I have decided my mother is a narcissist.

[Mary Terry]

Yeah, the fact that my mother always groped my ass when I was in high school then started laughing at me when I told her I wanted her to stop doing that, claiming I had a cute ass and she just had to keep grabbing it and claiming I was making a big deal out of nothing…..

The fact that throughout my life my mother often repeated the words I just said to her in a way that mocked my speech issues, then laughed at me and told me she was only doing that because she loved me when I told her that was hurtful…..

The fact that every time I try to point out my mother’s exact words to her, she flat-out tells me I am delusional. She isn’t even trying to hide the fact she has been gaslighting me for my entire life. She tells lies about as easily as she breathes, and then she calls me a liar when I speak the truth.

I am going to be taking a volunteer shift on weekends, so at least I will be too busy for her to just drop by my house and ruin my day.

That's what narcissists do. They are liars and gas lighters whose self-esteem is so fragile that they believe the lies they tell themselves.

Get away from her!

 

[Magna]

I'm sorry to hear that that happened to you, @Metalhead. Growing up with a narcissist can really mess with a person's ability to navigate their own life because a narcissist meddles and manipulates rather than offering support and encouragement.

There is a great site/forum for people who know, live with, etc a person who has a personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder being a common one. The site is called Out Of The Fog. Out of the FOG

 

[Judge]

If your mother is as "pathological" as you claim, you may not be able to avoid her at some point, as long as you remain in the area. Which at that point you might also want to explore the option of seeking a restraining order. I can't think of a stronger message to convey to someone to "back off" than to have their names on a formal restraining order. Violating such orders can be quite costly. Provided of course the courts allow it to happen.

At least it's an option you can explore:

"Important: To obtain legal advice you should hire a lawyer (for “full service” representation or for “limited” representation) or, if you cannot afford one, contact a low cost or free legal service program. For a referral to a lawyer or a legal service program, call CLEAR (888) 201-1014. Your county may also have a courthouse facilitator who cannot provide legal advice, but who can offer limited assistance in completing necessary paperwork. This list of forms is not legal advice and is provided only for reference purposes. "

I still recall many years ago helping a friend in the Bay Area in securing a restraining order against her ex. She didn't have to go through an attorney, but rather went straight to the courts and police in San Francisco.

Washington State Courts - Court Forms - Immediate Restraining Order - Unmarried Parents

www.courts.wa.gov

 

[Metalhead]

If your mother is as "pathological" as you claim, you may not be able to avoid her at some point, as long as you remain in the area. Which at that point you might also want to explore the option of seeking a restraining order. I can't think of a stronger message to convey to someone to "back off" than to have their names on a formal restraining order. Violating such orders can be quite costly. Provided of course the courts allow it to happen.

At least it's an option you can explore:

"Important: To obtain legal advice you should hire a lawyer (for “full service” representation or for “limited” representation) or, if you cannot afford one, contact a low cost or free legal service program. For a referral to a lawyer or a legal service program, call CLEAR (888) 201-1014. Your county may also have a courthouse facilitator who cannot provide legal advice, but who can offer limited assistance in completing necessary paperwork. This list of forms is not legal advice and is provided only for reference purposes. "

I still recall many years ago helping a friend in the Bay Area in securing a restraining order against her ex. She didn't have to go through an attorney, but rather went straight to the courts and police in San Francisco.

Washington State Courts - Court Forms - Immediate Restraining Order - Unmarried Parents

www.courts.wa.gov

Seeing as my mother once got a restraining order placed against her because she was harassing one my therapists twenty years ago - I think it would be easy to bring that up again if I needed to. My therapist at that time was encouraging me to change jobs, and my mother left her harassing voicemails telling her not to listen to me, but to listen to her, because I did not know what was best for me and besides, my therapist did not love me as much as she loved me. I was not talking to my therapist much about my mother before she did that, but after that she became the center of our conversations and I moved out of state the very next month. My mother now claims she is proud that she put herself in that position, and that she almost lost her job and her freedom "because she loves me". To this day, she thinks that was a good thing for her to be up to.

 

[Judge]

Seeing as my mother once got a restraining order placed against her because she was harassing one my therapists twenty years ago - I think it would be easy to bring that up again if I needed to. My therapist at that time was encouraging me to change jobs, and my mother left her harassing voicemails telling her not to listen to me, but to listen to her, because I did not know what was best for me and besides, my therapist did not love me as much as she loved me. I was not talking to my therapist much about my mother before she did that, but after that she became the center of our conversations and I moved out of state the very next month. My mother now claims she is proud that she put herself in that position, and that she almost lost her job and her freedom "because she loves me". To this day, she thinks that was a good thing for her to be up to.

I still like the idea of seeing you "try on" another coast. Maybe you could take a trip just to check things out before committing to relocation in the northeast.

 

[Metalhead]

I still like the idea of seeing you "try on" another coast. Maybe you could take a trip just to check things out before committing to relocation in the northeast.

Yeah, I think I will follow through on that.

 

[Metalhead]

My biggest regret with my move to another state back eighteen years ago was that I rushed the move. Initially, I wanted to take my time and make sure that I had a job in place before I moved to Colorado. But my mother was violating tons of my boundaries at that time. I knew my days at the job I was leaving were numbered. As soon as a new manager took over my department, he immediately ordered me to manufacture and send out defective merchandise, then when I said that was wrong, he yelled at me and told me that while my previous bosses loved my productivity, he really wished it was still legal in my state to fire me over my sexual orientation alone so he was going to use any other excuse he could to kick me to the curb. I talked about this with my therapist at the time. My therapist was like, yeah, time to move on. As soon as my mother heard I was thinking of quitting that job and moving to another state, she personally got involved and tried to get all buddy buddy with my boss’ boss, which I thought was supremely creepy. Then she started harassing my therapist, which I thought I was even more creepy because I never told her which therapy office I was going to. I wanted to take my time, secure a job, and then move. But under the pressure of all of those boundary violations - and the gaslighting that went along with them - I rushed and ended up in a worse situation than what I was in before. I regret rushing that move because it then allowed my mother to be supremely smug with me - see, you don’t know what is right for you, you never will know what is right for you, and all that other talk.

If I move again, I will do it more properly this time.

 

[Metalhead]

Oh, when I returned to Washington after the job in Colorado didn’t work out, her behavior towards me got a million times worse and I eventually had a full nervous breakdown. But my mother, she was now resentful of the mental health care system because they told her that she could not have me involuntarily committed just because I was thinking of changing jobs and moving.

When I was in high school, she loved it when the doctors wrote out prescriptions for chemical restraints after they let her do all of the talking for me. Once I took control of my mental health care away from her, she started telling me that mental health care was nothing but a massive waste of money and that I could easily choose to not be clinically depressed like flipping a lightswirch. Then she told me when I was first suicidal, it made her feel suicidal, but then she realized she had to be strong and tell me to just get over clinical depression and that I was choosing to have the nervous breakdown and therefore I was an asshole who was only trying to hurt her. I once got accepted at a warehouse job at the local airport around this time - it was the food service warehouse, pay started off good, and it had good benefits. My mother and stepfather screamed at me and demanded I turned that job down, because they heard food service and warehouse and assumed I would be serving customers, and they accused me of lying when I told them there was a whole warehouse in the back. She eventually told me if I took that job, I better have a place to move into the very next day because she would kick me out. But then she forced me into manufacturing jobs full of the homophobic good ole boys I was trying to get away from to begin with. Eventually, I moved out after less than three weeks at their place, I was unemployed, and I drained my savings within a year. I applied for SSDI and got approved. My mother later admitted how much it hurt her when I got my massive back pay check and I did not offer to give most of that money to her. And she claims I am selfish.

When I finally got hospitalized for suicidal ideation, it was because a friend drove me to the ER. My mother kept on telling me that suicidal ideation was something I could turn off like a lightswirch, just by smiling and pretending nothing was wrong. When she visited me in the hospital, literally the only thing she wanted to talk about was how I was taking a luxury vacation and wasting taxpayer money.

Now mom claims “I had no idea how sick you actually were” and “You never told me you needed mental health care”. Nice revisionist history. But all of this is in the past and I am still processing it all. I am seriously considering moving to Michigan, but my mother is not going to find out about it until I am long gone.

 

[AdamG]

It is good that you are processing through this. I'm happy to be reading it, brings up a lot of parallels.

 

[2Fragile2TakeCriticism]

A few years ago, I was at the family Christmas gathering, and my mother and child molester aunt both decided it would be a great idea to force four generations of family to play Truth or Dare with each other. When I told my mother I had a problem with that, her exact words were “Sit down, shut up, you’re playing.” She then during this game outed me as a gay men to people I was keeping that hidden from, and I saw the disgust in their faces. She also giggled her ass off the while encouraging the two most homophobic men in the room to rub noses with each other.

After this game, I pulled my mother aside and told her I had a problem with all of this. My mother responded by telling me it was about time that everybody found out I was gay. She also said the family would have played another round if I were not such a stick in the mud, and when I told her most of the people in the room were horrified at her and my aunt, she brushed it off by saying, “It’s who they are, they will get over it!”

My mother still brings this up today because she claims my anger at her came “out of nowhere”. She also says she would never tell me to “shut up”, despite the fact that she often told me those exact words in my life.

I need to cut her out of my life.

This is a very bad sign when your mother forces you to do something you don’t want to. It’s even worse that she set it all up just to spill your identity to cause a feud between your homophobic family members.

You are so right. You definitely need to go no contact with her

 

[2Fragile2TakeCriticism]

Oh, when I returned to Washington after the job in Colorado didn’t work out, her behavior towards me got a million times worse and I eventually had a full nervous breakdown. But my mother, she was now resentful of the mental health care system because they told her that she could not have me involuntarily committed just because I was thinking of changing jobs and moving.

When I was in high school, she loved it when the doctors wrote out prescriptions for chemical restraints after they let her do all of the talking for me. Once I took control of my mental health care away from her, she started telling me that mental health care was nothing but a massive waste of money and that I could easily choose to not be clinically depressed like flipping a lightswirch. Then she told me when I was first suicidal, it made her feel suicidal, but then she realized she had to be strong and tell me to just get over clinical depression and that I was choosing to have the nervous breakdown and therefore I was an asshole who was only trying to hurt her. I once got accepted at a warehouse job at the local airport around this time - it was the food service warehouse, pay started off good, and it had good benefits. My mother and stepfather screamed at me and demanded I turned that job down, because they heard food service and warehouse and assumed I would be serving customers, and they accused me of lying when I told them there was a whole warehouse in the back. She eventually told me if I took that job, I better have a place to move into the very next day because she would kick me out. But then she forced me into manufacturing jobs full of the homophobic good ole boys I was trying to get away from to begin with. Eventually, I moved out after less than three weeks at their place, I was unemployed, and I drained my savings within a year. I applied for SSDI and got approved. My mother later admitted how much it hurt her when I got my massive back pay check and I did not offer to give most of that money to her. And she claims I am selfish.

When I finally got hospitalized for suicidal ideation, it was because a friend drove me to the ER. My mother kept on telling me that suicidal ideation was something I could turn off like a lightswirch, just by smiling and pretending nothing was wrong. When she visited me in the hospital, literally the only thing she wanted to talk about was how I was taking a luxury vacation and wasting taxpayer money.

Now mom claims “I had no idea how sick you actually were” and “You never told me you needed mental health care”. Nice revisionist history. But all of this is in the past and I am still processing it all. I am seriously considering moving to Michigan, but my mother is not going to find out about it until I am long gone.

I hope you have a safe trip moving there. You really need to spend some time away from your mother, that’s for sure.

 

[Metalhead]

Yeah, and then there was the time I went to my family doctor because I was vomiting up what looked like coffee grounds for a couple of days. He sent me straight to the ER. My mother called me when I was in the waiting room and I made the mistake of telling her what was going on.

She immediately got very angry with me. She said it did not make any sense that a doctor would send me to the ER over something like that, where I was not at death’s door. She accused me of going straight to the ER and told me I was being a hypochondriac, wasting valuable ER resources when this was something that would most likely go away without medical care. She also said the whole point of Obamacare was that hypochondriacs like me would be turned away at the ER while people who actually needed medical care would get it - that’s a dumb statement that proved she had no idea what she was talking about.

I got checked out. I had an insanely massive bleeding ulcer that required immediate care. I did not bother to tell her what happened after our phone conversation earlier because why the hell would I after her angry and extremely profane tirade?

OK, I should stop talking about her. It is its own cycle, and I have better things to do with my time. Still, over four decades of this is a LOT to process.

 

[Metalhead]

I could probably look at her with pity, as she clearly is detached from reality as she sees absolutely nothing wrong with her behavior.

I had somebody just tell me that moving to Michigan is a very childish way of handling this, that it was running away just like a kid, and that the adult things to do would be to show my mother I am a very capable adult. I think this person cannot fully grasp how psychotic my mother actually is.

 

[Rodafina]

I was vomiting up what looked like coffee grounds for a couple of days

This is a symptom that always means see a doctor ASAP. So many medications have this warning. It is a very serious symptom.

Glad you sought care and got the help you needed.

 

[AdamG]

I could probably look at her with pity, as she clearly is detached from reality as she sees absolutely nothing wrong with her behavior.

I had somebody just tell me that moving to Michigan is a very childish way of handling this, that it was running away just like a kid, and that the adult things to do would be to show my mother I am a very capable adult. I think this person cannot fully grasp how psychotic my mother actually is.

Iny opinion, it would be very childish for a grown man NOT to move, just for mommy.

 

[Mary Terry]

Yeah, and then there was the time I went to my family doctor because I was vomiting up what looked like coffee grounds for a couple of days. He sent me straight to the ER. My mother called me when I was in the waiting room and I made the mistake of telling her what was going on.

She immediately got very angry with me. She said it did not make any sense that a doctor would send me to the ER over something like that, where I was not at death’s door. She accused me of going straight to the ER and told me I was being a hypochondriac, wasting valuable ER resources when this was something that would most likely go away without medical care. She also said the whole point of Obamacare was that hypochondriacs like me would be turned away at the ER while people who actually needed medical care would get it - that’s a dumb statement that proved she had no idea what she was talking about.

I got checked out. I had an insanely massive bleeding ulcer that required immediate care. I did not bother to tell her what happened after our phone conversation earlier because why the hell would I after her angry and extremely profane tirade?

OK, I should stop talking about her. It is its own cycle, and I have better things to do with my time. Still, over four decades of this is a LOT to process.

Dwelling on past injustices from a narcissist is self-defeating. Just reading about what you are going through reminds me strongly of my narcissistic and histrionic father. Sometimes I have to prevent myself from reliving the abuse I suffered from him and getting my brain stuck in a loop of negativity and anger.

The best thing I ever did in my life was to go "no contact" with him. I literally scrubbed him and all contact with him out of my life. The first week that I did not talk or interact with him in any way, he called 911 at least 7 times, sometimes twice a day, claiming that he had cardiac problems in order to "hoover" me back into his sick drama. I ignored him and the emergency response vehicles with sirens and flashing lights. The paramedics finally contacted my brother and told him that if our father did that again, that he would be financially charged for their expenses as it was clear that nothing was wrong with him other than mental issues. I don't know how my brother handled it and I never asked, but our father stopped calling 911.

 

[Metalhead]

Well, this is unexpected.

My mother admitted that she did use those exact words, and that she could have worded things a lot better. What she meant was she thought my friends would not help me if I got evicted from my house, and she thought I was at risk of eviction because my house smelled of cigars. I threw my ashes in the trash can, but I did not smoke inside. My mother also admitted to me for the first time that she was always more sensitive to that smell than most people are.

I still do not trust her, but I will take this much.

 

[AdamG]

As someone with a narcissistic mom (not as damaging as yours, granted) this could be a tactic. I know my mom has gotten very apologetic if she saw me actually disregarding her. It was a means to get me close again, and then resume normal behavior. I don't want to rain on your parade, at least she made some admissions. But given everything, I wouldn't trust her.

 

[AdamG]

I want to say also, it took me until 53 years old to start to get out from my mother's thumb (even with 9 hours driving distance between us for a long time). I believe I remember you saying you are a few years younger than that. So remember to be patient with yourself, and not let your "older" age get you down (in case that was an issue). Better now than never.