Fairly new to tattle but relate SO strongly to the munchausens posts.
I genuinely assumed (sounds silly I know) that my childhood was fairly normal. We were clothed, went to school and had normal Christmases and small birthday things. It’s only when you become a teen and older you realise it is so far from normal!
You speak to other people or MIL do things for you on birthdays or little things that make you slowly realise how COLD of an upbringing you’ve really had!
I have had two really really good relationships with my two ex MIL and I whole heartedly believe this is due to having a mother figure I never quite had growing up. For want of a better word we were quite neglected emotionally. My dad worked away from home and so it was just myself, my mother and brother. She would never do any school work with us, didn’t ever do any mother-child activities really. She didn’t work so it was not like there was tons going on.
She got diagnosed with an M.E like illness when I was 7/8 (not disputing that it does affect people) but it’s become her life. When we were little it started out as very small, and if there was things she didn’t want to do or attend that wasn’t in her favour she would suddenly have these muscle aches or some phantom illness. I think people genuinely felt sorry for her but she obviously internally revelled in the attention. If I stay with her for a day it’s all she talks about from the moment I wake up until going to bed at night.
Literally will just come into a room and talk about her stomach, her shoulder etc. Talks at me not to me about it. Refuses
pain. Refuses to quit smoking. She’s overweight and doesn’t really do herself any favours.
From working for as many years as I have in the wards I often imagine how on Earth she would get on in an admission scenario. 100% think she would be discussed as having terrible mental health. And you DO wonder what outcomes would ever come of this if she ever did get admitted? I am not a MH expert, but being around her is like walking on eggshells. So prone to kicking off like a child if things don’t go her way, screaming at me if I so much as cooked in the kitchen. Apparently smells trigger off her illness (don’t want to mention her illness here but begins with a F) just incase I am easily Sussed out by someone who I am..!
She has extreme traits of BPD. I have even contacted a doctor behind her back last year as a way to help as she wouldn’t listen to me saying she needed help as she was depressed, she wouldn’t leave the house as her anxiety was so bad.. and I felt things were going to get so bad at one point she would wind up sectioned. She suspected this as the next doctors appointment he asked her a series of questions and she went ballistic at me. Really angry and in defence mode. I firmly believe she should be on some mood balancing medications as she is so erratic and depressed.
I am not once disputing this illness I do believe it’s a genuine thing but she plays on it massively and has done for so long. It’s like she enjoys being ill? I’ve stayed here for short periods and try and help out. Do the floors, do hoovering, washing, cook etc. Everytime she goes ballistic. Apparently I use too many chemicals when I clean and because of her illness she is hyper sensitive to it. Will legit sit and moan and talk to herself from another room out loud and say things like “I can’t sit in here I can smell that chemicals from the bathroom”
Like REALLY over reacts.
it can be difficult to sympathise with her and I feel like the profession I am in it makes me feel soooo guilty for getting internally angry.
I can honestly say I am not an emotionless human being, far from it. Sounds a bit up myself in saying this but do believe I have an extremely empathetic soft nature purely because of the upbringing from her. A lot of children from BPD and Narc upbringings do ! But it’s also made me a doormat too in my past two long term relationships. I went through a period of time not properly speaking to her and being very, very, angry once I realised via online blogs, forums etc what she was and how it had impacted my life so much.
I go through life constantly apologising, frightened to be assertive and people pleasing. I am pleased to say slowly and surely I have started to change but have purposely stayed single for a number of years now to focus on myself, and really find out who I am? As I suppose I went through a grieving process realising my mum was never going to change, never going to be this mother figure I so hoped for that would come and visit me, make an effort or even do little things that wasn’t solely of benefit to her really.
I have looked after people with amputations, with real life changing debilitating health disorders and hers is only very mild but she makes on she is dying of cancer the way she speaks about it. If I have a cold she has the flu. It makes me so angry and she has no idea how bad others really have it despite me sometimes saying the odd comment. She is nearly 60 and is already expecting to get a private carer in soon
because she is that unwell.
medical staff would have a field day if she ever had to go into hospital. Just screams mental health. Which I hope I don’t offend anyone with that.
Part of the other reason I got so angry for years and shut her out for 1-2 years was because it dawned on me if she had of sought help or went on some mild medication to help her BPD - my brother or my childhood might have been radically different. I feel quite let down not just by her but by other family members including my dad for not intervening. I can’t help but feel she knows she is mentally unwell and has sort of admitted it in the past but extremely selfish of her to bring up two young kids and not do anything about it? Just happy to inflict all her old crap on us.
I’m quite proud of where I am now but looking back in school it was so obvious how things just weren’t right at home but teachers probably didn’t know how to intervene. Maybe they did but being young I didn’t realise. Thankfully I’ve turned into what I think is an okay person. I love to see folk happy, keep myself to myself but have been scarred from stuff.
i struggle to monitor my emotions so easily and can get tearful so easily but I know that comes from being told to more or less “stop crying” when we were kids growing up. Anytime we were emotional or tried to speak to her she would say she was “too stressed and couldn’t handle speaking about it right now”
An earlier comment from someone had really struck me and it’s something I whole heartedly say to my close friends so often- I don’t even have kids yet but can’t wait to be the kindest, approachable parent to my kids if I have any!
More than anything I just want to make them feel the love I desperately didn’t have, and to put so much time into them rather than them be seen like some sort of burden which is how I felt. Even teaching them little things and getting them in to cook or help you do things around the place. Help them with school work and read to them some nights. I probably sound a bit sappy
but honest to god it’s made me really realise I absolutely do not ever want them to feel like how I did!
The posts on here are incredible. Remember you are never alone, and don’t let people make you feel guilty for doing what is right for you, ever. I don’t think I will ever live near here again as it’s too potent to be around loads but if I had a family I would be happy to visit (staying in a local hotel) and see her that way. From afar, and if things went Pete tong least I could leave easily.
it’s so hard. Did anyone else go through this grieving process too? It was like the realisation the connection and relationship you so desperately wanted - was never going to happen. And accepting that?
thank you for reading
Trigger warning ; abuse and suicide.
My mom was a narc. I also am seriously struggling in later life as all of this was my "normal"...
This is probably barely going to touch the surface but For as long as I can remember she told me the only reason I was here was because she didn't have another choice (she was 7 months gone when she discovered she was pregnant with me).. I always knew she hated me she never made it a secret but my younger brother was the golden child,. She was very cold and never ever hugged me or showed affection. She married when I was 5 and it was a very violent relationship. She always put her self and her needs first, they were alcoholics who spent their nights after work in the pub so from a very young age I was coming home to no parents, no food, sometimes if they had forgot to leave the door open I'd have to wait in the garden (I'd snuggle up with the dogs in their shed) until they got home, in all weather's until all times, when they finally got home they'd be too drunk to do much else but fight so there was never any food in and because of the uncertainty of eating at home I would try and eat wherever I was and in the end developed a very unhealthy obsession with food, she would call me a fat piece of pig tit almost daily and in turn my brothers would say it too. I spent my whole childhood tip toeing around her as her moods were so explosive and she was so violent. When I was 13 she attacked me (nothing unusual) and broke my arm. Long story short the neighbours rang the police an as a result me and my brother went into temporary Foster care. He soon returned but I was never welcome back, she blamed it all on me to anyone who would listen and the constant "I can't believe youve done this to your mom and told the police so many lies" made me want to die as no one understood the real her. Everything was a guilt trip with her and I even ended up feeling like maybe it was me? I stayed in Foster care until I was 16 and then got my own place. She would turn up once in a blue moon and never ever helped me I was alone at 16 with not a penny to my name (she had always been well established money wise) but would never help me
Trigger warning ; abuse and suicide.
My mom was a narc. I also am seriously struggling in later life as all of this was my "normal"...
This is probably barely going to touch the surface but For as long as I can remember she told me the only reason I was here was because she didn't have another choice (she was 7 months gone when she discovered she was pregnant with me).. I always knew she hated me she never made it a secret but my younger brother was the golden child,. She was very cold and never ever hugged me or showed affection. She married when I was 5 and it was a very violent relationship. She always put her self and her needs first, they were alcoholics who spent their nights after work in the pub so from a very young age I was coming home to no parents, no food, sometimes if they had forgot to leave the door open I'd have to wait in the garden (I'd snuggle up with the dogs in their shed) until they got home, in all weather's until all times, when they finally got home they'd be too drunk to do much else but fight so there was never any food in and because of the uncertainty of eating at home I would try and eat wherever I was and in the end developed a very unhealthy obsession with food, she would call me a fat piece of pig tit almost daily and in turn my brothers would say it too. I spent my whole childhood tip toeing around her as her moods were so explosive and she was so violent. When I was 13 she attacked me (nothing unusual) and broke my arm. Long story short the neighbours rang the police an as a result me and my brother went into temporary Foster care. He soon returned but I was never welcome back, she blamed it all on me to anyone who would listen and the constant "I can't believe youve done this to your mom and told the police so many lies" made me want to die as no one understood the real her. Everything was a guilt trip with her and I even ended up feeling like maybe it was me? I stayed in Foster care until I was 16 and then got my own place. She would turn up once in a blue moon and never ever helped me I was alone at 16 with not a penny to my name (she had always been well established money wise) but would never help me with anything despite doing anything for her sons. Our relationship since then was sparse, She vehemently denied all of my memories and says I must be sick in the head to say these things which made it harder to care about her. I had my first son at age 20 and I seen a side to her I had never ever seen before she adored him. Would kiss and hug him shower him with love and then thats when I really thought wow it must be me... The next few years she put me through hell with her drinking, emotional abuse and wild BPD episodes. She went to jail for drink driving and whilst she was in I discovered I was having a girl.. The next time she rang I told her and she just put the phone down on me. I was so confused but after a while it became clear... Its because the baby was a girl.. She had not one bit of time for her like she did my son. The same with me and my brothers. I ended up cutting her off after the birth.. Fast forward to a year later (January 2020) and I got a call to say she had hanged herself. When I got to the hospital they had her on life support but it wasn't looking good due to the brain damage, I ended up being the next of kin and all further decisions were down to me. 5 days later the day before my 27th birthday I had to make the heart wrenching decision to withdraw her life support, my brothers whom she adored left and I lay with her whilst she died and it was honestly the closest I have ever felt to her and my heart broke all over again. I thought I'd mourned my mom years ago but clearly not. I planned and paid for the funeral single handedly and my brothers swanned up and took all the credit for "a beautiful send off..my whole family openly blaims me for her suicide and said if I hadn't stopped contact with her and the kids she would never of done this. I'm struggling with my thoughts of her, it's like a PP said since she's died iv put her on a pedastal and it's really an emotional roller-coaster. I loved her to death and I suppose somewhere in there she loved me too but it wasn't what it should of been. I'm in therapy and trying to overcome this professionally but I also get so jealous seeing other grown ups with wonderful parents. Because even when mine were here I wished they wasn't
I am so sorry this has happened to you. I think it’s normal to put someone on a pedestal especially since what’s happened. Sometimes you overlook the bad in moments, and then try and make sense of what was and what wasn’t. I know I have done this. Sometimes I feel massive guilt at the way things are with my own mum - but she did push me away. I try and remind myself that you deserve a bit of respect no matter if it’s family or not. You need to look out for number one.
She eventually dumped him for his nephew and in turn I never saw my best friend again 
. Honestly the list would go on and on and to this day she constantly calls me a bleep and what did she do to deserve me, constantly criticising my
luckily they live an hour away so I don’t have to see her regularly. Thanks for listening, sorry for rambling on- she’s just got to me tonight.
