Narcissistic family

[Kubali]

Hello everyone

Both my parents have NPD. My sister also. Her and my father are Malignant and overt. My mother is covert.

It's odd but my mother caused the most damage. Of them all it is her betrayal and deceit that truly rocked and shocked me.

I'm wondering if anyone else feels the same about their Narcissistic mother?

Kubali

[Ferzak]

Kubali,

You are not alone!  I feel the same way about my mother.

I think it can be much more difficult to deal with covert situations because they tend to make you question yourself, question your perceptions, and eventually abandon yourself.  A physical bruise or scar, while certainly no little thing, is clear, others can see it (if you show them), and the perpetrator has crossed a line that is fairly well delineated.

I don't have quite the same situation in that while I think my mom was negatively narcissistic, I don't think she quite meets criteria for NPD.... but she was very covert in her dysfunction and co-dependence with my Narcissistic father.  My mom is a freeze/flight and would simply check out when things got tough...and EVERYTHING was tough for her...any little responsibility.  When she wasn't disassociated to the point of not talking, she would frantically do busy work.  Her favorite busywork was moving and we moved 16 times before I was 13, each time changing schools and even states. The biggest problem was that my mom was so NICE that others could not imagine why I would be angry with her.  She would get SO HURT when I expressed any anger.  She would tell me in a NICE voice that anger wasn't good for me.  When I expressed any pain it would panic her and I would have to hear about all her challenges and why she couldn't' have done anything differently.  My growing anger (and hatred of her at times) caused me to feel like an absolutely awful person. At 58 I am still crawling out of a hole of self hatred.
but
I am determined to get healthy and happy!

I hope this helped.

[Kizzie]

Yes, covert NPDM here as well    I agree Ferzak, it's doubly crazy making imo because it's hard to believe what we're feeling versus what we're seeing (my M works hard to appear as though she is all sweetness and light), we question ourselves. And few people see it either so there's a real lack of support.

Kubali - you might want to try searching covert NPD or covert NPDM ((top right of your screen - leave this thread before you do though or the search feature will only show you this post) ) as there are a number of threads/posts on this topic.   

I just had a thought that it seems like those who are covert NPDs are most often women.  I guess it makes sense in that females are expected to be less openly aggressive/hostile.  Hunh.