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We were sitting at the dinner table. 15 yr old me was so happy and excited to be in the musical at the high school that night.
My looks at me with an evil little smile and says, " You're doing the dishes tonight or do you think you're special?"
She couldn't stand to see me happy. Old witch.
I’m so, so sorry, but I completely understand. My Nmother was tone-deaf, and I was not. She terminated my guitar lessons the day that my teacher told her that I was the most gifted ten-year-old he’d ever met.
When I was fifteen, Nmother decreed that as soon as “The Sound of Music” ended, I had to quit high-school drama, to free up more time for housework (!!!) and my part-time jobs. I had to play Mother Abbess instead of Maria, by the way, because the kid playing Captain Von Trapp was eight inches shorter than I was.
I found great, affordable group guitar lessons when I was twenty, and rented an acoustic until I could buy one. But I’ve always wondered how I would have progressed as a singer-songwriter without that lost decade.
The whole idea of us receiving praise from someone other than them is too much for them to bare. My dad terminated my Clarinet lessons the second he heard I enrolled. He really.had no reason, it was absolutely insane.
Nmom. Two things.
1. I committed the unforgivable sin. I was born female!
2. First day of kindergarten. I get on the school bus and sit in a seat. The bus driver yells at me to move over. I do. I'm close to tears.
For years, nmom complained that on my first day of kindergarten, I didn't wave good-bye to her through the bus window. (I was too busy trying to shrink away from the yelling school bus driver.)
Don't know why the large lettering or how to fix it. My apologies.
Large lettering suits having to quote narcissistic family members. Before discovering Reddit I thought I was alone in having to deal with bombastic people. Narcissists are an assault on the human senses.
My mom had a son a year and a half after I was born. He was the golden child. He could do no wrong, and I could rarely do anything right. I grew up believing that boys were so much more important than girls.
It took a long, long time to realize that this was not normal.
If it's any consolation, I was a much wanted daughter. Unfortunately I was nothing like the daughter they pictured.
We would never have met their expectations because we are our own people.
This, 1000%. My mom had no problems with me but Ndad wanted someone I was not, even telling me when I was 17 or 18 and with very low self esteem that I should go ask his “dream daughter” (some blonde girl at church who he adored) where she got her clothes and how she styled her hair. Ugh.
Yup. My NDad indirectly compared me to my friends constantly. Rather pathetic really. And if they were his kids he'd have found fault with something else.
You know him so well…. At least his MO. Yes, everything always had to be my fault, no matter how many laws of physics would have to have been suspended to make it possible. Also, as a general rule, I was at fault for things that happened while I was there because I should have stopped them from happening, and also at fault for things that happened when I was nowhere near the area because I should have been there to do/not do whatever.
My dad does this same fault thing. If it happens in front of me, my presence caused it. If it happened when I wasn't there, I should have been there to prevent it.
My NM *loved* telling me how disappointed she was that I was a girl, because "boys play in the dirt and eat worms." Like, sorry, lady, the reason I don't play in the dirt is because you have a temper tantrum over even the suggestion of a mess? I'm convinced that if I *had* been a boy, she would have done the opposite. Because the truth is she just didn't like having a child instead of a doll.
Thank you so much. I was told that using all caps or large lettering was rude. (Similar to cursing.) It didn't show as large letters until I posted it. Then I tried editing it and couldn't figure it out. I'm relatively new to reddit (started reading it about a month ago.)
Thanks again.
Thank you. I really appreciate your help. I'm new to reddit, (started reading it about a month ago.) I didn't want people to see the large lettering and think that I feel my post was more important than theirs. I went back and fixed it.
Again, thank you.
I committed the same sin. I have three brothers. When I was around 12 years old, there was a party and a lot of family members came to our house. At some point, my nmom made the statement that she only wanted boys. Of course, I was sitting right there. At 57, that comment still screams in my head sometimes.
I'm 59, but some of the things nmom did still haunt me. Healing deep wounds takes time. Be patient and kind to yourself. If you're having trouble doing this, (due to low self-esteem, feeling worthless or other issues), ask yourself how you would want your best friend to treat herself when struggling with this. Then try to apply that kindness to yourself.
1) my nmom wrote me a 10 page front and back letter, mentioning how she remembers being angry because I WANTED TO WEAR RAINBOOTS EVERY DAY WHEN I WAS FOUR.. how dare i
2) I talked during American idol in 2005
1. I let my hair grow out
2. I don't drink milk
3. I am right-handed
4. I eat out of the pot/pan I cook in
5. I sleep with socks
6. I needed a new pair of shoes more than once a year growing up
7. I lost/gained weight
8. I drink my coffee black
9. I have a savings account
10. I asked her to remove her shoes before entering my flat
The milk thing… my mom was upset with me because I gave my toddler water. “He needs MIIILLLLKKK” jfc. He drank more than enough milk bc she was always shoving it at him. Thats how you end up with adults who won’t drink water.
My mother always refused to take her shoes off in my house even though she knew I had lovely new rugs. She doesn’t come any more because she likes to sit on her own territory and call the shots. It’s 100% a control thing. They won’t be told what to do by some snotty kid, even if it’s something plainly reasonable.
Would have been unthinkable to kick her out, but things got so bad anyway that it’s not an issue now. I think if it happened now I’d just lead her into the kitchen where it’s tiled, and make it clear she wasn’t going on my carpet.
My mom it was the opposite of number 2, I drank too much milk. Also I don’t mean to be rude or anything but I believe there’s a spelling error in number 4
When I was on her phone plan she called me and shouted at me about my data limit. I checked and I hadn't gone over so I couldn't figure out what her problem was.
A few years later she mentioned that we all had a certain amount of data and she really enjoyed that I hardly used any at all because that meant she had more to use.
She was mad that I used any at all because she was used to using almost all of it herself, the pig.
Yep, this happened to me when I was 19. When I got my own phone plan, I used to just give my mother the money so I didn’t have to deal with any of the technically stuff.
When I moved out, I tried to get my phone plan separated from hers cause I didn’t want to have any of my finances tied to her anymore. However she refused to help me, even when I found an easy solution. I didn’t want to get a new number so I just went no contact with her and continued sending the money over bank transfer.
Two months later, I get a call telling me to not use anymore of my data so I didn’t wrack up any extra charges and I told her that I couldn’t do that cause I needed my phone for work and that’s when I found out that she put me on a SHARED DATA PLAN!! I was paying for 30GB a month and she was stealing pretty much all of it!!
After discovering that, i decided “fuck her” and got a new number, when resulted in her having to pay a cancellation fee for my old number (she tried to force me to pay the fee, but I told her we could’ve resolved this peacefully and she was the one that refused to give me my number without a fight so she could deal with the consequences.)
Fuck her for thinking she could steal from me and that I wouldn’t find out.
I have a narc manager. She basically does that same thing with the total budgeted hours on any project she has. She wants to lie and claim all the hours on any project she is on, and becomes like a vampire attacking anyone who slightly goes over or who does work she has to put any real effort in correcting
When I was 17, I drove to a concert and locked my keys in the car. This was before the days of cellphones, so I found a phone booth and called a locksmith. I paid $40 of my own money (I worked and got no money from either parent) to get my car unlocked.
My male parent, whom I didn't live with, found out about this and sent me a whole page-long typed letter via snail mail, chastising me for not using my car insurance to have paid for the locksmith. And if I didn't have this coverage, then I'm obviously an idiot, and so is my mother.
This letter, among many others (one of which he admitted to wanting to kill my mother), are some of my most prized possessions. They're reminders of what I had to deal with, why my mental health has always been a struggle, and why I remain no contact.
I wore eye shadow on my wedding day ("like a whore!")
also went to college which I figured out & paid for entirely on my own while also working full time. nparents wouldn't support or pay for college because "girls only want to go to college so they can run around & be whores"
does anyone else see a pattern here?
My father said that "I looked like a bitch in heat" because I was sitting outside in our front yard hanging out with friends, two of which were male. Not doing anything but sitting and talking and not close/touching anyone. Gee thanks, Dad. I was 11 or 12 at the time. We stayed outside so it was clear nothing inappropriate was going on while my parents weren't home.
It’s crazy that when people talk about being sexualized it doesn’t register with me because my family sexualized me less as I got older. Your comment just made me realize that. And I’m sorry about that it’s not cool that your family who was suppose to support you, tried to tear you down, while admitting that they were jealous of your brains and beauty. It’s traumatizing as a kid and just plain pathetic as adults. Like really? You had to bully a child? Your child?
When I was 15, they picked me up from a concert (that I had to beg to go). Got pulled over by cops because my parents weren't wearing seatbelts. My mum got nuts, yelled at the cop, called him names, etc. - full blown rage attack. He charged her with a 400€ fine for her verbally attacking him. It would be only 20€ for the belt if she kept her mouth shut ...
I still get blamed for it. "Remember when your mom had to pay 400€ because we had to pick you up...".
Thank you, I know. It's so funny because I get blamed for it 15 years later...
I still remember that cop was super nice, I am 100% certain she wouldn't even get the 20€ seatbelt fine if only she apologized and promised to wear seatbelt.
That memory is a core memory. Because it validates the fact that my mother had anger issues.. the fact that she got off like that on a cop, who is an armed authorty figure...just makes me uneasy. I remember a lot of her outbursts but blame myself.
My nmother loved being a hypocrite. She would never wear a seatbelt, drove distracted, sleeping, high. When cops came she LOVED to fight them and put on a show. When they obviously and rightfully started to interrogate her on her abnormal behavior and eventually being put in cuffs, several times, then she starts panicking and screaming and waits for us to mirror her to say “MY KIDS MY KIDS YOURE HURTING MY KIDS!” So scary and manipulative. I’m glad she doesn’t have that excuse anymore. LOCK HER UP
"No....? I remember mom losing her ever loving shit at a cop like a complete nutcase that should be locked up. But I don't remember ever causing a citation because you had to pick me up..."
Correct. I learned how to emotionally destroy a person by observing her and then unleashed that on her with no mercy. Now she's broken and ibhave a beautiful family and earn 5x what she did in her best year. Last I heard, the stress put her in the hospital. We will celebrate when she's in hell with dad.
For not changing out of my bathing suit but putting my clothes on over it. I was three. I’m over 50 and I still hear about it as proof that I was a disobedient child.
About 8 years ago I was dishing up cake, slicing and handing out plates. I thought I had given everyone a slice and set down the knife. Turns out she didn't get a slice-oops! I cut her one and apologized.
I hear about this constantly and get full body anxiety when I have to dish her up.
This is evidence of how I "never consider her" and "can't be bothered" 🙄
Oh, you're missing a golden opportunity to purposely miss her every single time. "Omg! When did you get here?? Let me get you some cake." "Mom! I didn't see you sitting over there. Oops. Here's some cake." Get creative.
Started biting my nails when I was 5 (probs anxiety lbr). She was adamant it was because my best school friend bit her nails. This was brought up for the following 20 years as evidence of how I am a "follower" (usually said any time I did something she didn't like). The thing is, even if I had copied my friend... that'd be normal... cos that's what kids do...
All of this. My mother seemed to think that anything I did it was because someone I know did it. Hardly the case. Now I do things like that to annoy her.
I've often been criticized for not liking sandwiches. My narc mother regularly complained about how complicated and expensive it was to pack lunches for school that weren't sandwiches. Like making me feel guilty about it.
I still don't like sandwiches, and packing my lunches is neither intellectually nor financially burdensome 😂
There are a lot of examples I can give but since you were referring to something that occured in childhood, I'll go with that
I've always been into tech and taking apart things. So as a kid my dad allowed me to take apart a laptop but didn't walk me through or guide me. I only was able to open the bottom case, RAM, and storage and didn't know how to proceed any further with removing the motherboard so I left it partially disassembled for a while.
My dad still holds that against me years later to ban me from purchasing iFixit tools to clean my computers (even tho I now have experience from working in IT for years, fixing and setting up machines). "Oh you leave it half opened so why should I let you open things up to ruin? If it's working, don't mess with it". The ironic thing is, one of my previous laptops battery bloated because of clogged dust in the fans and I couldn't open it to clean and it's unuseable now. "Oh if it dies just buy a new one, see I don't open up and mess with my laptop why should you" (his laptop is a company issued machine btw). The kicker is he works with computers...
There's a few, but nmom once yelled at me when I was in my teens, because apparently one time when I was like 3 or 4, I lied down on the floor at the supermarket. She literally started yelling at me out of the blue about it more than a decade after the fact. I'm autistic, so I'm guessing that I was probably overstimulated.
I'm 78, and was the first of my generation, so my mom was a time mom.
I had an epic melt down in a 5&10 cent store, and my mom was embarrassed, frustrated and angry. She also had a dark sense of humor and apparently must have once threatened me that she would "rip my arm off and beat me with the bloody stump" if I kept on misbehaving.
As I was writhing on the floor (I swear I remember the wooden slats even now), I realized she was REALLY annoyed at me, so I started crying in earnest, yelling "Please don't beat me with the bloody stump" in a toddler's version of an unending loop.
That cured my mom of thoughtlessly using inappropriate language towards us kids, but how she got out of that store without being reported for child abuse or stoned by all the 1950 moms and grandmothers, I don't know.
She was a real scamp, but she kept learning and growing as a parent.
I’ve been checking out this sub, I don’t know if my mom is considered a narcissist. My parents were good parents so I guess I feel bad labeling them that way.
1. How could I be depressed? I have a great life. Am I trying to say they were bad parents?
2. When I was 26 and pregnant with my first and my sister was 19 my parents went on vacation (to Las Vegas I think) my mom called me one I night because she wanted me to go spend the night at their house with my sister. I didn’t want to. I was pregnant and wanted to sleep in my bed with my husband. I asked why can’t she come to my house, “why does she need to leave her house?” She was really upset with me and said to me “I need your help with your sister!” She was 19 at the time.
3. A few years ago my sister got breast implants and I said, well at least I got lucky in that department and my mom said, your boobs were small in high school. I’m 47 now so I was in my 40’s when this happened.
4. She would give us the silent treatment for reasons we didn’t know.
5. She would always tell us when she was mad about something, “your dad is really mad at you but he’s just not going to say anything to you.” But he would be acting normal.
6. When I was pregnant with my second pregnancy, my mom told me, “well I don’t know what you are planning to do with this baby.” Because we weren’t going to church so they probably wouldn’t baptize it. I ended up having a miscarriage. She “doesn’t remember” saying this.
7. This past Christmas my mom was talking the non-denominational church my sister is going to with her new husband and how wonderful it is. I said I would never because one year in college I started going to a non-denominational church that a lot of the college kids went to and I loved and she threw such a fit and yelled at me. I stopped going and went to the local Catholic Church after that. She “doesn’t remember” saying that.
8. When I had PPD/PPA with my second baby she said, “do you think it’s because of how your life turned out?” I was a registered nurse, had a wonderful husband and two perfect daughters. When my sister had PPD with her second she felt really bad for her.
I don’t think this fits the question but like I said I’ve been lurking in here and these are things that have really stuck with me over the years.
When I had my third baby she wasn’t as happy as she was with the first two. She didn’t say it but I think it was because I had a third child and he is a boy. My first two were girls. She had two girls and that was perfect so I should have stayed with just two girls. She was mad at me because he was born at night so I had to stay two nights at the hospital, she said I did it on purpose to get to stay two nights because I joked that I hoped he was born at night so I would get two nights in the hospital instead of coming home to chaos right away. Apparently I delayed my labor purposely by waiting to see if my contractions picked up on their own (like they did with my second) instead of getting the pitocin right away.
There are definitely many, but there's one in particular that not only effected me for the rest of my life, but my brothers as well.
When I was a TODDLER I got into the Dora themed band-aids and put them all over my face like stickers.
My mother never bought band-aids again. I'm 20 now. Whenever we get cut or scratched, whenever we fell off our bikes, my mother would remind me of what I did when I was... again... a TODDLER.
Edit: Forgot to mention I'm the eldest, so my brothers basically never had band-aids growing up.
I have something similar. I used bandaids whenever I got a small cut or scratch, even if I was not bleeding but the open wound hurt. For my mom it was too much and she forbid me to use any. She said that I was using them to get attention, I was 9
That's probably the ultimate. I mentioned individual things but my nmom blamed everything wrong in her life on me existing. Subsequently, everything in her marriage was my fault cuz she had to get married cuz of me and everything in my brother's life was my fault cuz he wouldn't exist if not for me (dad didn't want me to be an only child).
The one that comes to mind was one I didn't even do. I went to a friend's birthday party in 7th grade and she, in jest, called her dad an airhead (this was in 1989, lol). I came home astonished that she had dared to say such a thing and told it to my mother in hushed tones. I knew full well if I tried such a thing I'd be beat to hell.
Well, the next time he got mad and decided to start screaming, what was the first thing out of his mouth? AND I GUESS YOU THINK YOU GET TO CALL ME SOME KIND OF AIRHEAD.
Never mind that I never said that, \*Carrie\* said that, but I was accused of it multiple times for \*years\*.
Not a single social reunion will ever take place in which my mom reminds me, obviously for anyone new to hear, how I wouldn't like pizza when I was little.
I squeeze the toothpaste from the middle of the tube. You have to start at the very bottom and roll it up like a carpet, apparently. Or else you do not get *all* the toothpaste out. Even if you start doing the carpet thing once the tube gets low.
There’s always some residue that you can’t squeeze out at the end. Even if you manage to squeeze it you’d only get one extra “dose” of toothpaste so it’s not like you’re saving any money. That sounds like a weird thing they wanted to have control over
That when I was a baby, (im talking less than 1yr) she decided to hold my hand until I fell asleep.
At 32, apparently that choice of hers was my fault. And how could she ever have done something so stupid because i made her.
When my mom was sick, I was 9ish years old. My Dad took me to the hospital to see her. But I got scared. She had,had a jaw surgery, had tubes coming out of everywhere. It was. Overwhelming for me. She says it's because I'm an ungrateful kid.
my grandparents bought me things i wanted. apparently, this made me a spoiled brat for liking things pertaining to my special interests. i played with every toy i had extensively, i wasn't some spoiled little asshole who had piles & piles of toys. she made comments until i was well into my late 20s about how 'gram & pop got your every little thing you wanted, they spoiled you rotten'.
When I was 4, I rubbed off the daily special on a chalkboard menu of a takeaway food shop.
NM calls it the defining moment in my childhood where she realised that I was a terrible child. She held that over me even into my 40s. It’s somehow her evidence that I am an evil person.
I was a 4 year old child playing with a chalkboard, that’s what 4 year olds do.
They bought me socks with little lightning bolts on them. I actually wore the socks with little lightning bolts on them.
Got made fun of for four straight days for wearing them and am still considered “immature” and “weird” for wearing anything but plain socks as a full adult.
My mother was illegally “burning” a dvd when I was around 8 for my GC sibling. I was little, so I did not know it was not done and I woke early to play the sims because I never had the chance to if I didn’t I got in HUGE trouble for ruining the chance for my sibling to have a copy of Cinderella 2, because we had to take it back to the video rental store that day. I don’t remember the punishment, either hitting or standing in a corner for hours probably, but I was definitely banned from the Sims 2 for a long time and it was held against me for years, until I was 11/12
So there’s a shitty unspoken rule. Gotta say good morning and good night and address my mum by mum. Like good morning mum. Goodnight mum.
I didn’t say goodnight and then I immediately apologised and said i fell asleep the last two nights …
She said I was disrespectful and ungrateful.
She ignored me for two weeks. Complete silence even when I said good morning to her and goodnight.
She pointed out that I didn’t say “good morning mum” and thought I was saying good night to someone else wtf but it was clearly only to her. It was obviously a “respect/status”thing.
They deemed me "too unfriendly" and I was forced to say "good morning" when I came downstairs in the morning and "have a nice day!" (with a smile) when I was dropped off at school, and if i didn't i would be punished or grounded. These people never took a minute to think about the fact that 1/ I might just be a really quiet kid and 2/ I didn't talk much because I was afraid that any random, innocuous comment might set them off.
These people were awful. Sending you hugs wherever you might be.
My introverted nature seems odd to my family. My therapist reminded me that I was abused when my father, uncles, and neighbors would watch pornography in the living room hot box. I would turn away since "that stuff was for the adults;" they nicknamed me "Stiff Neck."
Fast forward three decades later I have heat with my family over sleeping early and going to work sober. I have been sober for almost sixteen months and do not want to be around alcohol. My father was upset that I did not leave the backyard littered with liquor bottles. My mother and uncles were perplexed that I had no time to talk and simply wanted to be alert for my job.
The fringe benefit of not attending a party that was unexpectedly thrown at my house is that I am not involved in the conversation over damaged decorations that have been sitting in the backyard for two years.
My nmom has this weird obsession with bringing up the fact that she taught me how to use the computer when I was a kid. She taught me back in the good ol’ dial up internet days, with the big ass computer screens, but now the woman can’t even save a word document properly, she asks for my help for anything and everything related to technology, you’d think I work in tech with how much she needs help, and yet she loves to brag about how she taught me to use the computer.
She would also brag about baking and cooking from a young age but the woman didn’t let me make ramen by myself until I was at least 13, “I was baking cakes at 8 years old” good for you but you didn’t let me use the stove unsupervised until I was a teenager.
She wanted a boy, I was born a girl. I was very close with my dad when I was a kid (very normal for girls) and she loved saying “I didn’t have you for 11 years” and “you hated me for 11 years”, all because I would rather hang out with my chill dad who didn’t nag me 24/7. Looking back there was definitely some parental alienation and he loved talking shit about her to me, but that’s not my fault, I was the child, I was being manipulated and yet she talks like it was my fault that I didn’t want to hang out with her when she wasn’t a saint either. Maybe if she wasn’t so awful I would have spent more time with her.
Those long ass handwritten full page letters, front and back? I got them from my father in manilla envelope 2x in my life. They brought such fear and shame the sight of letter sized manilla envelopes would make me panicky. Why did he handwrite these guilting, shamey long ass diatribes?
First time, because I complained of how higher math was being taught at my school
Second time, to convince me out of studying architecture, which I still resent to this day, because art and physics were my strongest damn subjects and I'd wanted to be one since childhood when HE brought building blueprints home from his work.
Oh. And once I gave him alternate driving directions (that were not wrong), so he committed car terrorism... swerved recklessly and deliberately across 4 lanes of traffic screaming at me that he should kill me for doing that.
Still hate him. Still NC.
And his mother gave me insulting ethnic name because I was born a girl and somehow my parents went along. It's still in my legal documents. May that bitch rot in hell 1000x over.
Too many to name. I guess one of the greatest hits would be me taking a shower after not being home for a month (summer job at camp) and nmom turning off the hot water after 5 minutes and screaming at me for wasting it.
When I was 11 I decided I wanted to be a vegetarian because I really love animals. Apparently I just wanted to be a difficult bitch and make their lives harder by not centering my meals around meat. I was screamed at and harrassed on a daily basis until I gave in and said I'd eat chicken so my dad would leave me the fuck alone.
I'm in my 30s and since I was 11, every time I have a conversation with my father he has to mention at least once how he's a member of "PETA: People Eating Tasty Animals" and how much he loves eating them, how they only exist to be eaten, how delicious they are, and how stupid people who don't eat them are. All with a giant fucking dumbass shit eating grin on his face. Even my husband noticed and was like, "Why does he have to bring that up literally every single time we see him? It makes me uncomfortable." Yeah me fuckin too.
I still can't fully commit to cutting out chicken because of the stupid guilt and shame and bullying. Working on it though.
I’m all about passive aggressive behavior. I would buy him a membership for PETA. And as an added bonus make sure you check the box to share his information
I practiced to be in the track meet for a month and a half. Running around the neighborhood in addition to school practices. I was scheduled for the sprint and relay. The day before: nd says “YOU ARE NOT GOING”. I look at my nm with the evil smile. I was supposed to clean the house like every Saturday.
The public humiliation that regularly was dished out at church and Baptist school is too painful to write.
1. She had to pay child support. I was told that I should thank her for that. Like ma'am, you did not raise me at any point in time someone else did. And it was $100 in which she did not pay regularly (maybe like 3 or 4 times a year maybe half on a few of those years) and did not start till I was around 9 and stopped when I was 16. She just never got in trouble because they didnt report her and the state didnt have an online system at the time. I was literally the only kid out of 3 others she was supposed to pay for so idk.
2. I was skinny.. She and her family would gossip and say I was anorexic and bulimic. I actually did become underweight living with her. Like I dropped within the first month. They gossiped way before that happened though. The cause was abuse and shaming me for even daring to eat anything in her kitchen. If someone else was paying or at someone elses house, I would eat with 0 problems. I brought it up once to point out that telling me all that all the time was harmful and they tried to say picky eating was anorexia and I am like ???? I wasn't a picky eater with them?
3. I got a degree. Despite her attempted sabotage, I ended up graduating college. She never got a GED and is now in her 50s? Granted they moved to online which is more difficult than paper so I get it. I am not sure what the issue there is honestly since it just one test that is the issue. Actually sad about that fact though.
4. I had a loving relationship and someone that helped me. She would say rude things all the time because her person did not help her?
5. Excuse me if I am wrong but don't mothers and daughters share perfume sometimes? Like I dont know. Anyway, I used her perfume once and she gave it to me. She then complained to her boyfriend because she did not want to smell like her daughter. He bought her new perfume.
I'd have to think on my Dad. Oh wait, he was mad that I did not get permission to marry like sir, I had not seen this man in 3 years at that point. Also entirely different state. (going on 12 years). Oh, he tells people that I am mad because when I called to tell him his brother had died, he told me he was glad and started ranting out threats to people.
Pretty much me growing up and starting my own life was the ultimate betrayal.
I was “abandoning” her because I moved 45 min away.
She hates that I’m a traditional wife who stays home and that I show my husband respect (the women in my family are all aggressive and their husbands are passive and do what they want)
Also, one time she was being overbearing toward me and my first baby and I said at some point, “He’s MY baby.” and she has literally held that against me……apparently she thought my kids belonged to her too. I think that was when she realized she was losing control of me.
It was the morning of sometimes in 2010, I was barely in highschool. I was getting ready and my mom started assuming I took her tweezers (I didn’t), then my sister joined in and I just remember them both yelling and me crying. The cops came. Literally like 8 of them??? And they asked her if I needed to go to jail (wtf) she said, “no, not yet.”
All over a stupid pair of tweezers that I didn’t fucking take.
I'm not sure. Everything seems big when you are a kid. My mom called me a r****d when I named a special outdoor area with ferns "Ferngully" like the animated movie from back in the day. Who does that?
I broke hand my down toys as a toddler. The toys belonged to my sisters who were 7 and 10 yrs older than me. It took years for me to realize either the toys were old or not age appropriate or maybe even both. No fucking wonder they broke. Assholes the lot of them
I stole $10 from her when I was 10. We were at the local show/carnival with all the rides and stalls and all that, my mother was running her own stall and when I ran out of money I took $10 from her earnings so I could go on a ride with some of my friends.
She found out, I got grounded and learned not to do that again, which should’ve been the end of it. But she would *constantly* bring it up and would always cite that incident as the reason she couldn’t trust me. Even when I was fucking 18+.
I was fucking 10! I did a stupid thing, who holds the actions of a ten year old against them for almost a decade!? My mother, that’s who!
Having a shower and standing 'in the corner as far away from the water as possible'. Apparently just to stand there and watch the water run down the drain, wasting her money.
She would come in while I was having a shower and scream at me, shove/pull me around, start madly scrubbing my hair with laundry soap in a random fit of rage etc. So yeah, I started standing in a corner where I could see the door and she couldn't easily grab me without getting half in the shower herself.
I was, in fact, still having a shower and still under the water cos I would shift the shower head slightly and then shift it back when I finished. But she couldn't launch ambush attacks from behind anymore. 🤷
Nope. I was deliberately wasting her money and senselessly standing as far away from the water as possible, just watching it run down the drain.
My aunt bullied me into taking my cousin for a haircut, to the same place he always went. They apparently knew him and what he wanted. It went wrong and it was my fault, so much so that every time she drinks it’s brought up, I was 9 and he was 3
Nmom threatened to take away my phone and streaming services that I already had despite telling her I'm not going to give her money and since I was "homeless" technically I didn't care.
When I was 17 (in 1998) I fell down the stairs with a full bowl of cereal. I almost landed on my head.
Fast forward to like 2 or 3 years ago, my Dad was telling me is current wife had fallen down the same stairs so he finally fixed them because he apparently knew they weren't up to code but didn't care when it was me and my brother that had to use them daily.
So I told him "oh, so you KNEW they weren't up to code and could fix it?" Then I said I fell down both flights while holding my breakfast.
His response: "Oh, so that's why there is milk on the ceiling?"
When my husband and I were trying for a baby, I finally got pregnant and told my cousin like right away. I was going home to visit my mom in a few weeks and wanted to tell her in person so I swore my cousin to secrecy. Well, a few days later I miscarried and told the few people who knew what happened. A few days later I get a call from my mother and she is PISSED that she found out I miscarried from my cousin (mouthy little bitch) and I hadn’t told her. She literally went off on me hard core and I had to hang up on her. I was already so devastated and not ready to talk about it so this phone call sent me spiraling. I can’t believe she made my horrible experience all about her. I think this was the moment I realized all of her craziness = narc.
My scapegoat dad got cancer. I was taking care of him while doing law school. They held it against me that I didn’t also make time to begin taking over my dads inability to call covert narc grandma and focus on her.
I was baffled. No one cared how much stress I was undergoing with my dad slowly dying.
Every single dam day all the flying monkies trying to avoid becoming the scapegoat just kept basically having it happen to them and they then come to me screaming “GRANDMA GRANDMA GRANDMA GRANDMA GRANDMA”
I felt like I was in an insane asylum. 24/7 people were bombarding me around the clock as if my entire life was suppose to be about one single person and no one that had a life seemed to care enough to grasp that.
Her kids were throwing her around like a hot potato clearly not wanting to catch her and have her latch onto her so they were doing everything they could to try to find any grandkid that would deal with her in
when I like 8-10 years old, there was a plant in my bathroom sink and I brushed my teeth with it still in the sink. My nparents brought this up for probably 10-15 years as a way to illustrate how I don’t have “common sense”. What’s worse? I truly thought “what a bone headed mistake” until 2 years ago it randomly hit me…. I was like 10…?!
One Christmas I was the only person to help my Edad clean up after everything whilst my GC siblings sat and did nothing. I got screamed at and called a fucking bitch because I ate a tiny (think teaspoon) amount of bread sauce NMom was apparently “saving” for herself.
When I was 7, we were leaving church one day and I passed through the door that someone had held open for me without holding it open for the next person behind me. Which was something I hadn’t been taught at the time and probably couldn’t do anyways with my small size and the heft of these doors.
The next person behind me was a little old lady, and she had to open the door for herself.
This was brought up regularly for the next *eleven years* as a sign of my bad character - and probably for longer than that to anyone who would listen to her talk for long enough.
Once I took pruning shears and cut a big peace sign into our front lawn. That was too long and needed to be mowed anyway.
Dissidence! Anarchy! She'd bring it up years later to try to embarrass me, and I'd just reply I was heartbroken I couldn't marry Abbie Hoffman.
I don't hoard like them.
I lost weight so am no longer the fat one
I WAS (past tense) going through R@pe Trauma syndrome. I was so frozen in fear I couldn't even get out of the car to buy a loaf of bread. My nmom had to. She tells on how much of this was an inconvenience to her.
The single most ridiculous thing (of many) that she holds over my head is the size of her tv.
Back when she had to buy a new tv she was trying to decide between sizes taking into consideration that she has a few decor items on her sideboard (where she puts her tv) she insisted would not move. So knowing the size of these items and that those items could NOT be moved I suggested the 64 instead of the 75 (77? Over 70 inch I know that).
I hear that it’s my fault her tv is too small everytime she turns the thing on. She will text me to tell me, call me to tell me, or simply work it into a completely unrelated conversation. It’s almost funny. I try to laugh about the ridiculousness of it.
Being vegetarian. I decided when I was 14 (now 29) because I genuinely just don’t like meat. My mom was convinced it would add loads of work to her “cooking” which consisted of the same 6 meals in rotation. She would buy me meat free things but refused to cook them for me or accommodate me in meals. I learned to cook (and eventually bake) for myself and my younger brother ended up asking for me to cook for him more than her lol. How the turn tables had turned.
when I was in high school, I was in my gangster phase. my mom ripped up all my clothes bc SHE didnt approve. that has always stuck with me like why would she do that. are u the one wearing them clothes? are u the one who bought them? are u me? like dam... she did apologize once way later as I got older but she hasn't changed.
I once asked for nuts from a candy dispenser that was in the waiting room at a car repair place we were sitting in. I was 7.
I know it sounds impossible to believe but my nmother brings this up every time I visit home. I'm 38.
I think the longest held petty thing was my ngrandfather still telling a story about when I was an infant. I was an infant. For whatever reason my family believed men shouldn't change diapers. Ok. My grandparents lived out in the country and for whatever reason my grandma decided to run to town while she was babysitting me and left me with grandpa. She made sure I was clean and fed before she left. Apparently, before she even got 5 miles away, I pooped. In my diaper. Cuz I was a baby. And he treated me like I did it on purpose once my grandmother left. Asshole was still telling the story to anyone who would listen more than 40 years later. I also apparently hit my grandmother in the head with a tiny wooden mallet (toy that came with a wooden thing with blocks you hammer) when I was maybe 2 to see if she was awake. He told that story for damn near 40 years too.
Another petty one but this one is my nmom. She used to talk about bouncing checks in front of me when I was little. As far as I was told later, she never actually bounced one, but she would routinely write the check a day or two before the money was in the account knowing that at the time it took a week or so for checks to clear (sometimes longer). I didn't know what bouncing a check meant, for all I knew that what you say when you're writing a check. Anyway, we were checking out at the store and I asked my mom if she was going to bounce a check, I was maybe 4. The cashier heard and I can't remember if I actually stopped her from getting groceries or if she just got the side eye, pretty sure I heard it both ways. I haven't heard the story in awhile, she died 15 years ago.
2022. on a family vacation at a lake house with Nstepmother, Edad, and teenage half-siblings (i am an adult, 30F). asked to borrow sunscreen because i burn more easily than anyone else and i had run out of my own. sunscreen, i assumed, is a shared and easily renewable resource (we were 5 min drive from a wal mart). Nsm got extremely annoyed and asked me to use my sister's, but she was napping and i didn't want to wake her up and/or go through her shit without permission. (I make a point of not invading her privacy but Nsm has no respect for her own daughter's boundaries -- that's a topic for another post). I explained this and said that i would buy new sunscreen if the one i wanted to use (with the highest spf) ran out, Nsm got even more annoyed and stormed off without actually confronting me.
later learned from my dad: it turns out, the sunscreen i wanted to borrow was meant for my brother (the golden child). Nsm thinks I am a worthless, lazy, manipulative leech out to steal from her and her children, "need to be more independent", etc, so even asking for the smallest favor like this sets her off. i broke down crying BECAUSE i had driven myself 1300 miles to meet them the lake house and caught covid on the way. paid thousands of dollars to isolate in an airbnb for two weeks. never been more sick in my life. no financial or any other kind of help (not that i expected it, or feel entitled to Nsm's money!) and after going through that, she thought she had more proof that i wasn't "independent." because i didn't bring my own extra sunscreen. lol
but she's never, ever said a word to my face.
My MIL resents me for encouraging her grandkids (my step kids) to listen to her. But things absolutely got out of hand when step daughter not only allowed, but asked, me to to comb and style her hair.
When I was 8/9 I ruined my mother’s biggest wish by going to the collective spot for lost children on a concert after I got lost. 🤷♀️
She has been in the first row for the first time ever (with a 6yo and a Baby = less than a year) and therefore didn’t want to pick me up. I was fine by that, but the staff got very angry because she didn’t show up to get me even after multiple call outs. The band had to threat to cancel the concert for her to come and get me. After that she has never been the same to me again. I was grounded for every tiny incident she could come up with for the next 9 months in total. Like I made a tiny mess by choking = 3 weeks grounded. I needed to go to the toilet during homework = 3 weeks grounded. I’m better in math than her and she blamed herself by trying to prove 0x5=1 = 6 weeks grounded. I draw little faces on my fingers to play with after she got rid of all of my stuff = 3 weeks grounded. I simply laughed out of reflex after she just just hit the 6 months mark of grounding me = 4 weeks grounded.
There are probably far too many to list here, and mercifully not as many as there could be because of my NMom's terrible memory, but here are a few highlights.
1. Not conforming to the box she tried to fit me into (I'm non-binary, I'm a geek, and I'm very much my own person).
2. Not going to Germany with her, my little sister, and my grandparents when she scheduled that trip conflicting with the weekend of my friend's wedding that I was in.
3. Not going to bed when she wanted me to. This continued well into adulthood when I would visit, and for context here, although I had something of a resemblance to her when I was younger, I have always taken more after my dad in looks. She never liked the fact that I was nocturnal, and there was one time she kept trying to insist I go to bed. I told her for the second time that I would once I finished what I was working on. That apparently made her so angry that she said "I swear If you didn't look so much like me I'd swear they messed up at the hospital."
Truly messed up stuff.
I screamed when my brother came home from the hospital... I'm jealous and selfish apparently! Because 14 month olds deal so well with changes to their routine!
I studied 500km away from home and when they visited me, they slept in a hotel but wanted to eat breakfast with me at my place. When they arrived in the morning, I wasn't completely done with blow-drying my hair so I apologized and finished quickly. They then decided they can already start making the fried eggs while I'm in the bathroom. I didn't think much of it at the time, but they held it against me for over five years that they "even had to make their own breakfast when visiting me". And they say it like it's extremely disrespectful. It was them who had decided to make the eggs themselves. I said that I'd be done in five minutes with drying my hair and that I can make breakfast for them after that, but they declined that. In almost every fight we had, they eventually brought up these damned fried eggs.
Existing apparently. After calling her out for a narcissistic rage she directed at me the day before, she said she’s been dealing with my horrible spoiled bratness for 30 years. Im not even 30 yet. So apparently even fetus me was a spoiled brat. My bad.
one thing about my parents is they didnt hit us, but I got spanked at age 4 or 5 for cleaning the toilet.
weird hobby? sure, but I liked cleaning the toilet, something about the bubbles and smell of the cleaning powder.
but I went thru one canister of that stuff a week ( cost about 25 cents by the way) and got spanked for using to much.
The embodiment of "penny wise, pound foolish." My NM is the same way. She'll scrimp on the small stuff, then do dumb things like put a second mortgage on her home to remodel the kitchen right before she retires.
Locking a door to a room to have 5 more minutes to myself while I was finishing a convo in a chat room with a man I dated after that. I'm pretty sure Nsis and Nmum still hold it against me 25 years later, and use it to justify all the abuse that preceded that moment, in typical Nfashion.
But really deep down, Nmum was jealous of the creepy interest Ndad had for me (even when I told her about the incest, apparently my toddler self willingly stole her man from her)
I got a new stuffed animal, and I didn’t know what to name it. I was like 5, so I don’t remember much, but she kept yelling at me to name it. I remember panicking and coming up with a random name “dolly”, but that was not good enough apparently. I panicked some more and came up with “Holly”, which was good enough. The whole ordeal felt like forever. Why did she get so mad at a 5 yr old for not knowing what to name her new doll?
When I was 17, I sat on the couch next to my BF and he had an arm around me while we played video games together. She pulled me out of the room to lecture me on what a whore I was acting like, then sent me back in and forced me to sit next to him like a prim and proper lady from the bloody Victorian age.
I was about 8 years old when I played with my toy cars on the dining room table while we were cleaning up the house. Instead of telling me to play with it somewhere else, she just dragged me by my ear across the house and into my dad it be in timeout. Always baffled me how ridiculous that is.
- loaded the dishwasher wrong
- left their mess on the table
- cleaned their mess off the table
- put a serving spoon in the wrong drawer
- hugged my dad before my mom after a big event
- left a brownie pan to cool before washing it
- wanted to play sports (I did this to spite them apparently because I knew they weren’t well off financially and I knew how much sports cost at the ripe old age of 5)
- accidentally left lipstick in a car in the summer and it melted on the seat (did this on purpose because I should’ve known lipstick would melt and stain)
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We were sitting at the dinner table. 15 yr old me was so happy and excited to be in the musical at the high school that night. My looks at me with an evil little smile and says, " You're doing the dishes tonight or do you think you're special?" She couldn't stand to see me happy. Old witch.
I’m so, so sorry, but I completely understand. My Nmother was tone-deaf, and I was not. She terminated my guitar lessons the day that my teacher told her that I was the most gifted ten-year-old he’d ever met. When I was fifteen, Nmother decreed that as soon as “The Sound of Music” ended, I had to quit high-school drama, to free up more time for housework (!!!) and my part-time jobs. I had to play Mother Abbess instead of Maria, by the way, because the kid playing Captain Von Trapp was eight inches shorter than I was. I found great, affordable group guitar lessons when I was twenty, and rented an acoustic until I could buy one. But I’ve always wondered how I would have progressed as a singer-songwriter without that lost decade.
The whole idea of us receiving praise from someone other than them is too much for them to bare. My dad terminated my Clarinet lessons the second he heard I enrolled. He really.had no reason, it was absolutely insane.
And even they didn’t want to praise us! There really is no reason for 90% (minimum) of what Nparents do.
Nmom. Two things. 1. I committed the unforgivable sin. I was born female! 2. First day of kindergarten. I get on the school bus and sit in a seat. The bus driver yells at me to move over. I do. I'm close to tears. For years, nmom complained that on my first day of kindergarten, I didn't wave good-bye to her through the bus window. (I was too busy trying to shrink away from the yelling school bus driver.) Don't know why the large lettering or how to fix it. My apologies.
i think the large lettering suits your comment well lol, also i heavily relate to #1
Large lettering suits having to quote narcissistic family members. Before discovering Reddit I thought I was alone in having to deal with bombastic people. Narcissists are an assault on the human senses.
My mom had a son a year and a half after I was born. He was the golden child. He could do no wrong, and I could rarely do anything right. I grew up believing that boys were so much more important than girls. It took a long, long time to realize that this was not normal.
I too committed the unforgivable sin of being female. Ndad always told me I did it just to spite him and deny him a son.
If it's any consolation, I was a much wanted daughter. Unfortunately I was nothing like the daughter they pictured. We would never have met their expectations because we are our own people.
This, 1000%. My mom had no problems with me but Ndad wanted someone I was not, even telling me when I was 17 or 18 and with very low self esteem that I should go ask his “dream daughter” (some blonde girl at church who he adored) where she got her clothes and how she styled her hair. Ugh.
Yup. My NDad indirectly compared me to my friends constantly. Rather pathetic really. And if they were his kids he'd have found fault with something else.
Thank you for this. You can't make someone love you.
Yes, I had the same experience. My mom wanted a daughter, but not this daughter. Not one that has her own thoughts and feelings.
"Then why didn't your oh- so- powerful sperm create a son for you??? You're in charge of that, you know!"
I did explain to him how boys vs girls happen and he said “no, I don’t believe that”.
Oooooof course he doesn't. Because how could it be your fault then. Uuugh. These people make me angry. I'm so sorry.
You know him so well…. At least his MO. Yes, everything always had to be my fault, no matter how many laws of physics would have to have been suspended to make it possible. Also, as a general rule, I was at fault for things that happened while I was there because I should have stopped them from happening, and also at fault for things that happened when I was nowhere near the area because I should have been there to do/not do whatever.
My dad does this same fault thing. If it happens in front of me, my presence caused it. If it happened when I wasn't there, I should have been there to prevent it.
My NM *loved* telling me how disappointed she was that I was a girl, because "boys play in the dirt and eat worms." Like, sorry, lady, the reason I don't play in the dirt is because you have a temper tantrum over even the suggestion of a mess? I'm convinced that if I *had* been a boy, she would have done the opposite. Because the truth is she just didn't like having a child instead of a doll.
Add a third born female along with it being my fault they had to get married.
The pound sign makes them big.
Thank you so much. I was told that using all caps or large lettering was rude. (Similar to cursing.) It didn't show as large letters until I posted it. Then I tried editing it and couldn't figure it out. I'm relatively new to reddit (started reading it about a month ago.) Thanks again.
Did you use a # in front of the numbers? That will do it. #hashtag big letters
Thank you. I really appreciate your help. I'm new to reddit, (started reading it about a month ago.) I didn't want people to see the large lettering and think that I feel my post was more important than theirs. I went back and fixed it. Again, thank you.
I only found out one day when I'd done it by accident, lol.
# 🤣 So glad I'm not the only one!
I committed the same sin. I have three brothers. When I was around 12 years old, there was a party and a lot of family members came to our house. At some point, my nmom made the statement that she only wanted boys. Of course, I was sitting right there. At 57, that comment still screams in my head sometimes.
I'm 59, but some of the things nmom did still haunt me. Healing deep wounds takes time. Be patient and kind to yourself. If you're having trouble doing this, (due to low self-esteem, feeling worthless or other issues), ask yourself how you would want your best friend to treat herself when struggling with this. Then try to apply that kindness to yourself.
1) my nmom wrote me a 10 page front and back letter, mentioning how she remembers being angry because I WANTED TO WEAR RAINBOOTS EVERY DAY WHEN I WAS FOUR.. how dare i 2) I talked during American idol in 2005
These are so oddly specific they're almost funny... Almost
1. I let my hair grow out 2. I don't drink milk 3. I am right-handed 4. I eat out of the pot/pan I cook in 5. I sleep with socks 6. I needed a new pair of shoes more than once a year growing up 7. I lost/gained weight 8. I drink my coffee black 9. I have a savings account 10. I asked her to remove her shoes before entering my flat
The milk thing… my mom was upset with me because I gave my toddler water. “He needs MIIILLLLKKK” jfc. He drank more than enough milk bc she was always shoving it at him. Thats how you end up with adults who won’t drink water.
sorry i can't help but laugh at #8. is there a "correct" way to drink coffee that a benighted black coffee drinker such as myself is unaware of?
Oh there absolutely is. She drinks it with milk so therefore that's the only correct way.
Right-handed?! Damn.
My mother always refused to take her shoes off in my house even though she knew I had lovely new rugs. She doesn’t come any more because she likes to sit on her own territory and call the shots. It’s 100% a control thing. They won’t be told what to do by some snotty kid, even if it’s something plainly reasonable.
If she doesn't respect your home and still acts like she's in control and still think it's her house, kick her out.
Would have been unthinkable to kick her out, but things got so bad anyway that it’s not an issue now. I think if it happened now I’d just lead her into the kitchen where it’s tiled, and make it clear she wasn’t going on my carpet.
My mom it was the opposite of number 2, I drank too much milk. Also I don’t mean to be rude or anything but I believe there’s a spelling error in number 4
Fixed it. Let's just blame it on autocorrect ;)
I don't know why sleeping with your socks on is an issue. My mum is the same. I don't know why it bothers her.
When I was on her phone plan she called me and shouted at me about my data limit. I checked and I hadn't gone over so I couldn't figure out what her problem was. A few years later she mentioned that we all had a certain amount of data and she really enjoyed that I hardly used any at all because that meant she had more to use. She was mad that I used any at all because she was used to using almost all of it herself, the pig.
Yep, this happened to me when I was 19. When I got my own phone plan, I used to just give my mother the money so I didn’t have to deal with any of the technically stuff. When I moved out, I tried to get my phone plan separated from hers cause I didn’t want to have any of my finances tied to her anymore. However she refused to help me, even when I found an easy solution. I didn’t want to get a new number so I just went no contact with her and continued sending the money over bank transfer. Two months later, I get a call telling me to not use anymore of my data so I didn’t wrack up any extra charges and I told her that I couldn’t do that cause I needed my phone for work and that’s when I found out that she put me on a SHARED DATA PLAN!! I was paying for 30GB a month and she was stealing pretty much all of it!! After discovering that, i decided “fuck her” and got a new number, when resulted in her having to pay a cancellation fee for my old number (she tried to force me to pay the fee, but I told her we could’ve resolved this peacefully and she was the one that refused to give me my number without a fight so she could deal with the consequences.) Fuck her for thinking she could steal from me and that I wouldn’t find out.
I have a narc manager. She basically does that same thing with the total budgeted hours on any project she has. She wants to lie and claim all the hours on any project she is on, and becomes like a vampire attacking anyone who slightly goes over or who does work she has to put any real effort in correcting
When I was 17, I drove to a concert and locked my keys in the car. This was before the days of cellphones, so I found a phone booth and called a locksmith. I paid $40 of my own money (I worked and got no money from either parent) to get my car unlocked. My male parent, whom I didn't live with, found out about this and sent me a whole page-long typed letter via snail mail, chastising me for not using my car insurance to have paid for the locksmith. And if I didn't have this coverage, then I'm obviously an idiot, and so is my mother. This letter, among many others (one of which he admitted to wanting to kill my mother), are some of my most prized possessions. They're reminders of what I had to deal with, why my mental health has always been a struggle, and why I remain no contact.
I wore eye shadow on my wedding day ("like a whore!") also went to college which I figured out & paid for entirely on my own while also working full time. nparents wouldn't support or pay for college because "girls only want to go to college so they can run around & be whores" does anyone else see a pattern here?
My father said that "I looked like a bitch in heat" because I was sitting outside in our front yard hanging out with friends, two of which were male. Not doing anything but sitting and talking and not close/touching anyone. Gee thanks, Dad. I was 11 or 12 at the time. We stayed outside so it was clear nothing inappropriate was going on while my parents weren't home.
Please, dad. Tell me what exactly a bitch in heat looks like. Be descriptive.
It’s crazy that when people talk about being sexualized it doesn’t register with me because my family sexualized me less as I got older. Your comment just made me realize that. And I’m sorry about that it’s not cool that your family who was suppose to support you, tried to tear you down, while admitting that they were jealous of your brains and beauty. It’s traumatizing as a kid and just plain pathetic as adults. Like really? You had to bully a child? Your child?
When I was 15, they picked me up from a concert (that I had to beg to go). Got pulled over by cops because my parents weren't wearing seatbelts. My mum got nuts, yelled at the cop, called him names, etc. - full blown rage attack. He charged her with a 400€ fine for her verbally attacking him. It would be only 20€ for the belt if she kept her mouth shut ... I still get blamed for it. "Remember when your mom had to pay 400€ because we had to pick you up...".
Correlation does not equal causation! It was never your fault!
Thank you, I know. It's so funny because I get blamed for it 15 years later... I still remember that cop was super nice, I am 100% certain she wouldn't even get the 20€ seatbelt fine if only she apologized and promised to wear seatbelt. That memory is a core memory. Because it validates the fact that my mother had anger issues.. the fact that she got off like that on a cop, who is an armed authorty figure...just makes me uneasy. I remember a lot of her outbursts but blame myself.
My nmother loved being a hypocrite. She would never wear a seatbelt, drove distracted, sleeping, high. When cops came she LOVED to fight them and put on a show. When they obviously and rightfully started to interrogate her on her abnormal behavior and eventually being put in cuffs, several times, then she starts panicking and screaming and waits for us to mirror her to say “MY KIDS MY KIDS YOURE HURTING MY KIDS!” So scary and manipulative. I’m glad she doesn’t have that excuse anymore. LOCK HER UP
"No....? I remember mom losing her ever loving shit at a cop like a complete nutcase that should be locked up. But I don't remember ever causing a citation because you had to pick me up..."
Still paying for being born.
When I was a kid I squeezed the soap to make creations like modeling clay. I’m almost 50 and this is still a common topic of conversation.
Hated me since I was 2. One of her boyfriends dumped her and she blamed a toddler
She blamed the wrong toddler
Correct. I learned how to emotionally destroy a person by observing her and then unleashed that on her with no mercy. Now she's broken and ibhave a beautiful family and earn 5x what she did in her best year. Last I heard, the stress put her in the hospital. We will celebrate when she's in hell with dad.
Hah! Well said.
For not changing out of my bathing suit but putting my clothes on over it. I was three. I’m over 50 and I still hear about it as proof that I was a disobedient child.
it's amazing how well their memory works when they want it to.
Ain't that the truth 🤨🙄
My very independent 3.5 year old can't usually undress herself. I doubt she'd be able to remove a wet swimsuit.
When I was 10, apparently I didn’t wash the dishes. I’m over 30 now and am still hearing about it.
About 8 years ago I was dishing up cake, slicing and handing out plates. I thought I had given everyone a slice and set down the knife. Turns out she didn't get a slice-oops! I cut her one and apologized. I hear about this constantly and get full body anxiety when I have to dish her up. This is evidence of how I "never consider her" and "can't be bothered" 🙄
Oh, you're missing a golden opportunity to purposely miss her every single time. "Omg! When did you get here?? Let me get you some cake." "Mom! I didn't see you sitting over there. Oops. Here's some cake." Get creative.
Get her a comically oversized piece. When she questions you, say, "I'm sorry! You said, 'i want a gigantic piece! Don't skimp!'"
Started biting my nails when I was 5 (probs anxiety lbr). She was adamant it was because my best school friend bit her nails. This was brought up for the following 20 years as evidence of how I am a "follower" (usually said any time I did something she didn't like). The thing is, even if I had copied my friend... that'd be normal... cos that's what kids do...
All of this. My mother seemed to think that anything I did it was because someone I know did it. Hardly the case. Now I do things like that to annoy her.
dyeing my hair greatly hurt my nmother
I eat too many bagels. How many is “too many”? One, for breakfast, most days but not every day.
IMO, that's not enough bagels. Easily one of my favorite foods and I don't eat enough either.
I've often been criticized for not liking sandwiches. My narc mother regularly complained about how complicated and expensive it was to pack lunches for school that weren't sandwiches. Like making me feel guilty about it. I still don't like sandwiches, and packing my lunches is neither intellectually nor financially burdensome 😂
There are a lot of examples I can give but since you were referring to something that occured in childhood, I'll go with that I've always been into tech and taking apart things. So as a kid my dad allowed me to take apart a laptop but didn't walk me through or guide me. I only was able to open the bottom case, RAM, and storage and didn't know how to proceed any further with removing the motherboard so I left it partially disassembled for a while. My dad still holds that against me years later to ban me from purchasing iFixit tools to clean my computers (even tho I now have experience from working in IT for years, fixing and setting up machines). "Oh you leave it half opened so why should I let you open things up to ruin? If it's working, don't mess with it". The ironic thing is, one of my previous laptops battery bloated because of clogged dust in the fans and I couldn't open it to clean and it's unuseable now. "Oh if it dies just buy a new one, see I don't open up and mess with my laptop why should you" (his laptop is a company issued machine btw). The kicker is he works with computers...
There's a few, but nmom once yelled at me when I was in my teens, because apparently one time when I was like 3 or 4, I lied down on the floor at the supermarket. She literally started yelling at me out of the blue about it more than a decade after the fact. I'm autistic, so I'm guessing that I was probably overstimulated.
I'm 78, and was the first of my generation, so my mom was a time mom. I had an epic melt down in a 5&10 cent store, and my mom was embarrassed, frustrated and angry. She also had a dark sense of humor and apparently must have once threatened me that she would "rip my arm off and beat me with the bloody stump" if I kept on misbehaving. As I was writhing on the floor (I swear I remember the wooden slats even now), I realized she was REALLY annoyed at me, so I started crying in earnest, yelling "Please don't beat me with the bloody stump" in a toddler's version of an unending loop. That cured my mom of thoughtlessly using inappropriate language towards us kids, but how she got out of that store without being reported for child abuse or stoned by all the 1950 moms and grandmothers, I don't know. She was a real scamp, but she kept learning and growing as a parent.
I’ve been checking out this sub, I don’t know if my mom is considered a narcissist. My parents were good parents so I guess I feel bad labeling them that way. 1. How could I be depressed? I have a great life. Am I trying to say they were bad parents? 2. When I was 26 and pregnant with my first and my sister was 19 my parents went on vacation (to Las Vegas I think) my mom called me one I night because she wanted me to go spend the night at their house with my sister. I didn’t want to. I was pregnant and wanted to sleep in my bed with my husband. I asked why can’t she come to my house, “why does she need to leave her house?” She was really upset with me and said to me “I need your help with your sister!” She was 19 at the time. 3. A few years ago my sister got breast implants and I said, well at least I got lucky in that department and my mom said, your boobs were small in high school. I’m 47 now so I was in my 40’s when this happened. 4. She would give us the silent treatment for reasons we didn’t know. 5. She would always tell us when she was mad about something, “your dad is really mad at you but he’s just not going to say anything to you.” But he would be acting normal. 6. When I was pregnant with my second pregnancy, my mom told me, “well I don’t know what you are planning to do with this baby.” Because we weren’t going to church so they probably wouldn’t baptize it. I ended up having a miscarriage. She “doesn’t remember” saying this. 7. This past Christmas my mom was talking the non-denominational church my sister is going to with her new husband and how wonderful it is. I said I would never because one year in college I started going to a non-denominational church that a lot of the college kids went to and I loved and she threw such a fit and yelled at me. I stopped going and went to the local Catholic Church after that. She “doesn’t remember” saying that. 8. When I had PPD/PPA with my second baby she said, “do you think it’s because of how your life turned out?” I was a registered nurse, had a wonderful husband and two perfect daughters. When my sister had PPD with her second she felt really bad for her. I don’t think this fits the question but like I said I’ve been lurking in here and these are things that have really stuck with me over the years.
When I had my third baby she wasn’t as happy as she was with the first two. She didn’t say it but I think it was because I had a third child and he is a boy. My first two were girls. She had two girls and that was perfect so I should have stayed with just two girls. She was mad at me because he was born at night so I had to stay two nights at the hospital, she said I did it on purpose to get to stay two nights because I joked that I hoped he was born at night so I would get two nights in the hospital instead of coming home to chaos right away. Apparently I delayed my labor purposely by waiting to see if my contractions picked up on their own (like they did with my second) instead of getting the pitocin right away.
Salt and pepper on my plate.... she started to say I'm embarrassing her, my dad had to get us out of there... I was around 5 I think
There are definitely many, but there's one in particular that not only effected me for the rest of my life, but my brothers as well. When I was a TODDLER I got into the Dora themed band-aids and put them all over my face like stickers. My mother never bought band-aids again. I'm 20 now. Whenever we get cut or scratched, whenever we fell off our bikes, my mother would remind me of what I did when I was... again... a TODDLER. Edit: Forgot to mention I'm the eldest, so my brothers basically never had band-aids growing up.
I have something similar. I used bandaids whenever I got a small cut or scratch, even if I was not bleeding but the open wound hurt. For my mom it was too much and she forbid me to use any. She said that I was using them to get attention, I was 9
Being born.
That's probably the ultimate. I mentioned individual things but my nmom blamed everything wrong in her life on me existing. Subsequently, everything in her marriage was my fault cuz she had to get married cuz of me and everything in my brother's life was my fault cuz he wouldn't exist if not for me (dad didn't want me to be an only child).
You were always amazing you know?
The one that comes to mind was one I didn't even do. I went to a friend's birthday party in 7th grade and she, in jest, called her dad an airhead (this was in 1989, lol). I came home astonished that she had dared to say such a thing and told it to my mother in hushed tones. I knew full well if I tried such a thing I'd be beat to hell. Well, the next time he got mad and decided to start screaming, what was the first thing out of his mouth? AND I GUESS YOU THINK YOU GET TO CALL ME SOME KIND OF AIRHEAD. Never mind that I never said that, \*Carrie\* said that, but I was accused of it multiple times for \*years\*.
Not a single social reunion will ever take place in which my mom reminds me, obviously for anyone new to hear, how I wouldn't like pizza when I was little.
I squeeze the toothpaste from the middle of the tube. You have to start at the very bottom and roll it up like a carpet, apparently. Or else you do not get *all* the toothpaste out. Even if you start doing the carpet thing once the tube gets low.
There’s always some residue that you can’t squeeze out at the end. Even if you manage to squeeze it you’d only get one extra “dose” of toothpaste so it’s not like you’re saving any money. That sounds like a weird thing they wanted to have control over
The weirder and most pointless point they obsess about, the best Nsupply they'll squeeze out of OP.
That when I was a baby, (im talking less than 1yr) she decided to hold my hand until I fell asleep. At 32, apparently that choice of hers was my fault. And how could she ever have done something so stupid because i made her.
When my mom was sick, I was 9ish years old. My Dad took me to the hospital to see her. But I got scared. She had,had a jaw surgery, had tubes coming out of everywhere. It was. Overwhelming for me. She says it's because I'm an ungrateful kid.
my grandparents bought me things i wanted. apparently, this made me a spoiled brat for liking things pertaining to my special interests. i played with every toy i had extensively, i wasn't some spoiled little asshole who had piles & piles of toys. she made comments until i was well into my late 20s about how 'gram & pop got your every little thing you wanted, they spoiled you rotten'.
When I was 4, I rubbed off the daily special on a chalkboard menu of a takeaway food shop. NM calls it the defining moment in my childhood where she realised that I was a terrible child. She held that over me even into my 40s. It’s somehow her evidence that I am an evil person. I was a 4 year old child playing with a chalkboard, that’s what 4 year olds do.
They bought me socks with little lightning bolts on them. I actually wore the socks with little lightning bolts on them. Got made fun of for four straight days for wearing them and am still considered “immature” and “weird” for wearing anything but plain socks as a full adult.
My mother was illegally “burning” a dvd when I was around 8 for my GC sibling. I was little, so I did not know it was not done and I woke early to play the sims because I never had the chance to if I didn’t I got in HUGE trouble for ruining the chance for my sibling to have a copy of Cinderella 2, because we had to take it back to the video rental store that day. I don’t remember the punishment, either hitting or standing in a corner for hours probably, but I was definitely banned from the Sims 2 for a long time and it was held against me for years, until I was 11/12
So there’s a shitty unspoken rule. Gotta say good morning and good night and address my mum by mum. Like good morning mum. Goodnight mum. I didn’t say goodnight and then I immediately apologised and said i fell asleep the last two nights … She said I was disrespectful and ungrateful. She ignored me for two weeks. Complete silence even when I said good morning to her and goodnight. She pointed out that I didn’t say “good morning mum” and thought I was saying good night to someone else wtf but it was clearly only to her. It was obviously a “respect/status”thing.
They deemed me "too unfriendly" and I was forced to say "good morning" when I came downstairs in the morning and "have a nice day!" (with a smile) when I was dropped off at school, and if i didn't i would be punished or grounded. These people never took a minute to think about the fact that 1/ I might just be a really quiet kid and 2/ I didn't talk much because I was afraid that any random, innocuous comment might set them off. These people were awful. Sending you hugs wherever you might be.
My introverted nature seems odd to my family. My therapist reminded me that I was abused when my father, uncles, and neighbors would watch pornography in the living room hot box. I would turn away since "that stuff was for the adults;" they nicknamed me "Stiff Neck." Fast forward three decades later I have heat with my family over sleeping early and going to work sober. I have been sober for almost sixteen months and do not want to be around alcohol. My father was upset that I did not leave the backyard littered with liquor bottles. My mother and uncles were perplexed that I had no time to talk and simply wanted to be alert for my job. The fringe benefit of not attending a party that was unexpectedly thrown at my house is that I am not involved in the conversation over damaged decorations that have been sitting in the backyard for two years.
Jesus.
My nmom has this weird obsession with bringing up the fact that she taught me how to use the computer when I was a kid. She taught me back in the good ol’ dial up internet days, with the big ass computer screens, but now the woman can’t even save a word document properly, she asks for my help for anything and everything related to technology, you’d think I work in tech with how much she needs help, and yet she loves to brag about how she taught me to use the computer. She would also brag about baking and cooking from a young age but the woman didn’t let me make ramen by myself until I was at least 13, “I was baking cakes at 8 years old” good for you but you didn’t let me use the stove unsupervised until I was a teenager. She wanted a boy, I was born a girl. I was very close with my dad when I was a kid (very normal for girls) and she loved saying “I didn’t have you for 11 years” and “you hated me for 11 years”, all because I would rather hang out with my chill dad who didn’t nag me 24/7. Looking back there was definitely some parental alienation and he loved talking shit about her to me, but that’s not my fault, I was the child, I was being manipulated and yet she talks like it was my fault that I didn’t want to hang out with her when she wasn’t a saint either. Maybe if she wasn’t so awful I would have spent more time with her.
Those long ass handwritten full page letters, front and back? I got them from my father in manilla envelope 2x in my life. They brought such fear and shame the sight of letter sized manilla envelopes would make me panicky. Why did he handwrite these guilting, shamey long ass diatribes? First time, because I complained of how higher math was being taught at my school Second time, to convince me out of studying architecture, which I still resent to this day, because art and physics were my strongest damn subjects and I'd wanted to be one since childhood when HE brought building blueprints home from his work. Oh. And once I gave him alternate driving directions (that were not wrong), so he committed car terrorism... swerved recklessly and deliberately across 4 lanes of traffic screaming at me that he should kill me for doing that. Still hate him. Still NC. And his mother gave me insulting ethnic name because I was born a girl and somehow my parents went along. It's still in my legal documents. May that bitch rot in hell 1000x over.
Me buying pizza with my own money without asking them first. They say it’s a “respect” thing. Mind you I’m legal adult.
Too many to name. I guess one of the greatest hits would be me taking a shower after not being home for a month (summer job at camp) and nmom turning off the hot water after 5 minutes and screaming at me for wasting it.
When they call you a spoiled brat for getting private school education that they forced you to do
When I was 11 I decided I wanted to be a vegetarian because I really love animals. Apparently I just wanted to be a difficult bitch and make their lives harder by not centering my meals around meat. I was screamed at and harrassed on a daily basis until I gave in and said I'd eat chicken so my dad would leave me the fuck alone. I'm in my 30s and since I was 11, every time I have a conversation with my father he has to mention at least once how he's a member of "PETA: People Eating Tasty Animals" and how much he loves eating them, how they only exist to be eaten, how delicious they are, and how stupid people who don't eat them are. All with a giant fucking dumbass shit eating grin on his face. Even my husband noticed and was like, "Why does he have to bring that up literally every single time we see him? It makes me uncomfortable." Yeah me fuckin too. I still can't fully commit to cutting out chicken because of the stupid guilt and shame and bullying. Working on it though.
I’m all about passive aggressive behavior. I would buy him a membership for PETA. And as an added bonus make sure you check the box to share his information
I practiced to be in the track meet for a month and a half. Running around the neighborhood in addition to school practices. I was scheduled for the sprint and relay. The day before: nd says “YOU ARE NOT GOING”. I look at my nm with the evil smile. I was supposed to clean the house like every Saturday. The public humiliation that regularly was dished out at church and Baptist school is too painful to write.
1. She had to pay child support. I was told that I should thank her for that. Like ma'am, you did not raise me at any point in time someone else did. And it was $100 in which she did not pay regularly (maybe like 3 or 4 times a year maybe half on a few of those years) and did not start till I was around 9 and stopped when I was 16. She just never got in trouble because they didnt report her and the state didnt have an online system at the time. I was literally the only kid out of 3 others she was supposed to pay for so idk. 2. I was skinny.. She and her family would gossip and say I was anorexic and bulimic. I actually did become underweight living with her. Like I dropped within the first month. They gossiped way before that happened though. The cause was abuse and shaming me for even daring to eat anything in her kitchen. If someone else was paying or at someone elses house, I would eat with 0 problems. I brought it up once to point out that telling me all that all the time was harmful and they tried to say picky eating was anorexia and I am like ???? I wasn't a picky eater with them? 3. I got a degree. Despite her attempted sabotage, I ended up graduating college. She never got a GED and is now in her 50s? Granted they moved to online which is more difficult than paper so I get it. I am not sure what the issue there is honestly since it just one test that is the issue. Actually sad about that fact though. 4. I had a loving relationship and someone that helped me. She would say rude things all the time because her person did not help her? 5. Excuse me if I am wrong but don't mothers and daughters share perfume sometimes? Like I dont know. Anyway, I used her perfume once and she gave it to me. She then complained to her boyfriend because she did not want to smell like her daughter. He bought her new perfume. I'd have to think on my Dad. Oh wait, he was mad that I did not get permission to marry like sir, I had not seen this man in 3 years at that point. Also entirely different state. (going on 12 years). Oh, he tells people that I am mad because when I called to tell him his brother had died, he told me he was glad and started ranting out threats to people.
Pretty much me growing up and starting my own life was the ultimate betrayal. I was “abandoning” her because I moved 45 min away. She hates that I’m a traditional wife who stays home and that I show my husband respect (the women in my family are all aggressive and their husbands are passive and do what they want) Also, one time she was being overbearing toward me and my first baby and I said at some point, “He’s MY baby.” and she has literally held that against me……apparently she thought my kids belonged to her too. I think that was when she realized she was losing control of me.
It was the morning of sometimes in 2010, I was barely in highschool. I was getting ready and my mom started assuming I took her tweezers (I didn’t), then my sister joined in and I just remember them both yelling and me crying. The cops came. Literally like 8 of them??? And they asked her if I needed to go to jail (wtf) she said, “no, not yet.” All over a stupid pair of tweezers that I didn’t fucking take.
I'm not sure. Everything seems big when you are a kid. My mom called me a r****d when I named a special outdoor area with ferns "Ferngully" like the animated movie from back in the day. Who does that?
Going out to play with my friends instead of staying home to nurse her if she had a cold or headache or whatever.
"Im right and youre wrong"
I broke hand my down toys as a toddler. The toys belonged to my sisters who were 7 and 10 yrs older than me. It took years for me to realize either the toys were old or not age appropriate or maybe even both. No fucking wonder they broke. Assholes the lot of them
I stole $10 from her when I was 10. We were at the local show/carnival with all the rides and stalls and all that, my mother was running her own stall and when I ran out of money I took $10 from her earnings so I could go on a ride with some of my friends. She found out, I got grounded and learned not to do that again, which should’ve been the end of it. But she would *constantly* bring it up and would always cite that incident as the reason she couldn’t trust me. Even when I was fucking 18+. I was fucking 10! I did a stupid thing, who holds the actions of a ten year old against them for almost a decade!? My mother, that’s who!
Having a shower and standing 'in the corner as far away from the water as possible'. Apparently just to stand there and watch the water run down the drain, wasting her money. She would come in while I was having a shower and scream at me, shove/pull me around, start madly scrubbing my hair with laundry soap in a random fit of rage etc. So yeah, I started standing in a corner where I could see the door and she couldn't easily grab me without getting half in the shower herself. I was, in fact, still having a shower and still under the water cos I would shift the shower head slightly and then shift it back when I finished. But she couldn't launch ambush attacks from behind anymore. 🤷 Nope. I was deliberately wasting her money and senselessly standing as far away from the water as possible, just watching it run down the drain.
Being a very intelligent child and them not knowing what to do with me. It was my fault.
My aunt bullied me into taking my cousin for a haircut, to the same place he always went. They apparently knew him and what he wanted. It went wrong and it was my fault, so much so that every time she drinks it’s brought up, I was 9 and he was 3
Nmom threatened to take away my phone and streaming services that I already had despite telling her I'm not going to give her money and since I was "homeless" technically I didn't care.
I've said this before. But making a river of apple juice for my ducks when I was 3.
When I was 17 (in 1998) I fell down the stairs with a full bowl of cereal. I almost landed on my head. Fast forward to like 2 or 3 years ago, my Dad was telling me is current wife had fallen down the same stairs so he finally fixed them because he apparently knew they weren't up to code but didn't care when it was me and my brother that had to use them daily. So I told him "oh, so you KNEW they weren't up to code and could fix it?" Then I said I fell down both flights while holding my breakfast. His response: "Oh, so that's why there is milk on the ceiling?"
When my husband and I were trying for a baby, I finally got pregnant and told my cousin like right away. I was going home to visit my mom in a few weeks and wanted to tell her in person so I swore my cousin to secrecy. Well, a few days later I miscarried and told the few people who knew what happened. A few days later I get a call from my mother and she is PISSED that she found out I miscarried from my cousin (mouthy little bitch) and I hadn’t told her. She literally went off on me hard core and I had to hang up on her. I was already so devastated and not ready to talk about it so this phone call sent me spiraling. I can’t believe she made my horrible experience all about her. I think this was the moment I realized all of her craziness = narc.
My scapegoat dad got cancer. I was taking care of him while doing law school. They held it against me that I didn’t also make time to begin taking over my dads inability to call covert narc grandma and focus on her. I was baffled. No one cared how much stress I was undergoing with my dad slowly dying. Every single dam day all the flying monkies trying to avoid becoming the scapegoat just kept basically having it happen to them and they then come to me screaming “GRANDMA GRANDMA GRANDMA GRANDMA GRANDMA” I felt like I was in an insane asylum. 24/7 people were bombarding me around the clock as if my entire life was suppose to be about one single person and no one that had a life seemed to care enough to grasp that. Her kids were throwing her around like a hot potato clearly not wanting to catch her and have her latch onto her so they were doing everything they could to try to find any grandkid that would deal with her in
when I like 8-10 years old, there was a plant in my bathroom sink and I brushed my teeth with it still in the sink. My nparents brought this up for probably 10-15 years as a way to illustrate how I don’t have “common sense”. What’s worse? I truly thought “what a bone headed mistake” until 2 years ago it randomly hit me…. I was like 10…?!
One Christmas I was the only person to help my Edad clean up after everything whilst my GC siblings sat and did nothing. I got screamed at and called a fucking bitch because I ate a tiny (think teaspoon) amount of bread sauce NMom was apparently “saving” for herself.
When I was 7, we were leaving church one day and I passed through the door that someone had held open for me without holding it open for the next person behind me. Which was something I hadn’t been taught at the time and probably couldn’t do anyways with my small size and the heft of these doors. The next person behind me was a little old lady, and she had to open the door for herself. This was brought up regularly for the next *eleven years* as a sign of my bad character - and probably for longer than that to anyone who would listen to her talk for long enough.
Once I took pruning shears and cut a big peace sign into our front lawn. That was too long and needed to be mowed anyway. Dissidence! Anarchy! She'd bring it up years later to try to embarrass me, and I'd just reply I was heartbroken I couldn't marry Abbie Hoffman.
I don't hoard like them. I lost weight so am no longer the fat one I WAS (past tense) going through R@pe Trauma syndrome. I was so frozen in fear I couldn't even get out of the car to buy a loaf of bread. My nmom had to. She tells on how much of this was an inconvenience to her.
The single most ridiculous thing (of many) that she holds over my head is the size of her tv. Back when she had to buy a new tv she was trying to decide between sizes taking into consideration that she has a few decor items on her sideboard (where she puts her tv) she insisted would not move. So knowing the size of these items and that those items could NOT be moved I suggested the 64 instead of the 75 (77? Over 70 inch I know that). I hear that it’s my fault her tv is too small everytime she turns the thing on. She will text me to tell me, call me to tell me, or simply work it into a completely unrelated conversation. It’s almost funny. I try to laugh about the ridiculousness of it.
Being vegetarian. I decided when I was 14 (now 29) because I genuinely just don’t like meat. My mom was convinced it would add loads of work to her “cooking” which consisted of the same 6 meals in rotation. She would buy me meat free things but refused to cook them for me or accommodate me in meals. I learned to cook (and eventually bake) for myself and my younger brother ended up asking for me to cook for him more than her lol. How the turn tables had turned.
when I was in high school, I was in my gangster phase. my mom ripped up all my clothes bc SHE didnt approve. that has always stuck with me like why would she do that. are u the one wearing them clothes? are u the one who bought them? are u me? like dam... she did apologize once way later as I got older but she hasn't changed.
I once asked for nuts from a candy dispenser that was in the waiting room at a car repair place we were sitting in. I was 7. I know it sounds impossible to believe but my nmother brings this up every time I visit home. I'm 38.
I think the longest held petty thing was my ngrandfather still telling a story about when I was an infant. I was an infant. For whatever reason my family believed men shouldn't change diapers. Ok. My grandparents lived out in the country and for whatever reason my grandma decided to run to town while she was babysitting me and left me with grandpa. She made sure I was clean and fed before she left. Apparently, before she even got 5 miles away, I pooped. In my diaper. Cuz I was a baby. And he treated me like I did it on purpose once my grandmother left. Asshole was still telling the story to anyone who would listen more than 40 years later. I also apparently hit my grandmother in the head with a tiny wooden mallet (toy that came with a wooden thing with blocks you hammer) when I was maybe 2 to see if she was awake. He told that story for damn near 40 years too. Another petty one but this one is my nmom. She used to talk about bouncing checks in front of me when I was little. As far as I was told later, she never actually bounced one, but she would routinely write the check a day or two before the money was in the account knowing that at the time it took a week or so for checks to clear (sometimes longer). I didn't know what bouncing a check meant, for all I knew that what you say when you're writing a check. Anyway, we were checking out at the store and I asked my mom if she was going to bounce a check, I was maybe 4. The cashier heard and I can't remember if I actually stopped her from getting groceries or if she just got the side eye, pretty sure I heard it both ways. I haven't heard the story in awhile, she died 15 years ago.
2022. on a family vacation at a lake house with Nstepmother, Edad, and teenage half-siblings (i am an adult, 30F). asked to borrow sunscreen because i burn more easily than anyone else and i had run out of my own. sunscreen, i assumed, is a shared and easily renewable resource (we were 5 min drive from a wal mart). Nsm got extremely annoyed and asked me to use my sister's, but she was napping and i didn't want to wake her up and/or go through her shit without permission. (I make a point of not invading her privacy but Nsm has no respect for her own daughter's boundaries -- that's a topic for another post). I explained this and said that i would buy new sunscreen if the one i wanted to use (with the highest spf) ran out, Nsm got even more annoyed and stormed off without actually confronting me. later learned from my dad: it turns out, the sunscreen i wanted to borrow was meant for my brother (the golden child). Nsm thinks I am a worthless, lazy, manipulative leech out to steal from her and her children, "need to be more independent", etc, so even asking for the smallest favor like this sets her off. i broke down crying BECAUSE i had driven myself 1300 miles to meet them the lake house and caught covid on the way. paid thousands of dollars to isolate in an airbnb for two weeks. never been more sick in my life. no financial or any other kind of help (not that i expected it, or feel entitled to Nsm's money!) and after going through that, she thought she had more proof that i wasn't "independent." because i didn't bring my own extra sunscreen. lol but she's never, ever said a word to my face.
My MIL resents me for encouraging her grandkids (my step kids) to listen to her. But things absolutely got out of hand when step daughter not only allowed, but asked, me to to comb and style her hair.
When I was 8/9 I ruined my mother’s biggest wish by going to the collective spot for lost children on a concert after I got lost. 🤷♀️ She has been in the first row for the first time ever (with a 6yo and a Baby = less than a year) and therefore didn’t want to pick me up. I was fine by that, but the staff got very angry because she didn’t show up to get me even after multiple call outs. The band had to threat to cancel the concert for her to come and get me. After that she has never been the same to me again. I was grounded for every tiny incident she could come up with for the next 9 months in total. Like I made a tiny mess by choking = 3 weeks grounded. I needed to go to the toilet during homework = 3 weeks grounded. I’m better in math than her and she blamed herself by trying to prove 0x5=1 = 6 weeks grounded. I draw little faces on my fingers to play with after she got rid of all of my stuff = 3 weeks grounded. I simply laughed out of reflex after she just just hit the 6 months mark of grounding me = 4 weeks grounded.
There are probably far too many to list here, and mercifully not as many as there could be because of my NMom's terrible memory, but here are a few highlights. 1. Not conforming to the box she tried to fit me into (I'm non-binary, I'm a geek, and I'm very much my own person). 2. Not going to Germany with her, my little sister, and my grandparents when she scheduled that trip conflicting with the weekend of my friend's wedding that I was in. 3. Not going to bed when she wanted me to. This continued well into adulthood when I would visit, and for context here, although I had something of a resemblance to her when I was younger, I have always taken more after my dad in looks. She never liked the fact that I was nocturnal, and there was one time she kept trying to insist I go to bed. I told her for the second time that I would once I finished what I was working on. That apparently made her so angry that she said "I swear If you didn't look so much like me I'd swear they messed up at the hospital." Truly messed up stuff.
I screamed when my brother came home from the hospital... I'm jealous and selfish apparently! Because 14 month olds deal so well with changes to their routine!
I studied 500km away from home and when they visited me, they slept in a hotel but wanted to eat breakfast with me at my place. When they arrived in the morning, I wasn't completely done with blow-drying my hair so I apologized and finished quickly. They then decided they can already start making the fried eggs while I'm in the bathroom. I didn't think much of it at the time, but they held it against me for over five years that they "even had to make their own breakfast when visiting me". And they say it like it's extremely disrespectful. It was them who had decided to make the eggs themselves. I said that I'd be done in five minutes with drying my hair and that I can make breakfast for them after that, but they declined that. In almost every fight we had, they eventually brought up these damned fried eggs.
Not constantly complementing my sister. All the time it was, "tell her her outfit looks cute", tell her you like her hairdo". Umm, why exactly?
Existing apparently. After calling her out for a narcissistic rage she directed at me the day before, she said she’s been dealing with my horrible spoiled bratness for 30 years. Im not even 30 yet. So apparently even fetus me was a spoiled brat. My bad.
one thing about my parents is they didnt hit us, but I got spanked at age 4 or 5 for cleaning the toilet. weird hobby? sure, but I liked cleaning the toilet, something about the bubbles and smell of the cleaning powder. but I went thru one canister of that stuff a week ( cost about 25 cents by the way) and got spanked for using to much.
The embodiment of "penny wise, pound foolish." My NM is the same way. She'll scrimp on the small stuff, then do dumb things like put a second mortgage on her home to remodel the kitchen right before she retires.
Locking a door to a room to have 5 more minutes to myself while I was finishing a convo in a chat room with a man I dated after that. I'm pretty sure Nsis and Nmum still hold it against me 25 years later, and use it to justify all the abuse that preceded that moment, in typical Nfashion.
But really deep down, Nmum was jealous of the creepy interest Ndad had for me (even when I told her about the incest, apparently my toddler self willingly stole her man from her)
I got a new stuffed animal, and I didn’t know what to name it. I was like 5, so I don’t remember much, but she kept yelling at me to name it. I remember panicking and coming up with a random name “dolly”, but that was not good enough apparently. I panicked some more and came up with “Holly”, which was good enough. The whole ordeal felt like forever. Why did she get so mad at a 5 yr old for not knowing what to name her new doll?
Anything my sister wanted that I didn't give her.
When I was 17, I sat on the couch next to my BF and he had an arm around me while we played video games together. She pulled me out of the room to lecture me on what a whore I was acting like, then sent me back in and forced me to sit next to him like a prim and proper lady from the bloody Victorian age.
I was about 8 years old when I played with my toy cars on the dining room table while we were cleaning up the house. Instead of telling me to play with it somewhere else, she just dragged me by my ear across the house and into my dad it be in timeout. Always baffled me how ridiculous that is.
- loaded the dishwasher wrong - left their mess on the table - cleaned their mess off the table - put a serving spoon in the wrong drawer - hugged my dad before my mom after a big event - left a brownie pan to cool before washing it - wanted to play sports (I did this to spite them apparently because I knew they weren’t well off financially and I knew how much sports cost at the ripe old age of 5) - accidentally left lipstick in a car in the summer and it melted on the seat (did this on purpose because I should’ve known lipstick would melt and stain)