Judgments said over and over.

[sunshine702]

I have noticed my uNPD mom has certain judgement phrases that are said over and over and have to be agreed with no matter what.

Here is a few
"John is just like Sue."

John is the Scapegoat son and Sue is her free spirit sister a few states away.  They also no longer speak.
To me this makes no sense they are vastly different people but I guess when the world is simplistic triangulation they both are in the same box in her head.  Verbotten. 

Another weird one was a story of mine.
i told her I found a dead mouse in the washer one spring. 
"They come in for the dog food"  implying that my beloved dogs cause vermin...
I tried to reason with her.  No I hear they come in for the warmth.  The dryer venting makes sense.  It was no where near the kitchen closet where the dog food is stored.  Didn't matter.  She knows! "They come in for the dog food".  "John is Sue"

This is the sort of maddening "conversations" I am tired of having.   
Can you guys relate? 

[Stillirise]

Yes. My updxh did this regularly, as well.  I believe it stemmed from him thinking he’s smarter than everyone, and could make connections others couldn’t figure out.  Any thought or opinion he expressed was to be considered as fact.  If challenged, it would only lead to a circular argument, so there was no point.  Occasionally he would be proven right in his random conclusions.  This resulted in him believing even more strongly that he could see things more clearly than others. However, as the saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

When I was still in the marriage, I finally learned MC toward the end, and found ways to exit these types of conversations as quickly as possible. Changing the subject, something in my eye, suddenly remembering I forgot to make a call…I didn’t care how flighty I seemed, as long as it extracted me from listening. Best of luck!

Edited to add, x’s updF is the same way. When their conclusions don’t match up, it’s a conversation you don’t want to be anywhere near.  I’m eternally grateful I never have to sit at the dinner table with the two of them again! 

[SeaBreeze]

I can very much relate. uNPDh has certain stock phrases he uses repeatedly to make a point or describe his displeasure. I've come to recognize it as his way of shutting down any conversation, views, or opinions that challenge his script, while offering no real value, insight, or resolution. (Yet to him these tired cliches are FACTS.) All 3 of our now adult-kids jokingly use these cliched phrases themselves (behind his back) with eyerolls and dry laughs. His ex-gf before me tried to warn me what I was getting myself into in. Wouldn't you know, she used a certain cliche, in quote marks, that I would come to hear from uNPDh's lips ad nauseum our first few years together. Guess ex-gf heard that one a lot, too.

My uNPDm would invent certain narratives or arguments, very much like you've described. There was no changing her mind even when what she said was an outright lie or delusion. To her those were FACTS. Like my own children, my brother and I made jokes out of it to keep ourselves sane.

Frustrating, isn't it? But sometimes "entertaining"...in a trainwreck sort of way.

[Hilltop]

Yeah my mother will still say that I am difficult.  I was watching a you tube video of Eckhart Tolle the other day on critical parents and he talked about how they replay the same story, the same record in their head over and over and over again.  They don't stop to question if it is still true or if it was ever true.  He said they can be limited in this way.

When I look at my mother, she use to say I was a difficult child back when I was a teenager and she still says the same thing now.  To me she keeps repeating the same phrases over and over and I recognise now that this is her record playing in her head.  It is what she told herself and she hasn't changed it, she just keeps it playing on repeat.  I had just taken her out for her birthday lunch and she told me I was difficult.  Really, we just had a pleasant lunch, nothing happened, there was no argument and she says that.  She can't even recognise that she herself is difficult at times when she is insulting.  Nope to her I am one thing and will stay that way.  It's a narrative she long ago told herself, no doubt so she wasn't at fault for anything, she could blame me because I am difficult.

What he said made a lot of sense to me and I could really relate.  I mean it has been a couple of decades since I was a child and yet my mother is still seeing me the same way.  What is even more interesting is that when I am calm and peaceful she will really let the insults fly and I never understood this until just recently I had to wonder if then when I get upset at the insults she can sigh a sigh of relief and say to herself, yep I'm still right, she is still difficult, look at her upset again, whilst completely ignoring how I got upset to start with.  Of course I do believe there is more to the insults etc than that but I do feel it is part of it.

[moglow]

Familiar - it's like once md got a particular phrase in her head, the needle got stuck in the record and stayed. I tried many times to use reason and logic, to no avail. She needed to appear superior and force her knowledge on everyone regardless of [what I saw as] clear contradictions in her words. What stands out to me now, it wasnt ever anything pleasant or funny or even kind - it was always a harsh negative judgment on someone else, where they "failed" or she could insult them in some way.

[Cat of the Canals]

PDmom has a kneejerk response whenever one of the neighbors she dislikes are mentioned. (Which seems to be most of them.) It's either "That guy is an idiot." or "That guy is an a**hole." It doesn't matter the context. It's like she can't stop herself from blurting it out. If one off those names comes up, she seems compelled to say it.