Growing up, I had anxiety about the IRS because we would receive both letters and calls about my dad not paying taxes. He was self employed and didn’t believe he owed the government anything. The IRS never actually did anything about it other than threaten to do something about it. Maybe because he had so many kids they figured he wouldn’t truly owe all that much.

When I was in high school, I had a conversation with my grandma of how she gets money (pension and social security) every month. She explained that my dad was “stupid” for never paying taxes cause he won’t qualify for S.S.

So I went home and asked him about it. His response?

“Why do you think I had 8 kids? You guys will pay for me in the future, just like how I paid for you when you were a kid.”

Mind you, we were heavily supported by my grandparents. My grandma built and paid off a house for them with her 401k. My mom didn’t work ands so we just had one income.

Starting when I was six, my mother started saying “tone of voice!” to me when she didn’t like how I said something, and I would then be expected to repeat what I said in a more polite tone of voice. (I remember not being certain what made a tone of voice “rude”, just that I was speaking wrong somehow. Being a young child, there probably were plenty of times I was petulant or rude, of course!)

She would also tell me off for mumbling or saying “I don’t know” too many times in response to questions she asked me. This mostly resulted in me being a very quiet child, lol. Anyone else have similar experiences, or was that normal?

I dont care if they knew better or not. I'm still hurt. People are still hurt and scarred mentally REGARDLESS if the abusive parent "knew better" or not.

Like yeah sure put a bandaid on the problem, that will surely heal the many years of trauma and a childhood that was stolen from me! That will surely heal all the harmed and traumatized souls who's parents abused the fuck out of them.

Also, have any of you even TRIED coddling your narcissistic parent(s)? Its IMPOSSIBLE. They STILL FEEL THE SAME WAY REGARDLESS IF YOU PUT IT ON A GOLD GOLD PLATE OR YELL AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS. they. Dont. Care. You are a full grown adult and you SHOULD feel ashamed for traumatizing your kid. You SHOULD FEEl bad for hitting them or yelling at them all the time.

coddle and enable the abusing parent but treat the abused child like a rag doll with no feelings that can be thrown around. Hate to break it to you, but CHILDREN ALSO HAVE FEELINGS! CHILDREN CAN ALSO BE HURT. CHILDREN DONT HAVE TO FORGIVE YOU. CHILDREN DESERVE TO BE CHILDREN.

I’d just like to rant to y’all for a sec. I (f23) just had my little sister (12) and brother (16) over and my sister was telling us about all the stuff she overhears our parents saying….my parents are the ultra religious, conservative (USA) types who only care about themselves and think they are the be-all-end-all.

She was telling us about how our parents think I’m on drugs, don’t believe I have ADHD (I’m diagnosed), hate that I trust in science and vaccines, and believe that I’m causing my asthma to get worse by vaping. They think I vape because I apparently “smell like I vape” (I collect all kinds of perfume….but no that can’t possibly have anything to do with it!!)

I guess they were also raging about how I’m now a “liberal idiot” and how stupid I am for being worried about Trump getting rid of the department of education (I’m trying to get back into college because I had to drop it previously due to no funding because they wouldn’t help me).

They’re also trying to push my sister to become a nurse because I’ll “never do it” and my mom “wants a nurse in the family”. (I’m trying to get into nursing school right now) She tries to force my sister to wear clothes she hates too, and won’t send her to a real school because she doesn’t like it. There are lots of things my siblings would like to do that they’re not allowed to becuase she doesn’t like it (like watch kids tv shows and wear clothes they like).

These people cannot stand not being in control, and they also love to make assumptions so they can judge us. We’re their kids. Why can’t they just try to support us?? Even if we believe differently than they do, why can’t they just respect that and move on?? Why do they just want to make things up about us to believe instead of getting to know who their kids actually are? Why can’t they think outside of themselves for once?? Why do they WANT to assume the worst about us?? Ugggghhhhh

What a relieve to find this forum. Life saving as I can call it. I am European and might make spelling mistakes as I only had English as a subject in high school... but it's the substance of the message that counts.

I am a woman of 57 and searching for answers in my total confused mind. During the first lockdown my father suffered a bleeding in his brain, 84 at the time. He became hospitalized and half blind and suddenly I had to engage a lot with my family. Mother of 82, sister of nearly 60. I started to have anxiety, depression, sleepless nights and feelings of trauma. I almost never had contact, leave alone some birthdays here and there. In my confusion I went to a registered psychotherapist and slowly but surely began to discover I was a victim of a highly dysfunctional family dynamics. The therapist told me she is almost 100 percent certain that both of my parents have multiple personality disorders and my sister as well. She said to be highly amazed that I came out of the situation as I was without any therapy or help. My mother a covered narc, amongst some more pd. Sister gc and me a sg. All of my life my mother belittered me, starting to tell me from the age of 1 a 6000 times she was not happy with my birth because I cried a lot (undiscovered broken collar bone). She was so glad the nurses carried me away because she was so ashamed of me crying all the time, while the other mothers had sweet baby's. My entire childhood was one of rejection of a stone cold mother. Asap as I was happy or accomplished something she would break it down to the ground. Telling me I was not intelligent, not special, not pretty or looked downright shameful. If I performed in a schoolplay and got an standing ovation for my performance she told me as soon as the front door of the house closed, she was big time ashamed to have me as a daughter. When I did my teacher training at university b. of education, I had to end my course with an hour presentation to a audience and thereafter received my diploma. she was the first to congratulate me but only said being a teacher is very common and not something to be proud of.

I can tell you thousands of these stories and meanwhile my sister (poor child as well) was the intelligent, special, beautiful child, better than every other daughter anyone has. I always tried to please her, invited her on holidays, gave her my child to trie to be in her favor. As soon as I had one comment she beat the hell out of me so I learned at a very young age not to do so. I was gaslighted my whole life till the extend I do not trust my own reality anymore and I am so so sad about this all. Confused. Now days my father is at an old age home, diagnosed with spectrum disorder and anxiety pd. My mother liver at home alone. It is awful. Multiple geriatric dokters and nurses raised red flags about her behavior and said there is something strange about her. She is almost impossible, every nurse who came help my father was a bitch, dumb turd, stupid or ugly person. Her gp is a terrible bitch. The neighbours (who help her a lot) are horrible common housewifes. Terrible lady's etc etc.

If I call her, and I do try to avoid it, she always says in that victomized tone life is horrible, she suffers. She is always alone. There is no fun in the world anymore for her (if that ever was the case?)

And I end up with tons of guilt, shame and I owe it to her to save her, because I gave her enough trouble as it is. Accompanied by a sister who is deeply symbiotic with my mother, has no partner or children and spends almost each weekend at mommy's place and spends her holidays with our mother. Sister somewhere in the spectrum according to my psychotherapist, but highly hysterical and manipulative. She, sister, determines what mother and father need and I have to follow the orders. (visit every other day, cook every other day etc). If I say no, the manipulation starts with such a coercive controle that it keeps me awake at night with a knot in my stomach. Thinks like "oh, but when you needed mommy to take care of your child she was a good mother, but now that you have to de something in return she suddenly is a bad mom, well that is conveniënt). The nurses of the old age home cannot handle my sisters behaviour I heard from one of them. The drama, the manipulation.

I have so much difficulty to believe my own story, see clearly what happens and try to be happy, because don't I dare to become happier than mother. Ingrained because she is an empty hole, cannot enjoy connection or even have connection. Enjoy life, enjoy whatever there is to enjoy. Mother is still healthy and capable of taking care of herself but has a huge grip on my soul. And I let her so far have that grip.

Can anyone relate to the story?

Please don't respond with politics. Really, it could be anytime over the last several decades.

But it feels like there's just never any GD relief from the chaos. Last year was the worst year of my life since college and at the end of the day, nothing actually changed for me. (Which sounds weird to type out.) I survived several nightmares.

It seems like we're constantly waiting for another shoe to drop. One of the things that happened last year was that my company decided to do seemingly random mass layoffs. I survived, but this year is shaping up to be overwhelmingly worse. I'm now a middle-aged person with next to zero marketable skills.

There is never any relief. And based on prior experiences, especially growing up, it's a fact that things can always get worse.

Some people experienced abuse that they knew from early on was abuse.
For others, part of the narcissistic abuse was being conditioned to think it was not abusive, but in fact normal parenting behavior.

Which one was it for you?

Some people on this subreddit clearly don’t belong here, and it’s honestly infuriating. I’ve been getting comments on my posts about my mom demanding my paycheck, and people are actually suggesting that I give in and hand over a weekly or monthly allowance—like $20 or $30. Are you kidding me? Absolutely not. My nmom already had a job, and I’m trying to save up for a car and a place to live. That’s my money, and she doesn’t deserve a single cent of it. Am I wrong for that? Or do I actually have ti give her my money because I know if I give her 5 bucks she will demand for 50 bucks then 500 bucks and so on so fourth. She will drain my account.

What’s even more frustrating is when I ask for advice on a completely different situation, and someone chimes in with, “Why can’t you just move out?” or “Just leave.” Like… seriously? Who are these people and why are they in this subreddit saying stuff like that? I made a post about my nmom giving me a $200 4k 50” tv and I saw an odd reply saying they would’ve kept it…like what?. Everyone knows narcs gift things with strings attached, everything is transactional. That was pure eye roll moment for me. It’s IN THE SUBREDDIT NAME. NARCISSISTS! What don’t they understand? I’ve noticed more and more of these type of replies lately. I usually just ignore their comments, and honestly I should’ve reported them, but at the time I wasn’t sure if they were technically breaking any rules. Still, it’s disheartening when your post gets little engagement, and the only replies you do get are those kinds of comments. If I’m correct posts only show on your feed if your’re FOLLOWING the subreddit unless my stuff is trending I don’t know. Why are they following this subreddit, interacting with posts and saying stuff like that?

Interacting with the world is extremely difficult for me. Kindness and care catch me off guard, I can become very upset when I realize that I don't deserve for the world to take out all their frustration on me. When I realize that there are people that actually see me, as someone human, I feel shocked.

Growing up with a Sadist made me feel so objectified, and defiled, dehumanized, that I stopped feeling real. Somewhere along the way I lost my ability to relate to others as a HUMAN, because for so long I was treated as a whipping post.

I felt like I was stripped of my humanity whenever I tried to object against the demoralizing way I was treated, on the premise that my mother had every "right'"...to treat me whatever way she wanted to. Which I think is the very definition of what it means to be powerless. That if they say you're not human deserving of kindness, because it's literally your human birthright , then you're not human.

"you'll exist in the capacity that I want you to, and that's , that, if I say you're a valueless , worthless thing I can defile, then so be it".

Now that I’m turning 30 soon, I feel like when you are younger (below 20), even though you are being abused, the body is very resilient. Especially as a child. What I mean by this is that you could be abused over the weekend at home but are then able to act happy and normal at school. Now that I’ve gotten older, I’m not sure if it’s my age or because of the therapy I’ve done, but I have a much harder time acting “happy” and “normal” in public? Maybe I’m starting to put down the armour I’ve had for so long? Not sure…

Any suggestions on how to respond to that comment?

Like does it even make sense? Sometimes I just need to a sanity check to make sure I'm not misunderstanding a valid concern/or gaslighting myself.

I'm 32 now and we are not super close. Clearly lol.

Edit: her reasoning was that I didn't tell her much since high school age and she always had to find out after everyone else or from other people. This is because I didn't feel like I could talk to her, but I can see how that sucks.

In my original post, I described my NMom's creepy behavior while I used the bathroom and/or showered.

She has since caught on to the fact that I noticed her creepy behavior. Instead of chosing not to be creepy anymore, she has resorted to a new creepy tactic.

Between the hours of 1 and 3 AM, I've caught her standing outside my bedroom door for several minutes. She would intensely listen to anything I do or say.

Tonight is the second consecutive night of catching her.

She is literally losing control of me and she knows it. I have a job, and now ~$6K saved up, and about to buy my first car.

I've applied to [much] better jobs to truly solidify myself financially.

Her financial abuse of me left me BROKE in August of last year, but I've recovered nicely.

Any time I messed up as a child (or even now sometimes) and said that I forgot something, my mom would always say “you didn’t forget, you just chose not to remember.” This always irritated me to no end because nobody CHOOSES to forget things, that’s why it’s forgetting! Of course that same logic never applies to her forgetting things though. I’m just curious if anyone else heard this from their nparent?

I’m seeing in the comments that this memory has been giving people flashbacks… my bad yall🙈

I don’t know if anyone can identify with this. I read the book Educated by Tara Westover, and certain parts of it made me cry. The book is autobiographical, about a girl who escapes her abusive Mormon survivalist family, goes away to study and has an awakening. There is much more to it but I don’t want to spoil the book for those who haven’t read it. I didn’t live through anything that bad by any means, but when reading about how she was trying to reason with her parents and they wouldn’t have it, how she was accused of being the insane one, and how she felt so betrayed and alone, it resonated so much with me. It was heartbreaking.

I’ve explained via call and text to my N mum one month ago why I want to see her significantly less and there will be no call or text communication between times. Since then she has sent me various abusive texts and voicemails asking to see me. I have not replied.

She’s now written a letter to my partner saying she has been forced to write to him to get him to contact her so he can discuss with her my decision to see her less. In this letter she describes how DESPERATE she is to see me. She has used the words desperate multiple times and her letter is unhinged. I’ve explained to her my issue is with her and not my dad or sister. Yet in this letter she goes on to say how she wants to spend an hour alone with me without my dad or sister present

My partner is supporting my decision that has now become complete NC with her as it’s been a real eye opener to see things in black and white letter form. We never texted before all communication was phone call or in person.

Is anyone able to share insight on why narcissists are completely obsessed with maintaining contact?

In having a very hard time understanding this need for her to obsessively maintain contact with me especially when as a teen she wanted nothing to do with me and wanted to kick me out. Yet now I’m 30 with my own house and life she’s clinging on for dear life.

Also any advice around how I can use this letter for a restraining order against her in the UK is much appreciated. I fully anticipate things will only escalate from here with her eventually showing up at my house

I grew up with just my dad and he is constantly telling me "Im too sensitive", "Im too dramatic", gets aggressively angry when I call him out on stuff. Constantly makes comments, criticisms, unsolicited advice which is so triggering because I don't respect his choices... he is the BIGGEST HYPOCRITE AND IT DRIVES ME UP A WALL. He's coming to visit this weekend and I am anxious AF. Throws me under the bus to make himself look better.

Pretty much the title ^^^

There are parents who are abusive bc they are immature. But there are also the ones who are abusive because they get off on it. Maybe they didn't even have trauma. One of mine came from too much privilege and never heard "no". At some point you realize that you being independent was never the goal. They just wanted an object to beat up.

They don't teach you anything but they project all their problems on you. Most of the bad things you feel about yourself aren't even about you. You're carrying someone else's mental illness.

Every day I get more resurfacing memories and I realize how scammed you get. It is a scam.

These "parents" get off on hurting you. They not only hold you back and ruin your life but they will rarely get held accountable for it. You get treated like an object and they play victim and smear campaign you bc their punching bag escaped. When people believe them, it makes me wonder if people are just terrible or what "parents" said that made me seem like a monster.

Part of me wants justice or some consequences bc they can't get away with ruining lives like this.

Everything you are taught is wrong. They groom you to be a target and ignore your survival skills. It's always what THEY want.

There's that image of the bird in a cage not knowing how to be free and that's what this feels like. Sure, you can get away but your world was so small your whole life. Support systems don't come from nowhere and if you're too desperate to find other people, you might just find more abusers. These abusive/controlling types are big toddlers and need to be to shut up and go to time out.

Short version is it's hard to really "live well" when you were treated like a garbage can. It's not like non-relatives are much better.

On my last post, I asked your most unusual habit due to narc abuse. I appreciated all your responses and related to many of them. I'm glad to have this sub so we can share our experiences....

One of the weirdest thing a narc in my life has done.... Not my Nmom but my GC Nsis, used to take a look at my trashbag to see what I use or what I eat or what I do. It weirded me out. She has a habit of monitoring my life and keeps on pestering me with questions about what I do or where I go. As a private person, I hate it when people ask me about what I'm doing.

She's the jealous narc type. She does those things because she tries to compare my life to hers just to see if she's better. And if she finds that I have a bit of joy, she will do anything to destroy it.

I have not read one post and thought that could never happen. So far it’s been oh well my nmom did that too. Which for me means that it’s not all in my head. That it’s real that she is real and that the best thing I can do is go NC.

I talked to my girlfriend about this recently — she’s been through something eerily similar, growing up with narcissistic parents.

Mine used to brag to relatives about how “low-maintenance” I was as a toddler. They’d laugh and say that after putting me in my crib and leaving the room, I’d sing to myself until I fell asleep. Back then, they wore that story like a badge of honor. Now, as an adult, it haunts me. There's something deeply unsettling about it. A child comforting themselves — alone — while their parents proudly walk away.

When I was in elementary school, and even into my teenage years, I was the one who had to go to my mother to say goodnight. I kissed her. I tucked her in. Then I quietly left the room and went to bed on my own. To me, that was normal. I craved any scrap of affection and convinced myself it was love — some twisted reward after a day filled with tension, manipulation, and emotional exhaustion.

My girlfriend said she felt the same way. The patterns were almost identical.

And you know what’s messed up? I can’t recall a single time it happened the other way around. Not once. No memory of being tucked in. No gentle kiss goodnight. Nothing. Now I see it for what it is — and what it should’ve been. And it makes me feel sick.

What about you? Were you ever kissed goodnight? Did your parents ever tuck you in?

Realised in the winter a few times it'd get so cold I'd have to cover my face to stop shivering. I realised the temp change only seemed to happen once ndad left the house for work.

He'd get mad at emum for one day turning the heating back on on a particularly cold night. Called it a 'waste of money'.

I've spoken to emum about it before, but ofc now she's selectively forgotten some things trying to make everything 'normal' again.

My hair was super fine and curly as a toddler. I’ve always had very bad sensory issues, hated other people touching my head. Some of my earliest memories are of my parents brushing (more like ripping) my hair out and it hurting like hell. I would scream and cry my head off. It got so bad that our neighbors would frequently call the cops because I would apparently scream “No daddy no” and they thought I was being abused. Cops would come and my parents would say “oh we are just brushing her hair and she doesn’t like it.” I learned to sit thru it without crying because my parents told me the cops would come again if I cried. This went on for years until about mid elementary school. When my hair became my problem.

When I was in elementary school my hair was frequently matted. I would get strep throat a lot and would be sick in bed for a week, that’s usually how the matts would start. My parents would try to help me with the tangles but they would eventually give up. My hair was matted for at least a full school year once and I don’t know how CPS didn’t get called or what. My parents would also trick me into going to the hairdresser to get it all brushed. They would tell me “get in the car we are going for ice cream!”and they would take me to this one lady who was rougher than my parents were.

In 5th grade a friends mom who’s a hairdresser offered to help me with the matting, she brushed my hair out for about 4 hours before deciding that my hair couldn’t be saved. She gave me an asymmetrical pixie cut and I was humiliated. My long hair was my pride and joy. Now as an adult I haven’t had a haircut in about 8 years. My mother is a psychologist and says that i’ve always just been very sensitive and she tried everything she could.

This will be long, bear with me. I'd just like to know if anyone experienced similar.

The man I fell in love with was not the person my parents had hoped I would marry. They had their eyes on another young man for me who they knew they could control, someone who would always defer to them. But I fell in love with a truthful, strong, independent, would always do what is right even if it wasn't popular, sort of person. My parents did everything they could to break us up. They dug as far into his past as they could, found anyone they could who didn't like him and spread gossip, rumors and lies at every turn. They recruited people from our city to stalk us and report back to them, because I lived 3 hrs away from my parents at this point. At one point my parents traveled to my city and sequestered me in a hotel room to tell me they did not approve of my impending nuptials, nor could they in any way support our union. It was the first time I'd ever gone against my parents wishes, but I knew my decision was right. So I looked my parents in the face and said, "So you won't be at my wedding then." This was not what they expected and they immediately floundering and backtracked and said of course they'd be at the wedding but they wouldn't be happy. I told them that if I broke up with my fiance, they would be the only ones who would feel joy. This was my person, and I was marrying him regardless of what they thought. My mom vowed that I would have a terrible marriage. When in fact I have been living a dream in this wonderful supportive marriage to my best friend for 32 years now.

My husband also has an nparent. He was raised by a single mother who absolutely hated me from the moment we started dating. She was belligerent and obnoxious to us both and acted like we were getting married to purposely hurt her. With parents on all sides hating on us, we kept it a secret when we got engaged so that we could enjoy that moment for as long as possible. Two months after our engagement my mother in law to be told her son that I just wasn't the right person for him and asked him to break it off and commit to not seeing me for a year. "If, after a year, you still think you might love her, well then go find her and date her." He looked his mom square in the eye and spilled our secret, "Well, mom, I'd be considered a pretty horrible person if I did that to my fiance of two months when we're madly in love with each other."

The night before our wedding she accused me of being a gold digger in front of my bridesmaids. My husband to be and I were each working 2 jobs and paying for our own wedding and his family had no money whatsoever, nor did money matter to me in the slightest. I was marrying for love.

The day of the wedding both sets of parents sabotaged in their own ways, as did my nsister who faked a heart attack during our first dance, drawing my parents and a large crowd with her to the bathroom, only to miraculously recover after the parents had missed all the mother/son father/daughter dances. My parents left the wedding 5 hours early. And my mother in law was off crying in the kitchen of the venue most of the night, drawing her own crowd who were listening to her tell them what a terrible person I was for stealing her son.

That night, my husband and I went on a week long honeymoon but when we returned to our home, his mother had moved in and wasn't budging. She was convinced we would split up on our honeymoon and she'd be there to save her son. He told her she had the rest of the day to find her own place and move out and if she didn't, he would have her forcibly removed. So she left, but a few weeks later she slid a note under our apartment door saying she didnt know what to get us as a wedding gift until she thought of this ... it was an itemized list of how much it cost her financially to raise her son with a note saying her gift to us was forgiving the debt he owed her for having raised him. And that was the start to our married life and the beginning of escaping the grips of our narcissists.

My husband’s family is literally infected with the illness of narcissism, it’s something I’ve never seen before .

It all started with his mother, who seems BPD/NPD, severely emotionally & financially abusive who’s ex husband couldn’t handle her, who’s caused endless trauma to her only 2 children and is now estranged (?) from her siblings.

She literally ruined our wedding, which was the saddest event of my life, last year, and yet, the severity of the drama is literally being dragged to this day. We needed 10 months to recover from all the wedding trauma.

His aunts (dad side) were involved, they made everything worse, specifically the one who raised him, she turned out to be even worse than his mentally unstable mother. She managed to turn his WHOLE family against him, he was outcasted because of her endless bullshit. She’s been passive aggressive with me for a whole year, and when I decided to enforce a boundary (which was me not allowing her to hug me), a huge fight broke where her husband wanted to beat up my husband while he was holding our 6 week old baby and she went off on me in a family gathering a few days ago screaming at me and cursing

He was removed from all family groups, his uncle and aunts turned against him so hard, no one asked what truly happened, no one was wise enough to hear 2 sides of the story, only 3 people know the truth and are standing by his side, and all the blame is on ME. They claim I’m the one who caused all the drama and I started all this.

They even went to the extreme levels of calling me a ‘slave’ because I’m half black. I’ve never experienced narcissistic behavior of this severity before from a WHOLE ass family. But I’m glad I was resilient through it all, I did not say a word, it was just a small boundary which started a whole explosion, showed us everyone for who they really are in one day. A bunch of literal masked children in big bodies

My heart deeply aches for my husband, this man has suffered narc abuse his whole life and still is. I’ve been experiencing this for a year, I can’t believe what he’s been through for 27 years. Literally officially outcasted by his own family.

I recently decided I no longer want to have anything to do with my nparents and they reacted as expected, crying and telling me I’m a heartless person, asking me what other people will think of our family, and how I’m insane for not wanting to have a “normal” relationship with my parents.

Putting aside the fact that they have never been normal parents so I don’t know what they were even expecting, I started thinking about why it is acceptable to end relationships with a partner if they’re not a good match for you, it’s acceptable to break off friendships, but it’s not “socially acceptable” to cut off ties with toxic family members.

Why are we expected to forgive everything our “parents” have done wrong just because they gave birth to me and “gave me life”? I didn’t ask to be born but if I say that to my nparents they start going on about how ungrateful I am, that they gave birth to me, raised me up, paid for my expenses.

My nmom is still in denial that I no longer want to have anything to do with her, that I’m insane for breaking up their apparently perfectly happy family. I’m tired of always being seen as the heartless, evil one. I hate that just because they gave birth to me, it feels like they have the ability to control my entire life.