Jealous I've had covid

Started by Writingthepain, September 01, 2021, 10:05:13 AM

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Writingthepain

My npd mom has been bizarrely eaten up with jealousy ever since I tested positive for covid a few months ago.

Shes been claiming covid symptoms ever since and has almost compulsively gotten tested yet to her constant disappointment all tests have been negative. Shes even had herself tested for anti bodies and that was negative too.

When I was ill with it she was constantly telling me that I couldn't be as ill as she was, and that she had much worse health than me.

Since when is a pandemic a competition??

Call Me Cordelia

I'm actually laughing, WTP. I'm sorry your mother is like that. That's so bizarre and nonsensical and yet... so like my mother. I haven't been in contact with her since before covid, but yes, illness was a competition with her as well. I had thyroid disease, well, so did SHE, and WORSE. Despite the fact that I'd been diagnosed and she hadn't. I sneezed in her presence. "Oh, excuse my allergies." "Oh MY allergies are the worst they've ever been this year!" :roll: I couldn't bring up any sort of personal trouble whatsoever without being one-upped, in fact. So I stopped telling her anything but positive things about my personal life. She simply lost interest in talking to me.

I hope you have recovered well. As to your mother... I would wish her continued good health as well. Whether she wants it or not.

But with all those covid symptoms she has going on, maybe you'd be wise to keep your distance. :nod:

Andeza

Much like CMC, I stopped sharing my health matters with my uBPDm prior to going NC. It just wasn't worth it. But, I truly believe they don't know how to have a conversation that isn't about them. They don't understand the give and take, the ebb and flow of normal interactions. They gotta suck up ALL the attention ALL the time. Otherwise they sulk and have a fit... like two years olds that don't want to nap. Sorry, that's my house right now. :wacko:

I could get comparing symptoms, like comparing notes, to confirm what it was if you didn't get test confirmation. But even that should be a very neutral, calm conversation free of drama like "You couldn't possibly be sicker than I am!" Because we each get a different hand from fate with this stuff. I hope you are, in fact, fully recovered and not experiencing any long term symptoms. :bighug: If you're still dealing with stuff, don't feel bad as it's not a reflection on you or your general health. I know at least two people that kept some issue afterward for three months to a year, and they're both extremely healthy. They eventually recovered fully in both cases.

But yes, covid symptoms are an excuse not to visit as far as I'm concerned. :bigwink:
Remember, that there are no real deadlines for life, just society's pressures.      - Anonymous
Lasting happiness is not something we find, but rather something we make for ourselves.

Hattie

WTF. Yeah my ex was just like this. Classic Munchausens    ::)
Love is patient; love is kind.
It does not envy; it does not boast.
It is not proud. It does not dishonour others.
It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered.
It keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

1 Corinthians 13: 5-8.

Writingthepain

Hattie, what do you mean 'munchausans '?

SunnyMeadow

Wow, they never stop amazing me. I thought this was only my mom. Mine now has the autoimmune disease I have AND WORSE than mine lol. It's weird though, she doesn't have symptoms of it or take medications for it, but she has it.

I'll bet if I tested + for covid, my mother would have that too.

:doh:

Hattie

Love is patient; love is kind.
It does not envy; it does not boast.
It is not proud. It does not dishonour others.
It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered.
It keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

1 Corinthians 13: 5-8.

MarlenaEve

Wow just wow.

Your post shows the amount of pain we have to endure at the hands of these people.
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing:
the last of the human freedoms-
to choose one's attitude in any
given set of circumstances, to choose
one's own way.
-Viktor Frankl

Sidney37

My PDm had a kidney stone a few years ago.  She wouldn't stop talking and yelling about how I had never been in as much pain or as sick as she was.  I said nothing.  I've had 10+ surgeries after a severe injury that left me hospitalized for months.  Yep, mom, your kidney stone that you took pain meds for leaving you in almost no pain and quickly had blasted at the hospital was so much worse.   I know kidney stones are terrible,  I get it.  But lecturing someone with permanent disabilities from an injury who spent months in the hospital...  :stars: I don't know why it has to be a competition.

Boat Babe

Me, me, me .......
Repeat ad nauseam.
It gets better. It has to.

Hazy111

Reminds me of a  " pop star" in the 80s during the AIDS pandemic saying he had AIDS. He didnt.   Still on TV and radio soaking up that supply.

Boat Babe

Quote from: Hazy111 on September 03, 2021, 07:11:30 AM
Reminds me of a  " pop star" in the 80s during the AIDS pandemic saying he had AIDS. He didnt.   Still on TV and radio soaking up that supply.


Wtaf?
It gets better. It has to.

WonderGirl

The competition thing is so creepy. Then there is the Munchausens by proxy. My NPDm played up my several (minor) disabilities and illnesses to anyone who would listen. Such a good martyr mom she was, taking care of her sickly girl. Indeed, when I was sick was the only time she was nice to me, which has left me with a weird relationship with my health.

But I digress. I agree with everyone else here that you must avoid her if she is showing covid symptoms!

JustKat

Quote from: Writingthepain on September 01, 2021, 10:05:13 AM
Since when is a pandemic a competition??

Sickness was always a competition with my Nmother. She'd become insanely jealous of any friend or relative that had cancer, not because she wanted cancer herself, but because she wanted the attention they were getting. She would often claim to have symptoms herself, purely for attention. When she was eventually diagnosed with terminal cancer I (and apparently a few others) didn't believe her and thought she was yet again faking it for attention, so all of her drama came back to bite her in the end. She cried wolf a few too many times.

I do hope you've fully recovered from Covid and are feeling well. Sending healing hugs...
:hug:

MarlenaEve

I was thinking of this post and realized mine is different. Yes, she is jealous of me and others but in our family being sick is forbidden lol. It's a flaw in character. Of course, this means even if she gets sick or has something to treat, NM will try to deny it and avoid taking care of herself. This has left me with health anxiety and fear of doctors in general.
How can a parent assume that a child should not get sick because, it has NM's genetical material (in her eyes, she is the healthiest I guess)?
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing:
the last of the human freedoms-
to choose one's attitude in any
given set of circumstances, to choose
one's own way.
-Viktor Frankl

Call Me Cordelia

Yes, MarlenaEve, that's my uNMiL too. Never sick, perfect health, exercise, eat healthy, and look as good as me me me!!!

My uNmother is the opposite, like Writingthepain's mum. Nobody could be suffering more than she, or she would be severely put out.

It was actually hilarious to hear the two mothers interact with each other. They were always trying to one-up each other without agreeing which end was up.

JollyJazz

Hi Writingthepain,

Yikes, just...

First of all - about YOU. I am so glad that you got through covid!!! I hope you are okay now and just sending support as it must have been a very stressful experience.

Secondly - on your PD mum.
Actually back to you, you are doing great spotting her histrionic need to draw attention, sympathy supply to herself. It also sounds like a real lavk of compassion on her part.
PD's - they are very competitive aren't they! Lol.

sandpiper

#17
Wow.
We had Covid last year - the original strain before it morphed into Delta. I can't imagine how awful the variants must be. We were sick for 5 weeks & then I had long covid right up to the point where I was able to get my first Vx back in March. I had a bunch of friends who either didn't want to believe that I'd had it or else they wanted to minimise my experience, and some were just rabid believers that it was a scam/hoax/nothing to get excited about.
That experience really made me wonder about the mental health, general lack of health literacy and the willingness of humanity to dive down the Denial Sinkhole. I think it was just too much for some people to deal with, on a psychological level, and I think that's a really complex thing to unpack why that is so. It tested my patience and the one thing I was grateful for was that NC with my disordered FOO meant that I could recover quietly in my own time & not have to be worn down by the denial/one-upmanship/derisive comments that I know would have come from family. It was always great to see a health professional & to get validation from them when they asked me about my symptoms and they listened, asked intelligent and sensitive questions, and offered empathy and respect for what I'd gone through.
I think that really made me think hard about how much of PD/disordered behaviour is simply a learned deficit in emotional intelligence because some people got it and others didn't.
I count myself very lucky that the first Vx dose (12 months after we got sick, so it was a long wait) 'reset' my immune system and within 2 weeks I felt like a new woman. One of the weird symptoms that I got was post-viral vertigo. It was mild and intermittent and while it stopped me from being as active as I'd like to be, the thing that was really hard was being around people who just could not grasp the concept of what I was living with & who wanted me to man up and get on with whatever they wanted me to do. I'm a horse rider so the prize for that bit of What the unholy What? goes to the nurse (who should know better) who didn't understand why I declined to jump  :aaauuugh: Seriously.
Anyway. I'm rambling but hopefully all our stories are making you feel like you're not alone.
These boards are wonderful for that.
I hope you are feeling better, both in terms of the virus and also re: the emotional roller coaster.
Can I suggest a book that might help how you view the abuse? There is so much good stuff to read (all of it listed in the resources here) but I think that Lundy Bancroft's 'Why does he do that? - Inside the minds of angry and controlling men' is a great starting point. They use it in the social work course to educate psychologists & social workers about psychological abuse, in one of the universities here in my home town. I first heard about it from one of the members here. She said her T had told her to get it in the early days of therapy & had said 'replace the word 'he' with 'she' and 'your mother' and you've got a pretty accurate road map to understanding most of the unhealthy behaviours that an abuser deploys to keep your head spinning. I get that the PD brain is wired up totally different from a healthy brain & that there are complex biological and behavioural drivers for them being the way they are and doing what they do, but that book, I think, is a really good start when it comes to untangling your life from theirs because it is like a lesson book for explaining to you what is a toxic behaviour. I spent so much time doubting myself when I started T because when you start unpacking what they do it's just such a rabbit hole of contradictions and confusion. If I had to go back 30 years & put one of the many books that I've since read into my 21yro hands and say 'start here' - that would be the one.
Hope that helps.

Hepatica

They'll do anything to get the attention back right on them.   :doh:
"There is a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there's
still a sureness in you, where there's a seamlessness in you, and where
there is a confidence and tranquility." John O'Donohue

Leonor

Hi Writing,

I hope you're feeling better. I would imagine that coming down with a virus that has caused a global pandemic would be traumatic in itself and then, as Sandpiper describes, doubly so given the willful ignorance and downright meanness of other people's reactions.

And yes, everything is a competition with pd folks. My hpd mom competed with me about trauma. When I told her I was in therapy and had been diagnosed with PTSD, she declared to me the *she* had secondary PTSD, and found the bestest therapist in her area to treat her. Secondary PTSD from my PTSD, brought about by her abuse of me! Luckily, the bestest therapist was that for a reason, and diagnosed her with histrionic personality disorder instead (she fired him soon afterwards) :tongue2:

I wonder, too, if after so many years in the shadow of non-empathetic parents, we wind up surrounded by friends and family who are deep deniers, too. Some of what Sandpiper writes about her friends' inability to respond even politely to her illness is my experience with my friends around trauma. It's too intense for them, or just plain uninteresting, so they brush it off.

Dear Writing, I am sorry you're unwell and wish you a speedy recovery. If I were your mom I'd get myself all vaxxed up and put on my n95 mask and bring you lots of chicken soup and warm blankets and prop you up on fluffy pillows and binge watch your fave tv shows with you and take your temperature until you told me to give you a break already.