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I am wondering how many others on here grew up with a narcissist or sociopathic Mom's. It seems to me, talking to my friends, that a lot of women born in the 30's seem very narcissistic. They went through a lot with the war, they were too young to be in it directly, but it was a world event and on the radio all the time
Or maybe they got dropped on their heads a lot, I don't know, I do know mothers have a 90% influence on children and when they are not well themselves it is difficult for the kids. They either become "pleasers" or narcissists themselves. Sometimes I do envy the narcissists, they do not seem to worry...everyone else around them does though and goes to counseling to deal with them
Did any others go through this? Any thoughts or insights?
My mom always told me I was a mistake. She shipped me off my grandmothers or neighbours whenever she could.
No affection or love in my family. She now lives with my brother who turned into my father.
A bitter old women living the same life she did with my father.
I'm trying to stay away from these toxic people.
Hugs!
i have thought about this a lot.
my mother was 8 yrs old when the bombing began in London. she was little girl. walking to school by herself in the mornings.
the family, which included her grandmother, slept in the root cellar in the garden every night while the bombing went on.
one morning, she went up to her room to get dressed for school and there was a piece of schrapnel in her bed. it had come crashing in thru her window at the head of her bed and sliced from the head to the foot of the mattress - where she'd have been sleeping.
she told her parents - but she was, as was typical - shushed.
sent off to walk to school - alone - as per usual.
there was an air raid siren on her way - half way to her school - and she froze - not knowing if she should run home? or run to school. nobody ever told her what to do in case this happened... only to shush if she spoke.
she could see the planes and the bombs starting. some woman saw her and tucked her under her arm and brought her inside and to their basement.
when she got home from school that day, the family left to visit relatives in Cornwall.
that night, the London house was bombed to smithereens.
the family stayed in Cornwall for the duration of the war.
i feel so much for that little 8 yr old girl. always shushed. not heard or seen.
that was my mother as a child.
at some point.
she is mean and bitter and hateful and cruel. she was when i was a baby. she has always hated me. i mean, seriously. i'm not throwing a lable on or something.
she's told me this. as an adult reiterated it in case i hadn't heard her the last few times she's told me.
she'd like to be certain i know how much she hates me.
how much i disgust her. how dare i be...dressed nicely, or do anything with my hair. it is endless.
when i am sick, oh yes, it's all about you - to the tune of jack nicholson's voice. yada yada yada - from as good as it gets. that voice
I was thinking as I read both your post, there is a doctor who wrote the book "the Disease to Please", that studies show women born in the 50's and 60's have a high percentage of being "pleasers"
This would have been children of the women born in the 30's...I guess in order to survive childhood, we had to please the narcissists...that would have been the only solution to a child
I think our Moms actually hated themselves, narcissism means they love an image of themselves and they do not see the real self but i suspect it rears its ugly head sometimes...then they lash out and put others down. My Mom scares me to be really honest, i think it is old wiring from being a child as I know she can't hurt me the same now but I still have that fear
My mother loved labels...and every one that came along she glued on me. As such, I have a really hard time using them on others, or even reading them. Even if someone's describing themselves.
I'm also not big on "diagnosis". I've seen how that can be bought and twisted.
That said, I get that it's a shorthand. If it looks, walks, talks, and quacks like a duck...maybe it's not a duck...but a "duck" will still be a good description of how it walks, talks and quacks...
My mother...well my mother had Issues. Her father abandoned the family when she was 3. Back then, there was no alimony, no child support. Her mother had to go to work. My aunt was 11 and was supposed to be watching the 3 year old.
My mother started running out into the streets to stop the streetcars in Chicago. Because of that, she was sent to live with an aunt and uncle and never lived with her mother again.
Once her father came back to see my aunt, he walked right past my mother without even knowing who she was.
Religion played a part in it too, as they were Catholic and the church didn't recognize the divorce. When my grandmother remarried, my mother was told that they were living in sin and going to hell. My mother had religious issues...
All of that doesn't quite explain it all. I've done thinking over the years and I really don't know. Maybe she was partly Aspergers. She really was clueless and has a mind like a steel trap that forgot nothing. If she had been born today...no doubt that she'd have a degree in something. She never thought so though, not that that was ever an issue. But it was fairly clear to me.
But that's not it all either. It's hard to explain just how much women were repressed. Women got the right to vote in her childhood (1920). Women couldn't open a bank account without her husband's permission. There was no minimum wage and women's jobs were nearly slave labor before WWII. My mother had stories of women desperate for an abortion because otherwise they'd lose their job for being pregnant and end up out on the streets. Literally. Then you begged family, or married whoever for whatever reason...if they beat you or abused your kids, that was better than the streets. My mother lived on the edge of that, and it SCARRED her...badly.
The DEPRESSION meant that nothing was wasted, everything recycled, etc. Basically in my house, the depression never ended. Two toys were one too many. Growing up surrounded by kids with hundreds/thousands of toys...I had no words to explain.
Still, the thriftiness I learned...has stayed with me to this day. I think (sometimes) that I've found a much better balance. I buy enough stuff for my kids...probably too much, although I've yard saled and spent probably 1/10th as much as the average parent...if that. (In some ways, I was even more thrifty than my mother.)
She had me when she was older...41. At a time when women didn't have kids after 30 if they could help it.
There were 2-3 generation gaps between her life and mine.
My mother would always say that she was the most positive person in the world...but she wasn't.
As a child, I took it as my duty to protect her. In some ways, I still do. In some ways...she deserved to be protected. I know that she "loved" me. But...all ways of showing it...were forbidden.
So what do I do with that? I have my nightmares. I try to be empathetic. I know that I've found some PEACE.
But I can't go back in time and give little Patti a hug or a smile...that I literally got from NO ONE. Not a family member. Not a neighbor. Teachers were a bit okay up until the first Parent-Teacher conference, then the teachers would literally be parroting my mother's words back to me there too.
I lived through my books. And through TV.
I cared for my mother. But I cared for me too. I couldn't be her only emotional support. (Calling and ranting at me for 4-8 hours would make her feel "so much better"...but would wear and wear and wear on me.) I had to care for my kids first. And she never forgave me for that.
i knew it in depth of my being more than i knew anything else.
i felt her pain so completely and with such accuracy. she needed to be protected and i could feel every single reason for that - i understood wihtout being explained to, why that was and how i was the ONLY one for the job.
i needed no encouragement, i understood she did not have what it would take to encourage me. i would hold her safe as much and as long as she needed me to. no questions, no doubt, no problem.
faithful and true. she could count on me.
i, on the other hand, could not EVER count on her. not ever. she would injure, betray, leave, abandon, neglect, wound, if possible destroy me at every turn in life with every single person she could. she would take away every single possible allie who might hint at loving me.
she would destroy any link to them if it took her entire life. she would find a way to extend her life to do that.
My mothers father (I don't call him grandpa) is a through and through narc who loved controlling others emotions. He was violent and a drunk who cheated on my grandma constantly and controlled everyone. He thought it was funny to kill pets in front of his kids and that they would cry about it. Creep. Heard his mother was the same way. I was too little to know much about her before she died but I do remember crying whenever we had to go there because she stunk so bad. My grandpas hygiene was nothing to brag about either....just gross people. My grandma was a beautiful woman inside and out. The good always go first unfortunately.
I get what you mean about envying narcissist. That makes sense.
Muji sorry you had one like that too. Alice, I am glad yours got better most don't
Patti, it is sad how your Mom thought she was positive person, they really don't see themselves do they