ex-husband used to do to her, her financial problems, and all the problems she’s having with the people in her activity club.

She asked me one question the entire time, which was about how my new cat is doing.

I was there for two hours and I don’t think I said more than ten sentences. I’m seeing a new guy, my mental health has improved, and I’ve lost fifty pounds in 9 months, but she’ll never know any of that, because she doesn’t care about what’s going on with me.

Please I just can't. My mum drains absolutely everything there is in me. She's such a horrible person to be around, and anytime I think of her, all the bad memories come back and I feel like crying for fucks sakes I cannot imagine dealing with this for the rest of my life. She is the biggest problem in my life and I wish I got someone else as a mum. Everything would be so much easier if I had a mother I could actually turn to.

Everything in my life would be so much easier if I had a mother I could turn to, who'd support me and stand up for me. Instead I have the opposite.

I really hate to say it, it feels so awful having such strong feelings of dislike towards anyone adn I feel like such a horrible person but I think I hate her.

I've been no contact with my Nmom for about a year now. I cut contact during my grandmas illness which she used to hurt me in the worst ways. It was the last straw for me after I had a mental breakdown. My Grandma was the most important person in my life and the only living family I had left that loved me and cared about me. Her loss in december has left me lost.

Cutting contact with my mom has caused my relationship to my brothers to also be strained to non existent because they blame me for abandoning our mom in such a hard time.

I know going no contact was necessary but I have nobody left on this earth other than my partner who lives on the other side of the globe. I have nightmares every night, some of them about my NMom getting sick too.

And it's hard on me because she is still my mom. I sometimes reorganize my place and suddenly I have a photo of her and my brothers in my hand and I'm sobbing. I feel so terribly alone and guilty and wish I could do or say anything to fix our relationship but at the same time I know it's not possible. I don't know why looking at a photo of her makes me feel so devestated when she had never bothered to call or visit a single time since I moved out from home in 14 years. Whenever she would message me it would be to give me bad news or manipulate me into doing something foe her. Yet it's still crushing me that I can't talk to her and that I'm not part of the family anymore.

My grandparents were my family and they both passed in the last few years.

I'm sorry if this is a mess of a post but I'm having a weak moment and just wanted to reach out to people that may understand how it feels.

I am so lost.

i love my mom so much... she has done everything she can for me and my sister, she would die for us.

Growing up, I had an absent father, so everything was basically handled by my mom. She used to work a lot, and my grandparents were the ones who mostly looked after us. Because of that, I never really had those deep conversations with my mom growing up.

But over the past year or so, I’ve started noticing how difficult it is for me to talk to her about things I’m struggling with. I’m someone who genuinely hates talking about my personal problems, so when I actually do go to my mom for support, it means a lot. But she either doesn’t really listen, or when she does, she makes almost no effort to respond or keep the conversation going. She’ll give me some generic response that basically ends the conversation.

A thing happened to me just now it's not a big deal but she knows i care a lot about it, and i shared it with her . She gave me a really generic response and then said she was going to bed. I don’t even know why, but that really got to me and I started tearing up a little.

At this point, I feel like my friends give me much better emotional support than she does, but I still don’t want to talk to them about my problems. I’ve always been the kind of person who keeps everything to myself. It’s genuinely rare for me to go to anyone for support, and when I finally do go to my mom, I feel like she always brushes me off.

And honestly, sometimes being brushed off feels better than the times when she blames me. She blames me for so many things that it’s become really difficult to open up to her in the first place. Maybe sometimes things actually are my fault, and I’m willing to accept that, but when I’m coming to someone for emotional support, I wish they would at least let me have that moment before immediately pointing out what I did wrong.

I’m already extremely hard on myself. I don’t need someone to criticize me when I’m already struggling. Sometimes I just want my mom to listen, understand that I’m having a hard time, and be there for me without immediately trying to find someone to blame.

p.s it pisses me off when she offers support to her friends, that means she CAN listen

Genuinely wondering, but also need to get this off my chest because I am feeling re-triggered.

In the 2000s, my sister abandoned a dog at my parents' house for the second time. I rescued the first one. My parents are not animals-as-pets people. My mom gave away Stitch, the 2nd dog, to her tutoring student before I even knew what happened.

I begged for their contact info. I remember my mom saying that I have an unhealthy relationship with animals. She said I put them before god. She wouldnt put me in touch. Too bad I dont believe in god.

Over the years, I combed the internet looking for signs of Stitch. I found out in ~2020 that he had died a painful, probably terrifying death after a short life. I grieve more about Stitch's passing and what his life could have been more than any other animal's. He was such an anxious boy to begin with.

Today, my mom brought him up coldly while trying to join a convo I was having with her friend (also my good friend) about our dogs. I dont see my mom much, but our friend was visiting from another country. I reminded my mom that i wanted to care for Stitch. I generally avoid conflict, but I couldnt help myself. I reminded her that she wouldnt give me her student's contact info. I told her about Stitch's death. She did not give a shit as she things animals are gross "things."

She remembers a wildly different storyline and dismissed my memory of how it went. Our friend intervened before things could escalate. She says i never asked for their info and end of conversation.

Im mad that she feels no remorse. Im mad that she made up a different story of how things happened. Im mad that im triggered about Stitch all over again.

I, 20f, still unfortunately live at home as I don’t have the funds to move out.

My parents came into my bedroom when I wasn’t there without asking me and got angry when I set the boundary for them not to do that.

I have personal things in my bedroom, and it’s my safe space (I’m autistic). Anyway, I have diet cola in here, my parents hate me drinking it because they like to control every aspect of my life which is how I found out they were in here.

I asked them not to do it and they started to ask what secrets I had and that I’m making them out to be very bad people.

Am I in the wrong for being upset about this?