I always thought I was too sensitive.
I always thought I was just too slow to get the meaning or the joke.
Two years of therapy later (I think if therapy as getting better in the fast lane)
.......
Recently I went to the hairdresser with Mom. To please Mom I had the hair dresser trim my bangs and trim the ends of my hair. My hair is long now and I like it long - I had cancer several years ago, chemotherapy, and lost my hair, so now I really like my long hair. Mom said, in the middle of the room, in front of the hairdresser,
Mom: "I always liked your hair short, a pixie cut."..........

Me: "yeah, but I never liked it short" (note, when I was a child Mom kept my hair short in a pixie haircut, and I remember crying after every haircut because I wanted long hair)........

Mom gives me that look that says I have said something wrong ,so, in order to smooth everything over and please her,.....

Me: :" well, short hair looked cute on me when I was really thin" (hair growing back in after chemotherapy - and-losing-20-lbs-in-the-process-thin).......

Mom: "well then, lose weight"

And she was not embarrassed that she had insulted me in front of her hairdresser, or that she had insulted me at all. ......
.She makes these comments 'because she is just trying to help".

.I live here with Mom. I pay my own bills and I buy the groceries and I sometimes help with the utility bills and I contribute (hundreds of dollars each time) to major repairs to her home.
so, last month I found out that Mom has been telling everyone, EVERYONE, that I don't help with the bills, ' it is so expensive having your sister'. Oh, and she told one brother that she did not want me to pay the electric bill because then I would run up the bill!?!?!?!?
Eldest brother flew down to see her this month. Eldest brother's wife spent some time alone with mom, just chatting, mostly about family and Eldest brother. So, the next day she told Eldest brother, in front of me, that he needed to lose weight, said he must have gained 25-50lbs since she last saw him, and also said that his wife was very worried about his weight gain and his health........ Eldest brother looked exactly the same to me as he did 3 years ago, 2 years ago, and last year, not fat. Eldest brother was very hurt that his mother said he was fat. Eldest brother felt hurt that his wife "said" he was fat, and Eldest brothers' wife felt hurt and betrayed that Mom had turned a simple, friendly discussion about husbands and families into an attack on her beloved husband........... And Mom "was just trying to help".
.
No wonder her children don't like each other and don't want to be around.

Wow, I hear all the pain in the voices of you all. And I can relate. I still struggle with my relationship with my mother, who has what I would call narcissistic tendencies. And because of that I just prefer to spend as little time as possible with her. Which is a sad thing. We both miss out.

Libracat I was happy to see how you asked your mom why she thought it was "OK to make a comment like that" as a response to one of her rude comments. Way to go! I struggle to speak up for myself when my mother says mean and hurtful things to me. But I am making progress. I have used the remark "Well, that was a mean thing to say" which feels to me like the right thing to say. It's a way to take care of me. It's me speaking up for myself, but it is not "personal".
And in my mom's case, she is like that with other people too, so in my head I "know" it is not really personal to me. So even though that helps me to process the hurt, it takes a lot of work on my part to remind myself that it isn't personal. It's how she is. It comes from her own place of insecurity and from the lack in her life. I feel both sad for her and angry at her.

Anyway the best I can do is to learn that there is a better way to live life and thankfully I have a great counselor and am working a 12-step program and I have sought out and found resources to deal with my issues. I get my help from healthy places outside of my own family. I can't gain serenity and healing from a place of dysfunction.

Hugs to all of you who are still hurting. And remember, "hurt people hurt people". So the best thing I can say is to seek out help for yourself, adn do what you need to do to take care of yourself, so that the dysfunction and the hurting can stop. This stuff gets passed along down the generations. I can be the generation to do it differently. I can be a different mom to my kids and I have the rest of my life to do that in.

When my mother was in the hospital at the end of a four-month hospitalization in three different hospitals, her friend went to see her, at which visit they discussed what would happen upon discharge. Since my mother didn't want to go to any "facility" because "everyone in those places is older and worse off than me and I don't want to be around people in wheelchairs or using walkers" (she uses a cane!!), and once she got a look at their menus - never mind the fact that she would never pay to be in one - her friend asked her, "who did you think would look after you when you got out then?" She looks at the friend with this pitying, sad-eyed look and whines out "Youuuu........"
She honestly believed that this friend would take her in, cater to her, do all her errands, meals, laundry, etc. even though she is married and lives in a small house! They had been friends for forty years at this point.
I get a call from the woman's daughter who tells me this information. You can't imagine the shame and embarrassment I felt when I heard this.
It is only in the last year, since I've read so much about narcissism and truly understand it now, that I realize that it was her huge sense of entitlement that honestly made her believe that she had the right to be taken in and looked after by this friend.........never mind that the friend has a disabled husband!!!
I was absolutely mortified and had to smooth the waters with this woman and her daughter.
These people have no regard for anyone else or the inconvenience that they cause others, as long as they get what they want. My mother will nag, nag, nag and pester until she gets her own way. If she buys a certain kind of food and you don't make it right away, you will hear about it day in, day out, and she will just keep on until she gets it, just like a little kid. "What's become of that squash I bought, must have been two weeks ago now, do you ever intend to make it, it'll go bad if you don't cook it" blah, blah, blah....... because she knows that if she nags enough, you'll eventually give in to shut her up, and then she will get whatever it is that she wants.

My stepdaughter is actually the one taking after my MIL...totally self-serving, however the actual rudeness is nothing my MIL can comment on since she never remembers anything for longer than about 2 minutes. He only answer is "Who, me??". But she has lost all concept of other people's lives. She thinks she can move back home and get someone to live with her for free....someone she will find at the church (where she hasn't been in over 20 years). That someone will have no life, of course, and be content just to sit around and watch MIL crochet in a hot house with no TV. She repeats this scenario over and over, making little variations here and there but the bottom line is that she is moving out....I wish!!!

Good suggestion, Tucsonlady.......by the way, I have my second daughter who is the EXACT clone of her........lucky me, huh?
Yes, I have told her that she is rude, but of course, the minute you call them on something, they visit "De-nial" and turn all defensive. I'll never forget one Mother's Day when I picked up a beautiful bouquet to take her and walked in the door with it to "Oh, no........flowers" Why did that annoy her? Because it meant that she had to go ferret a vase out of the junk closet to put them in, extra work for her, what an inconvenience, etc. - I pointed out that that wasn't a very nice thing to say when someone has gone to the effort, that it was rude etc. and she just says "Well what would make you think I'd have a vase big enough to put those in!! Now I have to go digging in there to find one" etc.
Oh, you poor thing!

Oh and I just read all the things your mom has said to you....totally rude. Have you ever told her she is a very rude person? I told my MIL that one day after she accused the day caregiver of stealing from her (like she has anything to steal....NOT!). that seemed to make her think. The caregiver, thank goodness, just laughs it off and couldn't care less. Maybe that's how we need to be, Libracat! I know it isn't easy but maybe try only respond to her if she says something positive...otherwise walk away. They don't like that. I'm going to try that myself.

I'm just now figuring out that my mother-in-law (99 years old) has probably been quite a narcissist all her life....just because she has dementia doesn't make the selfish "it's all about me" attitude explainable. And, she's passed it along to a certain grandchild who is exactly a younger version of grandma. Bless you and I can completely sympathize!! All I really do is ignore most of the stuff she says because I know it won't be forever....if that's any comfort. And I work outside the home, so we are lucky to have another caregiver to look after Mom during the day. Saturdays and Sundays and evenings we get to put up with it and even those few hours seem tainted because of her complaining. I can't even enjoy cooking in my own kitchen because she finds me and launches into another repetitive, crazy conversation (usually about moving out....which would be heaven at this point!!). Hugs to you.

Two more daggers from her: last night (always at bedtime so she can unload on you and get a good sleep, but you are left upset): "I wanted to ask you a question about my movie, but I couldn't find you - I suppose you were on that d**n computer again........."
She resents my time on the computer because it means I'm not spending the time doing something for her. It's also because I know how to use it and she doesn't (she wouldn't learn how to use a microwave either and you should have seen the scowl on her face when I bought her one year - she's too lazy to learn).
But who is the first one to ask me to look up something on said computer when she wants a recipe or a show listing?
Today's: I had done 5, maybe six loads of laundry. I love doing laundry, it's free (except for the soap) in my building, and I help my pregnant daughter, who also has a 2 yr old, do hers. She saw me folding it and says "Somebody would think you were taking in washing......" I said, why do think it is all right to make a remark like that and her answer was "it's just a joke! you take everything so personally! Why do you have to make a big deal out of everything!" It WAS personal for Heaven's sake and she has a twisted sense of humour! She has also said that I am too sensitive. NOT!!
Speaking of twisted - this is her tactic, to put it back on you like it's your fault. There are those on here who say, it's not worth it, just let her comments slide - I do not agree. This is not right and I will not be the butt so she can have a sarcastic remark at my expense.
There are always comments from her about everything as she is racist and bigoted. I'm sure you think I have described a monster here but she has done some good things in her life.......

If any of you are in doubt whether or not you are caring for a narcissist, let me please give you some examples of the things my mother has said and you can decide for yourself:
"You really messed up on that pasta sauce......it had no flavour whatsoever" (everyone else raves about it and I know I'm a good cook)
"I don't see why you have to look after your granddaughter - she has a mother, you know" (well so do I and almost all my time is spent looking after YOU - besides it's my choice to mind my grandbaby if I choose to - you just don't like it that my time with her is not spent doing stuff for YOU)
"I assumed that when you heard a big bang up here you'd come running right up to see if I was all right" (her bedroom was upstairs and she dropped a heavy book so that I would think she had fallen and be concerned and go immediately up there to see to her)
"I can't imagine why anyone would want a swimming pool - it's just a waste of time and money" (that's because you always wanted one, never swam anyway and never bothered to put one in your yard; it's again because it takes time away from her - jealousy - I set her up out there one day under the gazebo with a chaise lounge, newspaper and iced tea -that lasted 5 minutes because there were too many hornets, the neighbour kids were too noisy, blah, blah blah so I just made sure she got back in the house and went back upstairs to her sofa)
"I don't see why having a bathing lady in once a week is an inconvenience to you" (of course you don't!! it's MY house, I have to let them in and out and sign their papers; and she is angry that a neighbour fellow gets a bathing person 2x a week and she gets it only once - sense of entitlement again)
"So I picked up the phone while you were on it - isn't that just too bad" (if I had done that to her.........!! By the way it's my phone in my home, I pay for it, she won't pay for her own line; she picked it up to listen to see who it was and if it was for HER - I'm not "allowed" to talk to any of "her" friends when they call)
"Why are you sending Kate a Christmas card? She's MY friend, not yours"
"Why is it you can't hear what I said to you? You need your hearing checked"
(as she keeps her voice low - she can yell if she needs to though - while all the while the TV is at maximum volume - so who needs their hearing checked?)
"You don't need another new dress - there must be 100 in your closet" (really? have you been in my closet and do you know how many I have? again, jealousy because I am a very social person, am invited to a lot of dressy events, and need a lot of different clothing - she's always avoided going to things like that because it's "too much trouble")
"Oh by the way, I'm not coming down for New Year dinner - I don't have my hair done" (afraid to be seen in what she thinks is a bad light - after I worked all day to set the table beautifully and made a gourmet meal - just wants to take the air out of your balloon and deny you any credit)
"Well now you've brought me this sandwich when you know I can't chew it" (stopped on the way home from a shopping trip with my daughter and bought her something different to eat - of course it was refused - funny her teeth work on chocolate bars and cookies)
"OK my friends are coming over - just set up a tray with tea and cookies and leave it in the TV room - they're coming to see me, not you"
"The store won't miss this bag of oranges - they just write it off" (last time I checked that was stealing!!
I've got lots more examples but if you see anything in here that sounds like the person you are looking after, then you are caregiving for a raving narcissist!! Good luck to you. You are selflessly trying to do the right thing but just recognize that it will never be right in their eyes.

LivingSouth - I swear while reading your post I kept thinking I had just written it. My father died when I was 14 and my very domineering Mother went back to work. As I was the oldest child (one younger brother), I was basically instructed that I was now responsible for the cooking of meals, doing of laundry, cleaning and caring for my brother, etc. Complaining was not an option, and her temper knew no bounds. She dealt with any issue by brow beating the complainer and becoming verbally abusive. She could be very loving one minute and petrifying the next. She was intolerant to any indiscretion and often accused me of doing thinks she imagined I did. It was a fun time. Now she is 84 and suffering from terminal cancer. I have placed her in a nearby AS facility and visit her on a near daily basis. I do her laundry, shopping, take her to and from doctors do her finances, buy her her clothes and other essentials. I am her sole social outlet. She will not make friends at her new home. She complains about the food, nurses, doctors,aids, just about everything. She does this because even now, she is so much better than these people, and the other residents are "old". I feel guilty on a daily basis but don't know why and can't stop. I am exhausted.

Boy, this has me worried . . . I've got a mother in law who totally fits this description, and she'll probably live to 102! But seriously, as noted, not everyone is 100% narcissistic all the time, so you learn to recognize the tendancies. If all else fails, you should buy them a bunch of adult diapers and tell them your just getting prepared. That will knock anyone down a few notches.

By the way - thanks to the person who posted the site of - this site has some very valuable advice and I'm sure many of you will see yourselves on here.....what others don't understand is the toxicity of these mothers and just how much lifetime damage they inflict. The best way to deal with toxic people in your life is to cut them out of it. My biggest mistake was to allow my mother back into my life after I was forced out of my home so that she could again make me dependent on her in many ways - I did it because I didn't think it was fair to cheat her out of the experience of having grandchildren. Boy, was that a HUGE mistake, and I am still paying for it at this age!!

Thank you so much to all of you on here for your support and encouraging comments. It means so much to me, and is often the highlight of my day.
Thanks, too, for your hugs - it is so heartening to hear all your stories and to
know that none of us are alone in our journey - and there are some wonderful people out there!

Sorry that is The Caregiver & Dysfunctional Families: How are you Doing? It has had 568 posts.

Also, type in The Caregiver & Dysfunctional Families, it is full of information. This thread was started by someone who posts on this site often and just read all the posts. Interesting.

libracat, there are so many posts on this website for narcissistic mothers, and family members that you could do some interesting reading for quite a while. Google the site and you will get an idea about how bad narcissism really is. The traits apply to anyone, not just mothers. Also someone started a post just for narcissism a few months ago, go to the search box and type that in.

There is a ton of sympathy on this site for children of narcissist. Some stories will make you cry and also make you realize you are not alone.

I learned to identify what "crazy making" my mom was doing and how to deal with it. Most of all I realize how narcissistic she is and how my brother is just like her. Hope you get as much out of this as I have, it changed my life.

So just keep looking, there are alot of posts on here about terrible families. So sad but very helpful.

I have read that almost everyone has some narcissistic tendencies. I feel like I have been groomed to be a manager since childhood. It is my job to make sure everything runs smoothly. The other day she couldn't find her social security card and I just put my foot down and said ' it's your card and you are the last one who had it, so you will need to find it yourself.' (This did not go over well) When I was in my late teens a counselor told me that I seemed to have the weight of the world on my shoulders. I still do, only the load has gotten even larger. I know that I have some tendencies as well - I tend to want to control things ( maybe because when I was little, I never knew which mood my parents would be in that particular day or hour) and I have very little patience. My mother goes between feeling bad that she puts everything on me, to then expecting me to just automatically take charge of everything, and she has a very low frustration threshold. Anything that doesn't set well with her is my fault.
And I'm sure that everyone on here can relate to how no one believes this because when company comes, or the person is out is public, they seem so charming and sweet that people think that YOU are the problem!
When I was little and we were shopping, she would be just hissing at me about some trivial thing, and then someone would walk up to talk and she would go into the act. If they would complement me, she would say thank you and smile sweetly and then tear into me again as soon as they were gone.
The part that messes kids up is the Dr Jeckyl and Mr Hyde thing - they care, they don't care. You're great - you're terrible. I love you IF you do what I want. No one will love you like I do, so you better stick around and look after my needs. If I argue or complain then she wishes she was dead - so then I have THAT on my head as well....No wonder I'm so tired all the time. It is tiring trying to be a full time employee.

3pinkroses: I am sending three dozen pink roses to you! Thank you so much for your kind words. I really appreciate them and getting even a tiny amount of validation sure helps when your spirit has been so beaten down.
I loved your comment "I think they can bring out the worst in a person as they have already stripped away the best" -- that is for sure so true.
Thank you very much for giving me credit for the hardest job I have ever undertaken in the spirit of just trying to be a good daughter/person and do the right thing. More than once in the last three years have I wished that I could have my "old" life back.
Bless your heart for answering this post! Your understanding and remarks have really made my day today. I am grateful!

Libracat - well said.

I think they can bring out the worst in a person as they have already stripped away the best. I think we can grow by not allowing them to manipulate us. We can grow by building up our self-esteem , the self - esteem they gradually stole.

I am a compassionate person; but it is difficult to have compassion for the parent that will turn on you in an instant. All I have left now is the power to overcome allowing my narcissistic parent to get to me. I simply walk away.

So, I understand how you feel and your descriptions were worse than mine. You deserve a lot of credit for caretaking in your home - just know - I hear you and I get it. Blessings to you - you are a wonderful person. Take care.

Boy have I been waiting for this one! I came to this site hoping for a little understanding and sympathy in dealing with my narcissistic mother, age 86, who lives with us.
I hope that those who are on here who are self-righteous and think that they know everything in how to deal with seniors read this and make an attempt to understand just how difficult it is, and realize that a lot of the times, there is no easy answer to untangling yourself from caring for these parents. It's just not a case of "unloading" the narcissistic parent on a care facility, or, Heaven help us, another sibling who has no empathy whatsoever and would be unwilling to do the caregiving anyway.
A high and mighty attitude does nothing to allay the sadness that comes with never being thanked, never being acknowledged or appreciated, never doing the right thing or never pleasing the narcissistic parent. They are only too happy to steal your life away from you. Your complaints will never be heard, your opinion does not matter and somehow you are expected to find a way to live in their world, while they do their damndest to destroy yours and every small bit of happiness you can scrounge.
Those on this site who are too quick to put in their two cents' worth must never have had to deal with a parent like this -- they don't understand how difficult it is to be kind and to have to care for someone (the parent) who never soothed you when you were hurt, helped you deal with hurt feelings, when you were bullied in school and made fun of - all the while treating you as an asset, not as the child/person that you were. How could they do any different when in their life they always put themselves first above anyone else? Can you imagine how hard it is to treat someone with kindness for whom you have never had anything but contempt? (not to mention physical and psychological abuse).
So, readers, I ask you to try to walk in my shoes - if for even just one day, before you are so quick to judge and criticize. For this is the reality of dealing with a narcissistic parent.

I am caregiver to my 88 year old mother that has some type of dementia that 5 different doctors have their own different diagnosis as well as being legally blind due to macular degeneration, and she displays some of the tendencies described. I can deal with that, I have some as well. My problem is my way over the top narcisstic brother. He is not in denial or distant from mom, he is ignorant about doing whats best and refusing to do things any other way than his. he does too much, too often, his way. consequently, he complicates and exacerbates things. if i leave mom with him, by the time i get back she is anxious, tense, angry, confused ........... and the interesting thing is that she understands that a lot of the anger and frustration is with herslf because she enables him and she can't help it. i have addressed it many ways including giving him publications from doctor, lcsw, alz assoc., etc. with things highlighted. i want to smack him in the back of the head like gibbs does in ncis several 100 times a day. then to make things worse after spending time, sometimes hours calming mom and myself down, i get angry again because i have to spend time unraveling what he has done around the house, like putting things back where we want them in the fridge after he has rearranged it. the saying, "don't sweat the small stuff" doesn't pertain here because it is these small things that upsets the routine and mom. at the hospital they asked me to come back in the middle of the night to get him to leave, because i have guardianship of mom and they didn't want to use security.

i suggested going to a therapist and his reply was, "if the therapist agrees with me, do we get to do it my way?"

i know there is no cure, he is 64 and it is deeply imbedded. thanks up front for any suggestions and for letting me rant.

What happens if both are narcissists? Sometimes the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.