Waking Up

[Tabbycat]

Greetings:

I am new here.  This is my first post.

I have been deliberating off and on for years if my mom is a covert narcissist and I have come to the conclusion after much time that yes she absolutely is.  My dad is dead and was the co-dependant.  My sibling (younger brother) who is possibly a narcissist sexually abused me when we were children.  We all live in the same town.  My brother and I were left my the family home when my dad died in 2012.  My mom divorced my dad back in 1991 and he kept the house and me and my brother stayed there on the weekends and with my mom in a local rental on the weekdays.  This went on for a few years until me and my brother moved back full time with my dad.  My mom made an agreement with my dad where she had a room at his house and also kept a room at the man's house that I believe she cheated on my dad with.  This man was a parapalegic and the relationship was never advertised as sexual, but I'm sure it was.  My dad was hopelessly in love (or addicted in some weird way) with my mom and did most everything to appease her.  She was mean to him and blamed all her problems on him and slandered his character (and his family's) on a daily basis.  I suspect my mom was sexually abused my by grandfather.  My mom and her siblings are all stuck in an infantile/neotenous stage and have never become emotionally healthy adults.  None of them have a spouse, and my Uncle has never had a public partner. 

My mom was living in the house when my dad got sick with cancer.  After he died, I asked her numerous times to move out, but she refused and continued to violate mine and my brother's boundaries.  From grilling us for information, to insulting our partners to going through our trash.  In July of 2017, when my mom was on vacation, my brother threw her out of the house after his wife had looked through his phone and saw texts my mom had sent him that were disrespectful to his wife.  My mom has been exhibiting narcissistic injury (including not eating enough food) for over a year and a half. 


My question is, how do I deal with occassionally seeing my mom?  She is constantly looking for narcissistic supply and an excuse to come over.  Just the other day, she came over and divulged to me and my husband that my brother and his wife are expecting a child.  This news was private news (only 2 weeks after a positive pregnancy test).  She told us in a way that made it sound like she was about to tell us awful news like an accident or death but told me and my husband the pregnancy news. 

[xredshoesx]

welcome to the forum,

i'm sorry you are having such a hard time getting your mother to see and respect your boundaries.  being in close proximity to her sounds like it is emotionally exhausting for you.

with my biological mother, no contact was the only option for me.  limited contact (LC) or very limited contact (VLC) may be good options for you to explore, along with using the grey rock method

https://outofthefog.website/what-to-do-2/grey-rock-safe-detachment

coming to terms with it all can be daunting and i'm glad you are seeking some support for yourself here-  in my situation i needed both the support of the forum and some extra help from a T to really work through it, would that be an option for you?  i know for me it was really hard to tell everything about my family because there was a level of intergenerational mental illness/ denial/ enmeshment to wade through and it was just too hard to break down and deal with all the trauma on my own anymore.

i hope that you can find healing and peace here as you work through the layers of your own healing

[treesgrowslowly]

Hi tabbycat,

Welcome. Each one of us with a parent with NPD has a unique experience and we also have a lot in common as well if that makes sense.

Learning about NPD helped me a lot. I learned that a lot of the things I did to cope with an N parent were signs that I had a long history of trying to make things work and that as I got older I had to learn things I had not learned, such as how to put myself first.

Your question doesn't have an easy answer as you probably already know. But again, learning about NPD can help you to make decisions about your boundaries. Many of us seek out counsellors because the emotional aspect of the Ns visits are hard for "average" people in our lives to understand. Well meaning people are not equipped with much knowledge about what it feels like to be the child of someone with NPD. You'll find lots of good info here. Good for you for reaching out and posting. That takes courage.

[Tabbycat]

Thanks for the informationand kind words xredshoesx and treesgrowslowly.  I have some helpers that are in my life yes but now that I feel I have really pinpointed the source, I am focusing on more healing and more self care.  Having a forum outlet is another good thing

It is true that others such as spouses or friends cannot see things for how they are most of the time.  But I have been able to talk honestly and openly with those close to me.