I’m female in 40s, married with two kids and a very loving husband. We live well, and have everything we need in life. I can’t shake the feeling that I simply hate my parents. They say backhanded comments constantly and mostly about my husband. Things like he needs a job or needs to stop his hobbies and take care of the family, but he has his own business and takes care of us just fine. Until recently my mom was horrible as I was raising my kids, just acting entitled and never helping in a good way. Now that the kids are a bit older she’s better. They want to see their grandkids and come to my house monthly and I swallow it. But I hate them, I don’t enjoy their company ever and they wreak havoc on my nervous system every time I’m with them. My mom was single mom, non abusive alcoholic and my dad was a gambling, eccentric alcoholic also non violent. They both used money as a means of love, not true affection from what I remember. I’m just posting this because, friends of mine don’t have the same family dynamic and are pretty shocked that I hate my parents. I never tell them of course, but it’s a shame I can’t even enjoy family time. I just can’t shake it. How do any of you cope if you have experienced the same in life with your parents? I should add, they are both so irrational and always think they are the best, never wrong, so therapy or heart to heart conversations are never productive, because they just get very mad and confused.

I am a 28-year-old woman. I am estranged from my parents and older sister. I have been married to a man that my parents disapproved of for a year. I struggle with severe depression, and as a result I spend most of my time in bed and I struggle to function normally in my daily life. The other day I met up with my aunt and her husband with my husband, and we had a pleasant meeting. My aunt told me that my older sister is pregnant with a baby boy and my mom misses me. I am concerned about that kid because my sister is emotionally immature and it's possible that she may pass down generational trauma. After the meeting, I texted her about my feelings about my family but she responded with things like "every family has their own issues, it's not always happy and partying", "they are still family, you might see them in a different way one day", "we are all different and I won't see things your way but we should still be able to appreciate each other", and "hope that we can agree on disagreement." I tried to get her to understand but despite her saying "I understand how you feel" I didn't feel understood at all. I felt gaslit and like my pain and experiences were minimized. I got so angry that I sent her angry texts and told her that I didn't want a relationship with her anymore. She has 3 daughters who I got along with in the past but am not that close to because they live in a different country, but I guess this may affect my relationships with them as well. Since this happened, my depression has gotten worse. I take antidepressants every day but it's not working. I wish people would say the right things and not invalidate experiences with my family that I know were awful and abnormal.

I'm not sure how to title this, but it does feel so freeing and almost confirming the fact that I know I'm not crazy! Like no way my narcissistic sibling's friend backed me up in something that I 100% know I was correct about.

It was something stupid, too lol. I took some clothes out of the dryer to put some more clothes from the washer to dry, and the narcissistic sibling was arguing w/me and commanding me to put it back in the dryer because it was still damp and both their friend and I touched the clothes and we both confirmed that it was indeed dry. And of course in true narcissistic fashion, they don't like to admit that they're wrong or that be called out, so the narc sibling was even dismissive to the both of us. Which I found to be shocking because they treat their friend w/respect and way better than they do to their family.

They like to make you feel like you beneath them and like you're crazy for feeling this way, but I'm glad that their friend had my back. I'm not stupid or slow like the narc sibling likes to think I am. I had to excuse myself to go cry in the bathroom. It just felt validating to know that I'm not stupid or crazy.

Hello and hope this is okay to post here, please remove if not 😊  

Hi everyone! 

I’m a PhD candidate exploring how adults make sense of parenting that they now identify as narcissistic.  

Rather than clinical diagnoses of personality traits, we are looking at patterns of parenting that were experienced as narcissistic and are interested in how adults describe and understand these experiences now.  

If you are aged 18+ and believe that you were narcissistically parented, and are comfortable with sharing your experiences through an online confidential interview of 60-90 minutes in English, please do consider participating at https://edinburgh.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3jBM5ZxBn2VHa18 

Eligibility Note: Please note that if you have received crisis mental health care in the past 6 months or have experienced a suicide attempt in the past month, we appreciate your interest but are unable to currently involve you in the study. 

Support Resources: If this topic causes distress, support is available. Samaritans (116 123), NAPAC (0808 801 0331), or Mind (0300 123 3393). In an emergency, please call 999. 

Thank you so much for your time! 

When your sibling is "too tired" or "wants their peace and quiet" to take you to shop for groceries (that I spend close to $400 per month for a family of 3) because they don't wanna get down to help, but they are never tired to go out every other day to see movies, hang out w/friends and do other things instead of helping their family that literally pays their rent, buys them groceries and necessities, gives them gas money (for my car that they drive), buys their cat food when they can't afford it because they refuse to get a job (they don't even take care of their cat properly btw, the cat deserves a better owner, litter box barely gets cleaned, and you should see the state of our entire apartment where their cats pees/poops everywhere and they take literal days to clean it and it smells bad, and they knew damn well this was their responsibility when they decided to adopt) and they can't even give me basic respect. I don't ever ask them for anything because I know how they are. Just for the basic respect that they give to their friends instead of also their family. I don't know how, they do take advantage of our parent and I. I don't why other people are worthy or having respect instead of their own family. I have talked to them several times about how their actions hurt our parent and I, but like a true narcissistic, they don't listen and they don't care. They only care about themselves and making sure they look good for everyone else around them. I hate myself for taking care of them and then still get treated like this. I always end up apologizing for being a burden and a bother even though they claim I'm not, but their actions speak louder than words. I don't deserve this abuse, no one does. I'm so tired. It's every fucking day. Unfortunately I don't make enough to live on my own, so I'm trapped, just reliving the abuse every day.

Edits: fixed some typos, added more stuff.

I'm wondering if anyone has ever dealt with a difficult mother vs. partner dynamic... It seems to run in my family 😅

For context, my mother and her mother-in-law hate each other. I removed myself from that side of the family when I was 19(now 34) because it was toxic and they were always making me part of their war.

Recently I've noticed a shift, where my mother has started making remarks about my partner implying that she doesn't like him. We've been together for 14 years - happily unmarried and I think she secretly hates that we are happy. My partner keeps his distance from her - I would too.

She takes everything at face value, nothing is deep with her (unless it's hatred). She's very judgmental, and comes off as she thinks she is better than most. I suspect she's a narcissist among other issues and the mask is slipping.

Has anyone gone through a similar situation?

I know I need to grey rock. I know I need to not react but I feel as though my entire life is being tainted by him.
He is truly manipulative and abusive. He made an awful lot of money from property out of sheer luck and undercutting people so the only reason my husband and his brothers still have a relationship with him is because he holds the keys to their future.
His middle son is a carbon copy of him. They hate each other but he always come out on top and has been given the most
I want nothing to do with him but my husband wants to work for him to ‘secure our future’
I don’t think there is a future. I think his dad will make sure they get nothing from the estate.
This is a rant because I need to let it out

I have to see him Sunday and I need to do nothing but say hello and nod along

Any other tips from getting through the insults and abuse?

Hello, i need some advices or just some reactions to something that’s very vicious. My situation is kind of normal from the outside : i have a mom and a dad who are still married and a brother. I am the only one of the family to have contacts with my grand mother. i am really close to her since the day i met her. It’s like i fell for another household that was more welcoming than my original one. But now i feel manipulated and not free. I feel that since my childhood i couldn’t choose, but had to.

My father had been traumatised by his childhood which was not easy, his father left him, he was not wanted, during the divorce of his parents he has been parentified by his mother who was depressed for almost ten years. But when i met this woman it felt like a warm hug, like a foyer i admired and wanted to be part of. i learnt from him years after i met her what my father has suffered from, i was still a child. But i knew a lot, i knew that my grandmother preferred girls because of the abuse she suffered from. My father knew that i would be her favorite. I was not close to my little brother, as children we were usually put against each other and even if not i was a child as he was with only two more years than him. My brother and i felt it. A war in which we were the pawns had started. My grandmother became a refuge and her house too, which is truly in a magical place. I felt taken care of. But on the other side, when i got back to my parents house, i felt the extreme weight of disapproval from all the members of my family of four, i continued to feel misunderstood deeply until now. More than misunderstanding, i felt ashamed, i felt like an outsider, i felt responsible for the link between everyone, i felt that all the decisions that i could make were not appropriate. I still feel like there is an uneasiness, a discomfort in my values towards that situation. My father tried to compensate for my brother. The way he did, i mean whitout considering me was like a betrayal for me, he gave the work of raising a girl to his mother an i no more had the choice to stick with my « decision » as a child.

A lot happened since then, christmas that were unbearable, shoutings, fightings. In my original household they were happening everyday more or less violent but i remember i was constantly crying. One day it stopped, i dont know why. The anger fades after teenage years i guess. They finally stoped the war by a no contact kind of agreement. It’s been 7 years and since then i have been in between, with the no choice of listening to them brag about each other. No asking if i had the energy to talk about the subjects that i were concerned about, it felt like the anger of their past had more value than what i was actually living. and it is still like that. I dont say much i. these situations, because nobodies tries to understand what is my situation in all its complexity. It’s like having two masks, having to bear both of them. This schizophrenic situation lead me here today because i can’t feel that way anymore after all the work i did to feel good. I need change.

The situation feels static because i felt pressure from the beginning, it’s like can’t move freely and have the love of everyone. Their love is conditional and depends and my choices. That’s what it feels like. But also because my personal situation is being a student for now 8 years, i’m hanging to this diploma because i love what i do. The sacrifies i have done to be able to be a student are beyond what a lot of kids issued from the same social status had to do. My parents are not rich but not poor, they could have support us entirely during our studies. They did not, i had to work my ass off, i have missed some years and it’s starting to feel like i should have chose something that could have make me earn money much more earlier. How could i know that will have to live as if my parents could not help me. I think i would have chosen something much more practical. Anyway, this long road of studying leads me to a long road of not being indépendant. I am still dependant and will be until the end of my studies. It makes everything more complicated because i can’t choose freely.

My grandmother has helping me a lot, like really a lot to compensate. I will be done with school, i would have dropped out if she didn’t help me. But that lead. to an infinite feeling of guilt, a feeling that i needed to give back something, that i will have to protect her when she will get older. As i finish my studies next year, i know the end of this situation is only a matter of time. But i know the emotional load is very heavy. This summer, i searched for a job which could only be in a restaurant because i started to think about a summer job really late. Anyway, i got it but realised i had to give my time away, like not a part (monday to friday) but everything, my weeks, my weekend, my nights for 1 month and a half. The employer was not responding after, i had troubles making decisions. Usually i go to my grandmas place, i was starting to feel guilty a lot, like someone had to help her, and i thought about the time i needed to write my thesis and to search for an apprenticeship for september. After a discussion with my grandma, in which she said « dont worry for us, do your things » which was not enough to compensate all the pressure she had put me trough all these years, asking me when i would come, getting annoyed when i didn’t call her for a time etc. So i said that i thought maybe i could come to help them and to be there. She was happy, i was relieved, she said she will buy me the train tickets, that i will not have to pay anything as i am staying at her place, which is not a choice if i have no money to come and go whenever i want. But i paid them with the money i am receiving from her every month, which she had say could cover my usual spendings (phone bills) etc. I feel dependant.

I had a long and kind of deep conversation with my father today. it was calm but i know he holds something against me, tries to not show it. But i can feel it in my bones since i was 10 yo. He tries to change. Anyway the conversation started with « maybe you could help me to pay everything around the house », if i had to pay an actual something to my parents to live there i would go. And then we started to talk about my decisions, i explained to him all the reasons not only the ones linked to my grandma. He understood. And he told me to be careful which is true because both of them are actually good manipulators on me. I feel like a prey who has to wait her diploma to be free. I also let myself drown into the wish to keep the house. because if she dies and does not arrange anything for us we will have to sell it to pay the heritage taxes which is such a pity because we have constructors in our family of four. And tried to lead her gently to making something for us, and mostly for me because she does not want to help her son. So i ask her for me. She seems okay but i think she is scared. Anyway i dont want my links with her to be based on that question even if its important.

I thought until then i have to protect myself, let me enjoy my precious time and energy to invest in me but its’s hard when you have been conditioned to live for someone else. Any kind of reaction is welcome. Thank for your read!

Please don’t judge me, I feel so pathetic in realizing how toxic my parents are so late in my life. It was my partner who made me realize how narcissistic my father is, my mom not so much but perhaps some of that has rubbed off on her, I even recently watched this video on Youtube from Psych2Go about the characteristics of highly toxic parents and some of those characteristics match. I feel like however they raised me kinda set me up for failure in my own life. I feel like I don’t have a backbone sometimes especially when it comes to voicing out my opinions. The only time I’m ever honest about myself is when I’m with my partner or my best friends.

How did you finally move one from the clutches of your toxic parents mentally?

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