Your PD parent's reaction to someone who has "wronged" them

[jennsc85]

The post was inspired by a recent email from my mother. She ran into someone who knew a woman she worked with 15 years ago. They worked in sales and this woman would try to take sales from my mother from what I can remember. Anyways, my mother was informed that this person has cancer. My mother said that this woman "deserves it" because she took sales from my mother and thus stole money from her.

That got me thinking... my parents have been divorced for a long time now, but when they were married when I was maybe 6 or 7 years old, one night my father had a reaction to a medication he took and ended up in the ICU. My mother was repeatedly told that if she hadn't called 911 when she did, my father might have died. Well, to this day (we're talking decades later!) she says things like "I should have left your father to die that night" and "I wish he would have died in the hospital." Her saying things like this deeply bothered me when I was a teenager but if I dared to tell her that it upset me, she would say "Oh, so you love your father more than me? After all I've done for you, you love him more??" I remember being so confused and thinking, but I'm just upset that she keeps talking about wishing my father were dead!

So, I'm wondering, is having a very strong reaction to someone who has wronged them in some way, a trait of people with a PD?

I tried to think about people who have really wronged me (coincidentally, my mother is one!) but even people who have been terrible to me, I don't wish them harm in the same way that my mother does. When she talks about people, be it the employee from 15 years ago or her ex husband or a rude Macys employee from 1985, her reaction is SO strong, like wishing them dead or saying that they deserve a life of misery.

[SunnyMeadow]

So, I'm wondering, is having a very strong reaction to someone who has wronged them in some way, a trait of people with a PD?   

My mother does this too so I'm going to say yes to this question.

My uNPDm holds a grudge for years, decades really. She shuns people for the smallest slight. Even things that don't seem like slights or an issue at all will cause her to permanently dump people. She's said horrid things about people she's exiled from our family. She cries and snivels about how horrible they are when it's all her!!

As for your mom saying she wished she'd left your father to die and that the woman deserves cancer is despicable. I don't wish people ill either. I can be mad and I might  be angry for a while but I get over it and get on with life.

[Wilderhearts]

So, I'm wondering, is having a very strong reaction to someone who has wronged them in some way, a trait of people with a PD?

Yes, absolutely.  I don't think that pwPDs can really comprehend forgiveness, let alone practice it.  My experience with pwPDs is that they become set on destroying anything or anyone that threatens their perception of themselves or gets in between them and what they want.

One of my uNPDf's best friends described him as "loyal to his enemies" while eulogizing my father.  His other best friend, years later, told me that my father was the "most bitter and vengeful man" he had ever known. 

My uNPDf would say horribly insulting things about my nonMom, and I remember bursting into tears once.  It's really painful to have someone you love (regardless of whether they can love you back), direct so much vitriol and hatred against someone else we love.  Somehow it hurts more than if we were experiencing it ourselves. 

For pwNPD, there's something called "narcissistic injury" that leads to "narcissistic rage."  My doc once described narcissistic anger/rage as anger the person believes they are entitled to use to harm someone else.  For a pwNPD, any kind of suggestion that they aren't superior in all ways "wrongs" them and causes deep shame/distress...which quickly comes out as narcissistic rage, because they can't tolerate actually feeling that shame.  I think the internal process is a little different for other PDs, bu the gist is the same.  You wrong them according to their version of reality and how things should be, and they're going to make you suffer...or just hope that you suffer.

[Amadahy]

My mother is so very, very strange in this regard.  She, to my knowledge, hasn't had a lot of people "wrong" her, but she has perceived a slight in some way.  Then, she becomes fixated on them!  It's a definite love-hate thing.  She will rewrite events in her mind, too.  For example, I once had some coworkers who were very cruel to me. I found out she had been talking with them on the phone each day about how awful I was. When I left that job, she talked smack about how awful they were without alluding to her part in it.  She will still sometimes ask, "Do you ever hear from xxx?"  I used to just shrug it off, but the last time I said, "No and why the hell would I want to hear from them?"  Oh, so, so, SO strange.  I honestly think most cases of her becoming offended were when someone genuinely wanted to form a friendship and that was just too damn much for her. 

[Thru the Rain]

Yes!

My uPDM has grudges that go back decades. Over the (what look like to me) the smallest, most insignificant things.

I remember starting to realize when I was around 9 or 10 years old that my M was consumed with self-pity. And about 45 years later, she's hasn't changed a bit.

She told me recently she likes to play video games (the one's like Zuma or Candy Crush where you can really let your mind wander) think about everyone who's hurt her feelings in her life, and cry.

I told her she needed to find something else to do with her time. I didn't get a repeat of the video game cry-a-thon thankfully.

But I do think she's also using her video game time to dream up "they hurt my feelings" fantasies. Which she repeats to me in ridiculous detail, in her waify voice. None of these new stories ring true AT ALL. And the best part is the "I'm only sharing with yoooooouuuuu. I can't tell anyoooone elllllse." I call my sister immediately to find out she's also been told a similar story, but the details are somewhat moved around - and we laugh and laugh! It's just entertaining enough to put up with listening to the fake stories to begin with.

[WomanInterrupted]

I don't think there's enough room on the whole internet for this topic, but I'll try to  keep it brief. 

Both UnBPP Didi and unNPD Ray were insane about people "wronging" them - real or imagined.

If anything bad happened to those people, they'd crow the person DESERVED it - no matter how minor the "slight" was and how bad the thing that happened to the person was - Didi once "hinted" that she liked a woman's pin, and was outraged the woman didn't give it to her as a gift.

When the woman's brother wound up in the hospital after being hit by a drunk driver, not long after - HAH!  He deserved it because his sister was mean to Didi. 

She held grudges for *decades* - this one time, in 1945, a girl wore the same sweater she wore on the same day.  Another one liked the same boy Didi liked.  Quelle horror! 

In the 1970's, the girls - now a grown women - appeared on Didi's list of people I was supposed to write nasty letters to after she died, telling them EXACTLY what she thought of them!   

That list was loooooooong and only kept getting longer - and I saw it many, many times.  Didi made me promise - yes, PROMISE - I'd contact everybody on it (including her sisters and the next door neighbor, who was nothing but wonderful) and not only put them on blast, but give them what-for.

I knew all the reasons why she wanted those nastygrams sent, and even as a small child, thought they were ridiculous, but I was too scared of Didi to do anything but agree.

The last time I saw the list, I was 12 and it had been pared down considerably, because people had moved and she didn't have any forwarding addys or numbers.   

After she died, I was afraid to go through her jewelry drawer in her dresser, because that's where she kept it - but it wasn't there.  The recipients of her hate had mostly passed away or she'd lost track of them - or I'd taken their place by putting up boundaries.   

Ray was another one she hated and wanted harm to come to - she'd complain bitterly and constantly about her marriage  and sex problems (EWW!   ) and expect me to "side" with her against Ray - and heaven forbid she *ever* think I might favor him for even a moment - she'd manufacture a situation where she'd send him at me as her attack dog, to spank the holy hell out of me. 

Ray  would chime in and back Didi up - yes, yes, that person was SO mean to you, dear! - but when somebody would "wrong" him - again, real or imagined and it could be as stupid as taking "his" parking spot on the street! - Didi would usually roll her eyes and walk away, leaving ME to have to listen to him rant like  lunatic; his captive audience, afraid to move.   

Except Ray could act on it - Ray was a man.  Ray had also been a boxer.  Ray had pugilistic tendencies and would threaten to beat the snot out of other grown men over something as stupid as shoveling snow.  (Ray insisted the neighbor was doing it wrong - NO! - it's the way the houses are situated on the street and the direction the plow goes down the road!) 

We had a major weather event that wound up being shelter-in-place for well over a week.  Ray had been on his way to work and got stuck at a plaza that had a restaurant, with a lot of other weather-weary folks.

Ray made SUCH a pest and nuisance out of himself  (he wanted to go HOME! - DERR!  So do all the other hapless souls, stuck with you!   ) that the police brought him home in a cruiser. 

I remember seeing him in the back of the squad car, in front of the house, gesturing and I presume yelling at the police - hell, he's lucky they didn't throw him in the hoosegow and forget about him while cleaning up the area.   

All Ray could do was gripe that the sons-of-bitches left his CAR there. 

Later, I overheard what the problem was -  Ray thought he should be in charge of everybody and nobody wanted to listen to him.

The more nobody listened to Mr. Always Right, the nastier he got, until he threatened to start beating grown men up over nothing - that's when the police ventured out in a *travel ban and area-wide emergency* to bring him home.   

Lucky me.   

Everybody was out to get them, mean, wanted to see them fail, jealous - and when Didi, Ray and C (their unNPD friend) bought a business that tanked within 6 months (but limped along for over 20 years, due to their vanity and cash infusions) -  they couldn't figure out why and blamed it on customers being SO disloyal that they made a BLACKLIST of people not allowed in the shop!   

NO!  It's because they argued with them, told them customers they were wrong,  took items out of their hands and refused to sell them, acted like snobs, *yelled at other people's children*,  treated customer service like  they were doing YOU a favor, and were generally miserable, angry people who'd have blazing rows in front of the few customers who dared to come in - and would leave right away.

I've never seen a business that had so much potential - and had been making good money - be so badly handled by 3 people who couldn't agree on the color of an orange and were more suited to asking, "Paper or plastic"? - and *nothing else!*

I knew Didi probably made stuff up  and *definitely* made mountains out of molehills, but it took me a long time to figure out Ray was a bald-faced liar to get the heat off him, lest The Wrath of Didi come his  way.

Ray crashed a car - a brand new car.  Forgot to put it in park.  It rolled down a hill, into a building.  The photos do not lie.  The front end of the station was smashed in and bent upward, yet he told Didi a drunk coworker hit it, seconds after Ray got out of the car.  He was lucky to be alive!!!

The drunk guy didn't get hurt, was allowed to work his shift and worst of all, didn't even offer Ray a ride home.  (I always wondered what this guy was driving - a Sherman tank?    And who lets a drunk person work, operating heavy machinery?   )

The coworker was likened to Satan after that, and every time we got in the brand-new, but sub-standard replacement car (head for the hills!  It's BLUE! ), Didi would curse the guy out and wish him dead - NOT for barely missing her husband in an accident that didn't happen, but wrecking her sweet ride!

As a  kid, it was pressed on me that I HAD to be angry for them and their  battles/grudges HAD to become mine - I wasn't supposed to like or befriend children of their "enemies" and was even supposed to carry the problems over into school or play (which  I didn't, because I just wanted to be left alone!) 

Instead, I'd lie to them and tell them I snubbed the kids or gave them a dirty look, or something stupid and always had to report back that the other kid seemed upset or hurt.

That was the big thing - they wanted that *reaction.*   

As teen and an adult I saw what was *really* going on and kept my trap shut, except on one occasion - it didn't go well.  She thought the other person should just KNOW what Didi wanted, without  being asked!

Ah...that's my entire life!   

I just started bowing out and barely listening from that point on but both of them had a never-ending supply of being offended/hurt/outraged about *something.*

I don't think the two of them could have survived without being angry about something  or being some kind of poor victim of some evil neighbor, co-worker, cashier, waitress, store clerk - or politician.

In the end, I guess I was the final Snidely Whiplash to their Nell Fenwick.

And I really don't care.   

[Mathilda]

Before my mother married my father,  she had been engaged to someone else. This man was jewish and he had lost almost his entire family during WOII.
He lived at his uncle and aunt, they were his only family members left.

Sadly, his aunt thought that my grandfather (who was definitely a PD himself) had collaborated with the nazis during the war (maybe he had, maybe he hadn't, I don't know, my mother says he hadn't) and because of that, she insisted that he broke off the relationship.

I was shocked to find out that almost 50 years later, she still held a grudge against this man for breaking up. It's obvious this guy did not have a choice;  not breaking up would have meant losing the last family members he had. You would expect someone to be forgiving after almost 50 (!) years, instead of being angry.

She also holds a grudge against her sister for treating her badly when they were kids and she still complains to my brother that I called her stupid once when I was 14 ...  so yes, I'd say this is pretty common for PD's
They are amazing.

[Andeza]

Even when she can't recall what she had for breakfast, or the timing of any of my childhood milestones, uBPDm can recall in minute detail every person that has been rude (honest) to her, every person who has given her a dirty look (totally innocent), every time someone told her off (always deserved by the way), or all the little things in her life that have not been fair (in other words, all the stuff she herself screwed up).

Yup, very typical.

[Thru the Rain]

I've been thinking about this thread and wanted to add this thought.

My uPDM has no recall whatsoever of any time she's ever offended, hurt or otherwise acted less than perfect.

And presented with evidence, her response is "I don't remember that".

But still can recite chapter and verse every slight she ever received - real and imagined.

[SparkStillLit]

My updmil, sil, and updh all do every single one of these behaviors. Updmil &sil are the worst. Holding grudges for the most ridiculous things going back through childhood (mil). She lives to stew over these items and trot them out, especially to darken holidays or any other kind of special occasion.

[Call Me Cordelia]

Yeah. Last I checked my mother still had it out for my sixth grade teacher.

[Marisa]

This is a fascinating thread. Seems like it's definitely a PD thing. My mother has held grudges for the most petty of reasons for years and can conjure up the same level of intense emotion in just retelling the story years (and even decades) later. Once she gets going, she will throw out every conceivable slight, real or imagined, in an hourlong ranting monologue about how wronged she has always been. She too loves to do this on holidays or special occasions.

I am strictly NO CONTACT and I've  blocked her on my phone for almost 5 years and she STILL calls my number and leaves me voicemails raging and screaming about how pissed she is at me for saying random stuff that she was deeply offended by 5 years ago. Whatever. 

[Call Me Cordelia]

I’ve said this before but I really think they are having emotional flashbacks when these things happen. They perceive all of these seemingly petty things as still hurting them. Not so different from our experience, in one way. How many of us have cried while relating an incident from childhood?

It’s interesting though because what they are relating are generally narcissistic injuries. They can’t “recover,” that is build back up their mask and move on, after the attack on the false self.

[Adrianna]

My grandmother didn't speak to her younger sister for 20 years. They lived in the same town and attended the same church. She told me often how horrible she was, how this much older sister was unhappy that my grandmother was even born because their mother was 45 at the time and her sister thought she shouldn't have had any more kids. My grandmother was convinced this sister had it out for her just for even existing.

Growing up I of course didn't know her. May have met her a couple of times but had no memories of her and no relationship at all with her. Towards the very end of her life, my grandmother of course did the deathbed reconciliation, making sure everyone knew how wonderful she was for mending fences with her dying sister. She even suggested I visit this woman on her deathbed. I said why? I don't even know her. You told me she was horrible my entire life. How awkward would it be for me to show up now, a stranger, right before she dies? Seemed hypocritical and I thought if I were her sister, it would make me very uncomfortable to have this niece show up out of the blue.

I did attend her funeral. There were 3 priests there. She was quite popular in the church, which I know angered my grandmother greatly. Ends up my mother in law worked with my grandmother's sister for a decade and said she was a wonderful person. Two sides to every story. I'll never know the true version of who this great aunt  really was.  But boy did my grandmother make sure we knew what a great thing she did by making up with her sister before she died, ignoring the fact that she talked trash about her for the last 20 years.

Ironically her sister is buried in the same family plot as my grandfather and my grandmother will be buried up there with her one day. Can't make this stuff up.

[catta]

Adrianna, your story makes me think about a conversation I was having with a friend recently about our uNPD moms-- they both seem to "adopt" people who are dying and then acts as though they have lost someone very close to them, even when they had nothing or negative things to say about them prior to that. I have a couple theories (maybe better for another thread, but briefly): 1: dying people are less emotionally complicated and once they are dead, become even less complex. 2: I think everyone experiences a certain type of guilt around death because it's psychologically easier to feel guilty (that you could have influenced the outcome, even if you couldn't) than accept that you have no control, and I think NPDs can't deal with feeling guilty at all so it gets expressed in weird ways. 3: obviously, it's a pretty low-hanging fruit for NPDs to get attention and sympathy 

I actually have an issue myself with holding grudges... having attracted and been discarded by a LOT of narcissists, I sometimes think about running into these people and having them recognize that my life is totally fine without them. (Though I'm sure I mean nothing to them now.) It's not like I spend time plotting revenge or thinking about these people, but that when I'm reminded of them (mutual friends, etc.) I do still feel angry in a way that is satisfying enough that I'm not willing to just forgive/forget them. That seems somewhat normal and maybe a form of self-protection... but I also have a mental list of people who have simply been jerks in my presence and I do passively take opportunities to piss these people off in such a way that they can't retaliate... Like I'll still be waiting for that opportunity 10 years later, if that's what it takes, and it will be just as satisfying as if I had done it the next day.  Maybe I have fleas.

[Adrianna]

Adrianna, your story makes me think about a conversation I was having with a friend recently about our uNPD moms-- they both seem to "adopt" people who are dying and then acts as though they have lost someone very close to them, even when they had nothing or negative things to say about them prior to that. I have a couple theories (maybe better for another thread, but briefly): 1: dying people are less emotionally complicated and once they are dead, become even less complex. 2: I think everyone experiences a certain type of guilt around death because it's psychologically easier to feel guilty (that you could have influenced the outcome, even if you couldn't) than accept that you have no control, and I think NPDs can't deal with feeling guilty at all so it gets expressed in weird ways. 3: obviously, it's a pretty low-hanging fruit for NPDs to get attention and sympathy 

I actually have an issue myself with holding grudges... having attracted and been discarded by a LOT of narcissists, I sometimes think about running into these people and having them recognize that my life is totally fine without them. (Though I'm sure I mean nothing to them now.) It's not like I spend time plotting revenge or thinking about these people, but that when I'm reminded of them (mutual friends, etc.) I do still feel angry in a way that is satisfying enough that I'm not willing to just forgive/forget them. That seems somewhat normal and maybe a form of self-protection... but I also have a mental list of people who have simply been jerks in my presence and I do passively take opportunities to piss these people off in such a way that they can't retaliate... Like I'll still be waiting for that opportunity 10 years later, if that's what it takes, and it will be just as satisfying as if I had done it the next day.  Maybe I have fleas.

Interesting theories about them with the dying. I'm not sure what the reason is, however, I know she took great interest and had much drama around other people's illnesses as well. To an odd degree, like "how on earth will I handle this? It's just too much for meeeee!" When it's someone she hadn't spoken to in a year. I suppose in that case it's a way to gain attention and sympathy, but it's so over the top dramatic and inappropriate that it's just bizarre.

You're not alone in holding grudges. I think I have some fleas in that regard too. Keep in mind though the road to recovery from narcissistic abuse is not easy. There are a lot of YouTube channels on that topic. I'm not sure if you've researched it, but it is validating as the stories are basically all the same. The love bomb stage, devalue, discard and Hoover. It's a cycle. And you're right, ex narc partners don't care or have regrets. They lack empathy and can't emotionally bond with anyone, so a breakup to them is not felt deeply AT ALL. A lot of narc victims want to think the ex narc is having regrets, feeling remorse, missing them. If the person was a true narc no way that would happen. They lack a conscience and see people as objects. Discarding a partner is like throwing away a broken toaster or appliance. There are no feelings in that.

Another thing they can do is to not throw the partner out completely but keep them on a shelf for later use. They keep them in a "harem garage." When their current partner isn't living up to expectations, or asking to be treated better, or setting boundaries, they'll go to that garage and get back in touch with an ex for narcissistic supply. That's why so many of them keep in touch with their exes, the ones who were still in the fog, with unresolved trauma of their own, who hang on with the hope that the narc will one day love them, when that's literally impossible for a true narcissist. They don't love anyone. If you've been discarded by narcs you're not alone. There's a whole community out there of survivors of this.

[Wilderhearts]

It's interesting though because what they are relating are generally narcissistic injuries. They can't "recover," that is build back up their mask and move on, after the attack on the false self.

I like that you frame it as an "attack on the false self."  It's not really an attack on someone's character or true self...it's not really an attack.  It's just challenging their false reality with our real reality...essential us living in a non-PD'd world and thinking from a non-PD'd mindset is an attack on an pwPD's false self.

[Adrianna]

The false self of the narcissist is, according to my therapist, like a scaffolding. It's a front, who they want to be. I knew one whose false self was a kind, trustworthy good person. That wasn't reality though so the person was extremely defensive when confronted on hurtful, cruel behavior.  When you say "hey, you're not being nice, and I think you're being deceitful, and cruel", what you're actually doing is breaking down that scaffolding and they can't have that, so they attack, belittle and guilt the person for speaking out against them.

At the beginning of relationships they always have that false self on full display, which is why people get involved with them in the first place. They can be downright charming. It's not who they are though. It's who they want to be. The true narc shows up later once the mask drops. And it always does eventually to those who are close to that person.

Only those who are acquaintances see the false self as who that person is. They are the ones who will tell you how great he/she is, while you've experienced something completely opposite of that. The mask stayed up with these acquaintances so they never saw the true person under it like we have. That's why you will get no validation from these people regarding your experience with the narcissist. Their experience was completely different.

It's a horrible yet oddly fascinating psychological topic to study.

[freedom77]

HOLY WOW! This is DEFINITELY a pwPD thing for sure.

My mother and her mother are/were respectfully BPD/Ns, grandmother not formally diagnosed, but definitely had ALL of the traits and behaviors, mother was diagnosed in 1990. Anyway....yes, yes, yes...each of them would tell anyone who would listen, as well as each other, for HOURS all the bastards and sums a bitches who ever did them wrong. The infractions were in my opinion mostly imagined, and ranged from snide glances, to "rude" comments, to not being invited to a social gathering.

As a child I was held prisoner to these monologues of dreariness. I remember thinking, good gravy it's only been a 100 years get over it already!

My grandmother is dead 10 years now, and was still ranting about her wrongdoers on her deathbed till her final breath. I'm NC with my mother, and like Marissa's situation, my mother will call and text (all messages are funneled into the blocked box) and rage at me about something I did or said over 30 YEARS ago when I was a teen. Really?? It's time to get Netflix and a hobby. But that is their chosen past time, running people into the ground and living in the toxic past.

My mother would STILL bring up how nearly 50 years ago she bought a baby dress for her brother's newborn daughter and how his wife didn't seem to like it much, as evidenced by wife not raving on about how gorgeous it was and how very thoughtful mother was for picking out such a lovely infant dress. Wife also shoved the bag in the closet and then when brother came home from work, wife put on display all gifts EXCEPT mother's. Granted one should thank someone for a gift, but with pwPD they hold an unrealistic expectation that gift recipients jump up and down with gratitude and maniacal enthusiasm.

Well I tried to tell her that it has been apparent to even me that wife doesn't seem to like uncle's side of the family much. I do recall her being quite rude to us during a family reunion Disney trip when I was a kid, and she is in general, a bitch. I tried to reason with mother that some people just aren't nice, or they just don't like you. Not everyone is going to like everyone else. When I've been treated that way, I make it a point to pluck that person out of my life, and if that isn't possible, such as a relative by marriage as in this example, I just work a whole lot less harder for them. They won't get a gift, or if I'm not invited, shrug, yawn, move on.

pwPD carry narcissistic injuries FOR LIFE, and never, ever, never let it go....they could take a lesson from Elsa! 

[freedom77]

Oh and also yes...mother and grandmother bat nary an eyelash while wishing death, not just death, but HORRIBLE agonizing death to those who have crossed them.

If someone they "hated" got cancer, they'd gleefully agree the bastard deserved it. If someone got killed in a car wreck, or if a loved one of that person did, again...they deserved it.

I could see if someone murdered your family, and they later got cancer while on death row, one might agree that if anyone deserved to get cancer it would be a cold-blooded mass murderer, but these folks did small, petty slights, like not invite them to a party. And frankly, I can understand why they didn't.

Or didn't compliment a hairstyle they had done back in 1972. This one neighbor's little boy got leukemia, and yes the guy was a belligerent oaf, and yes his son did bully my brothers on occasion, but to be glad the kid not only got leukemia, but DIED from it????

And like jennsc85 my mother often bemoaned how her first husband didn't die when he was in a massive car wreck  back in 1971 when they were a young married couple. He almost did die and required several blood transfusions, major surgery, a ruptured spleen removed, and his scrotum crushed rendering him sterile. They had one baby, and one on the way. TO THIS DAY she will bring up how if only he'd died her life would have been much better because he worked for the postal service and she would have gotten all those benefits for herself and their 2 kids, and not had to put up with him. And how he deserved to die because he cheated on her once with the village tramp when he got drunk at a party, and of course, wait for it...the crushed scrotum is poetic justice so far as she is concerned.