How do you deal with a narcissistic mother?

Set boundaries! Otherwise she will drain the life out of you and drag you into depression. My mom is 96. She was a trophy wife, very beautiful and she knew it. My dad was a Naval officer and valued her mostly for her looks. They were devoted to their image, and the five kids were just part of the supposedly perfect picture. I was a well trained little maid of all housework by the time I was 10 (the year my youngest brother was born) and 13 when my sister was born. Then I was the nanny. I don’t know where my mom was those years. My sis has no memories of my mom bathing or dressing or tucking her into bed. I was the mom. My mother was sort of a silent vapor around the house (unless she was having a tantrum over some purse or dress my dad wouldn’t let her have). I mopped floors, washed dishes, changed sheets and ironed. I realize now, that she wasn’t really interested in us as children. It was all about her and my dad. But we thought at that time all homes were like this. Needless to say we all left home at 18 on the dot, and didn’t hear much from her over the years, mainly at Christmas. She didn’t even call me when I gave birth to the first grandchild. Mom and Dad were busy traveling the world and looking perfect. Fast forward to now. Now that Mom is is 96 and her physical beauty is just a memory, which makes her angry! Now that the putter shell is failing I have come to see who she really is. It’s hard to see ANY internal beauty! She lives in a very expensive, beautiful senior living complex, and my sister and I see to her every need, but she complains, demands, whines, and manipulates. She is in good health and has everything to be thankful for but shows no appreciation. She criticizes everyone and everything about her complex. I’m sure the lovely caregivers there must hate it when she needs attention. We manage her money, her insurance, her healthcare appointments, and take her out shopping, to lunch, for drives, and all she does is whine about how no one comes to see her. It’s demoralizing and depressing. She blames us for moving her into the assisted living section, but we did that so she could realize some of the long term health care benefits she has been paying over 30years for! She thinks she doesn’t belong there, she’s too good for it! But she’s incontinent, and get this, refuses to wear depends because they “show through my slacks.” I dread calling or visiting her. It’s so draining, and she’s getting worse. Of course her three sons who are MIA can do no wrong while she beats my sis I and I down with her complaints. She asked me once, four years ago if she could move in with me. I thank God that I said no. That’s the most important boundary you can set. I would be a total wreck if she was living with us. I’m already struggling with depression and guilt which is overflowing into my marriage and doing damage. I’m irritable and flare up with my husband. God help me that I never put my children through this. People are living to be too old now. The struggle with the loss of their lives as they knew them. Dementia creeps in. They revert to childlike, selfish behavior. It’s not a pretty picture. I won’t “divorce” my mother, but I will be seeing less of her, and on my terms, to preserve my mental and physical health!

I am really feeling like there is hope for me to deal with my mother Today I found myself snapping at my husband because of being so hurt and angry at my 81 year old mean mom. I plan to come and read these posts instead of complaining to the rest of my family and instead of being depressed!

Ask yourself this: What did you do that you should become a victim for her horrible personality and traits. And ask what makes you think that you SHOULD be her victim and what gives her the right to treat you this way. Then you will see that she is who she is, and she is getting worse. Forget the why's of her actions. The fact is she is making your life hell and YOU are not getting any younger. I have learned a hard lesson in life - sometimes there are situations or people in you life who are making life a miserable hell for you and nothing you do or don' do is going to "fix" things. So then you have two choices. You stay and be destroyed a little at a time until there is nothing left of you. OR, you can walk away, never look back, start a new life and HAVE THE LIFE YOU DESERVE. You owe something like this, and I don't care if she is your mother or the actual devil, you owe it to YOURSELF to get away. The therapist is right. You can't change or control the relationship between your father and her. But you can get out of this hell. Do it NOW.

You will never find peace until you learn to accept her as she is. I didn't say you have to "like" her and the way she is, just accept her. When she gets on your nerves, excuse yourself - go to another room. Don't argue or explain. She may eventually get the message, but don't count on it. She is what she is. You cannot change her. Only God has the power to do that. Good luck.

I have one too. I definately set boundries. I moved to Ohio years ago. She has lost all her friends ( few she ever had) She calls and is drama . Dr finds no major issues that she complains about. Dr get glassy eyed listening to her. I do just call once a week. If she gets drama I just look up her symptoms and find it is nothing and do not hold onto it. I hold the phone away from my ear as she goes on and on.
If your parent is in a retirement community then she is looked after safety wise and let her go. Do not call or answer ( get a machine)
She has lifelong psyc issues and she can't ever change now. She is bitter and do not her drag you into bitterness. it is sad we had to have that kind of parent but save yourself and get some distance/less interaction. You care and that is enough. She will never thank you

My mother was narcissistic and was impossible to get along with and for most of my life I tried everything to please her but nothing seemed to work and I always felt guilty when she got angry with me. But, now that she is gone, I see many mistakes I made with her. I tried too hard to please her even when it was not beneficial to her. I wanted her love and affection but I never got it until she was about gone with severe Dementia. Her last three years were very difficult for me because she would not cooperate but I accepted her as she was and learned not to feel guilty.

She loved me in her own way. She had severe dementia and would not eat the food at the center she was in, so i brought her food she could eat from home and she was perfectly happy. When she got real bad, close to the end, she would tell me how pretty I was and things I had always wanted to hear. And we were. Finally at peace. I did the best I could for her and realized I should have accepted her the way she was many years ago.

My therapist kept telling me that my mother and I had a toxic relationships and I should just not be around her and I know now, I should have backed off but I am glad we were able to work it out before she passed away. I always loved her but I did not like the way she was. And it took me too long to see the truth of her narccistic behavior was not because of anything I had done. Many people do have to disassociate with narcissict family members when it gets too painful and you should not feel guilty. We cannot let them abuse us. We can only do as much as they will allow without making our life living hell. There is a point of no return. And it's so sad. But, just try backing off some if the relationships is too toxic. You must think about youself and how much the relationship is hurting you.

Three choices: distance yourself, go low contact, or go no contact. Narcs don't change because they lack the skills of self awareness and growth. If you set boundaries, they disregard them leading only to more conflict which they like because it fuels them. Sadly, their victims/anyone in their path pays the price by constantly feeling drained and in a state of conflict with them. If you want peace in your life, if you want to put yourself first in your own life and be happier and healthier, it seems the avenue is one of acceptance for what the situation is, forgive them for their shortcomings, focus on your own life without them.

Grandma, the best way to deal with a dysfunctional parent is how you would deal with a neighbor's barking dog. First, put up a fence to keep it from trespassing and crapping on your property. This also keeps it from biting you. You might try being nice to it, but you choose how much energy to put into that before ignoring the dog becomes your best option. On the one hand, your mother built the bed you can now make her lie in. On the other hand, most dysfunctional people had their dysfunctions abused into them. Compassion for her is not unjustified, but martyrdom is. Give your mother the time, support and affection you can afford, and take control of how you react to how she reacts. Reward good behavior, ignore counterattack after protecting yourself. Find the tools to support yourself. Do your best and let that be good enough. Good Luck. God Bless You.

The agingcare forums are the only place where I have found people who are not scared to admit their feelings for their narcissistic parents, especially the mothers. I am fed up with mother worship, as if mothers can do no wrong because they got pregnant (by accident!) and now they know what's best for everyone.

The more the people in my life refuse to see the narcissism for what it is, the more I question if they are narcissists too since they are offspring (like I am) of a narcissist. I question myself 'am I a narcissist?' and I know I have those tendencies to want things my way, but I feel more aware of the emotions that come over me so that I can keep them in check rather than letting them control me. The more I've learned about narcissism in mothers the more it has helped me to be aware of it in myself; I'm not a mother, don't know if I'll ever be one, and it saddens me that now I don't know if I should ever be a mother due to the bad examples I've had in my life. I still want a mother I can look up to as a role model and it breaks my heart that it's not my own mom or even my man's mom.

I am the scapegoat and problem solver, but it doesn't matter if I solve a problem or not because it's me doing it, the daughter she's jealous of and competes against to prove she's better than me. AND I'M HER GODDAMN DAUGHTER! That is not how a mother should behave. That is not love. That is not healthy. That is not what I want and I hate that that's what I got and continue to get.

That's why I don't want mothers in my life, at the extreme end of my thinking. I question if I should not be with a man who has a mother because my man's mother is showing more of her narcissistic side in her entitled 70s and I don't like seeing what it's creating; I can't even talk to him about my feelings of what's going on because he wasn't taught to communicate well other than exploding when it hits a point; since his mom doesn't communicate directly to him and has withheld important information from him in the past, I can see where he learned it. He'll go along with his mom and do what she asks; he's her only son, and her only daughter is hours away and barely visits if once a year. Her only daughter, only grandson, and only great-grandchild don't even make an effort to come up and visit from a few hours away. I take that as a sign that they don't want to see her; talking on the phone is one thing, but when family doesn't visit that tells me something, because I don't visit my own parents for the same reason -- my mother lives in a world of denial and narcissism, not to mention a house packed with too much stuff that she can't let go of but doesn't take care of the clutter, and I am tired of enabling her by agreeing with everything she says and does.

I appreciate what DIGITALBANKER said as far going no contact and not giving them an audience. That is what the narcissist wants, an audience to feel like a victim in front of and tell their stories to about how their children don't listen to them (for good reason!).

However, I'll get told that I'm a narcissist for writing things like this and making my voice heard; I rationalize that that's the writer in me who knows what it's like to be alone in the world looking for something to let you know you're not alone; it's not the audience that matters to me as much as an individual gaining something from my writing for their betterment, not mine; my betterment comes in the skill of writing, not growing an audience. I often feel very alone with my experiences in life even though I don't think I'm alone, and I know I'm not alone and people need to know they're not alone when it comes to living with these types of situations. Is this my own narcissistic denial, or my own personality of over-analyzing, or just too late at night?

It's not fun when you know what your mother is and what you are, and it's not fun when people remind you of it in arguments and it makes you question if you are just as bad as the mother. But to question myself tells me I'm not a narcissist, or at least not as narcissistic as those who are unable to question themselves and believe wholeheartedly they are 100% not narcissistic. I have tendencies that aren't pleasant and a lot of improvement to do, and it's challenging to not have better examples in front of me to learn from, so I have to find a solution because I want something better than this. I am a problem solver, after all.

Maybe someone else will read this and understand that I just have to get it out otherwise I'll go nuts keeping it in; it's hard to talk to people who don't understand the harsh realities of narcissism beyond Vanity Smurf.

Thank you for reading.

Why do we with a narcissistic parent put up with the verbal and psychological abuse that we would divorce such a spouse for. Because we were trained to and they planted those buttons in us for their emotional blackmail in us long ago so that they could continually hoover us into their drama using fear of making them mad, obligation to their needs alone, and guilt if we even have an idea, feeling or want a life or our own.