What is your earliest memory of PD behavior?

[HindSightIs2020]

My very earliest memory that I would consider PD behavior was when I was just 3 honestly. I spilled some milk on the floor, and my mother just flipped into this state of such anger. No one hit me or did anything like that, but I could just see the intensity of anger on her face.

Then, I would say a couple years later, they started in with the mind games on some level. Making a big deal out things and causing me to feel like something was wrong with me, and over time, they began to create this narrative where I had this "condition" which meant that their hovercrafting over me was somehow basically saving me from myself.

Then, as I was a bit older the threats started coming. Maybe 8 or so, still very little. It was never a frequent thing, but they said some things like "you need us but we don't need you". And began to make me feel like as time goes on, they will ultimately discard me if I don't live my life in ways they accept. And they were quite judgmental.

As I moved into adulthood (e.g. starting in my late teens) was when the real conflict began. Which led to them attacking my personal choices. And the dynamic with them becoming increasingly conflictual. Lately, it hasn't been as bad, but I have seen firsthand just how cold, callous, vicious, and cruel they can be. And I honestly have no idea what to expect.

[all4peace]

My first memory (more like a memory of a memory) is of opening the door in the family slow-moving car and falling out or nearly falling out.
uNBPDm used to say she knew I was an extrovert because as a young child I walked up to strangers in the grocery store and asked if I could go home with them.

Neither of those are PD behavior. I think the first time I knew something was definitely wrong with HER was when I was in 6th grade and she was angry I went on the phone when I wasn't supposed to and she slapped my head so hard that the phone flew out of my hands. I remember the mortification of facing that friend the next day on the bus, as she had heard the interaction.

[Starboard Song]

My BIL recently told us his first memory of it: he was maybe 4 or 5 years old, planning his birthday party. He wanted his stuffed animals and his football to come to the party as guests. He remembers his big sister (my DW) being sweet, playing along, asking what they would all do and how might they dress. But his mom got upset, said it was clear that he didn't think she had any idea how to plan a party, and so maybe she just wouldn't be involved. And she stormed off.

This is a woman whose feelings were deeply injured because a 5 year old had silly party ideas and didn't agree with her. She felt under attack and inadequate. Fast forward 35 years and she was utterly inconsolable and had to strike us out of here life only because her uncle made an end-of-life decision with which she diagreed, but about which we supported him.

[all4peace]

I also remember F making us go down our long driveway after dark to get the newspaper.  He'd wait somewhere in the dark and jump out to scare us. Every time it was terrifying but we had to obey.

I was afraid of heights and I remember him holding me out over the open stairwell and laughing uproariously.

[Fortuna]

I don't remember a lot about my childhood. Many of my mom's NPD like behaviors weren't as noticeable then or I normalized them to such an extent I'm still working on which was 'normal' and which weren't. But one that sticks out was one day she just flat up told me she was jealous of me because Dad loved me more. I don't remember how old I was pre-teen or barely teen I think.
Nothing followed it as I remember. She just walked away. (While she does do some engulfing, she's usually more about ignoring, so that's what she did here) And I was left stunned trying to figure out what that was about.

As a parent now, I can't imagine sharing that, much less thinking that. My DH loves the kids to pieces and I wouldn't have it any other way. Now I realize it wasn't really love that she noticed, for her love was supply. And unlike love she viewed supply as a finite resource and Dad was giving it to me.

[Hazy111]

Fortuna,

Have you read "Understanding the Borderline Mother" ?  Your mother being jealous of you (daughter) is classic " Queen behavior"

You dont remember a lot of your childhood, sounds suspiciously like disassociation. It was explained to me by my T when i couldnt remember.

[Fortuna]

Fortuna,

Have you read "Understanding the Borderline Mother" ?  Your mother being jealous of you (daughter) is classic " Queen behavior"

You dont remember a lot of your childhood, sounds suspiciously like disassociation. It was explained to me by my T when i couldnt remember.

My mother is undiagnosed, most likely NPD. She doesn't hit too many of the Borderline traits that don't overlap with NPD. It could be 'queen behavior' but I think it's more about her not being the center of attention. But I may have to give that a read now.

With the lack of childhood memories it's possible. At this point I don't dwell too much on that. My mom does enough from when I was an adult to deal with, I don't need to add stuff I don't remember yet. I figure it'll come out when I can handle it if there's anything I need to deal with.

[Ninaniner]

I remember that after her rages she would come to my room, seemingly to comfort me but I dont remember any kind of apology, instead it would be something like 'I'm not really a monster am i' then I would feel bad because I hated her for raging at me, but her saying that made me feel guilty for feeling badly towards her, she made all about her feelings even then when I was about 3/4
I remember lots of 'I'll make you wish you'd never been born' later on in teenage years casually mentioning in front of the neighbours  that I was a mistake, an unwanted pregnancy

[JustKat]

I also have a lot of missing childhood memories, but I'd have to say the first sign of my mother's NPD came when I was about four.

Nmother pressured me to learn how to read before I started kindergarten, really pushed me hard. She kept saying if I could read I'd be the smartest girl in class and everyone would think she was the best mother. I spent every day working on my reading. One day I was finally proficient enough to read a children's book on my own. After I finished the book I went running to tell my mother about my accomplishment. Instead of being proud of me, she just waved her arms, said "whatever," and walked away.

For the rest of my life every single one of my accomplishments was trivialized or dismissed.

[Andeza]

Kathy, I think you just dislodged one of my earliest memories. I was homeschooled, I was doing speed drills and I was proud of myself because I consistently got all the answers well before time was up and got them all right. One day uBPDM starts going on about how she still expects to see improvement from me about the speed drills for the rest of the school year. I was flabbergasted and asked how am I supposed to do that? I get them all right and beat the timer. She said I would just have to figure it out and that there is always room for improvement... I think I started crying in frustration at the time. In my head, at the age of six or seven, I scoffed at her for being ridiculous and expecting improvement on perfection. Sheesh, I was a cocky little kid.

Needless to say she was disappointed at the lack of improvement even though I continued to do exceptionally well. "Room for improvement" became one of the phrases that I learned to hate.

[JustKat]

Needless to say she was disappointed at the lack of improvement even though I continued to do exceptionally well.

Andeza, that describes most of my childhood with regard to learning. Nmother demanded that I be an over-achiever, but when I did excel at something she was always disappointed in me.

There was another episode I remember around the first grade which was the first time I witnessed full-on narcissistic rage. My teacher went around the class one day and asked everyone what we wanted to be when we grew up. All the girls were into horses (as most little girls are) and answered that they wanted to be a horse groomer or some silly thing that a first-grader would say. I just gave the same answer that my friends did.  When I got home NM raged at me for not answering that I was going to be a surgeon. She said I had disgraced her by naming a career that a stupid uneducated person would have. She came completely unhinged over this; screamed, threw things, the whole bit. I was around six years old at the time and didn't even know what a surgeon was.

[D.Dan]

****this might trigger some people so trigger warning****






I grew up with a low level background feeling of "somethings off" which I never questioned until I hit my 20s. It was just the way things were.

But the first memory I have where I KNEW something was wrong with my uPDmom was the winter before I started kindergarten at 4 1/2 years old.

I was playing by myself with my "My little pony toy" under the large dining room table (it came with the house when we moved in). I thought I was playing quietly.

All of a sudden, I'm yanked out from under the table with my mom's hands squeezing around my throat. She was screaming inches from my face that she was on the phone and I was too loud. I was bawling but couldn't make any noise. I kept trying to say "I'm sorry mom! I'm sorry!" but she was squeezing too tightly, I Couldn't swallow, couldn't breathe, was barely making a whisper.
The knobby part of my little throat kept slipping out from under her thumbs, so she tried harder to crush it. Then she let go and I scrambled back under the table trying not to make any noises while I cried, completely terrified. She left the room and then I quietly but quickly ran to my room to hide in my closet hoping my mom wouldn't come looking for me.

The next thing I remember it's spring, just before we move away from there.

For me, the bizarre thing about this memory is, I never forgot it. I just accepted it as it was. From this moment on, I knew this was always under the surface of my mom's face. That if I angered her, even unintentionally, I could be in real danger. When I think about this memory, it feels like her hands are crushing my throat again.

Even now, if I cry hard enough (strongly emotional), it feels like I'm choking, I gasp because it becomes hard to breathe, and I can't talk, I just mouth things in silence and I try to hide right there behind my hair and knees. I try not to cry like this in front of others because it's triggered panic in them. I don't know if this type of crying is common but I always linked it back to this memory.

And on top of all that, nobody believed me. My uPDmom and my sister had already been telling everyone we met, how I caused trouble and made up stories.

[all4peace]

D.Dan, that is such a heartbreaking story. You must have been so terrified, and it makes me sad to hear how this still lives in your body now, when you cry. I am so sorry.

[Bean_Counter]

I really didn't realize it until about, oh, a few months ago(!) that my mom was seriously mentally ill my (and probably her) entire life. The first memory I have of being parentized (is that the right term?), I was six. I played with my grandparents' neighbors kids a lot (mom left me to live there for a year while she looked for a new husband after divorcing my dad), and my mom was angry with one of them for some reason I can't remember. (He was 8). She told me how he was badly behaved, and his mom didn't make him act right. Of course, the next time he made ME angry, my six year old self repeated this to him. I can't remember how it got back to her, but I have a clear memory of my mother three inches from my face, screaming at me in the church parking lot, "I TOLD YOU NOT TO REPEAT THAT! I CAN'T TRUST YOU WITH ANYTHING! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? IT'S YOUR FAULT THEY'RE MAD AT ME!"
At the time, I thought I had completely messed up, and done something horribly wrong. Upon retrospect, DPDm was the one who was doing horribly wrong. Aaaahhhh, memories lol 🤪

[JustKat]

And on top of all that, nobody believed me. My uPDmom and my sister had already been telling everyone we met, how I caused trouble and made up stories.

I'm so sorry, D.Dan. For me, this was always the worst part of it. Worse than being abused at a such a young age was not being believed, having others think I was crazy, and being made to feel crazy myself.

[NotFooled]

I don't think M or D were PD but I do think they both had mental health related issues.  My earliest memory my parents were at a party and my Dad was really drunk and refusing to go home. It blew up into a huge fight between D and M in front of everyone.  That was pretty typical of their marriage allot of screaming and cursing over D's drinking and not wanting to be home. 

M also had a huge temper as well as an issue with magical thinking and would often talk about having experiences with aliens and ghosts.   

[Gromit]

Reading through these reminds of things I have forgotten. I just remember being frightened of my mother.

We moved just before I was 4 and I remember a few things from the old house. Running around the living room I ended up stepping into a hot cup of tea and being yelled at for spelling the tea. Flash forward to my mother being in my first flat. I walk over to the window to close the curtains and she says harshly, 'mind my tea' which was on the floor. It was my home, I would be the one cleaning it up if it got spilt! Her tea was more important than my burnt feet.

I could also read before I went to school but then she complained that once I could read I did not like to be read to, unlike my sister before me.

She apparently admitted to being jealous of my relationship with my father to someone.

I do remember being bribed not to wet the bed in the old house too. I had a tantrum and got the sweet anyway when I did wet the bed once, I remember that. She couldn't stick to that boundary.

[Hazy111]

Gromit,

Apologies if you are aware, but your mother being jealous of your relationship with your father is classic Borderline Queen behavior, as she must be the recipient of all attention within the household.   

[gcj07a]

The one that has stuck with me most was my uBPm regularly telling me that I was making Jesus sad by not treating her better. "How do you think Jesus feels now that you have hurt my feelings?" And I would cry and apologize. It was an awful use of religion to manipulate me. But, for all that, I worked through and claimed my faith for myself, though I sometimes still here her voice asking me that question.

[Moxie890]

My earliest memory period is of my parents fighting verbally and physically.

My mom would rage on a regular basis. As soon as I learned to walk, I was walking on egg shells. When she raged she would yell just an inch or two from my face. Her face would turn bright red and she would be spitting while she yelled. She would also hit, slap or kick (these "spankings" didn't stop at a "normal" age either. They kept going until I was 19 and threatened to press charges).

As a small child at the time, I of course thought it was my fault because I was somehow bad. I only realized things were not ok, and PDs were real a few years ago. Since then I have recognized so many behaviors that can be attributed to her PD, but the rages are the earliest memories.