Forgive me here. I'm new to this subreddit (Reddit in general, really). After doing some research, I have reason to believe I may have been raised by a narcissistic mother. I feel somewhat crazy even thinking it though, so I need help figuring it out. Please. I guess I'll start by listing some of the red flags and we can go from there? I don't really know how this works but here we go. If it's too long for you, read enough to make your decision and then scroll to the last paragraph please. :) I just didn't want to leave out some crucial deciding factor.
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my father cheated on her (while she was pregnant with me) and she's never let it go. Ever. Forgive and forget, isn't that how it goes?
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she has never considered how I feel when she says things like "your father blamed his affair on you" (it hurts and makes me feel guilty)
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she's tried to keep me as dependent as possible. She never taught me how to do laundry (my sister - F32 - taught me. She also has never taught me how to cook (again, my sister has taught me some basic things but at 23 I can barely make boxed Mac and cheese...my mom's idea of teaching me how to cook is basically "here chop some veggies and make a salad")
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she has rheumatoid arthritis and boy does she milk it. I have a bad back and therefore have trouble lifting really heavy things (which is what caused it in the first place...I was 12 and helping to lift a massive bbq up the deck stairs). Some days I feel fine. Others it hurts. Lifting heavy things may or may not trigger it but really heavy things definitely will, and she has no regard for that. It's all "my arthritis is bugging me I need you to lift this" (I then ask if it NEEDS to be done today or can it wait until one or both of us feel better and she says "we could do it another day but I want to get it done anyway"). She also wore inappropriate shoes to my university graduation earlier this month and then bitched the whole day about how she had to walk around the campus so her feet hurt. Wtf did you expect, door to door service? Complimentary valet? Get real.
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in addition to keeping me dependent, she's also been very dependent on my sister and I. She runs a daycare (has since I was 2) and she used to enjoy it but the past 6 years or so have been getting progressively worse. She can't stand the kids for more than an hour before she's screaming at them. She gets irritated with the infants for pooping themselves at "inconvenient" times. The moment I turned 18 she wanted to make me her official substitute (basically if she has a doctor's appointment or an emergency, the kids are legally my responsibility) which I naively agreed to. This meant I had to skip school to look after the kids, and often now means I have to book time off work to be at home.
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an extension to that, she had no regard for my university schedule. It didn't matter if I had an exam on Thursday and had booked Wednesday off work too in order to cram. She would decide that I booked Wednesday off to go gallavanting all over the flipping mall or work on one of her home renovation projects. She also was sick in April and decided that I could skip the last week of school (when all of the professor evaluations and exam reviews were happening) to cover for her at work.
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she does everything she can to sabotage the romantic relationships that my sister and I have. My sister is married now but trust me, my mom is still trying to sabotage that.
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she made my sister pay rent, but she lets me live at home rent free. I think she does that to create a divide between the two of us, as well as the fact that she realizes now that my sister has left the country, that I might be able to do the same thing.
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she gets super paranoid. She once decided my sister and I were conspiring against her (why? Idk) so she wouldn't let us be alone together for more than 5 seconds. She also got paranoid about my sister's wedding...they had to pay so much money to get my sister down to the USA (from Canada) that they didn't have much left for the wedding so they were going to have it in a nice park in his hometown 2 hours from ours. My mom threw a fit, saying that they were probably going to fake get married in front of us and then actually get married in a church later. So they had to fork out several thousand dollars more for a "real" wedding.
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she also discourages my professional development, and I think she does this so I can't have enough money to move out. I currently work part time at minimum wage ($11), and since I recently graduated I've been looking for work. Unfortunately, I was one of the stupid souls who picked an arts degree so I can't do much. I found what looked like a cushy full-time job as a receptionist making $15 in a used car dealership, applied, and got an interview. She convinced me not to take it because "I can do better" and then proceeded to suggest many other minimum wage jobs. She's also trying to discourage me from going back to school for computer science, and when my coworker approached me asking me to develop an app for him to market so we can split the profits, she tried to convince me it was a stupid idea while I honestly don't see a downside. Worst case scenario, it's wasted time that I would've otherwise wasted on watching Netflix. Probable case scenario, it's experience for my portfolio when I'm applying for programming jobs in the future. Best case scenario, we make a ton of money. She also went behind my back to attack my father for offering me $500/month if I stayed in school and got a second degree, which resulted in him rescinding the offer.
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I'm also not allowed to go anywhere or do anything. I have a curfew of 11:30 on weekends because "she wants to go to bed" which also means I don't have very many friends anymore.
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I definitely feel responsible for her in a bigger way than I feel I should. I truly fear that if I move to a different city (which I REALLY want to do, for several reasons), she's going to shrivel up and not be able to take care of herself, due to the fact that she milks her arthritis so much that she can't even do her own laundry or unload the dishwasher.
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final thing (unless you guys ask), she is CONSTANTLY comparing herself to my father. SHE stuck around. SHE paid for everything. She never lets us forget who did everything...I think to excess. Like she's bragging and trying to say "look at the model citizen I am", not saying "I did all of this because you're my children and I love you." In fact, she goes out of her way to remind us that she never wanted kids in the first place as if that makes what she did for us that much more commendable. She also has said that my father was diagnosed as narcissistic and refuses to expand on that. I'm wondering at this point if he left because she was toxic and abusive due to her narcissism, not because of his like she claims. She is a very good liar (she lies better than most people tell the truth), so I don't think that's off the table.
I'm sorry this is so long. If you didn't read it all and just skipped to this point, I understand. Here is my question for you: was I raised by a narcissist? Or am I the real narcissist? I certainly do feel like I'm behaving in a selfish manner, although I don't know if that's because I am or because she's taught me to feel this way? I also feel the need to point out that I try so hard to not be selfish that I actually ended up getting raped at 17 and abused by almost every boyfriend since. If you have any extra questions, feel free to ask no matter how invasive you think it might be. I'm an open book and will answer anything.
Thank you so much for helping me out. It's very much appreciated.
Edited to add one more thing:
- she was the beneficiary of the estates of both my great aunt (who raised her and passed in '04) and her mother (the only grandparent I ever really knew and passed in '13). Both of them said that since they knew my sister and I would see nothing from our father's estate, they wanted us to get some of theirs. My mom took it all for her retirement fund and ended up blowing it all. Her current retirement plan consists of either a refrigerator box under a bridge, or mooching off of me once I buy a house. She has not and will not consider any other options.
Submitted June 23, 2017 at 06:11AM by xdannigirl http://ift.tt/2rXbxa2 raisedbynarcissists
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