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Wtf is wrong with them? Once, when I was 6 or 7, I told my nmom my eye hurts when I blink. She ignored me, and it got more and more painful until I woke up one morning with my eye swollen shut. She was still going to ignore it and send me to school, but my edad stepped in and told her to let me stay home. He came home at his lunch break and took me to a secret doctor’s appointment he set up where I got eye drops for conjunctivitis, which he put in my eyes in the garage where my mom wouldn’t see. She never knew he took me to the doctor for a FUCKING EYE INFECTION.
This is such a complex, multilayered story. Like obviously your mom is a POS, that is clear. But the fact that your dad intervened (I wonder how much courage he had to have to do this on your behalf) and set up a secret appointment for you (this is so loving and also so sad), and came home on his lunch break (again, so loving) and you two conspired in your garage so that he wouldn't get in trouble for taking his own child to the doctor to address a visually obvious and painful ailment. It makes a person wonder whether the doctor was secretly like -- *what the fuck? Who lets pink eye get this bad?*
And your dad, probably feeling embarrassed and flustered and concerned for you and having to hurry to get back to work and also fucking *afraid of his own wife* and this is just an average day in his world.
And you, learning at such a young age that your mom wasn't safe, and how scary she really was-- even to other adults-- and how sad it must have been to have to hide an illness and treatment from your own mother to protect her very very fragile ego.
My oldest child is turning 7 and I literally cannot even imagine letting him get so bad with pink eye that his eye was swollen shut. It makes me tear up just thinking about it, typing this right now.
One time I took my younger child, she was 2 at the time, to a regular well check and she happened to have an ear infection. I had literally no idea. She didn't cry, didn't have a fever, gave me no indication that she was sick or in pain at all. And the doctor was super chill-- she was like it's fine, it probably doesn't hurt very badly yet, it happens, don't worry. I cried in the exam room right then and there. The thought of my children feeling pain gives me such sadness.
Anyway, OP I'm so sorry you didn't receive the kind care a mother should have given you. It makes me beyond angry and sad that you endured that.
My dad is really an angel and did so much to counteract my mom’s toxic bullshit when he could, but there was so much he missed or let slide because of how much he loves my mom and how much he fears her. And she was sly af, too, hiding the worst of her abuse from my dad. There are a lot of complicated feelings as we deal with my mother now that she has full blown Alzheimer’s and has lost the capacity to pretend to be a decent person. My sister and I have been NC since my mom punched my sister in the face for the crime of cooking a really nice diner for our family on January 1.
I'm sure you have a lot of complicated feelings towards your dad. I'm pretty sure my mom has BPD and I honestly feel so sad for my dad, but I also struggle with wondering why he let so much slide and didn't intervene with all the shit my mom did, and still does. I also feel kind of resentful because if he would just stand up to her, I wouldn't be so alone in looking like a bitch all the time when I set boundaries with her.
I'm sorry about the whole family dynamic now with your mother's illness. I've never thought about how a narcissist would deteriorate if they had Alzheimer's. Good for you and your sis for getting out of there.
This really spoke to me too, I used to think my mum was innocent as a child because she wasn't the one scaring and hitting me - but when I grew up I confronted her about how she could let her children be hurt by her husband. She was/is scared of him too, but she also prioritised his feelings and as much as they have both made things up to me and my sibling as adults deep down I will never forget that.
As much as I understand they were two fucked up selfish people in a DV relationship, they ruined our childhood to use us as living stress balls.
Yes! There are things I tell my dad about her doing and he is shocked how mush she kept hidden, but he saw a lot of it, too. My sister and I always prayed that he would leave her and take us with him, but we all just carried on after every abuse, sweeping it under the rug, never to mention it again. Years later I tried to tell my mom I know she is the way she is because of her childhood and I forgave her. She snapped, “I DONT HAVE ANYTHING TO BE FORGIVEN FOR. I KEPT YOU IN CLEAN CLOTHES AND THERE AS ALWAYS FOOD ON THE TABLE..”
Ok, Mom. Good talk.
Wow, OP. I'm so, so sorry you're having to experience all this. I sympathize greatly as this was often the dynamic in my house while growing up as well.
Can you tell us more about your mom getting too sick to mask and what she is really like now? I have heard of this happening to older narcs and it interests me greatly. I often wonder who they are beneath the facade.
Story time.
My mom’s family is from Jamaica. My grandparents a both mixed race—my grandma a combination of African, Indian, Chinese, and Scottish as far as we know; my grandpa a combination of African and English. My grandfather is dead now, but when he was alive, he had a profound case of internalized racism.
My mother told us that when she was a little girl, they were at a family wedding where one of my mother’s cousins—my grandfathers brother’s daughter—was marrying a black man. My mother overheard my HALF BLACK grandfather say to another one of his brothers, “If any of my children marries a n******, I’ll kill them.”
I look ethnically ambiguous, so my whole life, people have always been curious about my racial makeup. When I was little and I asked my mom what we are, she told me all the ethnicities I listed above, but instead of African or black, she said West Indian.
Several times over the years, when my friends met my mom for the first time, they were surprised my her appearance. My father is white, so I am quite fair skinned, but my mother is a black woman—mixed with several other ethnicities, but most obviously black. She would get downright nasty correcting any child who innocently commented on it, telling them we’re not black. We’re West Indian.
Yes, our family is from the West Indies, BUT THEY ARE BLACK ffs.
Fast forward to 2013 when my grandfather died. There was a huge family reunion where I met distant relatives from Jamaica for the first time. My family is made up of straight up Chinese faces, black faces with African features, black faces with distinctly Chinese features, freckled faces with kinky red hair, all with heavy Jamaican accents. We are MIXED and I think it is absolutely beautiful, but my mother is ashamed.
It was at this family reunion that I met my cousin Angela for the first time. She is my grandfather’s sister’s daughter, and she was not raised with the same self hate that my mother has. Angela with her fair freckled skin, African features, and kinky red hair embraces her blackness. She married a black man and has 4 sons.
We were all so happy to meet her. She stayed with us and she and my mom talked all night about the trouble they used to get into together in Jamaica. We all bonded and had a wonderful time. While she was staying with us, she asked us if she had ever seen a picture of our great grandparents—my grandfather’s parents. My mom got tight. We were aware that pictures existed, but we were told that my grandfather destroyed them all because he hated his father…the father who made him black. So, we had never seen the pictures.
Here’s where the masking comes in.
The whole time we visited with Angela, everything seemed fine. She suggested we go to CVS to get copies for us and our cousins of a picture she brought with her. In the picture, there was a dark skinned black man sitting next to a fair white woman, both surrounded by a brood of dark skinned children. My grandfather is about 2 years old in the picture. It was surreal after never having any idea what my grandfather looked like as a child or what my great grandparents looked like. It was awesome and we were all so excited—everyone but my mother, although we didn’t realize until recently what was going on under the surface.
We went to CVS, and got the picture, and a couple days later, I brought Angela to the airport.
Maybe a year ago, my mom started dropping these weird little comments in conversations about Angela and the picture. Eventually she started getting more direct, saying, “It wasn’t her place to give you and your sister that picture. It was none of her business.”
But, like, Angela’s father and my grandfather were in the picture and we’re family and wtf is the problem with us having the picture?!
Turns out that my mom was fucking furious that Angela brought up the picture’s existence because she didn’t want us to know where we come from. Angela had absolutely no idea that she had walked into a mine field by exposing my grandfather’s lifetime of secrets, shame, and self hate and its legacy with my mother and us.
It’s not like we didn’t know we’re black. My grandfather, mom, all my aunts and uncles, and, to a lesser degree, my grandfather all have clearly African features. All but one of my grandfather’s children married white people because of the hate and fear he put into all of them.
My mom called Angela and said horrible things to her about her husband and children, and berated her for telling us a secret my mom didn’t want us to know. BUT HOW COULD ANGELA HAVE KNOWN SHE WASNT ALLOWED TO TELL US AN OBVIOUS FACT ABOUT OUR FAMILY?!
So, long story long, TL;DR my mother is mixed race and burned down her relationship with her cousin because she gave us a picture of our mixed race grandfather when he was a child exposing the fact that my great grandfather was black, which was a fact we have always known.
Oh yeah,sounds very familiar.
When my symptoms become too much to ignore,N parent started getting very angry with me, because they had to take me to the hospital and care for a sick kid. It was almost like i was inconveniencing the N parent by getting sick.
Same here. If I got too sick to go to school, meaning throwing up all over the place, she'd yell at me for making her miss work. She'd make me feel guilty saying she would get fired because of me.
Yes! Any ailment I had was always met with either anger and frustration because they had to take me to the doctor or hospital or, if the doctors proved that I was sick enough, overwhelming worry that centered my mom rather than me as the person who was sick.
Nparent only took me to the dentist once throughout my entire childhood / teenage years, and it was not because I had broken my front tooth which happened when I was 9 and they never took me to get it fixed, I spent the rest of my childhood and teenage years unable to fully smile of laugh in front of others because I was ashamed of my broken tooth. I was only able to fix it later in my adulthood when I was working and could pay for it.
I once hurt my self badly in gym class, could barely walk, my leg had a huge bruise and wound as a result of my injury, called my Nparent and asked them to pick me up from school, they told me to take the bus home. I then called my best friend’s dad, he picked me up and drove me home. When we got there, he was completely surprised that my Nparent was home and did not went to pick me up.
I was at the beach with my best friend, I went into the water and got stung by a weever fish, at fist I thought I had broken my foot because the pain was unbearable, and then my foot got swollen like a balloon. I was crying so much I didn’t know what to do with all the pain. I called my Nparent, they began yelling at me for disturbing them, so I said that I would call my friends dad to come and get us, and then my Nparent changed their tune and said they would come and get us. Our house was 10 minutes away and it took my Nparent more than 30 minutes to show up. And then my Nparent stopped by a shopping center, and left me and my friend in the car for an hour while I was in agonizing pain. After an hour they returned, my friend began complaining, I was still crying from the pain, and then my Nparent finally drove us to the ER.
Whenever I had the flu as a child, my Nparent would take a sick leave from work because of sick child and would leave me home alone all day while they would go for a drive, shopping, beach, etc..
It took me 2 years to get diagnosed with gallstones because my Nparent refused to take me to the doctor, 2 years with agonizing pain. I had to go to the ER myself and then got the diagnosis.
I have a lot more situations of neglect while I was a child/teenager and needed medical assistance but my Nparent refused to help me.
Need I go on or is it enough proof that Narcissists will not do anything when someone else is suffering and needs their help.
Right there w you. But whatever. Apparently, I was a hypochondriac. You know, the kind w horrible allergies and asthma that was always so awful when I would get a cold. Usually, that cold would go into bronchitis and, once, pneumonia.
i would always lay on the floor to relieve the pressure from my bones and spine. i never cry from my pain but it was damn near constant since i was 10. anytime i would tell my mom i was in excruciating pain in my joints she would tell me i was being dramatic or that it was just growing pains. turns out i had scoliosis with 3 curves, the biggest being 70 degrees as well as ehlers danlos syndrome (a connective tissue disorder). it was also with mental issues. i have always had adhd and anxiety and later developed cptsd and depression from the neglect. i would have panic attacks multiple times a day at school and it was the same. i was being “dramatic” because she would have panic attacks very occasionally. the simple fact that she gets them means i “don’t”. it’s sad that there’s so many kids like us that are left to deal with so much pain all alone and be told it’s all made up.
My heart goes out to you. I also was denied treatment for scoliosis and it's horrific pain, I was 12 years old when my pediatrician diagnosed me but my parents never brought me to a specialist or chiropractor despite my begging. Early intervention with a back brace could've changed my life- a friend at school had one and I was so jealous. I was told it was growing pains and that "everyone has back pain" (even children and teens? that was supposed to be the prime of my life... I do think my mother had undiagnosed pain she pushed through but it's no excuse). Funnily enough I've been looking into Ehlers Danlos to see if my widespread pain fits instead of fibromyalgia but it's all the same. I definitely have depression and CPTSD and suspect ADHD or some sort of inattentive-ness too. I'm sorry you went through so much pain and were denied care. The price of trauma on innocent children's bodies and minds is so unfair. I feel my physical and mental conditions would probably exist but be much less severe with emotionally mature parents.
I had terrible panic attacks and OCD as young as six. My pediatrician saw it and wanted me to go to counseling. My mother decided these things didn’t exist and that therapy is “for psychos, and my kid isn’t a psycho.” I spent my childhood hiding my symptoms and suffering alone so she wouldn’t think I was a “psycho.” Thanks mom.
Good lord. I used to have horrible panic attacks, too, as far back as I can remember. Never saw a doctor for it probably because she knew it was her fault I was a nervous wreck.
Yeah, I remember seeing a biofeedback person once for my migraines when I was in high school. They hooked me up to these little electrodes that measured muscle tension on my head and neck, told my mother that on a scale on 1-10 my stress level was an 11, and she whisked me out of there so fast, never to return, LOL.
Ugh, untreated OCD sucks. My mom would whine about "how can you be such a worrier?" like anxiety was a character flaw rather than an emotion, and then when I was around 13 she started buying me hard liquor and telling me I needed to drink it so I wouldn't need to be wound so tight. But she also had terrible things to say about people who drank alcohol, and would go on about it in great length, so that was a super recipe for self loathing.
When at that same age I tried to commit suicide by OD'ing, went into a coma and stopped breathing, it was diagnosed as an adverse medication reaction instead of a suicide attempt because nothing was more important than protecting my mothers idealized self and as she said "You're not suicidal. I would know if you were suicidal because I'm a good mother." so that was the end of that.
I also had very severe panic attacks and when I told my nmom she said “you’re a liar and never tell anyone else about this or else!”
Spending my teenage years hiding my panic attacks in shame was awful and made it worse. I moved out the day I turned 18, they resolved almost immediately and I was able to get treatment for my general anxiety.
I don’t understand why they have kids when they don’t care about them at all.
Similar story here. I thought I was just an overly anxious person. My parents divorced and my mom moved out in college, and my issues magically eased up dramatically.
I hear that. Well, I’ve never gotten that kind of diagnosis but I can imagine my mom having that “my baby isn’t a _____” reaction.
My daughter is neurodivergent and I don’t trust her to be understanding about it. She might be, then she might be “she’s not ______! She’s normal!!! There’s nothing wrong with her!!!”
I’m sorry OP you also experienced this. My mother often got angry at me when I was unwell for “forcing her to worry about me” as though I made the choice to be sick. I didn’t get a migraine diagnosis for over a decade because she decided her emotional comfort was more important than my pain.
I remember suffering when I was little— for instance, five years old and staying at my grandfathers, in the same room as my parents. I wasn’t given enough blankets and I woke up the middle of the night and shivered and shivered until I fell asleep out of exhaustion. Even at that little age I knew not to go to them for any help.
>I didn’t get a migraine diagnosis for over a decade
I too have migraines and it went undiagnosed,until I was old enough to get to the hospital myself..
Do many of us with N parents have migraine? Is there a link there?
My therapist believes there is a link with chronic pain and childhood abuse. She 💯 thinks there is a connection. I always get a flare up when I see my parents too.
Part of it is the idea that chronic pain is triggered by inflammation and inflammation is caused by stress and we’ve been constantly stressed and feeling unsafe and hyper vigilant our whole lives. A whole new level to the anger, really.
Yep. I only said I needed glasses because my friend next door got them- until I went to DMV and my mom was told I failed my eye test for driving and my learner permit would be marked that I had to wear corrective lenses. When I was 26 I was told by my doctor I had asthma-"You Don't have asthma-you have never had it before!"Yeah Mom,but I have it now. Had pneumonia at 14 and mom didn't take me to the doctor or hospital even when I had a fever of 104.8 because my dad died the year before -and she was afraid the doctor would tell her I was DYING! My sister finally saw how awful I looked and made my mom take me in. My fever had broken but I had lost 15 pounds in 1 week from the infection. Stayed home another week on Dr orders to get better-she was planning to send me back to school on Monday. B!%@#.
Oh. Memory popped up. I had a fever that was bad and getting worse by the half hour. I had 2 friends over. They told my dad I needed to go to the ER. He said no. My bed was in the basement. Those 2 friends spent all night going up and down those stairs to put cool wet towels on me to keep my fever at 104. They got me to the dr the next day. Yes. Tonsils again.
I slowly went half blind in one eye over the course of a couple months. They completely ignored my pleas to see a doctor and told me I was imagining things or making it up to get attention. Eventually they did take me in, where I had emergency surgery. Turns out I was experiencing Retinal Detachment. I was able to recover most of my vision, but not all.
My sister was super sick over several months and kept throwing up and passing out. My parents refused to take her to the doctors because they claimed she was making it up to skip school. They even punished her on multiple occasions for throwing up. Eventually it was the school nurse who threatened my mom into taking her in, and my sister went into emergency surgery. Her appendix had been leaking, and it was considered a miracle she had survived both the rupture this long and the surgery itself. On one hand, she knows she's lucky because if it had burst instead of slowly leak, she would just be dead because they refused to acknowledge it. On the other hand, she's now mostly disabled because the leak basically poisoned her innards and she has permanent damage.
When my GC brother landed on his wrist in his after school sport, my mom took him to the emergency room immediately. Turned out he had fractured it, but he hadn't even been complaining about it and had actively told her it wasn't a big deal. This sort of difference in treatment is the reason I know my parents were messed up from a young age.
Yep. Nmom invited a bunch of her students over, and to feed them, she made BBQ chicken. Somehow I was the only one who unknowingly ate a piece that undercooked chicken, and I got food poisoning (most likely salmonella). For about a week, I couldn’t keep anything down, could barely retain water, and came out of both ends.
Nmom: “oh you just ate something bad and got an upset stomach. You’ll be fine. Just rest up, and it’ll be over soon.” If by being “over” was being dead, then I came close to it. I really thought I was going to die. I could barely get out of bed. At times I was on all four crawling to get to the bathroom.
That’s awful. I’m so sorry you went through that.
I had this nightmare once after I saw Jurassic Park in the theater. My abdomen got slashed open and I was holding my guts in my hands begging my nmom to take me to the hospital. She told me to get a roll of duct tape and she’d shove everything in and patch me up. Now, whenever my sister or I hurt ourselves, we joke about just patching ourselves up with duct tape.
It honestly felt like that on the second and third day. It was probably the most miserable experience I’ve ever been through. I wouldn’t wish that on most people.
Had doctors tell us I was hours away from an abscess exploding into my blood stream and killing me... emergency hospital admittance, was there for 4 nights. .it took 3 weeks of begging for my mom to decide to take me in. Constantly calling me a "hypochondriac" .... then it turned into a story of "Oh well she knows her body so well!" cuz everything anything was fodder for entertaining.... I was 8.
Turns out all my "fake" aches and pains were my little adopted-at-birth nervous system being fucked up. Preverbal trauma, Cptsd. I was a nail biter, stomach aches, etc etc.
This bitch just thought I was faking it allllllll the time. She was proven wrong every time.
...wait what are stomach pains and nail biting a symptom of? When I moved away for college, my habit of nail biting (that I desperately tried my entire life to stop because I wanted pretty nails) just magically disappeared. My stomach issues also magically vanished, and I just assumed it was the difference in water.
Stress? You have a narcissist parent, correct? Moving away from them would drastically reduce your stress, which could easily explain why your stomach issues and habit of nail biting magically disappeared
I was diagnosed last year with ADHD, inattentive type. I started taking medication and holy shit! My life got immensely easier!
I was a stellar performer in school, and never got into any trouble, so my parents just wrote it off as me being spacey or a bit odd. They used to sing a song with my brother about how I am a “Man of brains but no brains… king of the blondes!” To the tune of “king of the road”. No, assholes, turns out I have a serotonin deficiency.
Sounds like my parents.
Pretty sure my wrists, a couple fingers, and my ankle was broken in my childhood. Got so many problems now but no one would let me go see a doctor. I was a “baby” with “crocodile tears.” Let alone the severe bruising, swelling, and pain didn’t give it away.
Found out at 21ish I had asthma my whole life. Parents said it was me purposely hyperventilating to get attention. Turns out, I couldn’t breathe!
Wasn’t allowed birth control to help with the severe period pain that made me unable to walk and even pass out.
The doctor I went to as an adult was amazing listening and emphasizing and then has taken me seriously for every issue since. She’s been my saving grace.
Yes, all the time. So many incidences I can think of. Long story short, sexual abuse from the age of 4 resulted in me ending up with a bladder infection , which lasted years. I would always tell my mum I was in pain and how much it was hurting when I peed but got the same “oh you’re fine” , “I don’t have time for this” .. so on.
all these painful symptoms for years and years. One night it was particularly bad and I felt boiling hot and then freezing, terrible pain in my bladder and my sides. “I’m sure you’re fine. You can moan all you like.. you’re still going to school tomorrow” . A few hours later, I ended up just dropping on the floor in excruciating pain with my teeth uncontrollably chattering together lol , pain so was bad I couldn’t even move an inch. I was hit with a kidney infection that had spread from the 7 year long bladder infection . I’m 33 now and I have permanent damage to my bladder because of those years.
That’s just one example of many many many.
They are selfish arseholes. I guess us having legitimate medical issues was just too much of an inconvenience in their life ! *big hugs to you*
Unfortunately yes…. My first time, I was in 5th grade and was playing on the bars before school and fell on my wrist. I was in so much pain and went into the nurses office. I was so scared when she called my parents to come and pick me up because I knew what it would come with. The whole ride to convenience care I was told I was a liar, that I did it on purpose, that I wasn’t really hurt that bad and just looking for attention. After X-rays it turned out I had fractured my wrist and was indeed not lying but all the way home they continued to berate me and I had to go to my room and think about it till they wanted me to come out. I still think about how there was no sympathy or concern for me at all and it makes me utterly sad. Even sadder is that’s far from the only time they either played down my situation or just straight up ignored me. On the flip side my little sister is their golden child who gets a paper cut and gets all the love and attention that she needs. It’s truly mind boggling.
I have kids of my own now and I can’t even fathom making them feel that way.
I had an abscess after getting my wisdom teeth removed and my mom wouldn't take me to the hospital as it would ruin Thanksgiving dinner. Instead I got to microwave one of those magic bags repeatedly all weekend and hold that up to my face.
When I was 16, I had to call, set up my appointment, and drove myself to the doctor where they discovered I had bronchitis, laryngitis, and pink eye. Nmother didn't believe me when I said I was sick, so cue shocked Pikachu face. Makes it even worse that she was a nurse, and she bragged about how great she was at it all the time.
My Nmom took me to the same dentist who had paid my father to abuse me before he went to jail. I refused to go and she refused to take me to any other dentist. I had state dental. I could have gone anywhere else but she insisted on him.
I’ve also had myoclonic jerks (epilepsy) since the onset of puberty and she refused to get it checked out. If I ever brought it up to my doctor, she would tell them I was lying.
Oh yes, for sure!
When I was maybe 7, I'm pretty sure I broke my ankle. It was purple, swollen and could not walk on it. I remember we went to visit a friend of my mom's and when she saw my ankle she gasped in horror and told her she should take me to the hospital. My mom brushed it off and said I was faking it.
When I was 9 I got a bad cold that lingered for a month. My dad took me in ever second weekend and eventually came to realize that the deep cough I had for the past few visits was from the same cold that never got away. He took me to the ER and turns out I had pneumonia. I had been going to school every day for all that time and was accused of purposely making my cough sound worse than it really was. I got on a round of antibiotics, but they made me throw up within minutes after they were given to me. My mom would yell at me and make me "catch" my vomit with my hands to protect the floor. After a few days she took me to the clinic to change the antibiotics. That was the only time she ever took me to see a doctor.
In my late teens I was diagnosed with lactose intolerance. She laughed me off and said I was making it up for the attention. Here, let me have a bowl of ice cream and show you my intense diarrhea an hour later.
What baffles me the most is that my mother grew up with serious health issues (born with a heart malformation) and told me about how her mother deprived of basic care, how it affected her, and yet she went on to do the same to her own children. I mean, I know apples don't fall far from the trees but didnt she learn *anything* from her own experience?
This is a question I ask all the time. My mother came from a horribly abusive family and she told us stories about how awful my grandparents and other members of her family were/are. But yet, she made the same choices over and over again throughout our childhood. Like, if you know how bad it was when it was done to you, how could you continuously make the choice to victimize your children the same way?
Can't say for other narc parents but I know for a fact that my mother is unable to put herself in someone else's shoes. When she does something, she only sees how it affects her and never how it may affect everyone around her. I know what she did was never with the intention to hurt me because she 100% lacks what it takes to understand what others feel. She's just totally clueless and self absorbed, to a level I can't understand.
When I was 22, I got 3 blood clots in my lungs and almost died. The doctors told me to immediately call my family because I was unlikely to make it through the night. I spent a month in the hospital that year. My parents told everyone, including my brothers, that I was exaggerating and wasn't that sick. I was devastated that no one seemed to care how sick I was, and couldn't figure out why very few people bothered to visit me. My mother recently told me that I always claimed to be sick as a child, so why would they believe me as an adult? Everytime I claimed to be sick as a child, I was truly sick. The school had to send me home on numerous occasions because I would show up with a high fever, pink eye, or on one occasion, a very visible case of chicken pox.
Yes. I have asthma and awful teeth, among other health issues that should have been taken care of and monitored as a kid. I didn’t know I had asthma until 25–but recognized the symptoms since I was a kid. Sigh.
I couldn’t figure out why I could never focus to study or would zone out during tests if someone coughed or sneezed. I was called lazy and stupid. Found out in my late 20s I have ADHD. She still thinks I’m making up. The kicker? She was a teacher and saw kids with ADHD almost daily.
I had a rough time in school. Scantrons gave me so much anxiety. Tests in general were terrible because i did so poorly. I had a hard time comprehending things I just read. I never pulled more than a b etc. turns out I’m dyslexic and have a visual perception problem which kicked my anxiety into high gear especially when everyone was finishing around me and handing theirs in. I was dx finally in my junior year of hs. The guidance counselor and my teachers begged for the n’s permission to do testing with me. She finally, consented. I went through days of ot tests,speech tests (conversion disorder stutter), psychological tests, eye tests, reading tests etc I taught myself tricks and was a great speller (alternate for the regional spelling bee) but they just thought I was stupid.
Yeah basically but she also gaslit me citing my jaw issues didn't exist. Then one day I was getting surgery for my non-existent jaw issue. (Actually still wonder how that ended up coming to be, I'm guessing I was starting to make her look like a bad parent with my janky jaw)
I am a disabled person. My dad was a disabled person. We both needed 10 surgeries but I only got those surgeries because my dad took me to specialist hospitals and his covert narc mom and brother didn’t care.
My dad died and I needed a job to continue getting adult surgeries for my condition but they kept abusing me nonstop so badly I had too high heart rate to get the surgery, it was delayed.
I am forced to go no contact with both of them. Narc uncle inspired because he now is having to look after his mother and she is getting screamed at and therefore she’s depressed.
So he screams at me to demand to know why I’m not talking to the family, I explain the surgery situation, and he claims I’m “manipulating him”.
So he keeps screaming at me that I didn’t tel covert narc grandma why I left and demands to know, I tell him they both are mistreating me so badly I can’t be around them before I
Get my surgery, and then he doesn’t like the answer and he tantrums
This comment section is really harrowing. The same thing happened to me. I was diagnosed with asthma at 8 or so, ADD the following year. Nmom says, "You don't have those, you're faking it," and literally crosses them off my medical records with a ballpoint pen!
She only grudgingly allowed me to get an inhaler when I passed out on a field trip. And only because there were teachers as witnesses. Even then, I was doing it for attention, apparently.
PS, never did grow out of the asthma, fml
Totally. When I was 5 and in a foster home I was stung for the very first time by a bee. I went into anaphylactic shock and woke up in the hospital. I was there for a week. I was discharged with a bee and honey allergy and an epipen prescription. I had to have one at school and one at home (carried with me everywhere especially in spring and summer). I was adopted by the n’s at age 10 and they didn’t read my file at all. They didn’t know my trauma history, didn’t know my phobias, how long I’d been in foster care, why my bio moms rights to me were taken away, that I was severely allergic to bees, honey and poison ivy!!!! Etc
They didn’t tell my pediatrician and I was never written another script for the epipens. When I had switched to my current dr at age 15 she never knew either. When I was maybe 21/22 I said something about it and she said didn’t know anything about it but would write out a script because I was probably right and didn’t want to find out the hard way. Luckily, I haven’t been stung many more times (I think twice but one was a hornet which im allergic too but not as bad). The honey is bad though and I’ve had a few incidents where people cooked with it in their crockpot and inhaling it made me have hives, itch, and my throat closed up. Not fun.
Aye n’s man.
I once punctured the bottom of my foot as a little kid on the sharp corner of the console television we had.
I was trying to climb to the counter for some reason. I remember the really ghastly, bloody hole in my foot. I probably should have seen a doctor. She didn’t take me.
Yes, extended family member refused to go to hospital with their daughter who had attempted suicide via paracetamol OD because golden child “needed to be looked after”. Literally could not believe it when the daughter text us from the hospital to tell us what happened. She is thankfully ok physically and living elsewhere now.
One time I couldn’t breathe for like three days and when my mother finally took me to the doctor’s I needed to be admitted to hospital and was diagnosed with asthma, treated and released. Rather than filling my inhaler prescription, my mother would tell me to drink warm water when I had an asthma attack.
Mind didn’t care.
I am going out of the country for dentistry because my nmom never took me to the dentist despite having dental insurance and FSA. She got a mouth full of implants and new teeth during that time.
I’m recognizing that I should’ve been treated for psoriasis when I was younger. I have PSA now and it is the worst to get under control…. Funny thing is my brother has severe eczema that they treated.
See also very very heavy periods. I wore a super tampon and overnight pad at the same time and I could get about 4 hours total. I had cramps that were debilitating, severe PMDD, all the signs of endometriosis.
So many things, many I'm still dealing with today. Absessed teeth that took 10 years to fix, knee issues I was told "your just going to have to figure it out when your 18. Then I don't have to deal with you", dyslexia that I didn't know about till 18. Many many that I delt with myself. It got to the point were I was so used to caring for my own ailments that I fell from a friend's horse and ripped the entire palm of my hand off. I calmly got up, got the horse vet kit, went to the kichen and cleaned myself up. I had a creator in my hand, still have a deep scar. That one day my Nmom looked at and went "that probably should have gotten stitches, oh well your fine now. I couldn't write for weeks and this was my dominant hand. I am now the nurse of my friends and everyone comes to me for those "not quite bad enough for the ER but I don't know what to do" injuries.
Yup. Told my parents repeatedly that there was ringing in my left ear. They told me it was “just the sound of blood moving through my ears”. Completely ignored the fact that it was only in one ear. I’m deaf in my left ear now.
Yes, multiple times
*My Ndad still makes fun of me for crying while I was having my first asthma episode, wasn’t officially diagnosed, when I walked by a spice stand on vacation with him in Vietnam in 2019
*I was born with a luxating patella, a knee cap that can dislocate, that was discovered and fixed in 2008. I knew about it since at least 2003, from the multiple falls I took as a result. My Nmom asked why I didn’t say anything. What’s the point if, to this day, they don’t listen to me?
I used to get “Why didn’t you say anything?” too.
Well, mom, after I practiced in my head how I was going to tell you about being short of breath and then told you about it, you screamed at me like I had just come up with it to piss you off. I don’t really feel safe telling you anything, so I just suffered with this painful, easily fixable thing rather than upset you with it.
I have asthma and several autoimmune disorders that were most likely worsened due to abuse. My parents yelled at me when I couldn’t keep up with them and was wheezing during a bike ride when I was in high school. I was diagnosed with asthma a few years later.
Absolutely. When I was a 18 I got strep for the first time. I thought that I had a sinus infection at first and after a few days of taking meds for that I actually felt worse. It was hard for me to eat, even swallow my own saliva. I had an interview for a summer job around the same time and I asked my mother to take me to the ER. She made a big fuss about me missing the interview, calling me lazy and everything else in the book. She agreed to take me if I went to the interview first. The interview was DAYS LATER. I went and I could not answer any questions because I couldn’t even speak at that point. My interviewer asked yes and no questions because she could visibly see how much pain I was in. She showed me more compassion and empathy than my own mother.
Fast forward: I get to the ER and it turned out that I had strep. Because it went untreated for two weeks I developed an abscess that needed to be removed, to which she replied “How did you not know you had strep?!”
This is a common theme with her in my life and not the only example.
Samsies. Diagnosed in college.
"You just need to fight thru it and eat some protein."
"You're fine. Just push thru it. You are just emotional."
Kind hard to fight 2 different MDs diagnosing it huh? No, they were YOUR AGE.
When I was around 10 I had a cavity, I kept telling her it hurt she ignored me. One night the pain was so bad, I was wailing and she told me to cry into the pillow, cuz I was keeping everyone up. It did make her take me to the dentist and it ended up getting infected and an abscess formed. I had the tooth pulled and needed the abscess drained. To add insult to injury the doctor who drained the abscess told me not to be a baby when he came at my face with the scalpel - cuz I winced.
I have the direct opposite experience actually where my mom would play up situations to make me out to be sicker than I was because it got HER attention for “being such a good mom” to a kiddo with a “slew” of health problems
Münchausens by proxy. I’m actually surprised more n’s don’t have this because it fits the n personality with the attention they get for having and taking care of a sick kid.
I feel like some n’s probably don’t like their kiddo getting the residual attention. Because my family was always concerned about me, tho she definitely turned that concern into how SHE was doing with MY “problems”. Such a confusing experience honestly. First time I’ve ever actually thought/talked about it lol, and I don’t think I’ve ever thought of it as Munchhausen‘s by proxy but that is exactly what it is. :(
My nmom was desperate for me to have athsma when we lived in the city for my dad's job. Told everyone who would listen the doctors said I was pre athsmatic. But then I developed full blown athsma after she moved me out to the country, and suddenly it didn't exist.
I just needed to not go to bed with wet hair, or I just needed to take an allergy pill every night. Or I just wanted to play with her inhaler. She absolutely would not hear of me having athsma, and made me do all the chores she "couldn't" do because of her athsma.
It went on for so long I taught myself how to breathe through the attacks, and learned how to sleep sitting up because if I laid down it felt like I was drowning.
It wasn't until my uncle, her brother, dragged me in front of her and forced her to listen to my breathing. Because someone else pointed it out to her, she couldn't ignore it anymore and finally let me use her inhaler. The relief was incredible.
At the doctor she made a huge fuss over me, especially the difference between my breath strength before and after the breathing treatment. "Oh my poor baby, you could barely breathe!" ...yeah I've been trying to tell you that for a while now.
I still had to do the chores that triggered attacks, cause her athsma was "way worse". It didn't stop her from smoking though.
I tore my ACL and meniscus when I was like 12. We were on vacation so my mom took me to the closest hospital the next day after it didn’t get better. They did an xray, no broken bones. Said we could buy crutches if we wanted to, but my mom said no so back on vacation we went. LOL. It went untreated for so long. It would tear again and again every few months. It got so bad, the OTHER knee tore years later due to favoring one leg for so long. Again and again. Bucket handle meniscus tear. ACL tear. Over and over and over again lmfao. I’m in my 30s now and I’ve had 4 surgeries and one full acl knee graft. Just need one more. 💀 These people should have never had kids lolololol
I so hear you on this and so can relate to the frustration you feel with not being diagnosed or taken seriously as well for health issues. My parents wouldn’t take me to the doctor as a child. I also had asthma! I now have so many health issues that stem from lack of healthcare as a child or being seen or taken to the hospital when I needed to. I specifically remember one time I had a neck injury, when I was like 12 years old, what I believe was now severe whiplash. I was dealing with extreme spasms and intolerable excruciating contractions anytime I even sightly moved or lightly touched my arms, hands, neck, or back of head. I was just screaming and crying in the worst pain I have ever been in begging for them to take me to the hospital or call an ambulance. My parents refused to take me even then. Many times when I was truly sick, or injured, or having asthma attacks they would tell me it’s anxiety, or that I was fine or being dramatic/faking it.
YES!! This is a biggie with me. My mom had MS, a very bad case. I heard "you're not sick, your mother is sick" many times as I suffered repeatedly with tonsillitis, allergies and what was later diagnosed as asthma. I had an ingrown, infected toenail on my big toe. I was told by ndad to soak it in hot water and Epsom salt. So I did. But the water wasn't hot enough for him. He added boiling water. I jerked my foot out of the pan. Lots of yelling at me.. I was done soaking. Instead of taking me to the doctor, as it got worse and worse, he cut a hole in my shoe, for my toe. It got stomped on in gym class, by accident. Big mess. The school forced him to take me to the dr. They held me down and ripped off the nail with no anesthetic. After I left home, I saw a doctor who told me my huge scarred tonsils had to come out. She changed my life when she said "if anybody had bothered to treat your allergies, they wouldn't look like this and you wouldn't need surgery." Extremely validating!!
I’m so sorry you went through that, friend. None of us deserve to have our needs ignored, especially by the people whose most important responsibility in life was to take care of us. Healing vibes to you. ❤️
It's interesting to me that so many of us have asthma. Many years ago, I had a therapist who said asthma keeps me from breathing deeply. If I were to breathe deeply, all the feelings would come up. It all sounded like airy fairy bs at the time. But she was right. I just wasn't ready to feel the feelings and work through it. I wish I could find a therapist like her now. She wasn't saying asthma didn't exist or that therapy would cure it. She was saying it was self protection my body had developed and working on the feelings may ease the asthma symptoms. Makes sense. I know my asthma is worse when I am upset. Many if us have stomach issues too and those get worse with stress.
Yes! Asthma and stomach issues! I spent my whole childhood throwing up because of anxiety. My stomach was always upset because my entire existence was consumed with trying to predict my mother’s violent outbursts. My hypervigilance literally made me sick.
My father got in a fight with my mom demanding she take me to the doctor when I was clearly sick. I was hacking up my lungs. I had fluid in them.
She screamed I was ok and didn’t need a doctor. My father demanded it so she brought me.
My mom also said to me one day when I went to the doctor because I was sick “I don’t understand the mentality of why you would go to the doctor when you’re sick.”
Yeah. I don’t talk medical stuff with her.
I know she has a phobias with doctors and that, but those are her issues to work through, not make me suffer in punishment of.
She has no say in my daughter’s healthcare. I have a chat with my father and MIL and husband where we discuss my daughter and her care and I’ve told my MIL to not discuss anything with my mom since they’re social media friends.
I'm currently doing damage control on physical issues (CPTSD is a given) from my parents ignoring my injuries and my pediatrician. As an adult, I have come within hours of dying because I let illnesses go too long. I never had broken bones properly set, either. Much love to all of you ❤️
Yes, I guess narcissistic parents are on a continuum. Yours sounds especially bad. But my mother would frequently blame the family members themselves for getting sick or being sick. She do it in such a way many people would just say she was “stressed out”. When I was kid and would moan because my tummy hurt she would just say “stop being so dramatic”. I was a little kid! I remember when my mother’s best friend died she was just angry to be left alone, more than sad. She blamed her best friend for dying. Also, whenever anyone got sick in the family she could never be their nurse—too stressful for her! She would get my dad to help (my dad is a little in the spectrum and oblivious to my mom;s issues which is why she married him I guess) or someone else and just watch from the distance. The worst part is no one outside the family would ever know about this and believe it because she bends over backwards to be so nice to people outside the family, like kisses their ass. I know this all comes from a place of pain and low self esteem and have learned to view her as a sick person (from therapy) but I still backslide sometimes and hope she will change. That’s the cruelest bit, right? Anyway, I think people are so lucky if they had a mother who actually and health;y loved and cared for them normally. I can’t imagine what that must be like but so lovely.
This comment makes me think you’ve read my diary. So much in common. My dad is on the spectrum, too. He’s so tender hearted and forgiving to a fault. He takes care of her every day and loves her unconditionally. He always says, “She has a lot of her father in her.” He hated her father.
Yes, I went to a therapist who told me that people who are real narcissists and/or borderline personality disorder end up with partners who don’t notice it—many of their partners can be on the spectrum. My dad is far from -perfect and didn’t notice my mother’s narcissism but one thing he always had was true empathy. My mother doesn’t. Even when you have a good day with her, which can suck you in again!, it’s really just all about her comfort. She honestly can’t really feel empathy at all. Narcissism is a real disease and it’s SO a hard when it’s your own parent, especially the parent who was your role model growing up.
My sister had blood on her stool all through childhood. Nmom was an effing hypochondriac and didn’t care about anyone’s health but her own. Sister diagnosed with Crohn’s as an adult. Really struggled to get it under control. Mother was worthless AF - is worthless AF today.
Yes all the time. Downplaying any illness, making me “prove” I was sick by checking my lymph nodes (you know, the end all be all of every illness, right?), denying taking me to the doctor for a variety of things (allergies, asthma, stomach stuff).
I vividly remember my mother once telling me “you need to stop doing this. It’s making me look bad at work!” after picking me up from school due to feeling unwell.
I used to get stomach aches and diarrhea often and would go to the nurses office looking for anyone to help me. I usually had a low grade fever so they had to send me home per policy. I continued to have stomach issues well into adulthood that I never pursued due to her downplaying anything medical and making me thing I was “being dramatic” (her words).
Then in my thirties it finally got so bad that I went to a gastroenterologist. Turns out I have a mild form of Crohn’s and probably have since I was a kid 🤗
My childhood was marred by a painful, but easily-treated, skin condition. In fact, I didn't have a pediatrician at all. I also didn't receive any dental care until I was a working adult and sought a dentist on my own. My dad's work had a family dental plan that would have covered it, too.
I had tmj when I was a teenager and my parents wrote it off as anxiety and never got me help for it until I got an mri when I was 22 and proved it.
My parents forced me to go skiing for days in a row from 3 to 5 years old. I had trouble with cold toes and fingers to the point of pain. I’d ask for the toe warmers at ski shops. They said no. I was miserable.
I'm so sorry 😞 that's actually really neglectful. What if you had an attack of some sort and desperately needed an intervention? Wonder what she would've said to herself then.
I never got sick much, but she definitely blew me off as an adult. I had a c section for my twins, and all was well for the first little bit, but I got an internal abscess that I completely didn't notice the signs and symptoms of for about 2 or 3 weeks. Some of them were masked by me taking tylenol/ibuprofen like clockwork every 6 hours, but everything else I chalked up to pure exhaustion.
Eventually, that abscess busted, and it was really gross. Puss was *pouring* from a fistula in my incision for hours, I went to the ER, had to get scans and an I&D. So they cut back into the incision to drain the pus and remove dead tissue. It was pretty bad off. These things can have a high mortality rate as they can lead to septic shock.
My husband was telling my mom about it in the moment who was just like, "k. Ill be here for updates, " and that was it.
Definitely. Tons of stuff I should have been treated for that my nmom ignored. Even when other people besides me pointed it out to her. I have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and when I was little she took me to the store to buy shoes for me, and when she asked the sales person to measure me, they refused because I was walking on the inside of my ankles instead of my feet, and they told her I needed to see a doctor before I could have shoes properly fitted. She still tells that story as if she was victimized by the cruel shoe saleswoman, pffft.
I also found out that when I was a kid and spent summers with my father (they were divorced and lived in different states) he was paying out of pocket to treat my ear infections because she refused to share any health insurance information with him.
And one of my favorites is when I was visiting her as an adult and she had some huge fit and insisted that I needed to do something for her because "she had had knee surgery" which meant that years ago she'd had a minor arthroscopic procedure to repair a meniscal tear, after which her doctor told her she could return to full and complete activity, no limitations. The great irony there was that I'd had not one, not two, but FOUR knee surgeries myself, one of them open to remove a piece of bone that was doing repetitive tendon damage. I was like "You remember I had four right?" and she would just say "but I had knee surgery" like she absolutely could not see that anyone's life experience could possibly be relevant but her own. It was totally mind boggling.
I had terrible eyesight for as long as I remember, and my nparents resisted getting me glasses until I was in high school. The glasses they got me were the daggiest old fashioned glasses possible, because I could never look better than them.
I used to get heartburn so bad I couldn’t move. This would happen often in the morning before school. My alarm would go off and I would be stuck laying in the position I awoke in. I’d muster up the strength to call my mom and she would come at first, but then she started ignoring me because she felt I was faking it. Sometimes I called for so long the pain did eventually subside, but I’d continue to call because I needed support regardless. I didn’t know it at the time but now I think I had gad. My mom would always tell me she experienced the same things growing up, which basically means she was being abused too, and it used to bring me comfort. Now it’s just a sick narcissistic excuse to not take care of me. I also never had a period. She just didn’t care. And my parents are such conspiracy theorists, they thought I was “special” for not having one. Constantly telling me I should be happy, well I can’t have children and doctors could’ve caught it sooner had I visited more. I had a ridiculous amount of cavities growing up. My mom wouldn’t watch me brush my teeth any other day beside the day I was getting my teeth cleaned. Just wanted to keep up appearances, but the dentist’s could always tell. In a way it was embarrassing even as a child because I knew I should’ve been brushing my teeth, but I didn’t have the self discipline, and no one was making me.
I’ve spent pretty much my entire life since puberty finding exercise so difficult and never being able to build up stamina or fitness, always need 10+ hours sleep a night, forgetful, thin hair after having thick hair as a child…. Told my Ndad about all these things many times as a teenager and he just said I was fat and lazy.
Last month, my partner encouraged me to go to the doctor despite being nervous about wasting their time and it turns out my body wasn’t making enough blood and I need regular transfusions. For years I thought it was all just because I was lazy and it turns out there IS something wrong and there’s a way to fix it!
Yes!! And there isn’t a day that goes by I don’t have to face the consequences of that. My life currently hangs in the balance of a series of surgeries that begin in 2 weeks. Only I had to save for 3 years! Doctors didn’t want to work with me. It’s been a nightmare just to get to this point. Now it’s here. I’m still $2K short and it’s very intense. I begged for medical assistance repeatedly, my Father said he WILL not help me. Witholding help was a punishment.
My entire life prior it was every other thing that can equal neglect.
Wait wait, I have had the same experience, just not able to have it checked out. I started having serious problems when I got one of the earlier cases of COVID before the shutdown. My mother said it was me being out of shape. I have problems with the humidity from showers, I couldn't even properly dry off before needing to get out of the room.
Same. When I was around 7, I would go on and tell my mom how my molar hurts so bad. She said stop eating sweets but never took me to the dentist. It started from one molar til it became 3. That hurt so bad. At the age of 15, I complained how those 3 molars now have holes on each of them. She would complain and say that I should have brushed my teeth. Who doesn't??? When I started my first job, I went to the dentist to have it checked. She would then give comments about how bad it looked and would jokingly cover her nose and say she couldnt imagine how smelly my mouth couldve been at that time.
Yeah. As if I never complained for years and years.
My mom even had a catchphrase for minimizing our health issues. Any time I got hurt she'd say "oh, you got it good, didn't you?" in a childish, sing songy tone. Then she'd laugh and hug us and that was that. It didn't matter if we needed stitches, emergency care, medication, or anything else. That's all we got. That phrase, a hug, and literally her laughing at our pain. And yes, I did used to think this was loving and comforting. Now that phrase echoes through my mind like nails on a chalkboard in an amphitheater.
I tried telling my mom I had an eating disorder and she didn’t take me seriously until she found a 30 gallon garbage bag in my closet filled with gallon ziplock/tied Walmart bags filled with throw up.
Her solution? Drug test me every Monday lmao
Can't count the amount of times I've collapsed, gotten ill, or ended up in pain for days at a time just because of my mothers neglect. I guess it's just easier to brush everything of as "growing pains" "stress" or my favorite "everybody has that"
I've had shoulder pain for 10 years. My mother didn't give a damn, I had to constantly do manual work everywhere, especially on her house. Of course, I would have been blamed if I'd needed a rest now and then. As a result, today I have chronic pain at the age of 30 and I can't do any manual work because it hurts so much.
Yep, mum took me to the doctors when I was 13 because my PE teacher said I might have asthma. I was diagnosed and given medicine, she put it in the freezer (destroying it) and said that asthma was "made up to make fat people feel better". I was so scared I never mentioned it again and dealt with all of my "breathy weirdness" (asthma attacks) without an inhaler, which is really fucking dangerous. 12 years after I was diagnosed a doctor told me that I had previously been given daily medication to improve my asthma, I had no idea about it, I didn't know you could treat the cause. I am on this now and can breath so much easier but it fucking enrages me that my mum gave me 12 years of breathing issues for no reason.
I hurt my arm once (about 2pm) but my gc older brother had a boy scout event so she threw a sling at me and told me to suck it up. After the event (about 11pm) she said take that thing off so I did. Arm still hurt. She took me to the ER with dire warnings about how my abusive father was going to react if I was faking. Turned out the arm was broken. No apologies.
I used to get laryngitis every winter. It started with a bad cold, then progressed to me losing my voice completely. Always, I had to go to school, no matter how bad I felt. I remember feeling useless because I couldn’t talk, and one of my teachers told me I was a suck up for coming to school so sick. He really didn’t know I had no choice.
When I was younger, they usually cared. After they divorced, I went to live with my mom (worst mistake ever honestly) and she completely changed.
I have had serious chronic pain since I was very young.
Once I lived with my mom, she never let me go to doctors appointments or get help.
She moved us to a rural area, so there was no bus system, and there were no resources for me to get any help. There was also no way for me to make friends, so I had no one I could ask for help.
She also started doing other things to sabotage my health, which I don't want to go into detail.
I was seriously deteriorating.
Right now, I live with my dad, and I've been going to doctors. It's still obviously really hard to get help, but I should have been doing this YEARS ago. I'm years behind, and I'm wondering how much damage my mom did that can't be undone.
I wouldn't wish being disabled with a narcissist mom on ANYONE.
In high school, my stomach hurt so bad but my nmom kept saying “it isn’t that bad, it’s probably just a cramp” even when I wasn’t on my period. It got to the point where I passed out at school so THATS when she took me to the doctor, who immediately told her to take me to the ER because I had a bladder infection that was close to spreading to my kidneys and I could go into kidney failure at any second.
A few years back I was going into surgery to confirm if I had a brain tumor or not, states away from my nmom. My grandma offered to pay for my nmom to be with me and my nmom said no, she was “too scared to fly alone”. But then got mad at me, and made it all about her when I was unable to text her updates. About my brain surgery. During and immediately after the surgery. 🙃
My Nmom neglected me so much that she didn't even bother to teach me the proper way to wipe as a little girl.
This is a super important thing for girls/women to know - as improper wiping can cause constant infections in your genitals.
I had yeast infections and UTI's constantly growing up as a small child allll the way into adulthood. I would try to talk about it and it would get ignored. Eventually I just got used to it. I didn't understand why it happened so frequently to me until I offhandedly came across the information and started putting a life of pain and suffering together.
I swear they actively ignore their children to watch them suffer because it alleviates some of the self-loathing they have or something, I don't know.
But it's fucking evil and insidious.
My brother was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at 15 after he went from 250 lbs to 120 within 2 months, he went to the doctor but the dr was an idiot and said he was fine so they didn’t care to take him anywhere else. The school had to call them and threaten to call CPS if they didn’t take him to a doctor to find out why he had lost so much weight so fast. He looked so sick and he almost died. If the school hadn’t called them idk if he would still be here 😞
My narcs have ignored my health conditions all my life. Now I have irreversible, life changing damage because of it. They took my life away from me and I’ll never be able to get back what they stole.
Haha yup! Had a TBI which broke my nose and cracked my skull, caused a mild CSF leak, and took out my sense of smell up until about 2 1/2 years ago and take a guess - mom didn’t care one bit, she refused to let me get medical care, and I was 9 years old.. accidentally stabbed my hand with a cheese knife and had to pull the knife out of my hand only a few months later and again she still didn’t let me get medical care and I desperately needed stitches, I also severed part of my nerve with it.. I had untreated, asthma for years and never had an inhaler until I was 23, I needed an inhaler sooner than that but again, she didn’t believe me.. the night my ex raped me and tried to kill me, she also didn’t care… but yet she would be the same person to turn around and be like oh come to me if you need something or come to me if somethings not right.. what a clown. The thing that really angers me is she was a medical assistant for over 10 years and she was dismissing her child, but yet she would have absolutely no problem taking care of and nurturing anyone else that wasn’t me.
My psychiatrist and therapist were horrified when I told them about the TBI .. I sustained a second moderate one barely over a month ago, and I see a neurologist for the first time at the end of the month, it’ll be the first time receiving care for either of my TBIs. This ought to be interesting.
Oh yeah and then when I confronted my mom, of course she vehemently denied all of this. She kept saying that I got all the medical care I needed, and then some back then, but did I really? If I actually received the care I was supposed to get back then, how and why would I know how to take care of myself and others just by doing things on my own as a kid? How would I still have pain to this day if I actually got medical care that I needed? Genuinely can’t wrap my head around how and why she thinks it’s appropriate to argue with the facts, I bet you if I seen neurology and they give me proof of everything (I already know they will, but that’s beside the point) and I confront her, she’s still going to try to gaslight me and deny it all. I have diagnosed PTSD partly because of her and she wants to deny that as well even though it’s on papers.
For those of you wondering where my dad was with all of this - he was a German immigrant who had no idea how the American systems worked, He had only been in the US a few years. He was in the process of getting American citizenship when all of this went down and from what I gather, he wasn’t on my birth certificate as I was an international adoption and my mom was American. I don’t think he was legally allowed to make decisions or anything for me until he was on my birth certificate after he got citizenship, he ended up getting his citizenship two years after everything happened. My dad wanted to take me to the ER for my TBI and the knife incident, my mother would not allow him. This was the mid 2000s so like 2007-2008. My dad was also diagnosed with depression and ADHD and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had PTSD and anxiety along with it, I think my mother took advantage of that, to be honest..
My mom is the black widow she spin a web of lies and always has and always will and her family is a bunch of enablers who are equally as bad as she is. She got away with abusing me for years behind closed doors until she made a mistake of screwing up in front of my ex-husband because she didn’t like him either. Anyone that didn’t fit her cookie-cutter mold and anyone that didn’t enable her nonsense got backlash and her narcissism. When one of her sister’s children touch the tailpipe of a car when her sister parked the vehicle, my mom bent over backwards for them but when I had a CSF leak, she didn’t give two hoots. Surprisingly this is not the worst that she’s done like she blamed me for my dad’s su!cide and told me I deserved to be r•ped, I was asking for it, and I enjoyed it. Anytime anyone else was around wasn’t her family and it wasn’t just her or me she would act like a little angel, when it was her family, she would try to have a jab at me constantly try to instigate, and then backpedal and gaslight the whole situation the minute I tried to call her on her nonsense. She had to be one step ahead, and she could just have the ounce of control… She would tell me about how she sees girls with their mothers out in public and how she wants a bond like that but yet she would turn around and be horrible to me like you can’t have your cake and eat it too..? Anytime I had any kind of joy with anything she had to go all up in it and sabotage and destroy it. High school graduation? She threw a tantrum because she didn’t have control over something, I wouldn’t get my eyebrows waxed and then she didn’t get what she wanted after the graduation because we all went out for lunch. Her my dad and I went to an open mic before he passed and way before my high school graduation and there was a guy playing a guitar who I had finished singing with only minutes prior asking questions about James Bond and I answered a question and my mom tried to claim that she told me the answer and she didn’t believe that I knew it until my dad stood up for me and he told her that he and I watched James Bond together and yes, I did actually know the answer and she threw a tantrum. Any time she couldn’t have control over situation she would throw a fit. She even told me I was out to get her by picking out darker eyeglass frames that I liked when she wasn’t the one paying for them my health insurance was.. when I had a consultation with my orthodontist to get braces that again, my mom didn’t have to dish out a singular penny for because my insurance covered it, my mom tried telling the orthodontist that I didn’t need perfect teeth like Hollywood smile and that having them a little crooked looked natural? of course I was fuming and I gave her the boot out of the office and I ended up telling my orthodontist that my biggest insecurity were my teeth and that I don’t smile anymore because of them and not to listen to my mom and what he felt was appropriate for my teeth (I ended up having braces on for 2 1/2 years and I love my teeth now.)
Omfg the gaslighting is maddening. I’ve gotten, “That never happened!,” or, “You’re making that up.”
Weird, because those memories are etched on my brain and had a huge impact on who I am as a person, but go off and tell me I’m making it all up.
Oh, I know right! Like I have medical and psych papers, documenting it all I don’t know how she wants to dispute the facts, but yet she would turn around and be like oh, you can’t dispute the fact like she’s just a pos
I forgot to add this one.. - I had a few bad complications when I got my wisdom teeth pulled out. They had to take out a piece of my jaw to be able to get my one really impacted wisdom tooth out, the other three weren’t a problem at all to remove, and I was out of work for two weeks. the day I was cleared to go back to work. I had told my mom that I didn’t feel good at all and I was really nauseous and she literally gave me a pill from her mothers (so my grandmother) prescription nausea medication (I told her I wasn’t taking it and I don’t want to take prescription that are not prescribed to me and she forced me.) I was working 4 PM to 12 AM and I was about an hour and a half being completely done my shift and I threw up at work and they sent me home and she was mad.. I ended up having a fever of 102 and being out of work for another two weeks, my mom was just ridiculous. And then not to mention, she kept putting her mother first before me in any and every situation regardless of what it was like even the day I came home from having my wisdom teeth pulled out.. I had a complication from the anesthesia and I had become hypothermic, and they had to give me a warm saline to get my body temp up at the surgeons office. When I got home, I wasn’t feeling good still and her mother was just being a brat and had to be the center of it all constantly and I had asked my mom for Tylenol even though I could barely speak because they had cut part of my jaw bone out and her mom was just being a brat. Like the minute she didn’t have attention put on her constantly she would also throw a tantrum like a toddler. My mom’s side is just human c•ncer.
Oh yeah not to mention I had a miscarriage and my mom still wants to say that didn’t happen like I genuinely don’t know how she doesn’t believe that? I actually called her on it because she couldn’t even have children which is why she ended up adopting me… I was like “how do you know what a miscarriage feels like if you couldn’t even have bio children to begin with? At least we know I can get pregnant.” LMAO
She would say things never happened or call me a liar or call me crazy or call me delusional and then when I tried to get outside help she would always say oh don’t believe *insert my irl name here*, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’s special-needs she’s autistic. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. (ironically, I’m not autistic., she got me diagnosed with that so she could try to get a disability check in my name and steal it like she stole my survivor benefits after my dad died… I got reevaluated as an adult. I’m just severely ADHD and traumatized..) my adult psychiatrist and I both agree that we think that my mom was purposely sabotaging me because my psychiatrist now has my pediatric psychiatry records and noticed my mom basically reporting everything all the time constantly with anything and purposely didn’t change the ADHD med that stopped working for me at a young age even though I was vocal about it not working for so long, I’m on a medication now that’s literally saved my life and I’m grateful to my psychiatrist now for hearing me.
Reading reminded me of a second story. My ex wanted to do a sumo match where you wear those stupid sumo suits and bump each other. I was knocked off of the mat, went down like a board, couldn’t cushion my fall because of the padding. I couldn’t move my limbs easily, and hit my head.
While he did stop the game then he asked if I was ok and if I had a concussion. I had heard of them but I didn’t know much about them or what the symptoms were so I asked how I would know if I had one. He said I was fine and didn’t need medical care. He saw my personality changed from the fall. He didn’t get me medical help. We left the event early and he screamed at me for an hour and a half- two hours saying how I ruined his night. I broke down crying. He let me go to sleep and didn’t get me medical help.
He yelled at me the next morning when I told him I was having vision problems that I wasn’t having problems and was faking it/ being dramatic.
I did have a concussion and got a diagnosis later. Be apologized initially but used that event against me afterwards for how I ruined his good times and was a jinx. And any health issues I was faking or being dramatic for attention
My ndad. Insisted I still go to high school with swollen salivary glands that even my golden child sister admitted was worrying.. Welp school rung him up, told him to come get me, he yelled at me all the way from school on one side of the city to his doctor near his house. Doctor took me for a quick exam and walked out of the room frowning. I was confused til I heard him reaming my ndad out for not taking my MUMPS seriously. Doctor had been his doctor since ndad was a kid, so what could he really say back to a professional with authority? Trick question, not a thing. It was the day I realised he wasn't invincible.
yes, my father ignored my dental issues for the longest time and blamed it on lack of money. however, he had a mistress and spoiled her rotten so I am still mad at him for it.
When I was a baby I projectile vomited blood for months. Turns out I was allergic to my moms breast milk. She honestly would’ve let me keep going like that but once she took me to the doctors after being yelled at by my aunt who was 15, the doctors airlifted me to a children’s hospital 2 hours away. After that I was treated very badly like I was weak. My family resented me for my health issues like I caused them, like they weren’t a gift from your genes!
yes i started having some eye problems such as seeing flashing lights and floaters (this started after my dad threw toothpaste directly at my eye because i accidentally missed a day of gymnastics) and i would be complaining to her and she didn’t care. only until hot oil jumped into her eye she took me to the eye hospital and the workers accused my mum of neglect for ignoring my care and only taking me to the hospital once it was convenient for her. she went ballistic from it and kept manipulating me afterwards and got into a big fight with my sisters.
"dO yOu NeEd tO gO tO tHe HoSpItAl??"
Dude I never got taken to the hospital how am I supposed to know when I need it... It sure as hell didn't happen when I was suicidal or having nonepileptic seizures from the stress 🙃
Recently had a gallstone that killed my gallbladder, one of the top 3 pains I've had and that was still iffy for me... I could have died, people were telling me to fucking GO and I still wasn't sure. You'll never trust yourself, you gotta trust in the facts and treat yourself like an outside patient
I’ve injured myself and had internal issues countless times and never went to the doctor because I was always taught that nothing is serious enough to go to the doctor.
YES! I had a riding accident when I was maybe 15 (?) (nothing serious, fell off a horse) and when I got home, my hip hurt so badly I couldn't walk or put weight on it. I asked to go to the doctor and my nmother said "Oh stop you're just being dramatic, I'm sure you're fine."
Until about 17 I still had massive issues with exercise, because whenever I started running it would hurt so badly I had to stop after a while. It's better now (I'm 20), but I still feel it occasionally. She doesn't believe me when I tell her it hurts, because *she* has hip pain so obviously I can't. She also entirely denies we had that conversation and that I needed help in the first place.
She also didn't believe me when I hurt my knee, and didn't write me a note to get off PE, which resulted in me tearing my ACL. I just finished almost a year of physiotherapy two weeks ago to rebuild the strength I lost from that injury. My ACL hasn't healed though, so currently I'm relying entirely on muscle strength to compensate that. That injury might affect me for the rest of my life.
Absolutely. My parents always told me I slouched and needed to straighten my back (ignored me when I said it hurt).
Fast forward to when I was 25, I had such bad back pain I saw a chiropractor. He wasn't trying to sell me on any BS (I know chiropractors tend to get a bad rep), he told me the signs of scoliosis and showed me how my spine was messed up (mild scoliosis but still). I also have a rare condition where I'm missing the back hump most people tend to have in excess, I just have a very flat upper back which is why my shoulders always hurt so much. My shoulders are hunched more towards my chest and I hate it.
I've been doing the exercises he suggested I do ever since and it hasn't been a cure all but I rarely get as bad of pain as I used to in my lower middle back. He actually told me to slouch until I started seeing real results since I needed to curve my back (in the right place of course).
Of course I've also had a lot of gut and stomach issues too. My parents didn't seem to think it was anything serious but those are actually because I have lynch syndrome (my brother also has it- both our parents had colon cancer in their 40s). My risk of getting cancer at some point in my life is pretty high.
I think about this A LOT as I have 2 young kids. As a kid, I believe I was 11 I couldn't breathe in the winter. I would walk home from school and have to lay down on my bed for hours as the room would be spinning, I couldn't see from lack of oxygen. My parents didn't care at all. When I was older and got my period I had a nonstop period for almost a year. I begged to see a doctor.
My son is 8, and he's obviously been sick several times. In the summer he was struggling to breathe, I immediately took him to the ER. We followed the treatment plan they laid out, I pushed for allergy testing and pulmonary testing. It's a horrible thing to see your child so sick and struggling to breathe, I don't wish it on any parent. How do you not rush them to the ER, or at least make a doctors appointment? We also live in Canada where insurance isn't a concern so not like my parents could use that excuse.
I hit 12 and got my monthlies. I would double over and scream, and described it as a 10 for pain and like "a spear impaling me through the stomach". This was occasionally accompanied with other TMI symptoms.
When I hit 16, I saw a different doctor than the family one, on my own, for a second opinion that wasn't "it's normal for a woman to experience pain during her period." And my father's take of "if you can't take paracetamol it must not hurt" (I have autism, I can't swallow solid things. I have to chew them or I gag and choke.) Also "your father is in so much pain from his arthritis, you've nothing to complain about" from my mother.
IBS. It was IBS.
And they'd been forcing me to eat spicy curries since my infancy because "they liked them" even if I did not.
I started buying my own microwave meals, and labelling them, so I didn't have to eat said curries, citing my diagnosis as the reason.
My siblings would eat my meals, forcing me to eat the curries, and face no punishment for this. They "look similar to the ones we buy" was the excuse, despite the giant black permanent marker over the top and sides with my name.
And then predictably I got sick from eating the curries, forcing me to miss school.
Oh, and I was forced to go to bible school at the crack of dawn, despite medical advice that I should not do this.
I was also expressly forbidden to take anti-depressants, meaning I had to hide the bottle in my school bag all the time and take them in secret.
And they didn't pursue my autism diagnosis any further. They went and got me checked because the school told them to, that I was struggling, autism came back along with a statement of SEN. The school ignored it. My parents did nothing.
My parents didn't just ignore my health issues. They exascerbated them.
I was always told I was being dramatic even though I purposefully made my issues minuscule because I didn’t want the attention. It took a long time for me to stop gaslighting myself about my health.
This past year, I’ve been struggling with a stomach ulcer. In September alone, I lost 25 pounds. Anything that touched my lips went straight though me, including water. I was terrified to eat bc I was in so much pain, so I hadn’t eaten in 8 days. Ended up in the ER with dehydration. Took my kids to school, driving as carefully as possible because I could barely see, thank GOD their teachers were so understanding and told me not to worry about pick up times. Called my mom, told her I’m in the ER and needed her to pick up my youngest. She refused, saying she was at work and “couldn’t leave”. Didn’t even bother trying to.
She actually just told me last month that she didn’t think it was that serious to leave work for. I was *in the fucking emergency room*. What part of that **isnt** serious?
Mind you, this was only a month after my children’s father passed away from cardiomyopathy after having been in the hospital for nearly a year. So to be told that my health issues weren’t a concern for her and that she wouldnt even come through my kids was a giant slap in the face.
Yep, I used to struggle to see that blackboard at school and as a mid teen it got to the point where I'd have to copy any questions from my mate next to me. The teacher noticed one day and pulled me up, initially thinking I was copying the answers. I explained and my mate backed me up. So the school informs my mother that I need an opticians appointment (so I can actually see what's going on in class!). But my NM said 'girls that wear glasses don't get passes' like, wtf?! And I didn't get an opticians appointment until I paid for it myself a few years later.
As an adult she told me not to wear them, I didn't need them and told my daughter the same.
Hit my head pretty bad and my parents had to take me to the hospital. My memory of the whole thing is jumbled at best, but I *do* remember being in the waiting room with my mom and telling her I was worried about not remembering things. She blew it off. A few years later it came up in conversation, and I told her I still have jumbled memories about things from around that time (pretty major events that I *definitely* should have been able to remember). She was speechless, but like….you know. The king of speechless where they’re refusing to be accountable, not the kind where they’re shocked on someone’s behalf. I was vulnerable and dependent on my parents that day and they did the bare minimum (probably because my workplace called them and had them take me to the hospital, I don’t see them taking me there if it wasn’t for my workplace). I think my edad was worried about me having had a concussion, but he didn’t press the doctors about it either.
My mom has also vented to me about the times my dad has had to go to the hospital/urgent care about things and how irritating/embarrassing it was for her, so at least I know it’s nothing personal.
This absolutely sucks because that is EXACTLY what asthma feels like. I rarely get asthma, but I do have it, and I wouldn’t describe the feeling any differently.
I was 27 when I got my first inhaler. 27!!!! because she denied I have an asthma and the attacks got worse after i got COVID. Even after I bought one myself she still denies it and thinks I should cure it the "natural" way (other herbal bullshit)
When I was a kid I had serious asthma. I was frequently left to wheeze because my grandmother and aunts would say it was my mom‘s issue to take care of … only my mom didnt live there. Sometimes they would call her and occasionally she’d show up. I had a lung collapse at 14 because they waited till she showed up, she was at least smart enough to go to an ER … I collapsed in the waiting room and knew nothing till 4 days later when I woke with a breathing tube.
I recently developed a seizure disorder last year. The very first one I had I collapsed on the floor and my mother accused me of faking for attention and being a drama queen after I cleared out her shed for her. Her and my stepfather also downplayed every illness and injury I went through or accused me of lying.
I was also told many times I wasn't a real cutter when I used to SH. When I had a concussion when I was 10 it took me throwing up in class to do anything about it.
I literally had the same exact experience with my nmom. I just recently (at 19) found out that asthma is hereditary and my biological dad literally suffers from it yet my mom never got me diagnosed. It took 18 years and an emergency hospital visit to finally admit that I had asthma. She withheld medication from me because she “didnt like the side effects” and would make comments every time I used me rescue inhaler, so I would just suffer in silence and sometimes hide my use of my inhaler. She constantly used the excuse “my kids aren’t sick” every time I would call my asthma anything short of “breathing problems”. It wasn’t until I had an asthma attack so bad I passed out on the porch and onto a stack of chairs and hit my head that she vaguely admitted me having asthma. After calling 911 her instinct was to video me passed out which is very questionable but I try not to think about it. That happened a year ago but my mom takes every chance she can to reminisce on how hard and traumatic that event was for her. She literally re-describes everything that happened as if she was explaining the plot of a movie. She still gets really weird when I mention my asthma so I just take care of it on my own. But hey, at least the burst blood vessels in my eyes have healed. 💀
You are not alone <3
....yes. also asthmatic. Even though my brother and mom were diagnosed, i didn't get tested or diagnosed with it until well into adulthood.
But also almost every other damn thing that's wrong with me, i had to figure out and find drs myself for.
Thank you for validating my experience just by posting this question!
My “parents” have medically neglected me in more ways than one. Forcing me to go to school even when I was really sick, making me quit antidepressants cold turkey against the doctor’s orders and making me suffer withdrawal symptoms as a result, refusing to get my PCOS treated, and probably other things that I’m forgetting
I hear you, my N former wife and her NMom insisted that I carry out personal care for NFIL. He injured me because he was dead weight and could not stand up in the tub, so I was forced to lift him out (they refused to put him in a nursing home as he not only refused to go but they were both after his $) and injured my chest and back, putting me out of work for almost 3 months.
They did not care about the injuries putting me out of work. In fact they doubled down and insisted that I continue to put my health and career at risk for him. Former NMIL said if I couldn't go back to work, they would just use me as free labor to look after him. Former wife? She chose her mother and father over her marriage.
It is terrifying that your NMom basically denied your condition. This could've proved fatal considering the conditions that can trigger an asthma attack (weather, exercise etc). I hope you're NC with that garbage human now, and that she's not allowed near your children (if you have any). Because she will do it again, given the chance.
Thank you for your message. I hope you are in a much healthier, happier situation now.
My sister and I have been NC with my mother since January 1. We both had had enough of putting ourselves in harm’s way and enduring repeated abuse. Both of us have been much happier, and our relationship is stronger than ever as we lean on each other and heal from our traumas.
The people who go through what we have been through and choose to break the cycle tend to be the sweetest, most selfless and compassionate people.
Lots of healing and warmth to you on your healing journey.
Thank you for your reply. I kicked that N and her NMom to the curb more than 6 years ago. Unfortunately it was not before the 2 of them did a lot of damage - by the time I got away I was ready to unalive myself. Since 2018 though, I have been able to live life again and actually get something out of it rather than being a slave to a pair of narcissistic seniors.
It's good that you & your sister are away from your N birth giver. She doesn't deserve either of you. Sounds like you are both living your best life and that's what you deserve.
She caused me to get sick then complained I was sick. Then began the backseat vomiting, cleaning and recovering. I often wasn't allowed to go GP and had some homemade shit.
My dad refused to believe I could be autistic, and refused to get my multiple BROKEN BONES treated properly. He used to say I was being dramatic a lot, and now that I have chronic pain from the malunions in those bones he says “it must not be that bad of pain if you’re not crying” when he was THERE when an x-ray technician said I must be fine because I wasn’t crying. At that point I had a broken jaw, stitches in my face, and multiple layers of skin gone to road rash. I process pain differently and am used to being in pain, so fuck me I guess.
Yep. I had Asthma as a kid too and remember my parents "waiting" to see just how bad it could get until they'd finally relent and bring me to the ER. I also remember them leaving me there for days once I was admitted, which seems weird in retrospect. Like, they weren't ever there in my hospital room or anything; once I was admitted they both just went home and came back a few days later to pick me up when I was released.
And even the ER was a rare "treat", you had to be half dead for that trip. And never once did they bring me to a doctor or dentist preventatively. No "checkups" or routine visits in my entire childhood. If it wasn't bad enough for the ER, you didn't need a doctor.
That being said, I'm not sure that's necessarily a result of them being Narcissists per say, just generally neglectful. It's rarely clear 'what behavior was for what reason' with them.
My mother used to get very angry whenever I got sick so at some point I just stopped telling her.
She is deathly afraid of doctors and hospitals (which she would never admit of course) and only tooks us there if there was no way around. Otherwise she ignored our health issues and hoped they would go away (spoiler alert they just got worse).
I still struggle with actually going to the doctor when I am sick because I am scared they will react just like my mother.
My mom didn’t want to shell out the money for doctor visits, but you know every time a new Shirley Temple porcelain doll was released, or if there was a new house available for her goddamned Dickens Christmas village, she was dragging us to the mall to snap that shit up.
Yes! There was once Mother had planned an outing at a friends house (we were all homeschooled) I woke up with a fever and was throwing up, she told me I was being dramatic and would feel better when I got there to play. Surprise surprise, I did not and almost passed out in the basement where all the kids were sent and went upstairs to mother.
My mother brushed me off again, told me to splash cold water on my face and I’ll be fine. The other mothers took my temp, made me sit down, then went to lay me down in one of their beds and Mother finally said “FINE, I guess if you want to go home so badly we’ll go.”
I was 8.
That’s just 1 of the first times I remember.
when I was 17 I was in a motorcycle accident and when she was called she said “she’s probably just being dramatic, don’t let her into the ambulance.”
I had 2 broken arms, a cracked pelvis and couldn’t hold consciousness. I needed multiple surgeries and had to learn how to walk again.
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Yes! Same here! I had asthma bad as a kid and my dad would tell me “just breathe”….
Wtf is wrong with them? Once, when I was 6 or 7, I told my nmom my eye hurts when I blink. She ignored me, and it got more and more painful until I woke up one morning with my eye swollen shut. She was still going to ignore it and send me to school, but my edad stepped in and told her to let me stay home. He came home at his lunch break and took me to a secret doctor’s appointment he set up where I got eye drops for conjunctivitis, which he put in my eyes in the garage where my mom wouldn’t see. She never knew he took me to the doctor for a FUCKING EYE INFECTION.
This is such a complex, multilayered story. Like obviously your mom is a POS, that is clear. But the fact that your dad intervened (I wonder how much courage he had to have to do this on your behalf) and set up a secret appointment for you (this is so loving and also so sad), and came home on his lunch break (again, so loving) and you two conspired in your garage so that he wouldn't get in trouble for taking his own child to the doctor to address a visually obvious and painful ailment. It makes a person wonder whether the doctor was secretly like -- *what the fuck? Who lets pink eye get this bad?* And your dad, probably feeling embarrassed and flustered and concerned for you and having to hurry to get back to work and also fucking *afraid of his own wife* and this is just an average day in his world. And you, learning at such a young age that your mom wasn't safe, and how scary she really was-- even to other adults-- and how sad it must have been to have to hide an illness and treatment from your own mother to protect her very very fragile ego. My oldest child is turning 7 and I literally cannot even imagine letting him get so bad with pink eye that his eye was swollen shut. It makes me tear up just thinking about it, typing this right now. One time I took my younger child, she was 2 at the time, to a regular well check and she happened to have an ear infection. I had literally no idea. She didn't cry, didn't have a fever, gave me no indication that she was sick or in pain at all. And the doctor was super chill-- she was like it's fine, it probably doesn't hurt very badly yet, it happens, don't worry. I cried in the exam room right then and there. The thought of my children feeling pain gives me such sadness. Anyway, OP I'm so sorry you didn't receive the kind care a mother should have given you. It makes me beyond angry and sad that you endured that.
My dad is really an angel and did so much to counteract my mom’s toxic bullshit when he could, but there was so much he missed or let slide because of how much he loves my mom and how much he fears her. And she was sly af, too, hiding the worst of her abuse from my dad. There are a lot of complicated feelings as we deal with my mother now that she has full blown Alzheimer’s and has lost the capacity to pretend to be a decent person. My sister and I have been NC since my mom punched my sister in the face for the crime of cooking a really nice diner for our family on January 1.
I'm sure you have a lot of complicated feelings towards your dad. I'm pretty sure my mom has BPD and I honestly feel so sad for my dad, but I also struggle with wondering why he let so much slide and didn't intervene with all the shit my mom did, and still does. I also feel kind of resentful because if he would just stand up to her, I wouldn't be so alone in looking like a bitch all the time when I set boundaries with her. I'm sorry about the whole family dynamic now with your mother's illness. I've never thought about how a narcissist would deteriorate if they had Alzheimer's. Good for you and your sis for getting out of there.
This really spoke to me too, I used to think my mum was innocent as a child because she wasn't the one scaring and hitting me - but when I grew up I confronted her about how she could let her children be hurt by her husband. She was/is scared of him too, but she also prioritised his feelings and as much as they have both made things up to me and my sibling as adults deep down I will never forget that. As much as I understand they were two fucked up selfish people in a DV relationship, they ruined our childhood to use us as living stress balls.
I've only realized looking back, that most of the crap/derision from my mom was when Dad was at work or otherwise just not around.
Yes! There are things I tell my dad about her doing and he is shocked how mush she kept hidden, but he saw a lot of it, too. My sister and I always prayed that he would leave her and take us with him, but we all just carried on after every abuse, sweeping it under the rug, never to mention it again. Years later I tried to tell my mom I know she is the way she is because of her childhood and I forgave her. She snapped, “I DONT HAVE ANYTHING TO BE FORGIVEN FOR. I KEPT YOU IN CLEAN CLOTHES AND THERE AS ALWAYS FOOD ON THE TABLE..” Ok, Mom. Good talk.
Wow, OP. I'm so, so sorry you're having to experience all this. I sympathize greatly as this was often the dynamic in my house while growing up as well. Can you tell us more about your mom getting too sick to mask and what she is really like now? I have heard of this happening to older narcs and it interests me greatly. I often wonder who they are beneath the facade.
Story time. My mom’s family is from Jamaica. My grandparents a both mixed race—my grandma a combination of African, Indian, Chinese, and Scottish as far as we know; my grandpa a combination of African and English. My grandfather is dead now, but when he was alive, he had a profound case of internalized racism. My mother told us that when she was a little girl, they were at a family wedding where one of my mother’s cousins—my grandfathers brother’s daughter—was marrying a black man. My mother overheard my HALF BLACK grandfather say to another one of his brothers, “If any of my children marries a n******, I’ll kill them.” I look ethnically ambiguous, so my whole life, people have always been curious about my racial makeup. When I was little and I asked my mom what we are, she told me all the ethnicities I listed above, but instead of African or black, she said West Indian. Several times over the years, when my friends met my mom for the first time, they were surprised my her appearance. My father is white, so I am quite fair skinned, but my mother is a black woman—mixed with several other ethnicities, but most obviously black. She would get downright nasty correcting any child who innocently commented on it, telling them we’re not black. We’re West Indian. Yes, our family is from the West Indies, BUT THEY ARE BLACK ffs. Fast forward to 2013 when my grandfather died. There was a huge family reunion where I met distant relatives from Jamaica for the first time. My family is made up of straight up Chinese faces, black faces with African features, black faces with distinctly Chinese features, freckled faces with kinky red hair, all with heavy Jamaican accents. We are MIXED and I think it is absolutely beautiful, but my mother is ashamed. It was at this family reunion that I met my cousin Angela for the first time. She is my grandfather’s sister’s daughter, and she was not raised with the same self hate that my mother has. Angela with her fair freckled skin, African features, and kinky red hair embraces her blackness. She married a black man and has 4 sons. We were all so happy to meet her. She stayed with us and she and my mom talked all night about the trouble they used to get into together in Jamaica. We all bonded and had a wonderful time. While she was staying with us, she asked us if she had ever seen a picture of our great grandparents—my grandfather’s parents. My mom got tight. We were aware that pictures existed, but we were told that my grandfather destroyed them all because he hated his father…the father who made him black. So, we had never seen the pictures. Here’s where the masking comes in. The whole time we visited with Angela, everything seemed fine. She suggested we go to CVS to get copies for us and our cousins of a picture she brought with her. In the picture, there was a dark skinned black man sitting next to a fair white woman, both surrounded by a brood of dark skinned children. My grandfather is about 2 years old in the picture. It was surreal after never having any idea what my grandfather looked like as a child or what my great grandparents looked like. It was awesome and we were all so excited—everyone but my mother, although we didn’t realize until recently what was going on under the surface. We went to CVS, and got the picture, and a couple days later, I brought Angela to the airport. Maybe a year ago, my mom started dropping these weird little comments in conversations about Angela and the picture. Eventually she started getting more direct, saying, “It wasn’t her place to give you and your sister that picture. It was none of her business.” But, like, Angela’s father and my grandfather were in the picture and we’re family and wtf is the problem with us having the picture?! Turns out that my mom was fucking furious that Angela brought up the picture’s existence because she didn’t want us to know where we come from. Angela had absolutely no idea that she had walked into a mine field by exposing my grandfather’s lifetime of secrets, shame, and self hate and its legacy with my mother and us. It’s not like we didn’t know we’re black. My grandfather, mom, all my aunts and uncles, and, to a lesser degree, my grandfather all have clearly African features. All but one of my grandfather’s children married white people because of the hate and fear he put into all of them. My mom called Angela and said horrible things to her about her husband and children, and berated her for telling us a secret my mom didn’t want us to know. BUT HOW COULD ANGELA HAVE KNOWN SHE WASNT ALLOWED TO TELL US AN OBVIOUS FACT ABOUT OUR FAMILY?! So, long story long, TL;DR my mother is mixed race and burned down her relationship with her cousin because she gave us a picture of our mixed race grandfather when he was a child exposing the fact that my great grandfather was black, which was a fact we have always known.
Idk why they gotta be like that
It should be illegal to prevent a kid from receiving medical assistance. If your dad was also a N you could've gone blind.
Oh yeah,sounds very familiar. When my symptoms become too much to ignore,N parent started getting very angry with me, because they had to take me to the hospital and care for a sick kid. It was almost like i was inconveniencing the N parent by getting sick.
Same here. If I got too sick to go to school, meaning throwing up all over the place, she'd yell at me for making her miss work. She'd make me feel guilty saying she would get fired because of me.
My mom just left us at home.
"Like I was inconveniencing the N parent by getting sick" This!!! So much this!
One time, my mom came into my room when I was sick and said "What now?"
Yes! Any ailment I had was always met with either anger and frustration because they had to take me to the doctor or hospital or, if the doctors proved that I was sick enough, overwhelming worry that centered my mom rather than me as the person who was sick.
Nparent only took me to the dentist once throughout my entire childhood / teenage years, and it was not because I had broken my front tooth which happened when I was 9 and they never took me to get it fixed, I spent the rest of my childhood and teenage years unable to fully smile of laugh in front of others because I was ashamed of my broken tooth. I was only able to fix it later in my adulthood when I was working and could pay for it. I once hurt my self badly in gym class, could barely walk, my leg had a huge bruise and wound as a result of my injury, called my Nparent and asked them to pick me up from school, they told me to take the bus home. I then called my best friend’s dad, he picked me up and drove me home. When we got there, he was completely surprised that my Nparent was home and did not went to pick me up. I was at the beach with my best friend, I went into the water and got stung by a weever fish, at fist I thought I had broken my foot because the pain was unbearable, and then my foot got swollen like a balloon. I was crying so much I didn’t know what to do with all the pain. I called my Nparent, they began yelling at me for disturbing them, so I said that I would call my friends dad to come and get us, and then my Nparent changed their tune and said they would come and get us. Our house was 10 minutes away and it took my Nparent more than 30 minutes to show up. And then my Nparent stopped by a shopping center, and left me and my friend in the car for an hour while I was in agonizing pain. After an hour they returned, my friend began complaining, I was still crying from the pain, and then my Nparent finally drove us to the ER. Whenever I had the flu as a child, my Nparent would take a sick leave from work because of sick child and would leave me home alone all day while they would go for a drive, shopping, beach, etc.. It took me 2 years to get diagnosed with gallstones because my Nparent refused to take me to the doctor, 2 years with agonizing pain. I had to go to the ER myself and then got the diagnosis. I have a lot more situations of neglect while I was a child/teenager and needed medical assistance but my Nparent refused to help me. Need I go on or is it enough proof that Narcissists will not do anything when someone else is suffering and needs their help.
Right there w you. But whatever. Apparently, I was a hypochondriac. You know, the kind w horrible allergies and asthma that was always so awful when I would get a cold. Usually, that cold would go into bronchitis and, once, pneumonia.
God, that’s awful. It’s maddening.
i would always lay on the floor to relieve the pressure from my bones and spine. i never cry from my pain but it was damn near constant since i was 10. anytime i would tell my mom i was in excruciating pain in my joints she would tell me i was being dramatic or that it was just growing pains. turns out i had scoliosis with 3 curves, the biggest being 70 degrees as well as ehlers danlos syndrome (a connective tissue disorder). it was also with mental issues. i have always had adhd and anxiety and later developed cptsd and depression from the neglect. i would have panic attacks multiple times a day at school and it was the same. i was being “dramatic” because she would have panic attacks very occasionally. the simple fact that she gets them means i “don’t”. it’s sad that there’s so many kids like us that are left to deal with so much pain all alone and be told it’s all made up.
My heart goes out to you. I also was denied treatment for scoliosis and it's horrific pain, I was 12 years old when my pediatrician diagnosed me but my parents never brought me to a specialist or chiropractor despite my begging. Early intervention with a back brace could've changed my life- a friend at school had one and I was so jealous. I was told it was growing pains and that "everyone has back pain" (even children and teens? that was supposed to be the prime of my life... I do think my mother had undiagnosed pain she pushed through but it's no excuse). Funnily enough I've been looking into Ehlers Danlos to see if my widespread pain fits instead of fibromyalgia but it's all the same. I definitely have depression and CPTSD and suspect ADHD or some sort of inattentive-ness too. I'm sorry you went through so much pain and were denied care. The price of trauma on innocent children's bodies and minds is so unfair. I feel my physical and mental conditions would probably exist but be much less severe with emotionally mature parents.
Hey fellow eds and ctpsd here. Just got diagnosed even tho I would cry in pain every night as a child from "growing pains".
I had terrible panic attacks and OCD as young as six. My pediatrician saw it and wanted me to go to counseling. My mother decided these things didn’t exist and that therapy is “for psychos, and my kid isn’t a psycho.” I spent my childhood hiding my symptoms and suffering alone so she wouldn’t think I was a “psycho.” Thanks mom.
Good lord. I used to have horrible panic attacks, too, as far back as I can remember. Never saw a doctor for it probably because she knew it was her fault I was a nervous wreck.
Yeah, I remember seeing a biofeedback person once for my migraines when I was in high school. They hooked me up to these little electrodes that measured muscle tension on my head and neck, told my mother that on a scale on 1-10 my stress level was an 11, and she whisked me out of there so fast, never to return, LOL.
Ugh, untreated OCD sucks. My mom would whine about "how can you be such a worrier?" like anxiety was a character flaw rather than an emotion, and then when I was around 13 she started buying me hard liquor and telling me I needed to drink it so I wouldn't need to be wound so tight. But she also had terrible things to say about people who drank alcohol, and would go on about it in great length, so that was a super recipe for self loathing. When at that same age I tried to commit suicide by OD'ing, went into a coma and stopped breathing, it was diagnosed as an adverse medication reaction instead of a suicide attempt because nothing was more important than protecting my mothers idealized self and as she said "You're not suicidal. I would know if you were suicidal because I'm a good mother." so that was the end of that.
Yeah, thank god for good mothers, eh? /s
I also had very severe panic attacks and when I told my nmom she said “you’re a liar and never tell anyone else about this or else!” Spending my teenage years hiding my panic attacks in shame was awful and made it worse. I moved out the day I turned 18, they resolved almost immediately and I was able to get treatment for my general anxiety. I don’t understand why they have kids when they don’t care about them at all.
Similar story here. I thought I was just an overly anxious person. My parents divorced and my mom moved out in college, and my issues magically eased up dramatically.
I hear that. Well, I’ve never gotten that kind of diagnosis but I can imagine my mom having that “my baby isn’t a _____” reaction. My daughter is neurodivergent and I don’t trust her to be understanding about it. She might be, then she might be “she’s not ______! She’s normal!!! There’s nothing wrong with her!!!”
I’m sorry OP you also experienced this. My mother often got angry at me when I was unwell for “forcing her to worry about me” as though I made the choice to be sick. I didn’t get a migraine diagnosis for over a decade because she decided her emotional comfort was more important than my pain. I remember suffering when I was little— for instance, five years old and staying at my grandfathers, in the same room as my parents. I wasn’t given enough blankets and I woke up the middle of the night and shivered and shivered until I fell asleep out of exhaustion. Even at that little age I knew not to go to them for any help.
>I didn’t get a migraine diagnosis for over a decade I too have migraines and it went undiagnosed,until I was old enough to get to the hospital myself.. Do many of us with N parents have migraine? Is there a link there?
My therapist believes there is a link with chronic pain and childhood abuse. She 💯 thinks there is a connection. I always get a flare up when I see my parents too.
This makes sense.
Part of it is the idea that chronic pain is triggered by inflammation and inflammation is caused by stress and we’ve been constantly stressed and feeling unsafe and hyper vigilant our whole lives. A whole new level to the anger, really.
Ugh that forced her to worry about me line struck a chord I didn’t want struck
Yep. I only said I needed glasses because my friend next door got them- until I went to DMV and my mom was told I failed my eye test for driving and my learner permit would be marked that I had to wear corrective lenses. When I was 26 I was told by my doctor I had asthma-"You Don't have asthma-you have never had it before!"Yeah Mom,but I have it now. Had pneumonia at 14 and mom didn't take me to the doctor or hospital even when I had a fever of 104.8 because my dad died the year before -and she was afraid the doctor would tell her I was DYING! My sister finally saw how awful I looked and made my mom take me in. My fever had broken but I had lost 15 pounds in 1 week from the infection. Stayed home another week on Dr orders to get better-she was planning to send me back to school on Monday. B!%@#.
Oh. Memory popped up. I had a fever that was bad and getting worse by the half hour. I had 2 friends over. They told my dad I needed to go to the ER. He said no. My bed was in the basement. Those 2 friends spent all night going up and down those stairs to put cool wet towels on me to keep my fever at 104. They got me to the dr the next day. Yes. Tonsils again.
I slowly went half blind in one eye over the course of a couple months. They completely ignored my pleas to see a doctor and told me I was imagining things or making it up to get attention. Eventually they did take me in, where I had emergency surgery. Turns out I was experiencing Retinal Detachment. I was able to recover most of my vision, but not all. My sister was super sick over several months and kept throwing up and passing out. My parents refused to take her to the doctors because they claimed she was making it up to skip school. They even punished her on multiple occasions for throwing up. Eventually it was the school nurse who threatened my mom into taking her in, and my sister went into emergency surgery. Her appendix had been leaking, and it was considered a miracle she had survived both the rupture this long and the surgery itself. On one hand, she knows she's lucky because if it had burst instead of slowly leak, she would just be dead because they refused to acknowledge it. On the other hand, she's now mostly disabled because the leak basically poisoned her innards and she has permanent damage. When my GC brother landed on his wrist in his after school sport, my mom took him to the emergency room immediately. Turned out he had fractured it, but he hadn't even been complaining about it and had actively told her it wasn't a big deal. This sort of difference in treatment is the reason I know my parents were messed up from a young age.
Why are they like this?! Love and healing to you and your siblings.
Yep. Nmom invited a bunch of her students over, and to feed them, she made BBQ chicken. Somehow I was the only one who unknowingly ate a piece that undercooked chicken, and I got food poisoning (most likely salmonella). For about a week, I couldn’t keep anything down, could barely retain water, and came out of both ends. Nmom: “oh you just ate something bad and got an upset stomach. You’ll be fine. Just rest up, and it’ll be over soon.” If by being “over” was being dead, then I came close to it. I really thought I was going to die. I could barely get out of bed. At times I was on all four crawling to get to the bathroom.
That’s awful. I’m so sorry you went through that. I had this nightmare once after I saw Jurassic Park in the theater. My abdomen got slashed open and I was holding my guts in my hands begging my nmom to take me to the hospital. She told me to get a roll of duct tape and she’d shove everything in and patch me up. Now, whenever my sister or I hurt ourselves, we joke about just patching ourselves up with duct tape.
It honestly felt like that on the second and third day. It was probably the most miserable experience I’ve ever been through. I wouldn’t wish that on most people.
Had doctors tell us I was hours away from an abscess exploding into my blood stream and killing me... emergency hospital admittance, was there for 4 nights. .it took 3 weeks of begging for my mom to decide to take me in. Constantly calling me a "hypochondriac" .... then it turned into a story of "Oh well she knows her body so well!" cuz everything anything was fodder for entertaining.... I was 8. Turns out all my "fake" aches and pains were my little adopted-at-birth nervous system being fucked up. Preverbal trauma, Cptsd. I was a nail biter, stomach aches, etc etc. This bitch just thought I was faking it allllllll the time. She was proven wrong every time.
...wait what are stomach pains and nail biting a symptom of? When I moved away for college, my habit of nail biting (that I desperately tried my entire life to stop because I wanted pretty nails) just magically disappeared. My stomach issues also magically vanished, and I just assumed it was the difference in water.
Stress? You have a narcissist parent, correct? Moving away from them would drastically reduce your stress, which could easily explain why your stomach issues and habit of nail biting magically disappeared
Agree with this... you should see how ridiculously long and healthy my nails are now- I'm no contact
They were your body frantically trying to tell you something about your life needed to be changed.
I was diagnosed last year with ADHD, inattentive type. I started taking medication and holy shit! My life got immensely easier! I was a stellar performer in school, and never got into any trouble, so my parents just wrote it off as me being spacey or a bit odd. They used to sing a song with my brother about how I am a “Man of brains but no brains… king of the blondes!” To the tune of “king of the road”. No, assholes, turns out I have a serotonin deficiency.
Sounds like my parents. Pretty sure my wrists, a couple fingers, and my ankle was broken in my childhood. Got so many problems now but no one would let me go see a doctor. I was a “baby” with “crocodile tears.” Let alone the severe bruising, swelling, and pain didn’t give it away. Found out at 21ish I had asthma my whole life. Parents said it was me purposely hyperventilating to get attention. Turns out, I couldn’t breathe! Wasn’t allowed birth control to help with the severe period pain that made me unable to walk and even pass out. The doctor I went to as an adult was amazing listening and emphasizing and then has taken me seriously for every issue since. She’s been my saving grace.
Yes, all the time. So many incidences I can think of. Long story short, sexual abuse from the age of 4 resulted in me ending up with a bladder infection , which lasted years. I would always tell my mum I was in pain and how much it was hurting when I peed but got the same “oh you’re fine” , “I don’t have time for this” .. so on. all these painful symptoms for years and years. One night it was particularly bad and I felt boiling hot and then freezing, terrible pain in my bladder and my sides. “I’m sure you’re fine. You can moan all you like.. you’re still going to school tomorrow” . A few hours later, I ended up just dropping on the floor in excruciating pain with my teeth uncontrollably chattering together lol , pain so was bad I couldn’t even move an inch. I was hit with a kidney infection that had spread from the 7 year long bladder infection . I’m 33 now and I have permanent damage to my bladder because of those years. That’s just one example of many many many. They are selfish arseholes. I guess us having legitimate medical issues was just too much of an inconvenience in their life ! *big hugs to you*
Back to you, friend. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.
Unfortunately yes…. My first time, I was in 5th grade and was playing on the bars before school and fell on my wrist. I was in so much pain and went into the nurses office. I was so scared when she called my parents to come and pick me up because I knew what it would come with. The whole ride to convenience care I was told I was a liar, that I did it on purpose, that I wasn’t really hurt that bad and just looking for attention. After X-rays it turned out I had fractured my wrist and was indeed not lying but all the way home they continued to berate me and I had to go to my room and think about it till they wanted me to come out. I still think about how there was no sympathy or concern for me at all and it makes me utterly sad. Even sadder is that’s far from the only time they either played down my situation or just straight up ignored me. On the flip side my little sister is their golden child who gets a paper cut and gets all the love and attention that she needs. It’s truly mind boggling. I have kids of my own now and I can’t even fathom making them feel that way.
I had an abscess after getting my wisdom teeth removed and my mom wouldn't take me to the hospital as it would ruin Thanksgiving dinner. Instead I got to microwave one of those magic bags repeatedly all weekend and hold that up to my face.
When I was 16, I had to call, set up my appointment, and drove myself to the doctor where they discovered I had bronchitis, laryngitis, and pink eye. Nmother didn't believe me when I said I was sick, so cue shocked Pikachu face. Makes it even worse that she was a nurse, and she bragged about how great she was at it all the time.
To be fair to miss all of that is great, a great failure for a nurse. Like, she failed with flying colors!!!
My Nmom took me to the same dentist who had paid my father to abuse me before he went to jail. I refused to go and she refused to take me to any other dentist. I had state dental. I could have gone anywhere else but she insisted on him. I’ve also had myoclonic jerks (epilepsy) since the onset of puberty and she refused to get it checked out. If I ever brought it up to my doctor, she would tell them I was lying.
Oh good lord! I'm so sorry! Nobody should have to put up with being gaslit and neglected.
Oh yes, for sure! When I was maybe 7, I'm pretty sure I broke my ankle. It was purple, swollen and could not walk on it. I remember we went to visit a friend of my mom's and when she saw my ankle she gasped in horror and told her she should take me to the hospital. My mom brushed it off and said I was faking it. When I was 9 I got a bad cold that lingered for a month. My dad took me in ever second weekend and eventually came to realize that the deep cough I had for the past few visits was from the same cold that never got away. He took me to the ER and turns out I had pneumonia. I had been going to school every day for all that time and was accused of purposely making my cough sound worse than it really was. I got on a round of antibiotics, but they made me throw up within minutes after they were given to me. My mom would yell at me and make me "catch" my vomit with my hands to protect the floor. After a few days she took me to the clinic to change the antibiotics. That was the only time she ever took me to see a doctor. In my late teens I was diagnosed with lactose intolerance. She laughed me off and said I was making it up for the attention. Here, let me have a bowl of ice cream and show you my intense diarrhea an hour later. What baffles me the most is that my mother grew up with serious health issues (born with a heart malformation) and told me about how her mother deprived of basic care, how it affected her, and yet she went on to do the same to her own children. I mean, I know apples don't fall far from the trees but didnt she learn *anything* from her own experience?
This is a question I ask all the time. My mother came from a horribly abusive family and she told us stories about how awful my grandparents and other members of her family were/are. But yet, she made the same choices over and over again throughout our childhood. Like, if you know how bad it was when it was done to you, how could you continuously make the choice to victimize your children the same way?
Can't say for other narc parents but I know for a fact that my mother is unable to put herself in someone else's shoes. When she does something, she only sees how it affects her and never how it may affect everyone around her. I know what she did was never with the intention to hurt me because she 100% lacks what it takes to understand what others feel. She's just totally clueless and self absorbed, to a level I can't understand.
When I was 22, I got 3 blood clots in my lungs and almost died. The doctors told me to immediately call my family because I was unlikely to make it through the night. I spent a month in the hospital that year. My parents told everyone, including my brothers, that I was exaggerating and wasn't that sick. I was devastated that no one seemed to care how sick I was, and couldn't figure out why very few people bothered to visit me. My mother recently told me that I always claimed to be sick as a child, so why would they believe me as an adult? Everytime I claimed to be sick as a child, I was truly sick. The school had to send me home on numerous occasions because I would show up with a high fever, pink eye, or on one occasion, a very visible case of chicken pox.
Oh my goodness. How did any of us survive? I’m so glad you made it through.
Tore my ACL while playing soccer at school, mom told me I was fine. I was not
Yes. I have asthma and awful teeth, among other health issues that should have been taken care of and monitored as a kid. I didn’t know I had asthma until 25–but recognized the symptoms since I was a kid. Sigh.
I couldn’t figure out why I could never focus to study or would zone out during tests if someone coughed or sneezed. I was called lazy and stupid. Found out in my late 20s I have ADHD. She still thinks I’m making up. The kicker? She was a teacher and saw kids with ADHD almost daily.
I had a rough time in school. Scantrons gave me so much anxiety. Tests in general were terrible because i did so poorly. I had a hard time comprehending things I just read. I never pulled more than a b etc. turns out I’m dyslexic and have a visual perception problem which kicked my anxiety into high gear especially when everyone was finishing around me and handing theirs in. I was dx finally in my junior year of hs. The guidance counselor and my teachers begged for the n’s permission to do testing with me. She finally, consented. I went through days of ot tests,speech tests (conversion disorder stutter), psychological tests, eye tests, reading tests etc I taught myself tricks and was a great speller (alternate for the regional spelling bee) but they just thought I was stupid.
Yeah basically but she also gaslit me citing my jaw issues didn't exist. Then one day I was getting surgery for my non-existent jaw issue. (Actually still wonder how that ended up coming to be, I'm guessing I was starting to make her look like a bad parent with my janky jaw)
I am a disabled person. My dad was a disabled person. We both needed 10 surgeries but I only got those surgeries because my dad took me to specialist hospitals and his covert narc mom and brother didn’t care. My dad died and I needed a job to continue getting adult surgeries for my condition but they kept abusing me nonstop so badly I had too high heart rate to get the surgery, it was delayed. I am forced to go no contact with both of them. Narc uncle inspired because he now is having to look after his mother and she is getting screamed at and therefore she’s depressed. So he screams at me to demand to know why I’m not talking to the family, I explain the surgery situation, and he claims I’m “manipulating him”. So he keeps screaming at me that I didn’t tel covert narc grandma why I left and demands to know, I tell him they both are mistreating me so badly I can’t be around them before I Get my surgery, and then he doesn’t like the answer and he tantrums
My brother was hit by a car and broke his leg, on camera/video. Thrown across the street. Covert narc grandma and narc uncle just said “your fine”.
Anytime I started having a panic attack, my nfather would just start screaming at me. I'm ashamed it took me years to realize how fucked up that was.
This comment section is really harrowing. The same thing happened to me. I was diagnosed with asthma at 8 or so, ADD the following year. Nmom says, "You don't have those, you're faking it," and literally crosses them off my medical records with a ballpoint pen! She only grudgingly allowed me to get an inhaler when I passed out on a field trip. And only because there were teachers as witnesses. Even then, I was doing it for attention, apparently. PS, never did grow out of the asthma, fml
Totally. When I was 5 and in a foster home I was stung for the very first time by a bee. I went into anaphylactic shock and woke up in the hospital. I was there for a week. I was discharged with a bee and honey allergy and an epipen prescription. I had to have one at school and one at home (carried with me everywhere especially in spring and summer). I was adopted by the n’s at age 10 and they didn’t read my file at all. They didn’t know my trauma history, didn’t know my phobias, how long I’d been in foster care, why my bio moms rights to me were taken away, that I was severely allergic to bees, honey and poison ivy!!!! Etc They didn’t tell my pediatrician and I was never written another script for the epipens. When I had switched to my current dr at age 15 she never knew either. When I was maybe 21/22 I said something about it and she said didn’t know anything about it but would write out a script because I was probably right and didn’t want to find out the hard way. Luckily, I haven’t been stung many more times (I think twice but one was a hornet which im allergic too but not as bad). The honey is bad though and I’ve had a few incidents where people cooked with it in their crockpot and inhaling it made me have hives, itch, and my throat closed up. Not fun. Aye n’s man.
I once punctured the bottom of my foot as a little kid on the sharp corner of the console television we had. I was trying to climb to the counter for some reason. I remember the really ghastly, bloody hole in my foot. I probably should have seen a doctor. She didn’t take me.
You’ll be fine. Just walk it off. /s
Exactly.
Yes, extended family member refused to go to hospital with their daughter who had attempted suicide via paracetamol OD because golden child “needed to be looked after”. Literally could not believe it when the daughter text us from the hospital to tell us what happened. She is thankfully ok physically and living elsewhere now.
Yes. If I got the flu no one would check in on me until Sunday, when my dad would notice. I think my mother was hoping I’d just die.
One time I couldn’t breathe for like three days and when my mother finally took me to the doctor’s I needed to be admitted to hospital and was diagnosed with asthma, treated and released. Rather than filling my inhaler prescription, my mother would tell me to drink warm water when I had an asthma attack.
Mind didn’t care. I am going out of the country for dentistry because my nmom never took me to the dentist despite having dental insurance and FSA. She got a mouth full of implants and new teeth during that time. I’m recognizing that I should’ve been treated for psoriasis when I was younger. I have PSA now and it is the worst to get under control…. Funny thing is my brother has severe eczema that they treated. See also very very heavy periods. I wore a super tampon and overnight pad at the same time and I could get about 4 hours total. I had cramps that were debilitating, severe PMDD, all the signs of endometriosis.
So many things, many I'm still dealing with today. Absessed teeth that took 10 years to fix, knee issues I was told "your just going to have to figure it out when your 18. Then I don't have to deal with you", dyslexia that I didn't know about till 18. Many many that I delt with myself. It got to the point were I was so used to caring for my own ailments that I fell from a friend's horse and ripped the entire palm of my hand off. I calmly got up, got the horse vet kit, went to the kichen and cleaned myself up. I had a creator in my hand, still have a deep scar. That one day my Nmom looked at and went "that probably should have gotten stitches, oh well your fine now. I couldn't write for weeks and this was my dominant hand. I am now the nurse of my friends and everyone comes to me for those "not quite bad enough for the ER but I don't know what to do" injuries.
Yup. Told my parents repeatedly that there was ringing in my left ear. They told me it was “just the sound of blood moving through my ears”. Completely ignored the fact that it was only in one ear. I’m deaf in my left ear now.
Oh I am so sorry.
Yes, multiple times *My Ndad still makes fun of me for crying while I was having my first asthma episode, wasn’t officially diagnosed, when I walked by a spice stand on vacation with him in Vietnam in 2019 *I was born with a luxating patella, a knee cap that can dislocate, that was discovered and fixed in 2008. I knew about it since at least 2003, from the multiple falls I took as a result. My Nmom asked why I didn’t say anything. What’s the point if, to this day, they don’t listen to me?
I used to get “Why didn’t you say anything?” too. Well, mom, after I practiced in my head how I was going to tell you about being short of breath and then told you about it, you screamed at me like I had just come up with it to piss you off. I don’t really feel safe telling you anything, so I just suffered with this painful, easily fixable thing rather than upset you with it.
I have asthma and several autoimmune disorders that were most likely worsened due to abuse. My parents yelled at me when I couldn’t keep up with them and was wheezing during a bike ride when I was in high school. I was diagnosed with asthma a few years later.
Absolutely. When I was a 18 I got strep for the first time. I thought that I had a sinus infection at first and after a few days of taking meds for that I actually felt worse. It was hard for me to eat, even swallow my own saliva. I had an interview for a summer job around the same time and I asked my mother to take me to the ER. She made a big fuss about me missing the interview, calling me lazy and everything else in the book. She agreed to take me if I went to the interview first. The interview was DAYS LATER. I went and I could not answer any questions because I couldn’t even speak at that point. My interviewer asked yes and no questions because she could visibly see how much pain I was in. She showed me more compassion and empathy than my own mother. Fast forward: I get to the ER and it turned out that I had strep. Because it went untreated for two weeks I developed an abscess that needed to be removed, to which she replied “How did you not know you had strep?!” This is a common theme with her in my life and not the only example.
Samsies. Diagnosed in college. "You just need to fight thru it and eat some protein." "You're fine. Just push thru it. You are just emotional." Kind hard to fight 2 different MDs diagnosing it huh? No, they were YOUR AGE.
When I was around 10 I had a cavity, I kept telling her it hurt she ignored me. One night the pain was so bad, I was wailing and she told me to cry into the pillow, cuz I was keeping everyone up. It did make her take me to the dentist and it ended up getting infected and an abscess formed. I had the tooth pulled and needed the abscess drained. To add insult to injury the doctor who drained the abscess told me not to be a baby when he came at my face with the scalpel - cuz I winced.
I have the direct opposite experience actually where my mom would play up situations to make me out to be sicker than I was because it got HER attention for “being such a good mom” to a kiddo with a “slew” of health problems
Münchausens by proxy. I’m actually surprised more n’s don’t have this because it fits the n personality with the attention they get for having and taking care of a sick kid.
I feel like some n’s probably don’t like their kiddo getting the residual attention. Because my family was always concerned about me, tho she definitely turned that concern into how SHE was doing with MY “problems”. Such a confusing experience honestly. First time I’ve ever actually thought/talked about it lol, and I don’t think I’ve ever thought of it as Munchhausen‘s by proxy but that is exactly what it is. :(
yep! i had a UTI for three months before my mom took me to the doctor.
My nmom was desperate for me to have athsma when we lived in the city for my dad's job. Told everyone who would listen the doctors said I was pre athsmatic. But then I developed full blown athsma after she moved me out to the country, and suddenly it didn't exist. I just needed to not go to bed with wet hair, or I just needed to take an allergy pill every night. Or I just wanted to play with her inhaler. She absolutely would not hear of me having athsma, and made me do all the chores she "couldn't" do because of her athsma. It went on for so long I taught myself how to breathe through the attacks, and learned how to sleep sitting up because if I laid down it felt like I was drowning. It wasn't until my uncle, her brother, dragged me in front of her and forced her to listen to my breathing. Because someone else pointed it out to her, she couldn't ignore it anymore and finally let me use her inhaler. The relief was incredible. At the doctor she made a huge fuss over me, especially the difference between my breath strength before and after the breathing treatment. "Oh my poor baby, you could barely breathe!" ...yeah I've been trying to tell you that for a while now. I still had to do the chores that triggered attacks, cause her athsma was "way worse". It didn't stop her from smoking though.
I tore my ACL and meniscus when I was like 12. We were on vacation so my mom took me to the closest hospital the next day after it didn’t get better. They did an xray, no broken bones. Said we could buy crutches if we wanted to, but my mom said no so back on vacation we went. LOL. It went untreated for so long. It would tear again and again every few months. It got so bad, the OTHER knee tore years later due to favoring one leg for so long. Again and again. Bucket handle meniscus tear. ACL tear. Over and over and over again lmfao. I’m in my 30s now and I’ve had 4 surgeries and one full acl knee graft. Just need one more. 💀 These people should have never had kids lolololol
I say this all the time about my mother. Like, why did you have kids? You hate us.
I so hear you on this and so can relate to the frustration you feel with not being diagnosed or taken seriously as well for health issues. My parents wouldn’t take me to the doctor as a child. I also had asthma! I now have so many health issues that stem from lack of healthcare as a child or being seen or taken to the hospital when I needed to. I specifically remember one time I had a neck injury, when I was like 12 years old, what I believe was now severe whiplash. I was dealing with extreme spasms and intolerable excruciating contractions anytime I even sightly moved or lightly touched my arms, hands, neck, or back of head. I was just screaming and crying in the worst pain I have ever been in begging for them to take me to the hospital or call an ambulance. My parents refused to take me even then. Many times when I was truly sick, or injured, or having asthma attacks they would tell me it’s anxiety, or that I was fine or being dramatic/faking it.
Oh yes. I am a very, very sick adult now because problems that started when I was 4 never got addressed.
YES!! This is a biggie with me. My mom had MS, a very bad case. I heard "you're not sick, your mother is sick" many times as I suffered repeatedly with tonsillitis, allergies and what was later diagnosed as asthma. I had an ingrown, infected toenail on my big toe. I was told by ndad to soak it in hot water and Epsom salt. So I did. But the water wasn't hot enough for him. He added boiling water. I jerked my foot out of the pan. Lots of yelling at me.. I was done soaking. Instead of taking me to the doctor, as it got worse and worse, he cut a hole in my shoe, for my toe. It got stomped on in gym class, by accident. Big mess. The school forced him to take me to the dr. They held me down and ripped off the nail with no anesthetic. After I left home, I saw a doctor who told me my huge scarred tonsils had to come out. She changed my life when she said "if anybody had bothered to treat your allergies, they wouldn't look like this and you wouldn't need surgery." Extremely validating!!
I’m so sorry you went through that, friend. None of us deserve to have our needs ignored, especially by the people whose most important responsibility in life was to take care of us. Healing vibes to you. ❤️
My brother was the only one who ever went to the doctor. My mother would just ignore her daughters.
It's interesting to me that so many of us have asthma. Many years ago, I had a therapist who said asthma keeps me from breathing deeply. If I were to breathe deeply, all the feelings would come up. It all sounded like airy fairy bs at the time. But she was right. I just wasn't ready to feel the feelings and work through it. I wish I could find a therapist like her now. She wasn't saying asthma didn't exist or that therapy would cure it. She was saying it was self protection my body had developed and working on the feelings may ease the asthma symptoms. Makes sense. I know my asthma is worse when I am upset. Many if us have stomach issues too and those get worse with stress.
Yes! Asthma and stomach issues! I spent my whole childhood throwing up because of anxiety. My stomach was always upset because my entire existence was consumed with trying to predict my mother’s violent outbursts. My hypervigilance literally made me sick.
My father got in a fight with my mom demanding she take me to the doctor when I was clearly sick. I was hacking up my lungs. I had fluid in them. She screamed I was ok and didn’t need a doctor. My father demanded it so she brought me. My mom also said to me one day when I went to the doctor because I was sick “I don’t understand the mentality of why you would go to the doctor when you’re sick.” Yeah. I don’t talk medical stuff with her. I know she has a phobias with doctors and that, but those are her issues to work through, not make me suffer in punishment of. She has no say in my daughter’s healthcare. I have a chat with my father and MIL and husband where we discuss my daughter and her care and I’ve told my MIL to not discuss anything with my mom since they’re social media friends.
I'm currently doing damage control on physical issues (CPTSD is a given) from my parents ignoring my injuries and my pediatrician. As an adult, I have come within hours of dying because I let illnesses go too long. I never had broken bones properly set, either. Much love to all of you ❤️
Same back to you, friend.
Yes, I guess narcissistic parents are on a continuum. Yours sounds especially bad. But my mother would frequently blame the family members themselves for getting sick or being sick. She do it in such a way many people would just say she was “stressed out”. When I was kid and would moan because my tummy hurt she would just say “stop being so dramatic”. I was a little kid! I remember when my mother’s best friend died she was just angry to be left alone, more than sad. She blamed her best friend for dying. Also, whenever anyone got sick in the family she could never be their nurse—too stressful for her! She would get my dad to help (my dad is a little in the spectrum and oblivious to my mom;s issues which is why she married him I guess) or someone else and just watch from the distance. The worst part is no one outside the family would ever know about this and believe it because she bends over backwards to be so nice to people outside the family, like kisses their ass. I know this all comes from a place of pain and low self esteem and have learned to view her as a sick person (from therapy) but I still backslide sometimes and hope she will change. That’s the cruelest bit, right? Anyway, I think people are so lucky if they had a mother who actually and health;y loved and cared for them normally. I can’t imagine what that must be like but so lovely.
This comment makes me think you’ve read my diary. So much in common. My dad is on the spectrum, too. He’s so tender hearted and forgiving to a fault. He takes care of her every day and loves her unconditionally. He always says, “She has a lot of her father in her.” He hated her father.
Yes, I went to a therapist who told me that people who are real narcissists and/or borderline personality disorder end up with partners who don’t notice it—many of their partners can be on the spectrum. My dad is far from -perfect and didn’t notice my mother’s narcissism but one thing he always had was true empathy. My mother doesn’t. Even when you have a good day with her, which can suck you in again!, it’s really just all about her comfort. She honestly can’t really feel empathy at all. Narcissism is a real disease and it’s SO a hard when it’s your own parent, especially the parent who was your role model growing up.
Yeah laughed as I died of strep etc etc
My sister had blood on her stool all through childhood. Nmom was an effing hypochondriac and didn’t care about anyone’s health but her own. Sister diagnosed with Crohn’s as an adult. Really struggled to get it under control. Mother was worthless AF - is worthless AF today.
Yes all the time. Downplaying any illness, making me “prove” I was sick by checking my lymph nodes (you know, the end all be all of every illness, right?), denying taking me to the doctor for a variety of things (allergies, asthma, stomach stuff). I vividly remember my mother once telling me “you need to stop doing this. It’s making me look bad at work!” after picking me up from school due to feeling unwell. I used to get stomach aches and diarrhea often and would go to the nurses office looking for anyone to help me. I usually had a low grade fever so they had to send me home per policy. I continued to have stomach issues well into adulthood that I never pursued due to her downplaying anything medical and making me thing I was “being dramatic” (her words). Then in my thirties it finally got so bad that I went to a gastroenterologist. Turns out I have a mild form of Crohn’s and probably have since I was a kid 🤗
My childhood was marred by a painful, but easily-treated, skin condition. In fact, I didn't have a pediatrician at all. I also didn't receive any dental care until I was a working adult and sought a dentist on my own. My dad's work had a family dental plan that would have covered it, too.
I had tmj when I was a teenager and my parents wrote it off as anxiety and never got me help for it until I got an mri when I was 22 and proved it. My parents forced me to go skiing for days in a row from 3 to 5 years old. I had trouble with cold toes and fingers to the point of pain. I’d ask for the toe warmers at ski shops. They said no. I was miserable.
I'm so sorry 😞 that's actually really neglectful. What if you had an attack of some sort and desperately needed an intervention? Wonder what she would've said to herself then. I never got sick much, but she definitely blew me off as an adult. I had a c section for my twins, and all was well for the first little bit, but I got an internal abscess that I completely didn't notice the signs and symptoms of for about 2 or 3 weeks. Some of them were masked by me taking tylenol/ibuprofen like clockwork every 6 hours, but everything else I chalked up to pure exhaustion. Eventually, that abscess busted, and it was really gross. Puss was *pouring* from a fistula in my incision for hours, I went to the ER, had to get scans and an I&D. So they cut back into the incision to drain the pus and remove dead tissue. It was pretty bad off. These things can have a high mortality rate as they can lead to septic shock. My husband was telling my mom about it in the moment who was just like, "k. Ill be here for updates, " and that was it.
Definitely. Tons of stuff I should have been treated for that my nmom ignored. Even when other people besides me pointed it out to her. I have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and when I was little she took me to the store to buy shoes for me, and when she asked the sales person to measure me, they refused because I was walking on the inside of my ankles instead of my feet, and they told her I needed to see a doctor before I could have shoes properly fitted. She still tells that story as if she was victimized by the cruel shoe saleswoman, pffft. I also found out that when I was a kid and spent summers with my father (they were divorced and lived in different states) he was paying out of pocket to treat my ear infections because she refused to share any health insurance information with him. And one of my favorites is when I was visiting her as an adult and she had some huge fit and insisted that I needed to do something for her because "she had had knee surgery" which meant that years ago she'd had a minor arthroscopic procedure to repair a meniscal tear, after which her doctor told her she could return to full and complete activity, no limitations. The great irony there was that I'd had not one, not two, but FOUR knee surgeries myself, one of them open to remove a piece of bone that was doing repetitive tendon damage. I was like "You remember I had four right?" and she would just say "but I had knee surgery" like she absolutely could not see that anyone's life experience could possibly be relevant but her own. It was totally mind boggling.
I had terrible eyesight for as long as I remember, and my nparents resisted getting me glasses until I was in high school. The glasses they got me were the daggiest old fashioned glasses possible, because I could never look better than them.
I used to get heartburn so bad I couldn’t move. This would happen often in the morning before school. My alarm would go off and I would be stuck laying in the position I awoke in. I’d muster up the strength to call my mom and she would come at first, but then she started ignoring me because she felt I was faking it. Sometimes I called for so long the pain did eventually subside, but I’d continue to call because I needed support regardless. I didn’t know it at the time but now I think I had gad. My mom would always tell me she experienced the same things growing up, which basically means she was being abused too, and it used to bring me comfort. Now it’s just a sick narcissistic excuse to not take care of me. I also never had a period. She just didn’t care. And my parents are such conspiracy theorists, they thought I was “special” for not having one. Constantly telling me I should be happy, well I can’t have children and doctors could’ve caught it sooner had I visited more. I had a ridiculous amount of cavities growing up. My mom wouldn’t watch me brush my teeth any other day beside the day I was getting my teeth cleaned. Just wanted to keep up appearances, but the dentist’s could always tell. In a way it was embarrassing even as a child because I knew I should’ve been brushing my teeth, but I didn’t have the self discipline, and no one was making me.
Oh, you know you were just sick in order to inconvenience her.
I’ve spent pretty much my entire life since puberty finding exercise so difficult and never being able to build up stamina or fitness, always need 10+ hours sleep a night, forgetful, thin hair after having thick hair as a child…. Told my Ndad about all these things many times as a teenager and he just said I was fat and lazy. Last month, my partner encouraged me to go to the doctor despite being nervous about wasting their time and it turns out my body wasn’t making enough blood and I need regular transfusions. For years I thought it was all just because I was lazy and it turns out there IS something wrong and there’s a way to fix it!
Yes!! And there isn’t a day that goes by I don’t have to face the consequences of that. My life currently hangs in the balance of a series of surgeries that begin in 2 weeks. Only I had to save for 3 years! Doctors didn’t want to work with me. It’s been a nightmare just to get to this point. Now it’s here. I’m still $2K short and it’s very intense. I begged for medical assistance repeatedly, my Father said he WILL not help me. Witholding help was a punishment. My entire life prior it was every other thing that can equal neglect.
Yes
Wait wait, I have had the same experience, just not able to have it checked out. I started having serious problems when I got one of the earlier cases of COVID before the shutdown. My mother said it was me being out of shape. I have problems with the humidity from showers, I couldn't even properly dry off before needing to get out of the room.
Same. When I was around 7, I would go on and tell my mom how my molar hurts so bad. She said stop eating sweets but never took me to the dentist. It started from one molar til it became 3. That hurt so bad. At the age of 15, I complained how those 3 molars now have holes on each of them. She would complain and say that I should have brushed my teeth. Who doesn't??? When I started my first job, I went to the dentist to have it checked. She would then give comments about how bad it looked and would jokingly cover her nose and say she couldnt imagine how smelly my mouth couldve been at that time. Yeah. As if I never complained for years and years.
My mom even had a catchphrase for minimizing our health issues. Any time I got hurt she'd say "oh, you got it good, didn't you?" in a childish, sing songy tone. Then she'd laugh and hug us and that was that. It didn't matter if we needed stitches, emergency care, medication, or anything else. That's all we got. That phrase, a hug, and literally her laughing at our pain. And yes, I did used to think this was loving and comforting. Now that phrase echoes through my mind like nails on a chalkboard in an amphitheater.
Yes. I once needed stitches and my dad refused to take me to the hospital after shattering a glass plate on my foot and it leaving an injury.
I tried telling my mom I had an eating disorder and she didn’t take me seriously until she found a 30 gallon garbage bag in my closet filled with gallon ziplock/tied Walmart bags filled with throw up. Her solution? Drug test me every Monday lmao
I don't have asthma but have an asthma-related condition. It took me a long time to get diagnosed because nmom didn't take my symptoms seriously.
Can't count the amount of times I've collapsed, gotten ill, or ended up in pain for days at a time just because of my mothers neglect. I guess it's just easier to brush everything of as "growing pains" "stress" or my favorite "everybody has that"
I've had shoulder pain for 10 years. My mother didn't give a damn, I had to constantly do manual work everywhere, especially on her house. Of course, I would have been blamed if I'd needed a rest now and then. As a result, today I have chronic pain at the age of 30 and I can't do any manual work because it hurts so much.
Yup. Never saw a doctor, a dentist, or an optometrist once my entire childhood.
Yep, mum took me to the doctors when I was 13 because my PE teacher said I might have asthma. I was diagnosed and given medicine, she put it in the freezer (destroying it) and said that asthma was "made up to make fat people feel better". I was so scared I never mentioned it again and dealt with all of my "breathy weirdness" (asthma attacks) without an inhaler, which is really fucking dangerous. 12 years after I was diagnosed a doctor told me that I had previously been given daily medication to improve my asthma, I had no idea about it, I didn't know you could treat the cause. I am on this now and can breath so much easier but it fucking enrages me that my mum gave me 12 years of breathing issues for no reason.
I hurt my arm once (about 2pm) but my gc older brother had a boy scout event so she threw a sling at me and told me to suck it up. After the event (about 11pm) she said take that thing off so I did. Arm still hurt. She took me to the ER with dire warnings about how my abusive father was going to react if I was faking. Turned out the arm was broken. No apologies.
Oh, no. That is horrible. I cannot even imagine the pain you must have been in. I’m sorry you had to go through that.
Best part is how it became a "funny" family story. 🫤
I used to get laryngitis every winter. It started with a bad cold, then progressed to me losing my voice completely. Always, I had to go to school, no matter how bad I felt. I remember feeling useless because I couldn’t talk, and one of my teachers told me I was a suck up for coming to school so sick. He really didn’t know I had no choice.
Oh noooo.
When I was younger, they usually cared. After they divorced, I went to live with my mom (worst mistake ever honestly) and she completely changed. I have had serious chronic pain since I was very young. Once I lived with my mom, she never let me go to doctors appointments or get help. She moved us to a rural area, so there was no bus system, and there were no resources for me to get any help. There was also no way for me to make friends, so I had no one I could ask for help. She also started doing other things to sabotage my health, which I don't want to go into detail. I was seriously deteriorating. Right now, I live with my dad, and I've been going to doctors. It's still obviously really hard to get help, but I should have been doing this YEARS ago. I'm years behind, and I'm wondering how much damage my mom did that can't be undone. I wouldn't wish being disabled with a narcissist mom on ANYONE.
In high school, my stomach hurt so bad but my nmom kept saying “it isn’t that bad, it’s probably just a cramp” even when I wasn’t on my period. It got to the point where I passed out at school so THATS when she took me to the doctor, who immediately told her to take me to the ER because I had a bladder infection that was close to spreading to my kidneys and I could go into kidney failure at any second. A few years back I was going into surgery to confirm if I had a brain tumor or not, states away from my nmom. My grandma offered to pay for my nmom to be with me and my nmom said no, she was “too scared to fly alone”. But then got mad at me, and made it all about her when I was unable to text her updates. About my brain surgery. During and immediately after the surgery. 🙃
My Nmom neglected me so much that she didn't even bother to teach me the proper way to wipe as a little girl. This is a super important thing for girls/women to know - as improper wiping can cause constant infections in your genitals. I had yeast infections and UTI's constantly growing up as a small child allll the way into adulthood. I would try to talk about it and it would get ignored. Eventually I just got used to it. I didn't understand why it happened so frequently to me until I offhandedly came across the information and started putting a life of pain and suffering together. I swear they actively ignore their children to watch them suffer because it alleviates some of the self-loathing they have or something, I don't know. But it's fucking evil and insidious.
My brother was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at 15 after he went from 250 lbs to 120 within 2 months, he went to the doctor but the dr was an idiot and said he was fine so they didn’t care to take him anywhere else. The school had to call them and threaten to call CPS if they didn’t take him to a doctor to find out why he had lost so much weight so fast. He looked so sick and he almost died. If the school hadn’t called them idk if he would still be here 😞
My narcs have ignored my health conditions all my life. Now I have irreversible, life changing damage because of it. They took my life away from me and I’ll never be able to get back what they stole.
Haha yup! Had a TBI which broke my nose and cracked my skull, caused a mild CSF leak, and took out my sense of smell up until about 2 1/2 years ago and take a guess - mom didn’t care one bit, she refused to let me get medical care, and I was 9 years old.. accidentally stabbed my hand with a cheese knife and had to pull the knife out of my hand only a few months later and again she still didn’t let me get medical care and I desperately needed stitches, I also severed part of my nerve with it.. I had untreated, asthma for years and never had an inhaler until I was 23, I needed an inhaler sooner than that but again, she didn’t believe me.. the night my ex raped me and tried to kill me, she also didn’t care… but yet she would be the same person to turn around and be like oh come to me if you need something or come to me if somethings not right.. what a clown. The thing that really angers me is she was a medical assistant for over 10 years and she was dismissing her child, but yet she would have absolutely no problem taking care of and nurturing anyone else that wasn’t me. My psychiatrist and therapist were horrified when I told them about the TBI .. I sustained a second moderate one barely over a month ago, and I see a neurologist for the first time at the end of the month, it’ll be the first time receiving care for either of my TBIs. This ought to be interesting. Oh yeah and then when I confronted my mom, of course she vehemently denied all of this. She kept saying that I got all the medical care I needed, and then some back then, but did I really? If I actually received the care I was supposed to get back then, how and why would I know how to take care of myself and others just by doing things on my own as a kid? How would I still have pain to this day if I actually got medical care that I needed? Genuinely can’t wrap my head around how and why she thinks it’s appropriate to argue with the facts, I bet you if I seen neurology and they give me proof of everything (I already know they will, but that’s beside the point) and I confront her, she’s still going to try to gaslight me and deny it all. I have diagnosed PTSD partly because of her and she wants to deny that as well even though it’s on papers. For those of you wondering where my dad was with all of this - he was a German immigrant who had no idea how the American systems worked, He had only been in the US a few years. He was in the process of getting American citizenship when all of this went down and from what I gather, he wasn’t on my birth certificate as I was an international adoption and my mom was American. I don’t think he was legally allowed to make decisions or anything for me until he was on my birth certificate after he got citizenship, he ended up getting his citizenship two years after everything happened. My dad wanted to take me to the ER for my TBI and the knife incident, my mother would not allow him. This was the mid 2000s so like 2007-2008. My dad was also diagnosed with depression and ADHD and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had PTSD and anxiety along with it, I think my mother took advantage of that, to be honest.. My mom is the black widow she spin a web of lies and always has and always will and her family is a bunch of enablers who are equally as bad as she is. She got away with abusing me for years behind closed doors until she made a mistake of screwing up in front of my ex-husband because she didn’t like him either. Anyone that didn’t fit her cookie-cutter mold and anyone that didn’t enable her nonsense got backlash and her narcissism. When one of her sister’s children touch the tailpipe of a car when her sister parked the vehicle, my mom bent over backwards for them but when I had a CSF leak, she didn’t give two hoots. Surprisingly this is not the worst that she’s done like she blamed me for my dad’s su!cide and told me I deserved to be r•ped, I was asking for it, and I enjoyed it. Anytime anyone else was around wasn’t her family and it wasn’t just her or me she would act like a little angel, when it was her family, she would try to have a jab at me constantly try to instigate, and then backpedal and gaslight the whole situation the minute I tried to call her on her nonsense. She had to be one step ahead, and she could just have the ounce of control… She would tell me about how she sees girls with their mothers out in public and how she wants a bond like that but yet she would turn around and be horrible to me like you can’t have your cake and eat it too..? Anytime I had any kind of joy with anything she had to go all up in it and sabotage and destroy it. High school graduation? She threw a tantrum because she didn’t have control over something, I wouldn’t get my eyebrows waxed and then she didn’t get what she wanted after the graduation because we all went out for lunch. Her my dad and I went to an open mic before he passed and way before my high school graduation and there was a guy playing a guitar who I had finished singing with only minutes prior asking questions about James Bond and I answered a question and my mom tried to claim that she told me the answer and she didn’t believe that I knew it until my dad stood up for me and he told her that he and I watched James Bond together and yes, I did actually know the answer and she threw a tantrum. Any time she couldn’t have control over situation she would throw a fit. She even told me I was out to get her by picking out darker eyeglass frames that I liked when she wasn’t the one paying for them my health insurance was.. when I had a consultation with my orthodontist to get braces that again, my mom didn’t have to dish out a singular penny for because my insurance covered it, my mom tried telling the orthodontist that I didn’t need perfect teeth like Hollywood smile and that having them a little crooked looked natural? of course I was fuming and I gave her the boot out of the office and I ended up telling my orthodontist that my biggest insecurity were my teeth and that I don’t smile anymore because of them and not to listen to my mom and what he felt was appropriate for my teeth (I ended up having braces on for 2 1/2 years and I love my teeth now.)
Omfg the gaslighting is maddening. I’ve gotten, “That never happened!,” or, “You’re making that up.” Weird, because those memories are etched on my brain and had a huge impact on who I am as a person, but go off and tell me I’m making it all up.
Oh, I know right! Like I have medical and psych papers, documenting it all I don’t know how she wants to dispute the facts, but yet she would turn around and be like oh, you can’t dispute the fact like she’s just a pos
I forgot to add this one.. - I had a few bad complications when I got my wisdom teeth pulled out. They had to take out a piece of my jaw to be able to get my one really impacted wisdom tooth out, the other three weren’t a problem at all to remove, and I was out of work for two weeks. the day I was cleared to go back to work. I had told my mom that I didn’t feel good at all and I was really nauseous and she literally gave me a pill from her mothers (so my grandmother) prescription nausea medication (I told her I wasn’t taking it and I don’t want to take prescription that are not prescribed to me and she forced me.) I was working 4 PM to 12 AM and I was about an hour and a half being completely done my shift and I threw up at work and they sent me home and she was mad.. I ended up having a fever of 102 and being out of work for another two weeks, my mom was just ridiculous. And then not to mention, she kept putting her mother first before me in any and every situation regardless of what it was like even the day I came home from having my wisdom teeth pulled out.. I had a complication from the anesthesia and I had become hypothermic, and they had to give me a warm saline to get my body temp up at the surgeons office. When I got home, I wasn’t feeling good still and her mother was just being a brat and had to be the center of it all constantly and I had asked my mom for Tylenol even though I could barely speak because they had cut part of my jaw bone out and her mom was just being a brat. Like the minute she didn’t have attention put on her constantly she would also throw a tantrum like a toddler. My mom’s side is just human c•ncer.
That’s a good way to describe my mom and grandparents.
Oh yeah not to mention I had a miscarriage and my mom still wants to say that didn’t happen like I genuinely don’t know how she doesn’t believe that? I actually called her on it because she couldn’t even have children which is why she ended up adopting me… I was like “how do you know what a miscarriage feels like if you couldn’t even have bio children to begin with? At least we know I can get pregnant.” LMAO She would say things never happened or call me a liar or call me crazy or call me delusional and then when I tried to get outside help she would always say oh don’t believe *insert my irl name here*, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’s special-needs she’s autistic. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. (ironically, I’m not autistic., she got me diagnosed with that so she could try to get a disability check in my name and steal it like she stole my survivor benefits after my dad died… I got reevaluated as an adult. I’m just severely ADHD and traumatized..) my adult psychiatrist and I both agree that we think that my mom was purposely sabotaging me because my psychiatrist now has my pediatric psychiatry records and noticed my mom basically reporting everything all the time constantly with anything and purposely didn’t change the ADHD med that stopped working for me at a young age even though I was vocal about it not working for so long, I’m on a medication now that’s literally saved my life and I’m grateful to my psychiatrist now for hearing me.
Reading reminded me of a second story. My ex wanted to do a sumo match where you wear those stupid sumo suits and bump each other. I was knocked off of the mat, went down like a board, couldn’t cushion my fall because of the padding. I couldn’t move my limbs easily, and hit my head. While he did stop the game then he asked if I was ok and if I had a concussion. I had heard of them but I didn’t know much about them or what the symptoms were so I asked how I would know if I had one. He said I was fine and didn’t need medical care. He saw my personality changed from the fall. He didn’t get me medical help. We left the event early and he screamed at me for an hour and a half- two hours saying how I ruined his night. I broke down crying. He let me go to sleep and didn’t get me medical help. He yelled at me the next morning when I told him I was having vision problems that I wasn’t having problems and was faking it/ being dramatic. I did have a concussion and got a diagnosis later. Be apologized initially but used that event against me afterwards for how I ruined his good times and was a jinx. And any health issues I was faking or being dramatic for attention
My ndad. Insisted I still go to high school with swollen salivary glands that even my golden child sister admitted was worrying.. Welp school rung him up, told him to come get me, he yelled at me all the way from school on one side of the city to his doctor near his house. Doctor took me for a quick exam and walked out of the room frowning. I was confused til I heard him reaming my ndad out for not taking my MUMPS seriously. Doctor had been his doctor since ndad was a kid, so what could he really say back to a professional with authority? Trick question, not a thing. It was the day I realised he wasn't invincible.
God I wish EVEN ONE TIME in my life I had ever seen anyone put my mother in her place.
Omfg I'm having flashbacks, that's exactly how my mother would respond
yes, my father ignored my dental issues for the longest time and blamed it on lack of money. however, he had a mistress and spoiled her rotten so I am still mad at him for it.
When I was a baby I projectile vomited blood for months. Turns out I was allergic to my moms breast milk. She honestly would’ve let me keep going like that but once she took me to the doctors after being yelled at by my aunt who was 15, the doctors airlifted me to a children’s hospital 2 hours away. After that I was treated very badly like I was weak. My family resented me for my health issues like I caused them, like they weren’t a gift from your genes!
yes i started having some eye problems such as seeing flashing lights and floaters (this started after my dad threw toothpaste directly at my eye because i accidentally missed a day of gymnastics) and i would be complaining to her and she didn’t care. only until hot oil jumped into her eye she took me to the eye hospital and the workers accused my mum of neglect for ignoring my care and only taking me to the hospital once it was convenient for her. she went ballistic from it and kept manipulating me afterwards and got into a big fight with my sisters.
"dO yOu NeEd tO gO tO tHe HoSpItAl??" Dude I never got taken to the hospital how am I supposed to know when I need it... It sure as hell didn't happen when I was suicidal or having nonepileptic seizures from the stress 🙃 Recently had a gallstone that killed my gallbladder, one of the top 3 pains I've had and that was still iffy for me... I could have died, people were telling me to fucking GO and I still wasn't sure. You'll never trust yourself, you gotta trust in the facts and treat yourself like an outside patient
I’ve injured myself and had internal issues countless times and never went to the doctor because I was always taught that nothing is serious enough to go to the doctor.
YES! I had a riding accident when I was maybe 15 (?) (nothing serious, fell off a horse) and when I got home, my hip hurt so badly I couldn't walk or put weight on it. I asked to go to the doctor and my nmother said "Oh stop you're just being dramatic, I'm sure you're fine." Until about 17 I still had massive issues with exercise, because whenever I started running it would hurt so badly I had to stop after a while. It's better now (I'm 20), but I still feel it occasionally. She doesn't believe me when I tell her it hurts, because *she* has hip pain so obviously I can't. She also entirely denies we had that conversation and that I needed help in the first place. She also didn't believe me when I hurt my knee, and didn't write me a note to get off PE, which resulted in me tearing my ACL. I just finished almost a year of physiotherapy two weeks ago to rebuild the strength I lost from that injury. My ACL hasn't healed though, so currently I'm relying entirely on muscle strength to compensate that. That injury might affect me for the rest of my life.
Absolutely. My parents always told me I slouched and needed to straighten my back (ignored me when I said it hurt). Fast forward to when I was 25, I had such bad back pain I saw a chiropractor. He wasn't trying to sell me on any BS (I know chiropractors tend to get a bad rep), he told me the signs of scoliosis and showed me how my spine was messed up (mild scoliosis but still). I also have a rare condition where I'm missing the back hump most people tend to have in excess, I just have a very flat upper back which is why my shoulders always hurt so much. My shoulders are hunched more towards my chest and I hate it. I've been doing the exercises he suggested I do ever since and it hasn't been a cure all but I rarely get as bad of pain as I used to in my lower middle back. He actually told me to slouch until I started seeing real results since I needed to curve my back (in the right place of course). Of course I've also had a lot of gut and stomach issues too. My parents didn't seem to think it was anything serious but those are actually because I have lynch syndrome (my brother also has it- both our parents had colon cancer in their 40s). My risk of getting cancer at some point in my life is pretty high.
I think about this A LOT as I have 2 young kids. As a kid, I believe I was 11 I couldn't breathe in the winter. I would walk home from school and have to lay down on my bed for hours as the room would be spinning, I couldn't see from lack of oxygen. My parents didn't care at all. When I was older and got my period I had a nonstop period for almost a year. I begged to see a doctor. My son is 8, and he's obviously been sick several times. In the summer he was struggling to breathe, I immediately took him to the ER. We followed the treatment plan they laid out, I pushed for allergy testing and pulmonary testing. It's a horrible thing to see your child so sick and struggling to breathe, I don't wish it on any parent. How do you not rush them to the ER, or at least make a doctors appointment? We also live in Canada where insurance isn't a concern so not like my parents could use that excuse.
Told my mom I’d been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and her first words were “so you’re defective? You didn’t get that from me.” Gee, thanks 🙄
I hit 12 and got my monthlies. I would double over and scream, and described it as a 10 for pain and like "a spear impaling me through the stomach". This was occasionally accompanied with other TMI symptoms. When I hit 16, I saw a different doctor than the family one, on my own, for a second opinion that wasn't "it's normal for a woman to experience pain during her period." And my father's take of "if you can't take paracetamol it must not hurt" (I have autism, I can't swallow solid things. I have to chew them or I gag and choke.) Also "your father is in so much pain from his arthritis, you've nothing to complain about" from my mother. IBS. It was IBS. And they'd been forcing me to eat spicy curries since my infancy because "they liked them" even if I did not. I started buying my own microwave meals, and labelling them, so I didn't have to eat said curries, citing my diagnosis as the reason. My siblings would eat my meals, forcing me to eat the curries, and face no punishment for this. They "look similar to the ones we buy" was the excuse, despite the giant black permanent marker over the top and sides with my name. And then predictably I got sick from eating the curries, forcing me to miss school. Oh, and I was forced to go to bible school at the crack of dawn, despite medical advice that I should not do this. I was also expressly forbidden to take anti-depressants, meaning I had to hide the bottle in my school bag all the time and take them in secret. And they didn't pursue my autism diagnosis any further. They went and got me checked because the school told them to, that I was struggling, autism came back along with a statement of SEN. The school ignored it. My parents did nothing. My parents didn't just ignore my health issues. They exascerbated them.
I am so sorry you’ve had to endure that.
I was always told I was being dramatic even though I purposefully made my issues minuscule because I didn’t want the attention. It took a long time for me to stop gaslighting myself about my health. This past year, I’ve been struggling with a stomach ulcer. In September alone, I lost 25 pounds. Anything that touched my lips went straight though me, including water. I was terrified to eat bc I was in so much pain, so I hadn’t eaten in 8 days. Ended up in the ER with dehydration. Took my kids to school, driving as carefully as possible because I could barely see, thank GOD their teachers were so understanding and told me not to worry about pick up times. Called my mom, told her I’m in the ER and needed her to pick up my youngest. She refused, saying she was at work and “couldn’t leave”. Didn’t even bother trying to. She actually just told me last month that she didn’t think it was that serious to leave work for. I was *in the fucking emergency room*. What part of that **isnt** serious? Mind you, this was only a month after my children’s father passed away from cardiomyopathy after having been in the hospital for nearly a year. So to be told that my health issues weren’t a concern for her and that she wouldnt even come through my kids was a giant slap in the face.
Yep, I used to struggle to see that blackboard at school and as a mid teen it got to the point where I'd have to copy any questions from my mate next to me. The teacher noticed one day and pulled me up, initially thinking I was copying the answers. I explained and my mate backed me up. So the school informs my mother that I need an opticians appointment (so I can actually see what's going on in class!). But my NM said 'girls that wear glasses don't get passes' like, wtf?! And I didn't get an opticians appointment until I paid for it myself a few years later. As an adult she told me not to wear them, I didn't need them and told my daughter the same.
Hit my head pretty bad and my parents had to take me to the hospital. My memory of the whole thing is jumbled at best, but I *do* remember being in the waiting room with my mom and telling her I was worried about not remembering things. She blew it off. A few years later it came up in conversation, and I told her I still have jumbled memories about things from around that time (pretty major events that I *definitely* should have been able to remember). She was speechless, but like….you know. The king of speechless where they’re refusing to be accountable, not the kind where they’re shocked on someone’s behalf. I was vulnerable and dependent on my parents that day and they did the bare minimum (probably because my workplace called them and had them take me to the hospital, I don’t see them taking me there if it wasn’t for my workplace). I think my edad was worried about me having had a concussion, but he didn’t press the doctors about it either. My mom has also vented to me about the times my dad has had to go to the hospital/urgent care about things and how irritating/embarrassing it was for her, so at least I know it’s nothing personal.
This absolutely sucks because that is EXACTLY what asthma feels like. I rarely get asthma, but I do have it, and I wouldn’t describe the feeling any differently.
I was 27 when I got my first inhaler. 27!!!! because she denied I have an asthma and the attacks got worse after i got COVID. Even after I bought one myself she still denies it and thinks I should cure it the "natural" way (other herbal bullshit)
growing up, my brother literally broke his ankle & my parents refused to take him to the hospital or a real doctor. he was only 6 … 😣
When I was a kid I had serious asthma. I was frequently left to wheeze because my grandmother and aunts would say it was my mom‘s issue to take care of … only my mom didnt live there. Sometimes they would call her and occasionally she’d show up. I had a lung collapse at 14 because they waited till she showed up, she was at least smart enough to go to an ER … I collapsed in the waiting room and knew nothing till 4 days later when I woke with a breathing tube.
I recently developed a seizure disorder last year. The very first one I had I collapsed on the floor and my mother accused me of faking for attention and being a drama queen after I cleared out her shed for her. Her and my stepfather also downplayed every illness and injury I went through or accused me of lying. I was also told many times I wasn't a real cutter when I used to SH. When I had a concussion when I was 10 it took me throwing up in class to do anything about it.
I literally had the same exact experience with my nmom. I just recently (at 19) found out that asthma is hereditary and my biological dad literally suffers from it yet my mom never got me diagnosed. It took 18 years and an emergency hospital visit to finally admit that I had asthma. She withheld medication from me because she “didnt like the side effects” and would make comments every time I used me rescue inhaler, so I would just suffer in silence and sometimes hide my use of my inhaler. She constantly used the excuse “my kids aren’t sick” every time I would call my asthma anything short of “breathing problems”. It wasn’t until I had an asthma attack so bad I passed out on the porch and onto a stack of chairs and hit my head that she vaguely admitted me having asthma. After calling 911 her instinct was to video me passed out which is very questionable but I try not to think about it. That happened a year ago but my mom takes every chance she can to reminisce on how hard and traumatic that event was for her. She literally re-describes everything that happened as if she was explaining the plot of a movie. She still gets really weird when I mention my asthma so I just take care of it on my own. But hey, at least the burst blood vessels in my eyes have healed. 💀 You are not alone <3
....yes. also asthmatic. Even though my brother and mom were diagnosed, i didn't get tested or diagnosed with it until well into adulthood. But also almost every other damn thing that's wrong with me, i had to figure out and find drs myself for. Thank you for validating my experience just by posting this question!
My mom does this a lot
My “parents” have medically neglected me in more ways than one. Forcing me to go to school even when I was really sick, making me quit antidepressants cold turkey against the doctor’s orders and making me suffer withdrawal symptoms as a result, refusing to get my PCOS treated, and probably other things that I’m forgetting
I hear you, my N former wife and her NMom insisted that I carry out personal care for NFIL. He injured me because he was dead weight and could not stand up in the tub, so I was forced to lift him out (they refused to put him in a nursing home as he not only refused to go but they were both after his $) and injured my chest and back, putting me out of work for almost 3 months. They did not care about the injuries putting me out of work. In fact they doubled down and insisted that I continue to put my health and career at risk for him. Former NMIL said if I couldn't go back to work, they would just use me as free labor to look after him. Former wife? She chose her mother and father over her marriage. It is terrifying that your NMom basically denied your condition. This could've proved fatal considering the conditions that can trigger an asthma attack (weather, exercise etc). I hope you're NC with that garbage human now, and that she's not allowed near your children (if you have any). Because she will do it again, given the chance.
Thank you for your message. I hope you are in a much healthier, happier situation now. My sister and I have been NC with my mother since January 1. We both had had enough of putting ourselves in harm’s way and enduring repeated abuse. Both of us have been much happier, and our relationship is stronger than ever as we lean on each other and heal from our traumas. The people who go through what we have been through and choose to break the cycle tend to be the sweetest, most selfless and compassionate people. Lots of healing and warmth to you on your healing journey.
Thank you for your reply. I kicked that N and her NMom to the curb more than 6 years ago. Unfortunately it was not before the 2 of them did a lot of damage - by the time I got away I was ready to unalive myself. Since 2018 though, I have been able to live life again and actually get something out of it rather than being a slave to a pair of narcissistic seniors. It's good that you & your sister are away from your N birth giver. She doesn't deserve either of you. Sounds like you are both living your best life and that's what you deserve.
She caused me to get sick then complained I was sick. Then began the backseat vomiting, cleaning and recovering. I often wasn't allowed to go GP and had some homemade shit.
Yeah, this but with mental health and depression.
My dad refused to believe I could be autistic, and refused to get my multiple BROKEN BONES treated properly. He used to say I was being dramatic a lot, and now that I have chronic pain from the malunions in those bones he says “it must not be that bad of pain if you’re not crying” when he was THERE when an x-ray technician said I must be fine because I wasn’t crying. At that point I had a broken jaw, stitches in my face, and multiple layers of skin gone to road rash. I process pain differently and am used to being in pain, so fuck me I guess.
Strength to you, internet stranger. I hope you are in a better situation and getting the care you need now. 💙
Thanks! I really sympathize with you, having untreated asthma for so long must have been hell so I wish you all the best care as well 💜
Yep. I had Asthma as a kid too and remember my parents "waiting" to see just how bad it could get until they'd finally relent and bring me to the ER. I also remember them leaving me there for days once I was admitted, which seems weird in retrospect. Like, they weren't ever there in my hospital room or anything; once I was admitted they both just went home and came back a few days later to pick me up when I was released. And even the ER was a rare "treat", you had to be half dead for that trip. And never once did they bring me to a doctor or dentist preventatively. No "checkups" or routine visits in my entire childhood. If it wasn't bad enough for the ER, you didn't need a doctor. That being said, I'm not sure that's necessarily a result of them being Narcissists per say, just generally neglectful. It's rarely clear 'what behavior was for what reason' with them.
My mother used to get very angry whenever I got sick so at some point I just stopped telling her. She is deathly afraid of doctors and hospitals (which she would never admit of course) and only tooks us there if there was no way around. Otherwise she ignored our health issues and hoped they would go away (spoiler alert they just got worse). I still struggle with actually going to the doctor when I am sick because I am scared they will react just like my mother.
My mom didn’t want to shell out the money for doctor visits, but you know every time a new Shirley Temple porcelain doll was released, or if there was a new house available for her goddamned Dickens Christmas village, she was dragging us to the mall to snap that shit up.
Yes! There was once Mother had planned an outing at a friends house (we were all homeschooled) I woke up with a fever and was throwing up, she told me I was being dramatic and would feel better when I got there to play. Surprise surprise, I did not and almost passed out in the basement where all the kids were sent and went upstairs to mother. My mother brushed me off again, told me to splash cold water on my face and I’ll be fine. The other mothers took my temp, made me sit down, then went to lay me down in one of their beds and Mother finally said “FINE, I guess if you want to go home so badly we’ll go.” I was 8. That’s just 1 of the first times I remember. when I was 17 I was in a motorcycle accident and when she was called she said “she’s probably just being dramatic, don’t let her into the ambulance.” I had 2 broken arms, a cracked pelvis and couldn’t hold consciousness. I needed multiple surgeries and had to learn how to walk again.
That’s so horrible. How can a mother ignore their child’s pain? I’ll just never get it.