bearwithme's comments

Dealing with a Narcissistic Mother - Blog Entry

14 Aug 2009 03:31 PM

I am new to this group and have read most of your comments and WOW! You could all have been raised by my N mother. The similarities are striking to me. I feel all your pain.

I was raised by my Nmother. I am now 42 and at the age of 36, I began therapy for the turmoil my mother put me through. She was a raging, angry, jealous, self centered, thoughtless, shouting, screaming machine of a parent. Her insults on me and my brother were relentless. She denigrated my father in front of us saying he was stupid, illiterate, dumb and a horrible father. Brother turned to alcohol and drugs and I stayed a good little innocent girl to please her. Her anger and rage threw a shadow over my father and I was taught that he was the "bad guy." He eventually shut down and became silent. They surprisingly divorced when I was in my 20's.?!

I hurt so bad as a teen. I covered sorrow with laughter and tended to her wounds like a parent should. I had to make her look good and treat her like queen in front of her friends. My feelings were stupid to her and if I broke down and cried due to her hours of raging craziness, she would laugh at me and say..."see, you are dirty, messy, slow and stupid...your soooo weak...you can't handle life!" Then she would be sweet as pie the next day. I tried to commit suiced (very poor attempt) and prayed for God to let me die, to just let me stop breathing and fade away. At the age of 11 I got shingles. Doctors felt that it was stress related given my young age. But she blamed my father and said, "oh, it must be because he works nights and that's really stressful for us." What the...?

Long story short, I became exhausted with her life as I let mine fall apart. I entered therapy because I thought I did something wrong; that I was stupid and slow, that I was non-ambitious and couldn't handle confrontation because I was dumb and gutless....I can go on and on. I suffered an anxiety attack that put me in the hospital as I thought I was dying and that is where I faced a Doctor who told me forcefully that nothing was wrong with me, that I needed to tend to my emotional well being. What??? In therapy, we (doctor and I) discovered she had NPD. I could put a name on this?? What?? This was awesome.

Over the past 6 or 7 years I got married and had a baby who is now 2. Nmom was angry at my wedding because she felt I didn't make a big deal about her and she wasn't involved enough. Mind you, she helped pick out my dress, help pick out the invitations, help with the color schemes, we got our hair & make-up done together, help pick out my shoes, help pick out music, help with travelers, etc. She was unsatisfied with all I did for her, even paying for her hotel room, transporation, etc. At the birth of my daughter she acted weird (and then some) in front of my father and his wife. She bullied his wife and said that she herself was the "REAL Grandma" and nudged her aside. So embarassing. There is soooo much more as you all can imagine.

I'm now at a crossroads. Nmom has broken all the rules I laid down for her when my baby was born in 2007. i made a promise to myself that she would not poison my daughter and my family. I'm giving her a chance with her granddaughter as I feel this is right. However, Nmom strikes me down from time to time and this is a deal breaker for me. She disparages my father and his wife in front of me and baby and laughs. Last year, I told her not to do this anymore in my house and it blew up in my face because after 3 hours of her crazy rage, it just ended with her crying like a baby and I had to say sorry.

Nmom loves her granddaughter without a doubt. Nmom does let her NPD leak out on her though and I can't deal with it. I need to have NC but feel like the villian taking her sweet granddaughter away from her. Truth is, I will not subject my daughter to the damaging garbage Nmom throws our way. Nmom is getting worse but I know she tries. Not good enough. I don't know what to do. I'm in a dark place right now.

This is the hardest thing in the world to deal with.

Thanks for listening.