Meme about NPD

[Kizzie]

My original meme isn't available anymore so I added this one. (So the thread may not make quite as much sense now.)

So true! As they say at OOTS, "Don't load the drama gun"  In other words don't give the N any info about yourself, just gray rock all the time.

[Armee]

So true and funny sad. Except there's a step missing, right after "that didn't happen" there should be a "well, I don't remember that"

[NarcKiddo]

Yes. My N Mother would continue with

"And if you deserved it you had better start grovelling and grovelling well if you want forgiveness for putting me through all of this."

[Kizzie]

Yup, I agree with you both   

One thing that drove me crazy (well one of many) about N abuse was that people who don't get N's don't grasp how impossible it is to break through the N wall of protection they have surrounding them and why that is so crazy making for children and adults who are in the N's orbit.

I know I chatted with Pete Walker once about treating N's and he said it was impossible and incredibly frustrating and he would do his level best to chase them away.  He even wrote a blog article for OOTS that included a plea for any N's on the forum to bugger off basically. 

[Armee]

Wow.

And yes it really is just mind bending for a child to go through. Because they don't know and they believe it's their fault and they must be wrong because the parent is so steadfast in their adamance.

I just have to add all this is true for people with true Borderline Personality Disorder too. I don't mean the Borderline diagnosis given incorrectly to people with cptsd. But true BPD has the exact same behaviors, it's just that the motivation underlying the behavior is just a little different. Borderline PD often gets overlooked when people talk about narcissistic abuse.

[Kizzie]

That's not something I've ever heard or read Armee, can you elaborate?  I think of N's as skilled, cunning but BPD as desperate and disorganized.  But then again it's not something I know all that much about except as you say those of us with CPTSD are often mistakenly diagnosed with BPD.

[Armee]

My mom was skilled and cunning, like someone with NPD, but the goal wasn't to pump up her ego but to feed the BPD dynamic of "I hate you don't leave me." Same mind-bending lies and manipulations, same way of seeing children only as supply, not seeing them as their own people with needs and rights.

Here's an article on the similarities and differences but honestly some of the characteristics attributed to NPD were also present in my mom, like exploiting others and having no empathy for others. But the goal of those behaviors was to tend to her attachment needs. To feel loved and cared for instead of superior. But she'd push that love away and then beg for it. It was awful. Truly truly damaging.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/5-types-people-who-can-ruin-your-life/202102/borderline-and-narcissistic-personality

And here's an article on the effects of BPD on children.

https://www.choosingtherapy.com/raised-by-borderlines/

------ examples which turned into ranting....

Here are a couple examples. There were multiple examples every week of my life with her. Nonstop.

1. She would beat us for not cleaning perfectly, like a small amount of dust or a small rubber band on the floor. Not because she deserved a perfect house but because she needed a perfect house to try to not lose her husband (our abusive stepdad). Although also maybe because she deserved perfection.

2. One christmas my sister was visiting but staying somewhere else. My mom would always come have Christmas morning at our house to watch the kids open their presents. It was the highlight of her year. Me and my sister are close (now. Not as children because we were pitted against each other). My mom apparently felt threatened by that closeness taking away from her closeness with my family. So she lied.

She told me my sister couldn't come Christmas morning because my kids get up too early. She told my sister I didn't want her to come over because my sister's kids get more expensive gifts (not actually true?) and it would make our kids feel bad. So we both thought the other did not want to spend Christmas morning together and my mom got what she wanted.

3. Or there was the time recently where she was getting all sorts of attention because she did not feel well enough to decorate for christmas. She would cry to my aunt and sister across the country how sad she was because she was too sick to put up her decorations. My aunt and sister would tell me this so I would go help her. I'd offer and she'd say "no. I don't want to decorate this year." "OK but you told x and y that you really want your decorations up?" "No, I dont." OK. Then a week later I'd hear the same from my aunt and sister so I'd think I must not have offered in the right way. I must have been condescending or something so I'd try again extra extra nice. Same thing would happen. Then I'd think oh right she doesn't want to ask for help she just wants help without having to ASK for it so she can pretend to be upset about getting help.

So I'd say we are coming over because the kids want to see you, and while I'm there I'm going to get down the Xmas boxes and decorate. "Oh. Ok." She'd pout this like I was really putting her out. Then she'd brag to her neighbors that I was coming to help her.

When they would see her lights were not up and they would try to insist on helping her. So she would say "oh that would be so lovely thank you for offering you are just so nice but my daughter is going to help me." Then the day of she would cancel and say angrily she does not want to put up decorations and that I should not come over.

Then she'd go back to complaining to my aunt and sister that she was too sick to put them up and they'd tell me to help her and she'd keep telling her neighbors I was going to do it but kept preventing me from doing it. She told me one day that "oh my neighbors are so nice and offering to help me put up lights." I asked her "what did you tell them?" She said "oh I told them I was so sad to not have them up yet but that you were going to help me." "OK. Do you want me to come over today and put them up?" "No! I told you I don't want to decorate this year." So she'd get all this sympathy from everyone, but would push me away and make it look like I was neglecting her which got more sympathy. Mind games, non stop.

If she found out something hurt us she'd do it more with a smile on her face.

She would lie about her cancer prognosis.

She would lie and tell her neighbors I would not help her when I was bending over backwards to do things for her till the end. There's so much I could go into but I won't.

The abuse and the results are the same. It's just victim complex instead of God complex.

One more example. I cared for her for 6 years, from the time my daughter was 3 until 9. I worked. I went to grad school. I had 2 kids. This overlapped with the pandemic and homeschooling. It overlapped with my mom going off her medication for bipolar. It was awful. I spent so much time taking her to multiple hours long appointments each week and cooking and shopping for her. My daughter was so sad because I was gone too much. Sometimes my daughter would call me on speakerphone while I drove my mom someplace and my daughter would just be sobbing "when are you coming home mommy I miss you." My mom would laugh at her sadness and take glee in pulling me away from her granddaughter.

----

Oof sorry. I got carried away. I've mostly not been thinking about her. Now this stuff is flooding back. Saying she should have thrown my sister off the GG bridge because she was such an awful kid and smiling like it was such a funny thing, in the hospice doctor's office. It was so messed up. Maybe it's not exactly the same as NPD abuse but it's definitely in the same class.

[Kizzie]

I'm so sorry Armee, what a crazy, messed up M you had. How on earth do any of us with parents like this survive?  My T and I were talking about this last session and I said I think it's because we will go to the ends of the earth to not be like them, that because of what we went through we become decent, moral, honest, kind people who would not jerk anyone around or betray them or make them feel small or any of the other things our parents made us feel. 

Hope a  is OK.