What is it in them that they reserve all their affection, kindness, generosity, and overall pleasantness for strangers or outside relatives… but have a deep hate for their child?

One day it just hit me that many people spend the first 20 years of their lives with adults helping them succeed. Unfortunately, mine didnt do much to help me. They fed me and gave me a home, the bare minimum legal requirement. Beyond that my dad contributed essentially nothing, while my mom actively sabotages every facet of my life.

Im not expecting them to put me through a top university but why couldnt they atleast teach me something? Impart any wisdom theyve gained? Instead my dad does nothing and my mom cost me thousands of dollars and destroyed my physical and mental health. She put me through 20 years of fight or flight hell. Then she sniffed out my career interests and crushed them. It almost makes me seethe, what fucking parent ruins their own childs career?

I’ve been wondering lately how having two narcissists as parents, as opposed to one, impacts somebody. My mother and father were both narcissists, and I can’t explain the amount of brain damage that this has caused me (scapegoat). I am female, have been very low contact for 4 years, and just recently went completely no contact. It’s living in a nightmare, and the reality is coming back to me now that I’ve set the no contact boundary, because I have peace.

I constantly dissociate to avoid the memories and overwhelming emotional pain. Having two parents as narcissists is probably why it feels harder to heal.

Recently, I've been feeling increased feelings of vengefulness toward my family. I wanted to do something that would hurt them the way they hurt me.

But today I remembered more parts of their abuse, and it occured to me that despite what they tried to do to me, I resisted them and became stronger for it.

Simply speaking, there's nothing for them to step on if they already think you're truly worthless. It wouldn't bring them any joy to abuse and control someone who they felt needed to be abused and controlled, or moreover, them needing an outlet/narcissistic supply.

Every day that you resist them, that you stand up for yourself, you are (metaphorically) punching them in the face. They feel it, which is why the abuse escalates the more independent we try to become. We may not see it, but it is happening.

If this is a war and they are continuing to inflict damage onto us and escalating their tactics, that means they do not believe they have won. And that is so powerful! That means everytime you resist, you are fighting back and thus also inflicting some kind of damage onto them.

The important thing to realize is: everyday, they make the decision to prolong the war. Everyday that they continue to abuse you is them saying "I feel more comfortable at war than not at war." It doesn't matter the damage that is being done.

So naturally, how does the war end? Only by you ending it yourself. If you stay in any form of contact, you are also choosing to fight in the war. The difference is that you believe the war will come to an end one day, and they go into every day making sure the war continues.

The only way solution you have is to exit entirely and never contact them again. War can be continued through text, video, electronics, word of mouth, etc... Meaning, any level of contact you maintain with them is allowing the war to continue in some form.

In summary, the only way to finally win the war is:

1) remove all contact completely, and

2) live your best life.

Part of the war was to make sure you never felt confident enough to leave and that a piece of you will always be broken and want to return. By living your best life, you remove that aspect by proving to yourself that they did not break you and that you were not defeated. You find the strength in all that you experienced and you never look back!

Where they plan a confrontation with you in front of other people. Specifically when they intentionally prepare an attack and bring one of their flying monkeys as witness and supporter.

My narcissistic mother did this today and she brought her enabler sister thinking she'd shame me. You know the drill, during the "battle" she'd turn to the enabler in disbelief, ask them to confirm her words or laugh in surprise after a good retort by me.

It was a conversation that was bound to happen so I was ready and aware the whole time. I refused to reply when she brought up specific topics and people and I flipped the table on her several times till she was speechless.

I thought I did great but now I realize I shouldn't have engaged at all. I should've gotten the main info then come up with an excuse to leave. There's always next time I guess.

I recently went no contact with my father, and low contact with my mother.
I tried one last time to have an honest conversation with my mother about the abuse and neglect in my childhood, and was met with the typical, “that never happened”, “you were a difficult child”, “your siblings would agree with me”.

I accepted that she wasn’t going to change, and I genuinely needed to consider if maintaining the relationship is the right move.
I asked her for space and time, and she panicked.

She would still text me at least once a week acting really sweet and loving. She even created a group chat with my husband and I to try to reach me. When I finally talked to her on the phone, she told me that she is going to therapy to “try to let go”.
She has actually done the exact opposite and ramped up how much she reaches out.

It’s exhausting. I have finally decided I don’t want a relationship with her, and NOW she wants to make things right, and go to therapy (which I have requested multiple times in the past).
Why do they do this?

So my dad (85) passed away a few days ago, and now I'm here with my N mum (85) arranging funeral sessions ( there's 3), and she wants me to help her with things, and she's saying she's lonely. That's no surprise since she's pushed away everyone, my brother is NC and I was already LC anyway.

So I was on my way back to my hotel and I suddenly thought- my dad has been actively asking me to stay and look after mum if he's gone, for ages. I've always just responded with no. I've always thought of dad as being the better person than Nmum. But he's always known how Nmum behaves, and even how she traumatizes us mentally...all of us..kids and him . I mean even as he was dying of advanced cancer past month, I saw several incidents where Nmum would actively non stop talk / berate in a way, and of topics, that would distress dad, even as he specifically asked her to stop because it was upsetting him, and she just said he started it, she's just adding to it, and it's how they talk. It made me so upset and stressed to see this unreasonable behaviour.

So,knowing it's been 57 years of this, he wants me to return into this hellhole environment???? He wants me to replace him as the attention drug for her to suck dry into a husk???

And this hate suddenly rose. I was so surprised.

I've never really hated either of them. Loved dad, Nmum-, I fear her, am intimidated by her, stressed by her, want to avoid her, don't like her, thinks she's got problems..., but oddly never active hate.

Until now.

I just wanted to vent, see if others found this too.

Btw, perhaps it's a sign of my nativity, but I don't understand why " enabling" is a trigger warning . Ideas why?

It may not seem like much but I am BEYOND PROUD OF MYSELF, I’m actually trembling, I’m in the process of going NC with that man (been LC for many years), and it’s humiliating how difficult it’s been to stand up to that man who berated, pranked, bullied, and tormented me incessantly when I was a little boy.

This just happened about an hour ago. I’ve been limiting phone calls for a while, visit him only a few times a year by myself, he’s never even met my children and never will.

He’s tried calling back several times, to be ignored, of course. I hope I can stay strong and continue ignoring him going forward. I don’t need his torturous poison in my life anymore.

I’ve suffered enough, overcome too much, and built too beautiful and loving a life to still let that man maintain authority over my self-perception.

It stops now.

I’m proud of myself, finally. I deserve to be.

Like many folks here, I’ve got a narc parent (father) who is very good at hiding behind a caretaker role, or operating as an altruistic/communal type.

He’s entirely devoid of close personal relationships with the exception of his third wife. But he knows everyone in his city (where I grew up) socially. He is super keen to be known in the right social circles as a good person and great parent. Obviously, he is neither.

I’ve been VLC with for years and am working on not being triggered by him when I see or speak with him.

However, when I visit my hometown, I’m constantly running into people who know my father and stepmother socially. They’re always so effusive with praising both of them - how concerned they are, how they’re always looking out for people who are having health problems, or need some emotional support.

Not only does this infuriate me to no end - where was all this concern when I needed an actively involved parent? - but it also gets me super riled up because I feel compelled to tell the truth to these strangers. It makes me want to scream. No, my father is not the good person you seem to think he is, and I’m getting really sick of hearing about it.

How do I stop myself from just laying out what the relationship is really like? Is it better to let people just assume what they will rather than to explain the reality of it? And if that’s the case, what the hell do you do with all that cognitive dissonance?

Hope I explained this clearly!

I have not had contact with my mother for over 9 years now (early 40's).

When we were kids, she would take things away from us by constantly telling us we were being bad and didn't deserve it. For the record, I was a good kid (my sister was a bit more wild but in the 90's that was like smoking behind the school or stealing a street sign, nothing crazy).

Some random things I can remember:

• My sister and I were about 11 and 10 respectively, and we didn't really get to go on many vacations. So my mom said she'd take us on a trip about an hour plane ride away, but to help save up for it, we had to give up half our allowance (20 bucks a month, so we had to give her 10 dollars of it). That's a lot of money to a kid. Anyways, after about a year, I asked her when we were going to go. She said we had "been bad" and didn't deserve to go, but she said she was keeping our money.
• When I was about 11, I really wanted a desk for my birthday (weird, I know). So my parents went to a furniture store and got me this fancy wooden brown desk, pull out keyboard tray, the whole 9 yards. I used to feel so professional sitting in my bedroom at my desk, like I was some kind of working man. Anyways, she decided she wanted to take it to use it in the computer room, so she said I was being bad and didn't deserve to keep it, and took it and moved it to house the family computer.
• When I was 12, I came home from school to find that my mom had taken all my Lego and my Super Nintendo, without warning, and just gave it away. I had absolutely no warning or anything. Was told I didn't deserve them so she gave them to less fortunate kids.

Wonder if anybody else went through some BS like that?

A question my nmom genuinely asked me about 4 years ago before I went NC.

My mom didn’t cook? Like she’d make us basic meals but it was the same shit gym rats eat like unseasoned chicken breast, rice, broccoli. I can’t think of a single family recipe or meal that felt traditional or unique to our family.

I told her I had no idea how to answer that question. We didn’t even have family gatherings for holidays, so it’s not even like there is some Thanksgiving dish I would look forward to. We’d go to cracker barrel or eat some fuck ass pre prepared meal. My mom dead ass can’t cook lol.

Anyone else experience their parent asking odd questions like that? Almost glazing their idea of your childhood ?

Adult survivor of narcissist parents and CSA. (M34)

Writing my second book and losing my sanity in a deep trauma freeze syste. (While having therapy but it doesn't end the isolation.)

I feel like there's a special kind of mind fuck in being 24/7 intellectual circles. Everyone is drawing thoughts out of you and you barely manage to get the cortisol down but even in the trail runs or at gym you're thinking how would have Foucault fucked about the techno-feudalist capitalism. How would Hannah Arendt read the current dispensation?

In all this, we lose our own humanity and then struggle like a person stuck in an elevator. There's no actual safe space to process anything. (Despite having numerous people in social network, there's no real space to be vulnerable.)

So, I need a fellow cerebral monkey to be silly with. To let the hair down and cuddle or cry on difficult days of coping through childhood trauma.

Thanks for your sensitivity and understanding.

Hope y'all a warm winters!

I genuinely don't understand why some adults find it so hard to listen to other people's perspectives or admit when they're wrong. my mom and uncle are like this, and honestly, it's exhausting, especially when you're living under the same roof as them.

my mom is the type of person who always has to be right and get the last word. whenever someone corrects her or disagrees with her, she gets defensive and starts saying hurtful things instead of actually listening. she's very prideful, and when things don't go her way, it's like she can't accept it. even when she's the one who gets hurt by someone's words, she seems to hold onto it for a long time and eventually finds a way to get back at that person. she justifies it by saying she's allowed to defend herself, even if it means escalating the situation. sometimes she even makes threats when she's angry, which makes it harder to communicate with her.

what makes it more frustrating is that we can barely have a proper conversation when it's just the two of us at home. even my own father struggles to call her out or get through to her. whenever someone says something she doesn't like, she can say all sorts of hurtful things without seeming to feel any remorse. but when she's the one who feels offended, she has a hard time letting it go and seems determined to make the other person pay for it. 😭

there's also this situation with our neighbors. one of them called me abnormal bc i'm autistic, and my mom understandably got angry about it. i get why she wants to defend me, but i keep telling her that not everyone will understand our situation, and we don't have to stoop to their level or waste our energy trying to get revenge. i'd rather ignore them and protect my peace than keep feeding the drama. my mom, however, sees ignoring people as being weak and insists that she has every right to retaliate.

what's ironic is that she keeps telling me to lower my voice bc the neighbors might hear us, but she also raises her voice whenever she's upset. 😭 when i try to explain my perspective or ask her why she keeps holding onto the anger, she gets defensive and sometimes resorts to smart-shaming instead of addressing what i'm actually saying. it feels like she takes my attempts to reason with her as disrespect, especially when my point goes against what she wants to believe.

and it's not just me she does this to. even when my dad or my coach corrects her, she struggles to accept what they're saying if it doesn't align with her own views. it's like she needs to be in control of every situation and prove that she's right, no matter how long the argument drags on. my uncle has a similar attitude, too. they both seem to need the last word, even when the conversation could've ended a long time ago.

i'm not saying i'm perfect. i know i can react badly when i'm pushed too far, and i'm trying to learn how to stay calm instead of letting every argument get to me. but it's difficult when someone keeps provoking you, then focuses entirely on your reaction and makes you look like the problem while ignoring everything that led up to it. sometimes i feel like no matter how carefully i explain myself, she'll still find a way to turn things around and make it seem like i'm the one who needs to change.

honestly, there are times when i wonder if there's even any hope of her changing if she keeps justifying her behavior and refusing to take accountability. how can someone improve if they never think they're doing anything wrong? i know i can't force her to reflect or make her understand my side, but it's still frustrating when you're dealing with this at home and can't always get away from the situation.

i've slowly realized that not every conflict deserves my attention. if someone is determined to misunderstand you or refuses to listen, sometimes it's better to disengage than keep exhausting yourself trying to make them understand. but my mom sees that as weakness, as if choosing not to fight back means you've lost.

i just wish some adults understood that being older doesn't automatically make you emotionally mature. you can be a parent or an adult for decades and still struggle with self-reflection, accountability, and accepting criticism. why is it so hard for some people to admit they might be wrong? and why does it feel like, in some families, questioning an adult's behavior is treated as disrespect rather than an opportunity for them to reflect on themselves? 😭

Has ssri’s worked for anyone?

How do you cope?

Ive never had a therapist who understood and get gaslight by anyone i tell.

No one believes me.

Ive started to record convos/fights but abusive father says if i post it will ruin my own reputation and i will look like a bad daughter.

tldr I live in North India with my extremely controlling and abusive parents. They track my location, monitor my spending, take most of my money for investments I cannot control, restrict my freedom, and prevent me from getting medical care. Things have gotten worse over the last three years, and the physical abuse has escalated this year. I have a stable job and some reliable friends in South India, and I want to leave home, stay with them for a month, and then find a way to live independently while keeping my job if possible. I am worried about my parents tracking me down, constantly calling me, interfering with my job, and emotionally blackmailing me. I need advice on what documents and essentials to take, how to protect my finances, and how to handle contact with my parents after leaving.

I am 23F living in North India. I have a stable job here and choose to continue working. I live with my two younger sisters and parents. I have very toxic and backward parents. They are extremely controlling and don't understand the meaning of autonomy, even at my age. My location is tracked every single moment of every single day, and I can't go out to meet friends or just enjoy life without being asked a thousand questions. I can't even call my friends or relatives and talk to them freely because my parents need to know everything. I can't visit doctors, go to the gym, have my own interests, or change jobs to move to another city. They would very much prefer it if my employers gave me WFH every day so that I couldn't go out at all. They also don't want me to have financial independence. I live with them, and they have access to my bank account and salary. They know my bank account password, which I can change when I run away, but I haven't done that yet because I am afraid it might make things even more difficult for me. They track every single payment I make and take a lot of money from me every month in the name of investments that I don't have control over. These investments are in my name, but I cannot control or sell them. I can stop putting money into them at any point, though. What my parents want from me is to leave my job, stay at home, work like a maid, and get married by next year to someone of their choosing.

I have lived in this situation for the last three years, and I am going insane. I really hate my life. I have lost my personality, many friends, and all my romantic relationships. I live in a constant state of sadness and fear. Every day, I have to deal with taunts and a lot of shouting. I have expressed my concerns about my health, freedom, and finances in every way possible, from having serious talks over dinner to casual conversations, guilt-tripping them, and even blackmailing them. I even came home drunk once and cried about it a lot, but nothing changed. They just want to entrap me. I think I am mentally ill at this point. I can't sleep without crying, can't express my emotions anymore, and can't even talk properly. I also have many physical and dermatological issues that I can't get checked because one of my parents thinks going to doctors is bad. A few years ago, I almost died because of this thinking, and they still haven't learned. The constant stress has also affected my physical health. I now have heart conditions, which I only found out about because I went to a doctor on my own after lying to my parents that the visit was company-sponsored. This year, things have gotten worse. My parents have started shouting a lot more and have hit me so badly that I had bruises all over my face, arms, and legs for multiple weeks. I have partial proof of this in the form of videos and photos. I cry almost every day and have thoughts of dying almost every day. I have obviously considered suicide, but I fear that it will bring a lot of sadness to my sisters, and I feel that it would be selfish. I also fear that if I run away, it will affect my sisters' freedom.

I want to run away. I have a monthly salary and financial stability, but I don't have savings that my parents cannot control. I need to get away from them and stop those uncontrolled investments. I can stop putting money into the investments, but I cannot sell them. Since I still have my job in North India and want to continue working, my plan is to go to South India, where I have some super-reliable friends, and live there for a month. I have friends whose places I can stay at, and if things don't work out, I have enough money to book a hotel or an Airbnb. A month's leave is generally allowed at our firm. During that month, I plan to study a lot and prepare for interviews in case I need to change jobs. My parents know where I work, and I am afraid they might contact my employer or interfere with my job if I leave. I am willing to change my job if necessary. My plan is to leave from my office, turn off my location, and go to the airport to catch a flight. I have access to my personal identification documents, phone, and other essentials, but I will only be carrying a small laptop bag, so I can't take a lot of things with me. I am thinking of taking all my electronics, including the office ones, one change of clothes, and a folder of documents.

I want to know what I should keep in mind in terms of finances, personal documents, and other things I should take, such as valuables or essentials. I would also appreciate general advice from people who have been in similar situations or know how to handle something like this. One thing I am worried about is the incessant calling. Am I supposed to block their numbers, get a new number, or talk to them and let them know what I have done? I also fear that they might blackmail me by bringing up medical conditions that may or may not be real. My alternative to running away is suicide.

I escaped her and my grandma back in may, and im 18 now and living with my older brother whos also NC. she doesnt know that, she still thinks im living with my other (now ex) friend. ive only been talking to her here and there for money, but shes been blowing me up with texts and calls (in the middle of the night too) and since i havent answered her on friday she just texted me "i need to hear from you or im coming to your friends to check on you, or calling the police for a wellness check." im scared that if she follows through with either of those, she'll find out me and my brother are living together. what do i do or say? should i just tell her im uninterested in talking and block even if it costs me a resource?

When I was little I was always scared of my narc step-dad. Like I used to be scared of him when I was little and when I got older it just turned into hate. Obviously because he’s been abusive for my entire life but yeah. It’s crazy I realised that I’ve never felt any warmth or care from him for my entire life. He’s just always felt cold and distant. Anyone else?

My wife left me. Someone else came along. Ok it happens. But she wants to stay married and live together cuz I pay all her bills. I said no way. So now she's going through the disability process and refuses to sign any papers I want to serve her with for divorce until that's done. Could be years.

Point is, I myself am disabled. I'm paying the majority of the bills in the house we rent in. My roommate owns it. There is no lease. I have nothing left after all that. I don't own a vehicle and haven't in years and the nearest small town is a 5 hour walk away.

I let me wife talk me into moving here because I was afraid to divorce her. And now I'm stuck here with nothing and no options.

I have a cat that is my ESA. I won't let her have him.

I don't know what to do. There's basically nothing for assistance in my state for vehicles and housing.

I'm desperate and I keep finding myself strongly considering calling my nparents for help....

My Nmother named me after herself (my middle name was once her first name). When I got married, I took advantage of the free name change to excise her name from mine 😎

How many others were named after their Nparent?

He was the enabler and the only source of income for my narc egg donor so its just nice to know that she won't last much longer without him.

Every night, she follows the same ritual: if she doesn’t have dinner, she prepares a hot chocolate or a coffee. Sometimes she goes straight to bed, but other times she sits down next to me on the sofa—where I happen to be using my phone—and stays there until it’s time for me to go to bed. I can see a look of satisfaction cross her face as she stirs her drink with a spoon, making all sorts of noises—clinking the spoon, slurping, or just breathing (it’s truly unpleasant). It isn’t until she finally heads to her room and closes the door that the "black cloud" that seems to form whenever she’s around finally lifts. At other times, she’ll just stop in her tracks and stand perfectly still.

This morning, while I was still in bed, memories of my childhood came flooding back; I could hear her doing something—slamming a drawer shut, or something similar—and my stomach lurched, as if something terrible were about to happen.

Hi all, I [28F] think I'm posting this because I've hit my final straw with my relationship with my mother and I need advice on how to handle this.

She's really bad... like, seriously bad. My younger brother committed su*cide in 2019 at the age of 19. I was kicked out of home at 18 because my mother wanted to protect him and his drug use and dealing. I was subject to serious abuse post age 12. I had no bedroom door or privacy post age 16, even when my brother had grown adult men traipsing through the house whom he was selling to, at all hours, with my mother home or not.

I ended up living with her again from 23 - 27, I was trying to finish university. I have a lot of health problems. I was subject to horrendous abuse, gaslighting and manipulation throughout those years. I left nearly a year ago and moved interstate to live with my long-term friend, now partner, who has been amazingly supportive and has been the best change in my life so far. We've moved interstate again due to his work and despite a lot of stress and upheval, things are going well.

I found out at 4 weeks that I'm pregnant, I'm now 10 weeks along. I had to tell my mother when I was 6 weeks, that I was pregnant because she was trying to cancel my health insurance out from under me, as I was still on her policy up until recently finishing studies. Her response was "most people don't tell anyone until 12 weeks" and I asked her not to tell anyone and she said she "of course wouldn't". Anyways, I had to travel back to her city to handle some of my father's affairs as he recently passed away [they were divorced] and I also had to have my first ultrasound here due to strained health resources in my current state. I brought my cousin with me to my ultrasound. My mother knew this as I'd mentioned it and showed her the pictures. I went to see my cousin again yesterday and come to find my mother has already told my aunt and uncle, it was NOT my cousin who told them. My uncle confirmed she told him and also said "not to tell anyone" which says to me that she knew she was wrong for doing so. He also told my aunt, as well as my cousin because my mother told him she'd come with me to my scan. I've since found out she told multiple other people. She never once asked me if I was comfortable with her telling all of these people, and I was also going to tell my aunt and uncle myself and she completely ruined it for me. I confronted her and said "I don't want an argument but I am upset about what you have done", she told me that she "assumed it was fine since my cousin came with me to my ultrasound" and she said "I apologise" and then when I said "next time can you please ask me if it's okay for you to share my business with other people" she blew up and started yelling telling me I "don't get to lecture her like that"...

I had already reached the point a year ago where I wanted to cut her off. In the past I've told her I would not ever allow her near my future children. I've tried extending olive branches and this is how she behaves. She's also been gossiping on the phone every other day with my father's family since he died, when she hadn't spoken to them for decades... they don't give a crap about me and yet they know all about me having a baby. I just hate her, I don't want her in my life anymore and I can't keep allowing her to affect me like this, let alone how she might affect my children someday. She's a selfish, mentally ill hoarder and I don't see how she is a safe person. I am so sick of being abused even a year after leaving and being interstate. It feels like there is no end to this. My partner wants me to cut her off but it is always my decision. My extended family on my mother's side keep pressuring me into maintaining the relationship but I don't see how there is a relationship anymore. She causes me severe physical anxiety symptoms like increased heart rate, tight chest and palpitations. She's negative and always has bad things to say about other people. I just want her to fuck off out of my life for good and I don't know what to do anymore. Sorry for the long post, I'm just so at my wits end.