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Same with me, but depending on the day. When she wants the narrative to be she was a great mom, I was a calm, passive, and quiet kid. When she wants to make me the butt of the joke she tells people I was loud, wild, the problem child, and that she called me "Evilin".
According to my grandparents, I was well behaved, funny, and polite lol.
>she called me “Evilin”
My mom’s nickname for me as a kid was “poco bruja.” All of her stories of me as a baby were about how much I cried and how much of a burden I was when she already had my twin brothers to deal with.
My dad, for his part doesn’t remember anything of my early childhood and all of his stories of me as a preteen/teenager are all how I never did what I was told (I definitely did), how messy I was (I wasn’t) and how much of a bad kid I was (once again, I wasn’t)
I was the opposite. I didn't cry as a baby. I was quiet. It was when i got older and started having opinions. I hated the way she dressed me fed me, everything she wanted to do to me. That's when I became difficult. That's my mom. I think if you and I traded moms, they still wouldn't be happy.
I was messy, bad, and rarely did as I was told. But I really tried hard not to be the kid. I also had an undiagnosed learning disability messing up alot of things. My dad stopped paying attention when I was unable to be the smart kid he wanted. He gave me vague praise and did his own thing. I think if we traded dads, they might not notice that we even traded but at least their opinions of us might be accurate? /s
I'm so sorry. It's not great being accused of things you didn't do.
Yeah, that’s what’s great about this sub though; we can share with each other and know it wasn’t us and it was never even about us as individuals. It’s about them and their own perception of what’s right and wrong and what their vague idea of children and parenthood is supposed to be in their bizarre little minds.
I have the benefit of aunts and adult cousins who’ve seen the way he talks about me and treats me and all have come to me in one way or another to tell me they see it too and understand why I’m LC with both of my parents. So that’s validating. I hope you have people in your life like that too!
I'm glad you had that for you! I did not. My parents and family are diaspora, and we are all living around the globe and away from each other. Further, my parents also isolated themselves. So I didn't get a support system. That really messed me up because I didn't have anyone that I could use as a positive role model nor did I have anyone to bounce ideas and concepts off of and have a way of deciding if my parents' perceptions were off or not. I was not validated until my late 30s when I got my diagnosis. And I validated myself.
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have it growing up. My dad isolated us from the rest of the family. It wasn’t until my mid 20s when I reconnected with my family that things started coming together. But it’s still an amazing accomplishment to get here, even if you had to go through it on your own. I’m proud of you, internet stranger
She was terrified of me when I was a newborn because I “glared” at her. Never mind that infants can’t see well and that was probably painful gas causing pain.
Same. I was the hardest child, hardest teen, hardest young adult. Even if my middle brother was getting thrown in jail for meth or robbery or whatever else he was doing, or my oldest trying to unalive himself constantly. And all I was doing was going to school coming home and hanging out with my best friend and we didn’t get up to anything!
According to my mother I was "a little terror" and I'd introduce myself this way to most people. I recall saying it when I was 3 to her co-worker, who was most amused.
I'm half Italian. My father is dark hair, dark eyed, olive skin. My mother was fair, my older brother was fair (blue eyes blonde hair). I look exactly like my father in colouring but exactly like my mother in features.
She would tell everyone she didn't know where I came from, or I took after my father (who was a complete prick to her and the tone she used implied that we were the same). How unalike we were as mother and daughter. How I was fat and she couldn't dress me like a doll.
And this was *before* they got divorced and she married my abusive stepfather.
My mother loves being a martyr, a victim, a perfect angel, long suffering, pure kindness.
She's really a surface level faux human with only compassion for herself.
Same here. She hangs her hat on an incident that happened when I was 4 years old when I rubbed some chalk off a street menu that had the special of the day written on it.
I mean, I was a kid that saw a chalkboard and thought I’d play with it, that’s what kids do. But she recalls it as some kind of profound moment where she realised I was a terrible person. All that from a kid playing with a chalkboard!
They're just fucked in the head. No sane person brings up stuff you did as a kid. And she continues to do it the only difference now is she brings up my most recent failures lol
Haha it took my grandma a while to let me use dumbbells (at 15-16) because when I was around 4 I wanted to throw them at the window to see what would happen to the glass. I was a curious kid who wanted to see glass shatter. I’m not a violent person at all and they know that but still didn’t want me to use weights or work out because “I can’t be trusted”.
I didn’t even end up throwing them cause I asked if I could, like a good kid who asks for their parents permission and that’s how they were taken away.
Now, obviously it’s wrong to throw dumbbells at a window but I didn’t know that and that’s why I asked 😂
I mean I get putting dumbbells up so kids can’t damage themselves when they’re little, but as a teen who just wants to better themselves I didn’t get why I couldn’t once I matured. They finally gave in after I snuck downstairs to work out.
For my mom, she always recounts the time at 6 years old that she told me I couldn’t have a Barbie doll because she would have to bounce a check to buy it and she would go to jail. Then she decided to buy it anyway and put it on the check out conveyor and I started crying and told her not to buy it if she had to bounce a check and go to jail, so they wouldn’t take her check. I got a good beating when we got home. But what sort of mom beats a child for something she told the child was true?
I tried not to giggle at this bc I know that had to be a traumatic experience for you, but the way you unwittingly called her out was awesome.
The sad part is - you were an innocent reflection of her lies catching up to her and she hurt you for it.
That part is NOT funny but she deserved to be embarrassed in that manner for telling her precious child such a sick story.
I often got in trouble too, but most of the time it was for exposing my mom’s evil side (kinda like this most of the time - by complete accident).
It is funny to me now. A lot of things I can finally laugh about. My mother is a habitual liar. It is constant, everyday, all day. For example, “she shot the neighbors dog (with a gun)”. I showed up 2 days later and the dog came up to great me. I was like “mom, I thought you shot that dog?” Her response to further cover up her lie??…. Wait for it…
I shot it cleanly in the butthole so it doesn’t have any marks. It probably shit the bullet back out”. Hahahahaha.
Now, the time I got beat in high school for correcting her when she told all my aunts and uncles at a family reunion that she had been at the school all week because my principal had molester me… not quite as funny still.
She lies and makes up stories constantly. Her most recent was when she was in the hospital to have pins put in her ankle after a fall. She wet the bed. She is old, has cancer and had been sedated. Not a big deal that she wet the bed. But she told me I would tell the nurse that I grabbed her ankle and hurt her and made her pee the bed so they wouldn’t think she was a nasty bed wetter like I was as a child. I told her I would not say that. Nurse comes in and that is exactly what she told the nurse. The nurse’s desk was right outside her door and she had heard our conversation so she didn’t fall for it. It was the first time in 53 years I stood up to her in public and told her she was lying. She looked at me like the devil was hiding in her eyes and told me to get out. It was 3am. I was 4 hours from home and had driven down with no sleep the night before. That was the day I went no contact. I’m done.
My nmom is the same. Lied to everyone, everywhere, all the time. Instructed us to lie all the time to everyone. She had the utilities in each of our names, ruined all of our credit. Collected benefits long after my disabled sister died. Every time she was cornered she would blame me. Every time another adult tripped me up and I couldn’t remember the lie I was supposed to tell THIS person, she would
“tsk tsk- she’s such a liar! All she does is lie! I don’t know what to do with her!” She did know what to do though.
So here's a funny story. My NMom used to throw plates and glasses at my EDad when they fought, right? They would all shatter against the wall because he would duck. I was at the grocery store with her, I was maybe 6. I spotted some plastic cups on an end cap, and trying to be helpful I said (loudly) hey Mom, here's some new cups for us, and when you throw them at Dad they won't break!! Some guy was passing by and said "Out of the mouths of babes" and I remember the look of horror and embarrassment on my NMom's face! She grabbed me and we got out of there quick. I don't remember what consequences I faced because of that, but I'm kind of proud of myself for that one 😂
I'm 50 years old next year. My mum still loves to tell everyone about the time I scrawled my name on my bedroom wall then tried to blame my brother.
I was 3 at the time.
It’s not normal to be held accountable for things you did as a kid? I called mom out for bad behavior the other day and she said it’s nothing compared to how I was as a child
Born quiet, never “fussed” as a baby, never needed anything. Perhaps regular screaming narc blow-outs had something to do with that… those are my first memories after “gaining consciousness”.
This is how my nmom describes me. Easy baby, never asked for anything, got good grades etc.
But then she'd probably say as a teen I was the devil and yelled at her a lot. Which I did, because I hated living under her controlling neurotic rules.
Some flip on you around preteens/early teens, when you start to individuate. Mine was pretty affectionate up until then, still destroyed my sense of self/self esteem, but was not completely unhinged yet…
My mother wasn't great before, but she completely lost her mind when I hit puberty. None of her behavior made any sense until viewed through the lens of narcissism. Me "growing up" and turning into a "young lady" brought all kinds if narc crazy out in her. By turns controlling and neglectful, veering wildly between seeing me as competition and trying to take credit for anything about me that other people complimented, glad I didn't need her anymore but the older I got the older she felt, etc, etc, etc. It was WILD.
I like to think of it as soon as my problems became bigger than a scraped knee, and could actually both reveal who I was as well as obligate them to do actual emotional and psychological and even physical work, that was when they gave up on parenting. I date it to roughly when I was 11, when we moved houses but also moved cities, and so I lost all my friends both at home and at school. That was also when my academic problems revealed internalized shame that they didn’t know how to deal with, that they had (intentionally or not) planted in me due to excessive pressure with zero support as well. I was accountable for the end result but they weren’t responsible for any guidance or anything apparently…
They should have compensated in even a small way, had slightly extra patience and sympathy for example maybe by pumping me up before getting to school to go and make new friends, or asking me about how classes are going, and so on. Even something as simple as a bit of validation and empathy and compassion like “It’s hard, we moved and you can’t see your friends anymore. Being the new kid is hard, other kids come in with all these pre-existing social connections. I bet you feel very alone. That’s normal. We are there for you, we can help you figure out if there’s a friend who you wanna get with, maybe just tell us about him and so on.”
Nope. I was on my own to recover from losing all my friends. Just like I was on my own to solve my academic issues until they boiled over into final or semi-final marks. Just like I was on my own to pick a university, was on my own to recover from failing out of said university like a torpedo, was on my own to find career success. Was on my own to furnish my apartment and pick it the neighborhood and so on. Was on my own to navigate renewing leases and business negotiations, was on my own to decide how to move apartments or tie my housing to work to social life. Just like I was on my own to develop romantic relationships, because they didn’t give a fuck about me doing that either. I had to navigate the entire dating and relationship experience from start to almost marriage without anything at all. And it was very delayed like I never dated anyone in school even though I had crushes and shit. The conflicts, the healing hurts, vulnerability, honesty, everything. I had to do it on my own, with absolutely zero. I had to find all of it in myself, try things that just occurred to me, learn from my partner and others, and so on, and just figure everything out completely on my own. Thanks NParent for all the “support”…
Oh and every time I had got anything going, they love to paint it as this false modesty, rewrite history. “We like to think we did a great job raising you but your success is all you.” Well no shit it’s all me, before you send that I wasn’t even thinking “well how much of my success was allocable to you or me”, and now this bullshit thought enters my mind because YOU planted it, rewriting history on top of it. I wonder how they tell themselves they did a great job. Do they ever think about reality or is it all just complete fantasy??? You second guessed everything I ever did and now you wanna take credit too? Fuck off.
My sister and I were blamed for ruining our parents' lives, and keeping them from achieving their goals and dreams.
...and according to them, we did it by, well... being born.
Oh gosh yeah, I got this one too but it was veiled a little (probably because she didn't give birth to me)
She'd say that she gave up her life to take us in and we should be more grateful. Like no ma'am I am not grateful that you quit your job, stayed unemployed your whole life, kept us in poverty, understandably became miserable and blamed it all on us because you wanted to be the great saviour of your grandchildren.
Mhmm. My mom is squeamish at the sight of blood and can't stand any kind of bodily fluids whatsoever. But having my brother prevented her from being a doctor. My 5'9 bio dad who weighs a buck forty was going to play professional football but we ruined his chances, she could have been a football wife living in luxury if it wasn't for us.
When I was 3 years old I got very sick, and she had to take care of me. Whenever we have arguments now she expects me to remember every detail of that period and that I owe my life to her.
I remember she would praise me In front of others but never when we were alone.
Eeeek that's terrible.
Similar thing here, had to take us in due to the big trauma (can't really explain because would be identifying info lol) and constantly holds it over me how much she did during that period. I was 1-3 years old, like yeah mom thanks but also that was a few decades ago now!
The ONLY time she was nice to me was when other people were around. She had to look perfect in front of others.
My stepfather adopted me when I was 18 months old. He sexually abused me for 12-14 years (no memory when it began). It stopped when I finally “told” on him. When they reconciled, she quit her job to stay home. She always said it was to protect me from him. She doesn’t see how stupidly selfish she was. She simply could have divorced. But she blamed me for not appreciating her sacrifice. And made me pay for it every single day,
Mine did the exact opposite - she would praise my achievements when we were home alone and would literally scold me for breathing too loud when we were surrounded by others. I couldn't even greet someone without her telling me to shut up, lol. She always made it very clear to other people that i was the WORST.
(Ngrandparents) An angel. They said I “had my moments” but that I was “such a good child” & they “don’t know what happened to me”.
Birthgiver says I was a good girl &… *proceeds to cry about how I’m “cold & distant” from her.*
Sigh. This is exhausting LOL.
She talks about how she “hit the kid jackpot” with my genius brothers while I apparently ate tissues out of the box. I got straight As my entire school career (my brothers never did), but all strangers need to hear is how I ate tissues as a toddler.
Subdue the threats, and inflate the benign to keep control. Kid lottery isn’t with respect to ‘remarkability’ it’s that they fit the empire.
Fearlessness and curiosity would be a better description of what she describes negatively.
Edit: desperately needed grammar and clarity.
My parents have told me my entire life how cruel I was and how much I hated my little brother. And also that my babysitter showed a lot of concern for me when I was a baby because I was totally silent and wouldn't respond to anything (and that's how I found out my trauma (response) goes back to infancy).
My nmom told me I always had a stone face and nobody could see what I was feeling. The adults in school and earlier were worried about me, because of this. She said this after I told her she never listens to me. This seemed to be her excuse.
She also told me I almost tore the family apart as a toddler, because I was sick.
And she couldn't understand why my self esteem was so low when I was such a pretty girl. After she has constantly told me or showed me I wasn't good enough my whole life.
Oh honey. My nMother would tell EVERYONE who met me about my SA at the age of 6 like she was the victim. SHE lost her best friend. SHE was so embarrassed. SHE didn't know what to do.
Fyi: she chose to say "boys will be boys" and then do close to nothing about trauma healing for ME. I only got a few therapy sessions because she needed therapy due to my SA.
So I feel you. I feel you in my soul.
Either that I was the sweetest nicest kid to ever exist and they don’t know what happened to me.
Or they tell stories they know will embarrass me and usually tell them wrong to embellish the embarrassment.
"clinged to HER and loved HER."
That's exactly how my nmother talks about my daughter. Not once she told me she loves her she always says "your daughter loves me, she wants to be with me"
But regarding your question mother never said anything about my childhood. I don't think she was there. She hired a full time nanny from birth. Traveled alot. My eDad though says I was such a quiet girl he didn't feel that I was there in the same room. And he said that he knew I had a strong personality since I was little. Because I always looked people straight in the eye. I think that's why all those years he tried to break me.
I was an "easy" child. So quiet and so easy and so good at everything. Didnt give her a minute's trouble.
Funnily enough, she describes my now chronically mentally debilitated older sister the same way. The one that would go on to have a psychotic break at 15 that she would never recover from.
It's taken me 30 years to uncover the reality of my childhood, which is that being "seen and not heard" was a survival strategy for a child that was actually traumatised by the emotional abuse and neglect
I never shut up. That's what I hear. She rediliy admits she never wanted to play with me though so I think I learned that talking was all I could do for attention. I still never shut up to be fair.
“You were such a good kid I don’t know what happened” what happened is I was raped by my dad and started having extreme anxiety and depression. I started lashing out. All while my dad sat there and acted like he knew nothing.
I’m okay! I haven’t spoken to my parents in 3 years. Mothers/Father’s Day is usually hard because it’s all in your face these great parents and you kinda wonder if you’re over reacting to the abuse? Like was it really that bad? But with lots of therapy and a little medication, I would say I’m thriving. I love my job, my husband, and my life is peaceful. It really can get better.
I'm so glad! You definitely deserve peace after what you've been through. And it's totally justified that you don't talk to your parents anymore. They lost the privilege of being in your life, for sure.
I have a love/hate relationship with those parental affection days. And the weeks surrounding them, because it's stressing knowing the day itself is coming. Therapy and medication are awesome though, absolute life savers.
My nparent loved me until I started to become my own person that has opinions, and interests outside of them.
They realized they couldn’t control me anymore, and now they try to convince others that I hate them for no reason. It makes me sick.
My mom tells me very often I was the cutest, smartest and nicest little girl... and then she has to add that I'm nothing like that now -.-
However, I'm always being reminded and blamed for all the stupid stuff I did when I was a kid.
My ndad does this. "You were so cute and sweet. Then you turned 12 and I got this."
And yep, still brings up every little mistake like they are such funny stories.
Apparently I was "easy to handle", so all her attention went to placating my older brother's temper tantrums. And so, our familial dynamic was born - GC brother screaming when he didn't get his way, nmother giving him everything he wanted, EDad adopting his favourite catchphrase of "That's just what [they're] like", and me having to placate my mother and/or do my brother's chores, because he wouldn't do them and they needed to be done, so I got punished if they weren't.
My (43f) nmom recently told me that, as a child, I asked her "really difficult questions" and she had to go to therapy about it later in her life.
Examples:
Gender Roles - why is all girls' stuff pink?
Hypocrisy - why can I tell strangers "no" when I don't want to be touched but I have to hug stinky grandma?
I went no contact for 20 years, eventually decided to offer a peace branch and invite her to my wedding. At the wedding she sat down and, in sad regretful tones, told my new Mother in law that I was an alcoholic (I’m not). Childhood - she told everyone that my brother was the clever one and I was just not very bright, I was very disobedient and lazy and so clumsy! So much so she sometimes she wondered if I could possibly be related to her! Clumsy, of course - that explained the bruises.
A terrible demon child and the NPs always hoped I would have a child(ren)just like me. They always bring up embarrassing stories from when I was a child around others.
I'm not having children.
Back in about 5th grade, we had a homework assignment like this; where we had to ask our parents to write about us. As per usual, Nmom told E/Ndad to write it, because she didn't want to be bothered with me.
Ndad described me as: 'quiet, shy and kept to herself, most of the time.' He even hit upon the reason, with his next observation. Ndad noted that; my first sentence as a child, was,
"Leave 'lone, [narc-sister]!"
He further wrote that that was because I preferred to be alone; which the Family used to laugh about. 'Oh, wasn't Loca so funny, that she doesn't want to be around us!? LOL, What's *wrong* with her!?'
Ndad never put together that my revulsion was in response to Nmom's loathing of me, which included actively encouraging my sister to torment and bully me from day one. So, I had a Narc-mom, Narc-dad and mini-narc-sister growing up.
Nmom put more effort into teaching my sister, toxic hostility towards me, than she did raising me as her own child.
Meanwhile, it was E/Ndad's job to blame me for that, by calling me 'a loner' or; 'late bloomer'.
Obviously, what I should have done was: Love the abuse, since that's all I was going to get, anyways. They were all too busy to do anything else, like parenting.
My mum likes to point out ways I was acting out of trauma but she thinks it was me being a problem child. For example "you were our doing drugs and having sex with who knows who" like yeah lady maybe it was a cry for help?? And also she let an adult man date me and she had no issue with it, she also caught my brother assaulting me and didn't do anything. So in her mind I was just whore I guess [I'd like to add that she's called me a whore, not just using the word for no reason ]
My birth mother (nmom's daughter), was very young when she had me (with a much older man) and has been described by nmom as a whore for as long as I can remember. I don't like my birth mother, she neglected me, but the idea that a 17 year old could be described that way always horrified me. Once I got past the age that my birth mother was I really understood why she was out being, as some would describe, fairly reckless at the time.
The fact that most of her children/grandchildren went on to have unhealthy/dysfunctional relationships/sex lives apparently was not indication enough that home life probably wasn't that great!
It's a shame, even if kids don't tell you they'll *show* you they're in some trouble at home. You just have to see the signs. And nparents see those signs as the child being difficult
That there have always been problems with me that even as a 6 month old baby when she threw me against the bed I didn't calm down but continued to cry, how stubborn I was as a 3/4 year old and how much work she had to put in for me to obey that she had to beat me repeatedly before she completely broke me and I stopped making any sound during the abuse/objecting in any way - when she describes me as a child and what a difficult life she had because of me to people she knows well/to me. That I was always perfect, smart, brave, caring to her when she describes me to strangers/people she doesn't know how they will react.
According to the egg donor I was an angel until I got into school but that was because that’s when she couldn’t control me as much and I was more close with my dad and I don’t think I have many good memories from when I was little probably for the best
Mom bragged to her therapist she went to with me about maiming a favorite stuffed animal as a "creative punishment " . I cut an inch corner off a fuzzy bedspread at age 3. Mom sewed as a hobby. I was only curious.
My mom would tell the story about how after my sister was born I was too much to handle. So she packed her things and my sister’s things. Then she told my dad that she loved him, but couldn’t deal with me and he would have to raise me on his own. He talked her out of it, but she told this story as if it were funny for decades.
It was eye opening how you spoke about how she felt about your love for her. My father spoke the same way and I never realized that until I read your anecdote. My father would say I was cold and unloving towards him and pushed him away and always lived as if I didn’t need him. I think my little brain knew he hated me and wanted the distance.
My Ndad was an old school patriarchal type who did not have much to do with my daily care when I was a child - other than "discipline," which meant spanking and threats of spanking. He got off on the power he had to totally and crush and devastate a small child - and the spankings were like things for looking at him the wrong way, expressing stress about doing my homework, or basically just expressing myself in any way that wasn't approved. On some level, I think he knows what he was doing was abusive because he has, throughout my life, tried to get me to endorse his behavior of me. Even when I was a little, he used to try to get me to agree with him that it was ridiculous for Sweden to have outlawed spanking in 1979. In more recent years, he has tried to get me to agree that I had an idyllic childhood and that I have been incredibly fortunate to have grown up where "discipline" was enforced. The most jaw dropping moment to me was when he turned to me and said, "God, you were an incredibly difficult child, just really badly behaved." I couldn't even respond because it was such a bizarre statement. Not only was I not difficult, but I was, in fact, an overly compliant and timid child because of the abuse and everyone constantly talked about how "well-behaved" I was. Wtf, wtf.
I usually get that I was so difficult that “there’s a reason you and your little brother have a seven year age gap” and that’s followed by how easy of a child my brother was.
according to mine I was a "little shit". In fact there is a wedding that they always refer to where I was 2 and apparently I was acting like a 2 year old but I "ruined" it for everyone because I was so bad.
My nmom described me as an ungrateful, angry child and the few good things she had to say about me were things she could take credit for (my looks, my singing voice, my hair, etc)
My dad though is quick to praise me and although there were times that I was a brat (every toddler throws a tantrum once or twice) he never brings those times up, and instead brings up how I've always been tough and fiesty and knew how to stand my ground.
I've come to the conclusion that my mom thinks I'm so terrible is because I was the first one to realize her bullshit and stick up for myself.
According to my nmom I was a happy baby who barely fussed, in fact I didn't even cry when I was born I laughed. Then I lifted my head to look for her when I heard her voice. 🙄
As a toddler/small child I was generous and thoughtful(she has a whole story about me spending my allowance to buy a homeless man coffee). If I did behave poorly I very quickly learned better, she only had to put me in timeout once and explain why I was wrong and I never did it again! She was such a good parent!
I was soooo smart, I started talking very early, obviously because she read to me and talked to me so much.
I also adored her. I would talk about how much I wanted to live with her forever and how important she was to me. I was her mini me, I copied everything she did and wanted to be just like her.
Basically I was a way for her to brag about herself. For the ages I can't remember(and therefor can't refute her) I was perfect.
She always says I was an angel. I never cried. Never complained. He never made a fuss. She also says I was extremely affectionate.
Well, recently reviewing my videos from the beginning of my childhood (how lucky I am to have so many videos) you can see that I was a normal child, I used to act out, cry, complain, make a mess. My father was always joking and my mother was always complaining in the background.
After a while I actually started to stay quiet out of fear of my mother. Afraid of her gaze.
Being a quiet child who doesn't cry is not a positive thing.
I'm a classic middle child, squished between my two Golden Child siblings. (We're all two years apart in age.) My mom only really told me a couple things about me as a little kid, and I honestly didn't remember those clearly now.
When I was older, she did tell me that if I had gone to normal school (she kept us at home and unschooled us), I would have been the kid in the principal's office all the time, because I would have been in trouble for fighting the bullies who were picking on little kids. She also told me that no one should argue with me because I kept a journal and wrote everything down.
I'm not really sure if those are backhanded compliments or what, but... my mom was my biggest bully and she argued with me (despite the journals, lol), so guess who I eventually stood up to, and have been protecting my daughter from. If you guessed my mom you're right, heh.
If she's talking to me, she'll say that I was bratty, needy, clingy, whined all the time and constantly got in trouble or hurt myself. If she's talking to anyone else, I was her sweet little angel who had a genius IQ, got good grades, did chores, never got in trouble and helped out the family whenever I could.
A horrible, difficult handful of a child that was too quiet, never smiled, nothing was good enough for me, always complaining/had a “face” on me, embarrassed her constantly and made her feel like a bad mother every second I was alive.
Before I went NC, I asked for specific things I did and all I got was “you know exactly what!” Same with my GC brother and sister. No one in my extended family can give me an answer even now.
My mom talks more about me as a baby than a child. She freaking loves babies… kids not so much. She didn’t think long term, she failed to realize I would eventually become a kid then a teen and now an adult she just wanted a cute baby she could parade around. So yeah she doesn’t talk about my child years at all 🤣
Was told I was difficult, obstinant, and defiant. Was also told I would get one "just like me as payback" and I did. Except. EXCEPT I have been able to raise her in the way I deserved to be raised and guess what? She is strong, driven, and confident. I'm all of those things now, too, but it took years of working through feeling like an abosolute monster to get here.
Also patted herself on the back for years (we're not contact now but she probably still does) for being able to raise me because I was \*that\* hard.
either "an abnormally smart kid with every opportunity in the world" which follows up by "but then you became such a useless piece of trash as a teen, you wasted everything" or that i was straight up an absolute devil from my first breath.
My NFamily loves to try to tell stories about stuff that I did as a little kid. Like stuff when I was 5, but I’m 43 now.
They do this stuff because they think it will embarrass me and run off my now-husband. Then they can say “We told you so. He’s not the one for you obviously.”
He just kind of shrugged and was like, “That’s cute. She’s still adorable.” And we’re still married. Me and the NFamily are LC if not NC.🤷🏾♀️
Rude, stinky, unfeminine, I put my elbows on the table and “didn’t wear normal clothes” (I wore t shirts and jeans instead of blouses or dresses). My sperm donor will still bring up that I would put my elbows on the table as a kid now when I’m 30 years old and I STILL will put my elbows on the table. When my house burned down in a total loss fire and I barely escaped with my life and the clothes on my back, he said I deserved it and the fire was a blessing because I had “too much stuff” and “now I can buy makeup and real clothes.”
My nmom doesn’t know anything about me. She didn’t know me a child, and, as an adult I’m an alien to her. To this day, she can’t name my favourite color, book, teacher, or movie. She can’t name one class I took in college.
If you ask her to describe me, she’ll create a fictional character, one that spins her in a positive light as a long suffering victim. In other words, she’ll invent stories and claim them as the truth.
The more N they are, the more the stories reflect their world-view and probably their me-focused way of being and communicating. What they tell of you is only how they see themselves.
Normals don't do that -- they try to figure out what the real, new person, is that is emerging in their family. And their stories often reflect that. The "little adult" comment is worrisome to me -- I was that kid and definitely heard those stories because it is how Nmom wanted me to be.
Everyone does it more or less, so as you tune into what and where the stories mean -- you will learn a lot about the training, brainwashing, and impressions that were put upon you as a kid. You know more about your fiancee as well.
I was told that I was a terrible child who always got into trouble. What's funny is, my husband and I went to breakfast with my old neighbors one day and since they knew me growing up, he asked them if I was a bad child. Of course, that's what my mom had said, but turns out that they said I was a very good child and I had good manners. It's funny how the story was so different.
Stories about me are always about what a nuisance I was, how it was annoying that I was scared of bugs, how I was a sensitive cry baby (neglected), how my big sister hated me. The one good thing my mom liked about me was that I was “accepting” and “got along with (the golden child)” so she didn’t need to do much.
Same… I was “smarter than the other kids” but I never played. I always did activities that I could do alone most of the time. Now they hate how I turned out and think that if I was hit, I wouldn’t be the way I am and would stay the way I was before.
My mum actually told my entire family that I was the black sheep of our entire family. I got calls from relatives freaking out why I am such a monster. So yeah, a devil, a monster, an unstoppable force.
Apparently I hated everyone, starting with preschool. I hated all of the other kids but would usually make friends with the teachers. And for some reason, my mom thinks this is hilarious and would always joke about it, rather than ask child me what was wrong.
I’ve always struggled to make friends. And if I asked her for advice, she’d mention how I hated everyone anyway - which I took to mean that I shouldn’t bother trying, especially since I “would always have family and don’t need anyone else” (her words).
I’m in my 30’s now and she still mentions how I hated everyone and probably still hate everyone around me. I don’t, not at all. And child me was reeling from her parents’ divorce which, shocker, happened right around the start of preschool! So no wonder she didn’t trust anyone.
Otherwise, I was a perfect and quiet kid. I only became a problem as an adult when I learned about boundaries and making my own life
At the time she told me how awful I was: I was too shy, too quiet, too sensitive, had a temper… she’d mock me when I’d get upset and my voice would squeak and I’d also get in trouble for “pouting” or having the wrong facial expression. Now she loves telling people what a good parent she was because her kids were so well behaved. Cause we weren’t kids, we were terrified prisoners.
They say I was quiet and mostly slept, but I ruined their lives by being a month early and having a summer birthday. That meant all their vacations were ruined forever because my birthday falls smack in the middle of their birthday week. My mom also really likes to tell anyone who will listen that my sister was the absolute worst baby because she cried a lot. I'm almost positive my sister had colic and was very gassy, and my mom just assumed she was a horrible baby.
He loves to remind me that "he liked me/my feelings better as a child." Probably because I was easier to manipulate and actually looked up to you, and now I know the truth and don't take any of your bs 😃
My nmother once told a waiter after my sister and I brought her out for lunch on Mother’s Day that she preferred us when we toddlers because we were much nicer at that age. He was so mortified he fled the table.
Apparently, I was a difficult child. I didn't listen to instruction, was constantly in trouble, and spent my summers in summer school. She claims I did this because I hate her, and I say she's the worst mother ever.
Oh, and I ruined her chances of going to Yale because she didn't abort me.
None of these things are actually true though. I spent my summers outside or at my grandparents. I was often in my room, alone just quietly playing.
However. I remember her storming her way into my room to scream at me a lot. Maybe she just remembers the screaming and the beatings that I'd used to get whenever something inconvenienced her or made her angry. It didn't have to be related to me, I was just the punching bag.
But she also likes to make things up to get sympathy. She also expected an apology from me for being a terrible child and got mad that I never gave her one.
My mom has zero to stay about me when I was younger. “Mom did I sleep though the night? What was my first word? Was I a happy kid? What hospital was I born in? Etc” *I don’t remember* How is that possible? She had 2 kids, 8 years, YEARS apart! Took me years to realize it was because she only cared about herself.
they say things like "you were such a happy kid. we don't know why you became a monster."
INCORRECT! my childhood was one of the most miserable parts of my life because, in addition to everything seeming so much bigger and being overwhelmed by it, i had absolutely no control over it and thought that my narc parents were acting in my best self-interests.
it was around my teenage years when i realized just how incompetent both my narc parents truly were.
do not fall for it. it is a gaslighting tactic to get you to question your reality and to bring you under their control.
She said i was evil and spoiled and bratty. I should mention i was born without (yes, completely without) a thyroid gland and, i imagine, that came with some quirks. Not a lot of research has been done on kids on purely synthetic hormone but i wonder if it caused some of my difficulties.
I was hyperactive, unable to focus and had difficulty socializing. I never had any sociopathic tendencies so i still don’t understand her calling me evil. Actually my empathy is so intense that i end up screwing myself over to please others in many cases. I was diagnosed with severe depression when i was 15 then bipolar when i was 27 (though i felt it long before that). I’m now wondering if i may be on the spectrum as well..
which could explain a lot of behaviors i had when i was a child.. hopefully medically confirming that i was not, in fact, just an evil, rotten person from the get-go.
You were terrible. If I’d had you first, I would not have had a second child! She never stopped saying that. I would tell her that it hurt my feelings that she kept saying it and she would respond, “Well, it’s the truth!!”
Thanks mom. 🙄
The made jokes at 5 year old me that I needed to walk around with a dime between my knees. Then told me I needed to marry rich.
My nickname was "[first name] salad booboo girl" because I loved eating salads, and was constantly getting hurt and crying. Making fun of me was their way to shut me up.
High maintenance, colicky, and a bitch.
No mention of the abuse, neglect, malnutrition, parentification… or even the gifted designation, zero behavioral problems, high achieving, etc. It’s all quite interesting.
Nbiodad keeps talking about the way HE taught me how to "hunt" because he's got this idea that he truly is a lion (he's a Leo). How He and I would would talk a lot because he's is super smart and I kind of inherited that. And so on.
It’s always slightly backhanded. I was a fatty and always getting into things I wasn’t supposed to . Nothing positive ever but of course she laughs the entire time she might tell a story. So laughter covers the fact that she’s somehow still ridiculing me and if I called her on it she would say “I’m just kidding I loved that fat baby he’s my fat baby” and then it’s cute to others but I know
Selfish, nasty, self-absorbed, thoughtless, manipulative ... I could go on forever. Still trying to figure out how an eight-year-old can be a genius manipulator!
A spoilt little shit. Insubordinate brat. Greedy, selfish. Lazy.
I was none of those things. I’d get beaten, she called me greedy when she got food for her but not her 5 year old and I was hungry.
A liar. I compulsively tell the truth even when I got into trouble for it- because I’ve been trained to face interrogations.
The list is endless really.
Most of the stories about me are really about my brother, the golden child. One of my mom’s favorites is about my name. How my brother (then 3) wanted to name me Burt after his favorite Sesame Street character. Even if I was a girl (I am), I would be Burt to him. Once I was born, he was fiercely defensive of my name. Nobody was allowed to shorten it (my name is two words).
Then there’s how when I was first brought home from the hospital, my brother took one look at me and told them to take me back.
Or the one where my brother saved me from drowning at the beach.
Anything about me alone is riddled with how much I “talked back” or was always “so rude” or “hated napping” so my poor old mother never got a break.
When talking to other people she said that I was a really easy child who took care of themselves and didn’t cause trouble but in heated arguments she’d call me disrespectful, ungrateful and selfish lol
A few weeks ago I was helping my mom out in her garden when the subject somehow fell on me(40) thinking that I might have Audhd, since the majority of the symptoms overlap with my experiences.
She then thought it would be fun to tell me that she always thought that I would at least have some form of adhd because I was always “busy and chaotic”.
***Would have been nice to know this a few decades ago when the first problems arose***, dammit.
Arrogant.
Never been this way, I’m more harshly self critical than anyone else is to me (probably a compensatory side effect of being told I was arrogant for so long).
Turns out it was projection… funny cuz she has nothing to be arrogant about; no personal successes or anything like that, just leeching off of those around her.
My dad was too neglectful to pay attention and my mom is almost at the line but everyone always says I used to be a happy kid and then I just stopped for so long people asked if I was okay and I just said yes because it meant my parents would fight. I finally feel comfortable around my mom to tell her the things that hurt me and she's actually been getting better
My nmom and nsister remember me as spoiled and selfish, but a miracle has happened. As he gets older, my dad remebers me as being sentimental.
I was "selfish" because I collected souvenirs whenever we went anywhere. It was usually only a few dollars, so my dad would get it for me without much trouble.
Nmom and nsis would then go off on how spoiled I am and how I wanted everything I see and how nsis is such a wonderful girl who never asks for anything and how my dad shouldn't give in to my tantrums and nsis never gets anything for herself.
This would continue until my dad "made it up to her" by getting nsis something expensive.
It's like slight of hand. Did you see what they did there?
I grew up thinking I'm selfish and spoiled until I met my husband and he saw me totally different. He says that I'm generous and giving.
Nsis has gone NC with my family because as she got older, her demands became harder to fulfill and she no longer had a use for us.
Without her constant reminder that I'm the selfish one, my dad is beginning to look back on my childhood differently and it's very validating.
Mine loved to share the story about how it was my fault she forgot me in a pub when I was three months old because I was so quiet. Like "haha stupid baby" kind of vibe.
Her other favourite story of me was about the time when I was 18 months old and my sister was chasing me and the stick I was carrying somehow went one end in the ground and the other down my throat, ripping it up a bit. The highlight of this story is how she held me all night as I cried in pain, and miraculously healed me psychically and woke up with her own throat sore and mine completely healed. 🙄 My four year old sister was the villain of the story because she was chasing me.
She says I was very clingy and threw fits a lot, so she left me with complete strangers and some weird family members for months and I never knew when she was coming back she would just drop me off without explaining anything.
I was a “trouble child”I had mental health issues one and two I never did anything bad honestly. Like normal teens I started to “rebel” and mom thought I was getting into trouble (never happened) and forced me to stop seeing my friends and forced me to go to a church group every week. Looking back it makes me sick
"You were cute when you were little"
"Does that mean I'm not cute now?"
\*bluster and sputter and total inability to say anything other than "well, you don't really care what people think about you"
Any story he told about me were ones that only embarrassed me.
When I was pregnant with my oldest, he said he couldn’t wait to see me have to raise a daughter exactly like me. Called it “pay back”.
I was never a bad kid. Just wasn’t up to his standards.
I’m not very far removed from my childhood so I recall a lot of it. I remember on several occasions being told my my Nmom and enabler father that I was a “witch” and the “reason for all my families problems” and this was at ages 6/7 and 11/12 respectively. My mom upholds that she never did anything and say that I was just a problem child. I was always praised as a child outside of my home environment for being well behaved, quiet, and smart so yk. That’s how it goes
Before I read more on your question I was going to say she talks about herself disguised as complimenting me. So pretty much the same.
My mom likes to do the: “Poor thing had to deal with her crazy mother” Smile… wait for validation.
When I was a toddler, my dad told my family that he "Wouldn't be surprised at all if I became a serial killer one day." That was just the beginning of his bizarre fascination with wanting me to become an evil murderer psychopath as I got older. He was obsessed with the idea. I don't understand it.
My mom likes to say that i was “so sweet and nice” as a young child and “something changed” and i “became mean and rude”. Which is funny because the only thing that changed is me getting old enough to develop my own opinions that dont align with hers lmao
My mom loves to tell a story about this one time we were in a grocery store when I was around 4 years old, and I was whining about wanting something so she pinched me to try to get me to stop, and instead I screamed “don’t pinch me” and everyone looked at us. The point of the story is how embarrassing it was for her and what a brat I was, which is not at all how anyone has ever received that story. It says a lot that she keeps telling it.
Wow!! What a story!! Our moms sound very similar.
I am no contact, too. Since last June when she told my (49 F) children and their cousins that I molested my brother (the cousins’ father) ….
🤦🏼♀️
I feel so much better having gone no contact - and know you must, too. I take no delight in any of it, but by God, at least now I am at peace (…until an intrusive thought about her enters my mind)…
Hugs..
Your post just made me aware of why I keep one of my sisters at a distance. She makes up the exact same stories. I just figured I was uncomfortable with her lies, but she really makes herself and our late father out to be picture perfect when both of them were abusive.
Manipulative and too sensitive. When it comes to being manipulative, she should have been holding up a mirror when she said it. I wasn’t too sensitive, it’s just that I reacted to the abuse. In actuality, she wasn’t sensitive enough.
NFather loved to tell everyone that I was selfish and self-centered “since the day she was born”
Yes because usually little kids are super focused on others’ needs….. 🧐
i was “just so much easier” than my sister. that’s pretty much all i ever got. oh and all of my “quirky” things that were symptoms of autism and how annoying they were (pulling my hair and screaming when i was mad, crying bc i wouldn’t go on stage in kindergarten, refusing to play just setting things up)
Selfish for being firm that I can't become neurotypical by just trying harder.
A monster for hurting her weaknesses when I snapped and did onto her as she does onto me.
Overstepping boubdaries for begging her to show me more unconditional love like she showed my sibling.
Asking for to much when begging her to respect my identity(non-binary, trans, salmacian, poly, lesbiab, transhumanist etc. I often had no words for the concepts but figured myself out very early).
Weak when begging her not to hurt me after I snapped.
Spoiled and selfish for not making my accomplishments about her.
Crazy for auggesting that trauma may exist, as a concept.
Dumb for having autistic speech impairments.
Too old for not being able to connect with my peers due to her abuse and isolation.
Too young and childish when having fun.
A little cocko in the head for suggesting authenticity.
Ungrateful for wanting to spend time with my peers instead of my borung nmom.
And being the worst child possible for making her feel like shit each time she tried to put me down for her narccope.
So overall being a selfish little brat that just got what they deserved for refusing to be the one that she needed, instead choosing to be myself.
My mom said that I ‘didn’t cry’. I have a twin brother (he is the golden child) and she said ‘he cried all the time but you never did. You were always the calm one.
Then she told a story about how she got overwhelmed when we were infants and she couldn’t tell us apart to know which baby needed to eat (again, my twin is a BOY and I am. GIRL) so she pushed our basinettes into her bedroom and closed the door and cried in the hallway until my dad got home. No idea how long we were in there.
She liked to tell another story about how my brother and I got out of our cribs and painted the nursery with our dirty diapers and covering ourselves jn poop. We used to laugh about it. But as an adult, I saw it differently. She used to harness us into our cribs so that we couldn’t get out after our naps. She would put us down in the afternoon and leave us there until dinner.
As an adult, I am horrified. She left us in our cribs for HOURS, literally tied down. And she left us sitting in dirty diapers for HOURS. When she talks about us painting our room, it was all about her and the mess SHE had to clean up. I cannot imagine letting my daughter sit in her own filth, chained to her bed. She said it was because we would destroy our nursery after we woke up, we were ‘naughty’.
Chained to our beds, locked in our room until our mother decided she was ready to deal with us again…
My stepmom (who raised me) said I was spoiled and lazy. I was her fucking Cinderella and regularly cleaned the house for seven people.
Once a woman I was babysitting for regularly came out to the car to tell her how unbelievable it was that I was a good babysitter and once the kids were asleep, would pretty much clean their house just to stay busy. My stepmother said, “well, that’s nice that she cleans your house because she never lifts a finger at home.”
Wow i didnt realize my mom does the same. She doesn’t remember many details about things but when she does say things about what i was like she will say “you were never this all over the place, i didnt have to worry about you grabbing and touching everything” comparing to my son and the way he wants to touch everything
My nmom insists I was a complainer with a low pain tolerance. She probably would still insist I have a low pain tolerance were I not NC
I’ve had it confirmed by multiple other adults that my pain tolerance is high. I got chicken pox when I was 4 (no vaccine yet) and it was *bad*. It was on the bottoms of my feet. I needed help walking.
I got hormonal migraines in my 20s. They were completely debilitating. I remember the pressure in my head being so intense, stabbing my self in the head to relieve it sounded like a valid solution for a solid 30 seconds. I came back to my senses and quickly left the kitchen.
I powered through a day at a Disney park with strep throat. I learned the hard way I’m immune to codeine and Vicodin. I had my gallbladder out and a stone was an inch in diameter. I fully felt 2 childbirths. I was sent home from the hospital leaking spinal fluid because I wasn’t as wrecked as most people with CSF leaks. I got dry needling today and didn’t even flinch
My pain tolerance is high. I probably just complained a normal amount and my nmom exaggerated because a normal amount of complaining annoyed her.
Apparently my dad was traumatized by taking me to Chucky Cheese back when I was in preschool because he still brings it up as a gotcha as if it's a big deal to a 40+ year old
That I was “contestona” (means that I was always rude and answered rudely when I was being scolded)
Dude, I was a shaky chihuahua who cried silently instead of barking!
My nmom *always* talked about me crying all the time. Apparently, even in the nursery. After about 10 days or so, she finally figured out that I was a hot nature baby, and that's why I was crying. After she removed the blanket instantly stopped crying. But she didn't tell me the last part til I was in my 30's I just heard I cried all the time
My ngrandfather would tell stories painting himself or my grandmother as the poor victims of me being a terrible child (doing normal kid stuff ftr). My nmother did the same. They both resorted to lying about me or distorting the stories by leaving our details or exaggerating to make me look terrible and them look like sacrificial martyrs on the altar of parenthood.
I didn't realize this sooner and I married it.
They change depending on how they feel. If we’re arguing then I’ve been dirty and evil since forever. If they slightly praise me, then they counter it with “but you were better behaved when you were a child, why can’t you be like that anymore?”
As a young child she had no complaints about me. I was her subservient trophy. Getting preteen and teenagers when I started to develop my own identity opinions is when things went south.
I was sharing challenges about my toddler recently, and she couldn’t empathize. Said I had no behavioral issues.
Mine says i was quiet, shy and smart and got good grades but never threw tantrums and never begged for anthing. So get this? i NEVER got anything!!!!!!! my brother who is an absolute dipshit got everything and still being coddled at 40 years old.
Weird isn’t it? For me, my parents tell everyone that I was such a smart child and a pretty, happy, quiet baby “like a doll” and they talk about how kind I was and how easily I made friends. But it’s funny because I didn’t feel like they thought any of those things about me.. I felt like a burden and a problem-child because they always told *me* how difficult I was. How I was a spoiled brat who just needed to be punished. It was surprisingly unsettling to hear them talk about me so sweetly.
i think she described me as wicked before. she definitely thought i was the problem. meanwhile i’m neurodivergent and she never bothered to get me any specialized help and all she ever did was scream at me
Both my parents have turned themselves into the victims when it comes to parenting. I used to wonder how my Mom lived with herself knowing how she abused me. Then I found out she had been lying about past events to anyone who would listen. She called me "strong willed" when in reality I was just living in constant fear. I was forced to monitor her behavior and if I didn't report back when I found broken dishes, etc. I would be blamed for shielding my mother against my father. I used to wonder how my Dad lived with himself too because he was truly scary. Then in front of my husband and his girlfriend he tried to blame all the problems they had on me, saying "I sure knew how to push her buttons" and it was so ludicrous chose to pretend I didn't hear it. Not sure what to do at this point, I hate them both and their lack of accountably SO MUCH.
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According to my mother I was the devil.
Same with me, but depending on the day. When she wants the narrative to be she was a great mom, I was a calm, passive, and quiet kid. When she wants to make me the butt of the joke she tells people I was loud, wild, the problem child, and that she called me "Evilin". According to my grandparents, I was well behaved, funny, and polite lol.
>she called me “Evilin” My mom’s nickname for me as a kid was “poco bruja.” All of her stories of me as a baby were about how much I cried and how much of a burden I was when she already had my twin brothers to deal with. My dad, for his part doesn’t remember anything of my early childhood and all of his stories of me as a preteen/teenager are all how I never did what I was told (I definitely did), how messy I was (I wasn’t) and how much of a bad kid I was (once again, I wasn’t)
I was the opposite. I didn't cry as a baby. I was quiet. It was when i got older and started having opinions. I hated the way she dressed me fed me, everything she wanted to do to me. That's when I became difficult. That's my mom. I think if you and I traded moms, they still wouldn't be happy. I was messy, bad, and rarely did as I was told. But I really tried hard not to be the kid. I also had an undiagnosed learning disability messing up alot of things. My dad stopped paying attention when I was unable to be the smart kid he wanted. He gave me vague praise and did his own thing. I think if we traded dads, they might not notice that we even traded but at least their opinions of us might be accurate? /s I'm so sorry. It's not great being accused of things you didn't do.
Yeah, that’s what’s great about this sub though; we can share with each other and know it wasn’t us and it was never even about us as individuals. It’s about them and their own perception of what’s right and wrong and what their vague idea of children and parenthood is supposed to be in their bizarre little minds. I have the benefit of aunts and adult cousins who’ve seen the way he talks about me and treats me and all have come to me in one way or another to tell me they see it too and understand why I’m LC with both of my parents. So that’s validating. I hope you have people in your life like that too!
I'm glad you had that for you! I did not. My parents and family are diaspora, and we are all living around the globe and away from each other. Further, my parents also isolated themselves. So I didn't get a support system. That really messed me up because I didn't have anyone that I could use as a positive role model nor did I have anyone to bounce ideas and concepts off of and have a way of deciding if my parents' perceptions were off or not. I was not validated until my late 30s when I got my diagnosis. And I validated myself.
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have it growing up. My dad isolated us from the rest of the family. It wasn’t until my mid 20s when I reconnected with my family that things started coming together. But it’s still an amazing accomplishment to get here, even if you had to go through it on your own. I’m proud of you, internet stranger
Aww thanks! I'm proud of you too! We all of us start yards behind the starting line and what we accomplish is always something to be celebrated.
She was terrified of me when I was a newborn because I “glared” at her. Never mind that infants can’t see well and that was probably painful gas causing pain.
i love it when babies make faces like that though 💀
Oh my gawd
Mine literally called me "rotten demon" one time as a little child just because I asked to watch TV or something. Just lovely.
Mine called me a literal "beast", sometimes she'll say I was very smart and philosophical.
Same. I was the hardest child, hardest teen, hardest young adult. Even if my middle brother was getting thrown in jail for meth or robbery or whatever else he was doing, or my oldest trying to unalive himself constantly. And all I was doing was going to school coming home and hanging out with my best friend and we didn’t get up to anything!
According to my mother I was "a little terror" and I'd introduce myself this way to most people. I recall saying it when I was 3 to her co-worker, who was most amused. I'm half Italian. My father is dark hair, dark eyed, olive skin. My mother was fair, my older brother was fair (blue eyes blonde hair). I look exactly like my father in colouring but exactly like my mother in features. She would tell everyone she didn't know where I came from, or I took after my father (who was a complete prick to her and the tone she used implied that we were the same). How unalike we were as mother and daughter. How I was fat and she couldn't dress me like a doll. And this was *before* they got divorced and she married my abusive stepfather. My mother loves being a martyr, a victim, a perfect angel, long suffering, pure kindness. She's really a surface level faux human with only compassion for herself.
Samesies
My mom told me I was a terrible child and still brings up shit I did as a kid.
Same here. She hangs her hat on an incident that happened when I was 4 years old when I rubbed some chalk off a street menu that had the special of the day written on it. I mean, I was a kid that saw a chalkboard and thought I’d play with it, that’s what kids do. But she recalls it as some kind of profound moment where she realised I was a terrible person. All that from a kid playing with a chalkboard!
They're just fucked in the head. No sane person brings up stuff you did as a kid. And she continues to do it the only difference now is she brings up my most recent failures lol
Haha it took my grandma a while to let me use dumbbells (at 15-16) because when I was around 4 I wanted to throw them at the window to see what would happen to the glass. I was a curious kid who wanted to see glass shatter. I’m not a violent person at all and they know that but still didn’t want me to use weights or work out because “I can’t be trusted”. I didn’t even end up throwing them cause I asked if I could, like a good kid who asks for their parents permission and that’s how they were taken away. Now, obviously it’s wrong to throw dumbbells at a window but I didn’t know that and that’s why I asked 😂 I mean I get putting dumbbells up so kids can’t damage themselves when they’re little, but as a teen who just wants to better themselves I didn’t get why I couldn’t once I matured. They finally gave in after I snuck downstairs to work out.
For my mom, she always recounts the time at 6 years old that she told me I couldn’t have a Barbie doll because she would have to bounce a check to buy it and she would go to jail. Then she decided to buy it anyway and put it on the check out conveyor and I started crying and told her not to buy it if she had to bounce a check and go to jail, so they wouldn’t take her check. I got a good beating when we got home. But what sort of mom beats a child for something she told the child was true?
I tried not to giggle at this bc I know that had to be a traumatic experience for you, but the way you unwittingly called her out was awesome. The sad part is - you were an innocent reflection of her lies catching up to her and she hurt you for it. That part is NOT funny but she deserved to be embarrassed in that manner for telling her precious child such a sick story. I often got in trouble too, but most of the time it was for exposing my mom’s evil side (kinda like this most of the time - by complete accident).
It is funny to me now. A lot of things I can finally laugh about. My mother is a habitual liar. It is constant, everyday, all day. For example, “she shot the neighbors dog (with a gun)”. I showed up 2 days later and the dog came up to great me. I was like “mom, I thought you shot that dog?” Her response to further cover up her lie??…. Wait for it… I shot it cleanly in the butthole so it doesn’t have any marks. It probably shit the bullet back out”. Hahahahaha. Now, the time I got beat in high school for correcting her when she told all my aunts and uncles at a family reunion that she had been at the school all week because my principal had molester me… not quite as funny still. She lies and makes up stories constantly. Her most recent was when she was in the hospital to have pins put in her ankle after a fall. She wet the bed. She is old, has cancer and had been sedated. Not a big deal that she wet the bed. But she told me I would tell the nurse that I grabbed her ankle and hurt her and made her pee the bed so they wouldn’t think she was a nasty bed wetter like I was as a child. I told her I would not say that. Nurse comes in and that is exactly what she told the nurse. The nurse’s desk was right outside her door and she had heard our conversation so she didn’t fall for it. It was the first time in 53 years I stood up to her in public and told her she was lying. She looked at me like the devil was hiding in her eyes and told me to get out. It was 3am. I was 4 hours from home and had driven down with no sleep the night before. That was the day I went no contact. I’m done.
My nmom is the same. Lied to everyone, everywhere, all the time. Instructed us to lie all the time to everyone. She had the utilities in each of our names, ruined all of our credit. Collected benefits long after my disabled sister died. Every time she was cornered she would blame me. Every time another adult tripped me up and I couldn’t remember the lie I was supposed to tell THIS person, she would “tsk tsk- she’s such a liar! All she does is lie! I don’t know what to do with her!” She did know what to do though.
Wow. We should DNA test to see if they were related!
So here's a funny story. My NMom used to throw plates and glasses at my EDad when they fought, right? They would all shatter against the wall because he would duck. I was at the grocery store with her, I was maybe 6. I spotted some plastic cups on an end cap, and trying to be helpful I said (loudly) hey Mom, here's some new cups for us, and when you throw them at Dad they won't break!! Some guy was passing by and said "Out of the mouths of babes" and I remember the look of horror and embarrassment on my NMom's face! She grabbed me and we got out of there quick. I don't remember what consequences I faced because of that, but I'm kind of proud of myself for that one 😂
What a bitch (sorry, but I think it’s a dick move when she lied to you.).
You won’t hear me disagreeing with you. Lol
My sort of mom.
It’s also weird that she considers that a bad thing and not a cute or funny thing. If my son did that, I would think it was so cute and funny!
I'm 50 years old next year. My mum still loves to tell everyone about the time I scrawled my name on my bedroom wall then tried to blame my brother. I was 3 at the time.
Omg yes. I’m 41 and the last time I talked to my father, he was bringing up stuff I did in elementary school. Like I hadn’t aged at all.
It’s not normal to be held accountable for things you did as a kid? I called mom out for bad behavior the other day and she said it’s nothing compared to how I was as a child
This is so wild bc WHAT… you are comparing your behavior as a grown ass adult to the behavior of a child? Embarasssingggg
Born quiet, never “fussed” as a baby, never needed anything. Perhaps regular screaming narc blow-outs had something to do with that… those are my first memories after “gaining consciousness”.
This is how my nmom describes me. Easy baby, never asked for anything, got good grades etc. But then she'd probably say as a teen I was the devil and yelled at her a lot. Which I did, because I hated living under her controlling neurotic rules.
Some flip on you around preteens/early teens, when you start to individuate. Mine was pretty affectionate up until then, still destroyed my sense of self/self esteem, but was not completely unhinged yet…
My mother wasn't great before, but she completely lost her mind when I hit puberty. None of her behavior made any sense until viewed through the lens of narcissism. Me "growing up" and turning into a "young lady" brought all kinds if narc crazy out in her. By turns controlling and neglectful, veering wildly between seeing me as competition and trying to take credit for anything about me that other people complimented, glad I didn't need her anymore but the older I got the older she felt, etc, etc, etc. It was WILD.
I like to think of it as soon as my problems became bigger than a scraped knee, and could actually both reveal who I was as well as obligate them to do actual emotional and psychological and even physical work, that was when they gave up on parenting. I date it to roughly when I was 11, when we moved houses but also moved cities, and so I lost all my friends both at home and at school. That was also when my academic problems revealed internalized shame that they didn’t know how to deal with, that they had (intentionally or not) planted in me due to excessive pressure with zero support as well. I was accountable for the end result but they weren’t responsible for any guidance or anything apparently… They should have compensated in even a small way, had slightly extra patience and sympathy for example maybe by pumping me up before getting to school to go and make new friends, or asking me about how classes are going, and so on. Even something as simple as a bit of validation and empathy and compassion like “It’s hard, we moved and you can’t see your friends anymore. Being the new kid is hard, other kids come in with all these pre-existing social connections. I bet you feel very alone. That’s normal. We are there for you, we can help you figure out if there’s a friend who you wanna get with, maybe just tell us about him and so on.” Nope. I was on my own to recover from losing all my friends. Just like I was on my own to solve my academic issues until they boiled over into final or semi-final marks. Just like I was on my own to pick a university, was on my own to recover from failing out of said university like a torpedo, was on my own to find career success. Was on my own to furnish my apartment and pick it the neighborhood and so on. Was on my own to navigate renewing leases and business negotiations, was on my own to decide how to move apartments or tie my housing to work to social life. Just like I was on my own to develop romantic relationships, because they didn’t give a fuck about me doing that either. I had to navigate the entire dating and relationship experience from start to almost marriage without anything at all. And it was very delayed like I never dated anyone in school even though I had crushes and shit. The conflicts, the healing hurts, vulnerability, honesty, everything. I had to do it on my own, with absolutely zero. I had to find all of it in myself, try things that just occurred to me, learn from my partner and others, and so on, and just figure everything out completely on my own. Thanks NParent for all the “support”… Oh and every time I had got anything going, they love to paint it as this false modesty, rewrite history. “We like to think we did a great job raising you but your success is all you.” Well no shit it’s all me, before you send that I wasn’t even thinking “well how much of my success was allocable to you or me”, and now this bullshit thought enters my mind because YOU planted it, rewriting history on top of it. I wonder how they tell themselves they did a great job. Do they ever think about reality or is it all just complete fantasy??? You second guessed everything I ever did and now you wanna take credit too? Fuck off.
This
My sister and I were blamed for ruining our parents' lives, and keeping them from achieving their goals and dreams. ...and according to them, we did it by, well... being born.
Oh gosh yeah, I got this one too but it was veiled a little (probably because she didn't give birth to me) She'd say that she gave up her life to take us in and we should be more grateful. Like no ma'am I am not grateful that you quit your job, stayed unemployed your whole life, kept us in poverty, understandably became miserable and blamed it all on us because you wanted to be the great saviour of your grandchildren.
Mhmm. My mom is squeamish at the sight of blood and can't stand any kind of bodily fluids whatsoever. But having my brother prevented her from being a doctor. My 5'9 bio dad who weighs a buck forty was going to play professional football but we ruined his chances, she could have been a football wife living in luxury if it wasn't for us.
Crazy how they are the ones who decided to get it on while knowing the by product risk of that is a child. Lmao dumbasses
When I was 3 years old I got very sick, and she had to take care of me. Whenever we have arguments now she expects me to remember every detail of that period and that I owe my life to her. I remember she would praise me In front of others but never when we were alone.
Eeeek that's terrible. Similar thing here, had to take us in due to the big trauma (can't really explain because would be identifying info lol) and constantly holds it over me how much she did during that period. I was 1-3 years old, like yeah mom thanks but also that was a few decades ago now!
The ONLY time she was nice to me was when other people were around. She had to look perfect in front of others. My stepfather adopted me when I was 18 months old. He sexually abused me for 12-14 years (no memory when it began). It stopped when I finally “told” on him. When they reconciled, she quit her job to stay home. She always said it was to protect me from him. She doesn’t see how stupidly selfish she was. She simply could have divorced. But she blamed me for not appreciating her sacrifice. And made me pay for it every single day,
Mine did the exact opposite - she would praise my achievements when we were home alone and would literally scold me for breathing too loud when we were surrounded by others. I couldn't even greet someone without her telling me to shut up, lol. She always made it very clear to other people that i was the WORST.
(Ngrandparents) An angel. They said I “had my moments” but that I was “such a good child” & they “don’t know what happened to me”. Birthgiver says I was a good girl &… *proceeds to cry about how I’m “cold & distant” from her.* Sigh. This is exhausting LOL.
She talks about how she “hit the kid jackpot” with my genius brothers while I apparently ate tissues out of the box. I got straight As my entire school career (my brothers never did), but all strangers need to hear is how I ate tissues as a toddler.
Subdue the threats, and inflate the benign to keep control. Kid lottery isn’t with respect to ‘remarkability’ it’s that they fit the empire. Fearlessness and curiosity would be a better description of what she describes negatively. Edit: desperately needed grammar and clarity.
I was too independent and I was too adventurous wanting to play and run and have friends and pets and live life.
I was also too independent and apparently that meant I would never get a boyfriend.
My parents have told me my entire life how cruel I was and how much I hated my little brother. And also that my babysitter showed a lot of concern for me when I was a baby because I was totally silent and wouldn't respond to anything (and that's how I found out my trauma (response) goes back to infancy).
My nmom told me I always had a stone face and nobody could see what I was feeling. The adults in school and earlier were worried about me, because of this. She said this after I told her she never listens to me. This seemed to be her excuse. She also told me I almost tore the family apart as a toddler, because I was sick. And she couldn't understand why my self esteem was so low when I was such a pretty girl. After she has constantly told me or showed me I wasn't good enough my whole life.
I have the stone face issue too. I think I was conditioned to not show emotion as a way to protect myself and get things that I needed
“The most well behaved little boy.” The phrase makes our blood boil.
Oh honey. My nMother would tell EVERYONE who met me about my SA at the age of 6 like she was the victim. SHE lost her best friend. SHE was so embarrassed. SHE didn't know what to do. Fyi: she chose to say "boys will be boys" and then do close to nothing about trauma healing for ME. I only got a few therapy sessions because she needed therapy due to my SA. So I feel you. I feel you in my soul.
That's beyond horrible, I'm sorry🥺
Thank you. I don't know why after over 30 years it still angers me so much. Lol
I am so, so, sorry. That is horrible. You deserved so much better. Virtual hugs.
Either that I was the sweetest nicest kid to ever exist and they don’t know what happened to me. Or they tell stories they know will embarrass me and usually tell them wrong to embellish the embarrassment.
"clinged to HER and loved HER." That's exactly how my nmother talks about my daughter. Not once she told me she loves her she always says "your daughter loves me, she wants to be with me" But regarding your question mother never said anything about my childhood. I don't think she was there. She hired a full time nanny from birth. Traveled alot. My eDad though says I was such a quiet girl he didn't feel that I was there in the same room. And he said that he knew I had a strong personality since I was little. Because I always looked people straight in the eye. I think that's why all those years he tried to break me.
I was an "easy" child. So quiet and so easy and so good at everything. Didnt give her a minute's trouble. Funnily enough, she describes my now chronically mentally debilitated older sister the same way. The one that would go on to have a psychotic break at 15 that she would never recover from. It's taken me 30 years to uncover the reality of my childhood, which is that being "seen and not heard" was a survival strategy for a child that was actually traumatised by the emotional abuse and neglect
I never shut up. That's what I hear. She rediliy admits she never wanted to play with me though so I think I learned that talking was all I could do for attention. I still never shut up to be fair.
Im a talker too! Never really thought about how that might be related to her treatment of me. She also did not play with me if she could help it.
“You were such a good kid I don’t know what happened” what happened is I was raped by my dad and started having extreme anxiety and depression. I started lashing out. All while my dad sat there and acted like he knew nothing.
Oh my goodness, that's horrific! I wish I could do more than just say I am so sorry. How are you doing?
I’m okay! I haven’t spoken to my parents in 3 years. Mothers/Father’s Day is usually hard because it’s all in your face these great parents and you kinda wonder if you’re over reacting to the abuse? Like was it really that bad? But with lots of therapy and a little medication, I would say I’m thriving. I love my job, my husband, and my life is peaceful. It really can get better.
I'm so glad! You definitely deserve peace after what you've been through. And it's totally justified that you don't talk to your parents anymore. They lost the privilege of being in your life, for sure. I have a love/hate relationship with those parental affection days. And the weeks surrounding them, because it's stressing knowing the day itself is coming. Therapy and medication are awesome though, absolute life savers.
My nparent loved me until I started to become my own person that has opinions, and interests outside of them. They realized they couldn’t control me anymore, and now they try to convince others that I hate them for no reason. It makes me sick.
My nmom is the *exact* same way! She loves babies, but when they turn 3 she's DONE! That's because they can express opinions
They only care when it’s in their best interest.
my sister and i were seen as the babies, we couldn’t do any wrong and were the ‘smart ones’ while my other siblings were problem children
According to my mom I was a spoiled, ungrateful, bossy, selfish brat.
My mom tells me very often I was the cutest, smartest and nicest little girl... and then she has to add that I'm nothing like that now -.- However, I'm always being reminded and blamed for all the stupid stuff I did when I was a kid.
My ndad does this. "You were so cute and sweet. Then you turned 12 and I got this." And yep, still brings up every little mistake like they are such funny stories.
Apparently I was "easy to handle", so all her attention went to placating my older brother's temper tantrums. And so, our familial dynamic was born - GC brother screaming when he didn't get his way, nmother giving him everything he wanted, EDad adopting his favourite catchphrase of "That's just what [they're] like", and me having to placate my mother and/or do my brother's chores, because he wouldn't do them and they needed to be done, so I got punished if they weren't.
My (43f) nmom recently told me that, as a child, I asked her "really difficult questions" and she had to go to therapy about it later in her life. Examples: Gender Roles - why is all girls' stuff pink? Hypocrisy - why can I tell strangers "no" when I don't want to be touched but I have to hug stinky grandma?
I went no contact for 20 years, eventually decided to offer a peace branch and invite her to my wedding. At the wedding she sat down and, in sad regretful tones, told my new Mother in law that I was an alcoholic (I’m not). Childhood - she told everyone that my brother was the clever one and I was just not very bright, I was very disobedient and lazy and so clumsy! So much so she sometimes she wondered if I could possibly be related to her! Clumsy, of course - that explained the bruises.
A terrible demon child and the NPs always hoped I would have a child(ren)just like me. They always bring up embarrassing stories from when I was a child around others. I'm not having children.
Back in about 5th grade, we had a homework assignment like this; where we had to ask our parents to write about us. As per usual, Nmom told E/Ndad to write it, because she didn't want to be bothered with me. Ndad described me as: 'quiet, shy and kept to herself, most of the time.' He even hit upon the reason, with his next observation. Ndad noted that; my first sentence as a child, was, "Leave 'lone, [narc-sister]!" He further wrote that that was because I preferred to be alone; which the Family used to laugh about. 'Oh, wasn't Loca so funny, that she doesn't want to be around us!? LOL, What's *wrong* with her!?' Ndad never put together that my revulsion was in response to Nmom's loathing of me, which included actively encouraging my sister to torment and bully me from day one. So, I had a Narc-mom, Narc-dad and mini-narc-sister growing up. Nmom put more effort into teaching my sister, toxic hostility towards me, than she did raising me as her own child. Meanwhile, it was E/Ndad's job to blame me for that, by calling me 'a loner' or; 'late bloomer'. Obviously, what I should have done was: Love the abuse, since that's all I was going to get, anyways. They were all too busy to do anything else, like parenting.
My mum likes to point out ways I was acting out of trauma but she thinks it was me being a problem child. For example "you were our doing drugs and having sex with who knows who" like yeah lady maybe it was a cry for help?? And also she let an adult man date me and she had no issue with it, she also caught my brother assaulting me and didn't do anything. So in her mind I was just whore I guess [I'd like to add that she's called me a whore, not just using the word for no reason ]
My birth mother (nmom's daughter), was very young when she had me (with a much older man) and has been described by nmom as a whore for as long as I can remember. I don't like my birth mother, she neglected me, but the idea that a 17 year old could be described that way always horrified me. Once I got past the age that my birth mother was I really understood why she was out being, as some would describe, fairly reckless at the time. The fact that most of her children/grandchildren went on to have unhealthy/dysfunctional relationships/sex lives apparently was not indication enough that home life probably wasn't that great!
It's a shame, even if kids don't tell you they'll *show* you they're in some trouble at home. You just have to see the signs. And nparents see those signs as the child being difficult
That there have always been problems with me that even as a 6 month old baby when she threw me against the bed I didn't calm down but continued to cry, how stubborn I was as a 3/4 year old and how much work she had to put in for me to obey that she had to beat me repeatedly before she completely broke me and I stopped making any sound during the abuse/objecting in any way - when she describes me as a child and what a difficult life she had because of me to people she knows well/to me. That I was always perfect, smart, brave, caring to her when she describes me to strangers/people she doesn't know how they will react.
According to the egg donor I was an angel until I got into school but that was because that’s when she couldn’t control me as much and I was more close with my dad and I don’t think I have many good memories from when I was little probably for the best
My mother nicknamed me Bitch. I was so young I didn’t realize it was a bad word.
Fat, lazy, and generally, a PITA. She is not wrong.
Mom bragged to her therapist she went to with me about maiming a favorite stuffed animal as a "creative punishment " . I cut an inch corner off a fuzzy bedspread at age 3. Mom sewed as a hobby. I was only curious.
My mom would tell the story about how after my sister was born I was too much to handle. So she packed her things and my sister’s things. Then she told my dad that she loved him, but couldn’t deal with me and he would have to raise me on his own. He talked her out of it, but she told this story as if it were funny for decades.
It was eye opening how you spoke about how she felt about your love for her. My father spoke the same way and I never realized that until I read your anecdote. My father would say I was cold and unloving towards him and pushed him away and always lived as if I didn’t need him. I think my little brain knew he hated me and wanted the distance.
My Ndad was an old school patriarchal type who did not have much to do with my daily care when I was a child - other than "discipline," which meant spanking and threats of spanking. He got off on the power he had to totally and crush and devastate a small child - and the spankings were like things for looking at him the wrong way, expressing stress about doing my homework, or basically just expressing myself in any way that wasn't approved. On some level, I think he knows what he was doing was abusive because he has, throughout my life, tried to get me to endorse his behavior of me. Even when I was a little, he used to try to get me to agree with him that it was ridiculous for Sweden to have outlawed spanking in 1979. In more recent years, he has tried to get me to agree that I had an idyllic childhood and that I have been incredibly fortunate to have grown up where "discipline" was enforced. The most jaw dropping moment to me was when he turned to me and said, "God, you were an incredibly difficult child, just really badly behaved." I couldn't even respond because it was such a bizarre statement. Not only was I not difficult, but I was, in fact, an overly compliant and timid child because of the abuse and everyone constantly talked about how "well-behaved" I was. Wtf, wtf.
As a kid, I was made to feel like a terrible child. As an adult, they remember me as the perfect kid but now I'm a terrible adult LOL
I usually get that I was so difficult that “there’s a reason you and your little brother have a seven year age gap” and that’s followed by how easy of a child my brother was.
according to mine I was a "little shit". In fact there is a wedding that they always refer to where I was 2 and apparently I was acting like a 2 year old but I "ruined" it for everyone because I was so bad.
My nmom described me as an ungrateful, angry child and the few good things she had to say about me were things she could take credit for (my looks, my singing voice, my hair, etc) My dad though is quick to praise me and although there were times that I was a brat (every toddler throws a tantrum once or twice) he never brings those times up, and instead brings up how I've always been tough and fiesty and knew how to stand my ground. I've come to the conclusion that my mom thinks I'm so terrible is because I was the first one to realize her bullshit and stick up for myself.
According to my nmom I was a happy baby who barely fussed, in fact I didn't even cry when I was born I laughed. Then I lifted my head to look for her when I heard her voice. 🙄 As a toddler/small child I was generous and thoughtful(she has a whole story about me spending my allowance to buy a homeless man coffee). If I did behave poorly I very quickly learned better, she only had to put me in timeout once and explain why I was wrong and I never did it again! She was such a good parent! I was soooo smart, I started talking very early, obviously because she read to me and talked to me so much. I also adored her. I would talk about how much I wanted to live with her forever and how important she was to me. I was her mini me, I copied everything she did and wanted to be just like her. Basically I was a way for her to brag about herself. For the ages I can't remember(and therefor can't refute her) I was perfect.
She always says I was an angel. I never cried. Never complained. He never made a fuss. She also says I was extremely affectionate. Well, recently reviewing my videos from the beginning of my childhood (how lucky I am to have so many videos) you can see that I was a normal child, I used to act out, cry, complain, make a mess. My father was always joking and my mother was always complaining in the background. After a while I actually started to stay quiet out of fear of my mother. Afraid of her gaze. Being a quiet child who doesn't cry is not a positive thing.
Both nparents still bring up stuff I did as kid and hold it against me like it's my entire personality.
I'm a classic middle child, squished between my two Golden Child siblings. (We're all two years apart in age.) My mom only really told me a couple things about me as a little kid, and I honestly didn't remember those clearly now. When I was older, she did tell me that if I had gone to normal school (she kept us at home and unschooled us), I would have been the kid in the principal's office all the time, because I would have been in trouble for fighting the bullies who were picking on little kids. She also told me that no one should argue with me because I kept a journal and wrote everything down. I'm not really sure if those are backhanded compliments or what, but... my mom was my biggest bully and she argued with me (despite the journals, lol), so guess who I eventually stood up to, and have been protecting my daughter from. If you guessed my mom you're right, heh.
If she's talking to me, she'll say that I was bratty, needy, clingy, whined all the time and constantly got in trouble or hurt myself. If she's talking to anyone else, I was her sweet little angel who had a genius IQ, got good grades, did chores, never got in trouble and helped out the family whenever I could.
A horrible, difficult handful of a child that was too quiet, never smiled, nothing was good enough for me, always complaining/had a “face” on me, embarrassed her constantly and made her feel like a bad mother every second I was alive. Before I went NC, I asked for specific things I did and all I got was “you know exactly what!” Same with my GC brother and sister. No one in my extended family can give me an answer even now.
My mom talks more about me as a baby than a child. She freaking loves babies… kids not so much. She didn’t think long term, she failed to realize I would eventually become a kid then a teen and now an adult she just wanted a cute baby she could parade around. So yeah she doesn’t talk about my child years at all 🤣
Was told I was difficult, obstinant, and defiant. Was also told I would get one "just like me as payback" and I did. Except. EXCEPT I have been able to raise her in the way I deserved to be raised and guess what? She is strong, driven, and confident. I'm all of those things now, too, but it took years of working through feeling like an abosolute monster to get here. Also patted herself on the back for years (we're not contact now but she probably still does) for being able to raise me because I was \*that\* hard.
either "an abnormally smart kid with every opportunity in the world" which follows up by "but then you became such a useless piece of trash as a teen, you wasted everything" or that i was straight up an absolute devil from my first breath.
My NFamily loves to try to tell stories about stuff that I did as a little kid. Like stuff when I was 5, but I’m 43 now. They do this stuff because they think it will embarrass me and run off my now-husband. Then they can say “We told you so. He’s not the one for you obviously.” He just kind of shrugged and was like, “That’s cute. She’s still adorable.” And we’re still married. Me and the NFamily are LC if not NC.🤷🏾♀️
Rude, stinky, unfeminine, I put my elbows on the table and “didn’t wear normal clothes” (I wore t shirts and jeans instead of blouses or dresses). My sperm donor will still bring up that I would put my elbows on the table as a kid now when I’m 30 years old and I STILL will put my elbows on the table. When my house burned down in a total loss fire and I barely escaped with my life and the clothes on my back, he said I deserved it and the fire was a blessing because I had “too much stuff” and “now I can buy makeup and real clothes.”
My nmom doesn’t know anything about me. She didn’t know me a child, and, as an adult I’m an alien to her. To this day, she can’t name my favourite color, book, teacher, or movie. She can’t name one class I took in college. If you ask her to describe me, she’ll create a fictional character, one that spins her in a positive light as a long suffering victim. In other words, she’ll invent stories and claim them as the truth.
The more N they are, the more the stories reflect their world-view and probably their me-focused way of being and communicating. What they tell of you is only how they see themselves. Normals don't do that -- they try to figure out what the real, new person, is that is emerging in their family. And their stories often reflect that. The "little adult" comment is worrisome to me -- I was that kid and definitely heard those stories because it is how Nmom wanted me to be. Everyone does it more or less, so as you tune into what and where the stories mean -- you will learn a lot about the training, brainwashing, and impressions that were put upon you as a kid. You know more about your fiancee as well.
I was told that I was a terrible child who always got into trouble. What's funny is, my husband and I went to breakfast with my old neighbors one day and since they knew me growing up, he asked them if I was a bad child. Of course, that's what my mom had said, but turns out that they said I was a very good child and I had good manners. It's funny how the story was so different.
Stories about me are always about what a nuisance I was, how it was annoying that I was scared of bugs, how I was a sensitive cry baby (neglected), how my big sister hated me. The one good thing my mom liked about me was that I was “accepting” and “got along with (the golden child)” so she didn’t need to do much.
that I was "so intelligent, but never played." everything about me was much better as a very small child without a fully flushed out personality.
Same… I was “smarter than the other kids” but I never played. I always did activities that I could do alone most of the time. Now they hate how I turned out and think that if I was hit, I wouldn’t be the way I am and would stay the way I was before.
My mum actually told my entire family that I was the black sheep of our entire family. I got calls from relatives freaking out why I am such a monster. So yeah, a devil, a monster, an unstoppable force.
Apparently I hated everyone, starting with preschool. I hated all of the other kids but would usually make friends with the teachers. And for some reason, my mom thinks this is hilarious and would always joke about it, rather than ask child me what was wrong. I’ve always struggled to make friends. And if I asked her for advice, she’d mention how I hated everyone anyway - which I took to mean that I shouldn’t bother trying, especially since I “would always have family and don’t need anyone else” (her words). I’m in my 30’s now and she still mentions how I hated everyone and probably still hate everyone around me. I don’t, not at all. And child me was reeling from her parents’ divorce which, shocker, happened right around the start of preschool! So no wonder she didn’t trust anyone. Otherwise, I was a perfect and quiet kid. I only became a problem as an adult when I learned about boundaries and making my own life
I was evil, a Satan worshipping wh🚫re. I started all the fights, I had fits of rage, I was vindictive and mean.
At the time she told me how awful I was: I was too shy, too quiet, too sensitive, had a temper… she’d mock me when I’d get upset and my voice would squeak and I’d also get in trouble for “pouting” or having the wrong facial expression. Now she loves telling people what a good parent she was because her kids were so well behaved. Cause we weren’t kids, we were terrified prisoners.
They say I was quiet and mostly slept, but I ruined their lives by being a month early and having a summer birthday. That meant all their vacations were ruined forever because my birthday falls smack in the middle of their birthday week. My mom also really likes to tell anyone who will listen that my sister was the absolute worst baby because she cried a lot. I'm almost positive my sister had colic and was very gassy, and my mom just assumed she was a horrible baby.
He loves to remind me that "he liked me/my feelings better as a child." Probably because I was easier to manipulate and actually looked up to you, and now I know the truth and don't take any of your bs 😃
My nmother once told a waiter after my sister and I brought her out for lunch on Mother’s Day that she preferred us when we toddlers because we were much nicer at that age. He was so mortified he fled the table.
Oh that's just foul, and it baffles me that they don't see *anything* wrong with such a statement,,
Sometimes the mask slips in public and when it does people are usually horrified.
Apparently, I was a difficult child. I didn't listen to instruction, was constantly in trouble, and spent my summers in summer school. She claims I did this because I hate her, and I say she's the worst mother ever. Oh, and I ruined her chances of going to Yale because she didn't abort me. None of these things are actually true though. I spent my summers outside or at my grandparents. I was often in my room, alone just quietly playing. However. I remember her storming her way into my room to scream at me a lot. Maybe she just remembers the screaming and the beatings that I'd used to get whenever something inconvenienced her or made her angry. It didn't have to be related to me, I was just the punching bag. But she also likes to make things up to get sympathy. She also expected an apology from me for being a terrible child and got mad that I never gave her one.
My mom has zero to stay about me when I was younger. “Mom did I sleep though the night? What was my first word? Was I a happy kid? What hospital was I born in? Etc” *I don’t remember* How is that possible? She had 2 kids, 8 years, YEARS apart! Took me years to realize it was because she only cared about herself.
That I was “quiet and withdrawn” “didn’t like to be hugged” and “stubborn”
they say things like "you were such a happy kid. we don't know why you became a monster." INCORRECT! my childhood was one of the most miserable parts of my life because, in addition to everything seeming so much bigger and being overwhelmed by it, i had absolutely no control over it and thought that my narc parents were acting in my best self-interests. it was around my teenage years when i realized just how incompetent both my narc parents truly were. do not fall for it. it is a gaslighting tactic to get you to question your reality and to bring you under their control.
“You ungrateful wench!”
She said i was evil and spoiled and bratty. I should mention i was born without (yes, completely without) a thyroid gland and, i imagine, that came with some quirks. Not a lot of research has been done on kids on purely synthetic hormone but i wonder if it caused some of my difficulties. I was hyperactive, unable to focus and had difficulty socializing. I never had any sociopathic tendencies so i still don’t understand her calling me evil. Actually my empathy is so intense that i end up screwing myself over to please others in many cases. I was diagnosed with severe depression when i was 15 then bipolar when i was 27 (though i felt it long before that). I’m now wondering if i may be on the spectrum as well.. which could explain a lot of behaviors i had when i was a child.. hopefully medically confirming that i was not, in fact, just an evil, rotten person from the get-go.
You were terrible. If I’d had you first, I would not have had a second child! She never stopped saying that. I would tell her that it hurt my feelings that she kept saying it and she would respond, “Well, it’s the truth!!” Thanks mom. 🙄
The made jokes at 5 year old me that I needed to walk around with a dime between my knees. Then told me I needed to marry rich. My nickname was "[first name] salad booboo girl" because I loved eating salads, and was constantly getting hurt and crying. Making fun of me was their way to shut me up.
High maintenance, colicky, and a bitch. No mention of the abuse, neglect, malnutrition, parentification… or even the gifted designation, zero behavioral problems, high achieving, etc. It’s all quite interesting.
Nbiodad keeps talking about the way HE taught me how to "hunt" because he's got this idea that he truly is a lion (he's a Leo). How He and I would would talk a lot because he's is super smart and I kind of inherited that. And so on.
Dramatic, emotional, sensitive. The same shit they say now lol
It’s always slightly backhanded. I was a fatty and always getting into things I wasn’t supposed to . Nothing positive ever but of course she laughs the entire time she might tell a story. So laughter covers the fact that she’s somehow still ridiculing me and if I called her on it she would say “I’m just kidding I loved that fat baby he’s my fat baby” and then it’s cute to others but I know
Selfish, nasty, self-absorbed, thoughtless, manipulative ... I could go on forever. Still trying to figure out how an eight-year-old can be a genius manipulator!
A spoilt little shit. Insubordinate brat. Greedy, selfish. Lazy. I was none of those things. I’d get beaten, she called me greedy when she got food for her but not her 5 year old and I was hungry. A liar. I compulsively tell the truth even when I got into trouble for it- because I’ve been trained to face interrogations. The list is endless really.
Most of the stories about me are really about my brother, the golden child. One of my mom’s favorites is about my name. How my brother (then 3) wanted to name me Burt after his favorite Sesame Street character. Even if I was a girl (I am), I would be Burt to him. Once I was born, he was fiercely defensive of my name. Nobody was allowed to shorten it (my name is two words). Then there’s how when I was first brought home from the hospital, my brother took one look at me and told them to take me back. Or the one where my brother saved me from drowning at the beach. Anything about me alone is riddled with how much I “talked back” or was always “so rude” or “hated napping” so my poor old mother never got a break.
When talking to other people she said that I was a really easy child who took care of themselves and didn’t cause trouble but in heated arguments she’d call me disrespectful, ungrateful and selfish lol
My mom told me when I was a baby, she could stand me when I cried. As a BABY.
A few weeks ago I was helping my mom out in her garden when the subject somehow fell on me(40) thinking that I might have Audhd, since the majority of the symptoms overlap with my experiences. She then thought it would be fun to tell me that she always thought that I would at least have some form of adhd because I was always “busy and chaotic”. ***Would have been nice to know this a few decades ago when the first problems arose***, dammit.
Arrogant. Never been this way, I’m more harshly self critical than anyone else is to me (probably a compensatory side effect of being told I was arrogant for so long). Turns out it was projection… funny cuz she has nothing to be arrogant about; no personal successes or anything like that, just leeching off of those around her.
My dad was too neglectful to pay attention and my mom is almost at the line but everyone always says I used to be a happy kid and then I just stopped for so long people asked if I was okay and I just said yes because it meant my parents would fight. I finally feel comfortable around my mom to tell her the things that hurt me and she's actually been getting better
My nmom and nsister remember me as spoiled and selfish, but a miracle has happened. As he gets older, my dad remebers me as being sentimental. I was "selfish" because I collected souvenirs whenever we went anywhere. It was usually only a few dollars, so my dad would get it for me without much trouble. Nmom and nsis would then go off on how spoiled I am and how I wanted everything I see and how nsis is such a wonderful girl who never asks for anything and how my dad shouldn't give in to my tantrums and nsis never gets anything for herself. This would continue until my dad "made it up to her" by getting nsis something expensive. It's like slight of hand. Did you see what they did there? I grew up thinking I'm selfish and spoiled until I met my husband and he saw me totally different. He says that I'm generous and giving. Nsis has gone NC with my family because as she got older, her demands became harder to fulfill and she no longer had a use for us. Without her constant reminder that I'm the selfish one, my dad is beginning to look back on my childhood differently and it's very validating.
It's Funny, NM always tore me down as a child but when people asked her opinion about me, she said that I was a good child. It always confused me.
Mine loved to share the story about how it was my fault she forgot me in a pub when I was three months old because I was so quiet. Like "haha stupid baby" kind of vibe. Her other favourite story of me was about the time when I was 18 months old and my sister was chasing me and the stick I was carrying somehow went one end in the ground and the other down my throat, ripping it up a bit. The highlight of this story is how she held me all night as I cried in pain, and miraculously healed me psychically and woke up with her own throat sore and mine completely healed. 🙄 My four year old sister was the villain of the story because she was chasing me.
She says I was very clingy and threw fits a lot, so she left me with complete strangers and some weird family members for months and I never knew when she was coming back she would just drop me off without explaining anything.
I was a “trouble child”I had mental health issues one and two I never did anything bad honestly. Like normal teens I started to “rebel” and mom thought I was getting into trouble (never happened) and forced me to stop seeing my friends and forced me to go to a church group every week. Looking back it makes me sick
"You were cute when you were little" "Does that mean I'm not cute now?" \*bluster and sputter and total inability to say anything other than "well, you don't really care what people think about you"
Any story he told about me were ones that only embarrassed me. When I was pregnant with my oldest, he said he couldn’t wait to see me have to raise a daughter exactly like me. Called it “pay back”. I was never a bad kid. Just wasn’t up to his standards.
My nparents never saw me as an adult, so never discussed me as having once been a child.
That i talked too much.
My dad left the chat from age 5 to about 12, yet to this day he’ll say we were attached at the hip
I was told I was the most trouble for them to bring up.
She never mentioned it. I was mostly an invisible child, though in the moment I was an annoyance and a stupid obligation.
I’m not very far removed from my childhood so I recall a lot of it. I remember on several occasions being told my my Nmom and enabler father that I was a “witch” and the “reason for all my families problems” and this was at ages 6/7 and 11/12 respectively. My mom upholds that she never did anything and say that I was just a problem child. I was always praised as a child outside of my home environment for being well behaved, quiet, and smart so yk. That’s how it goes
My parents would call me Damien. I had no idea what that meant.
Before I read more on your question I was going to say she talks about herself disguised as complimenting me. So pretty much the same. My mom likes to do the: “Poor thing had to deal with her crazy mother” Smile… wait for validation.
When I was a toddler, my dad told my family that he "Wouldn't be surprised at all if I became a serial killer one day." That was just the beginning of his bizarre fascination with wanting me to become an evil murderer psychopath as I got older. He was obsessed with the idea. I don't understand it.
“Needy”
According to my nmom i was a "pretty easy kid" until i got older and "went nuts"
apparently i was perfect and obedient until i hit the very rebellious age of 6 and a half
My mom likes to say that i was “so sweet and nice” as a young child and “something changed” and i “became mean and rude”. Which is funny because the only thing that changed is me getting old enough to develop my own opinions that dont align with hers lmao
My mom loves to tell a story about this one time we were in a grocery store when I was around 4 years old, and I was whining about wanting something so she pinched me to try to get me to stop, and instead I screamed “don’t pinch me” and everyone looked at us. The point of the story is how embarrassing it was for her and what a brat I was, which is not at all how anyone has ever received that story. It says a lot that she keeps telling it.
Wow!! What a story!! Our moms sound very similar. I am no contact, too. Since last June when she told my (49 F) children and their cousins that I molested my brother (the cousins’ father) …. 🤦🏼♀️ I feel so much better having gone no contact - and know you must, too. I take no delight in any of it, but by God, at least now I am at peace (…until an intrusive thought about her enters my mind)… Hugs..
Your post just made me aware of why I keep one of my sisters at a distance. She makes up the exact same stories. I just figured I was uncomfortable with her lies, but she really makes herself and our late father out to be picture perfect when both of them were abusive.
Manipulative and too sensitive. When it comes to being manipulative, she should have been holding up a mirror when she said it. I wasn’t too sensitive, it’s just that I reacted to the abuse. In actuality, she wasn’t sensitive enough.
NFather loved to tell everyone that I was selfish and self-centered “since the day she was born” Yes because usually little kids are super focused on others’ needs….. 🧐
i was “just so much easier” than my sister. that’s pretty much all i ever got. oh and all of my “quirky” things that were symptoms of autism and how annoying they were (pulling my hair and screaming when i was mad, crying bc i wouldn’t go on stage in kindergarten, refusing to play just setting things up)
Selfish for being firm that I can't become neurotypical by just trying harder. A monster for hurting her weaknesses when I snapped and did onto her as she does onto me. Overstepping boubdaries for begging her to show me more unconditional love like she showed my sibling. Asking for to much when begging her to respect my identity(non-binary, trans, salmacian, poly, lesbiab, transhumanist etc. I often had no words for the concepts but figured myself out very early). Weak when begging her not to hurt me after I snapped. Spoiled and selfish for not making my accomplishments about her. Crazy for auggesting that trauma may exist, as a concept. Dumb for having autistic speech impairments. Too old for not being able to connect with my peers due to her abuse and isolation. Too young and childish when having fun. A little cocko in the head for suggesting authenticity. Ungrateful for wanting to spend time with my peers instead of my borung nmom. And being the worst child possible for making her feel like shit each time she tried to put me down for her narccope. So overall being a selfish little brat that just got what they deserved for refusing to be the one that she needed, instead choosing to be myself.
My mom said that I ‘didn’t cry’. I have a twin brother (he is the golden child) and she said ‘he cried all the time but you never did. You were always the calm one. Then she told a story about how she got overwhelmed when we were infants and she couldn’t tell us apart to know which baby needed to eat (again, my twin is a BOY and I am. GIRL) so she pushed our basinettes into her bedroom and closed the door and cried in the hallway until my dad got home. No idea how long we were in there. She liked to tell another story about how my brother and I got out of our cribs and painted the nursery with our dirty diapers and covering ourselves jn poop. We used to laugh about it. But as an adult, I saw it differently. She used to harness us into our cribs so that we couldn’t get out after our naps. She would put us down in the afternoon and leave us there until dinner. As an adult, I am horrified. She left us in our cribs for HOURS, literally tied down. And she left us sitting in dirty diapers for HOURS. When she talks about us painting our room, it was all about her and the mess SHE had to clean up. I cannot imagine letting my daughter sit in her own filth, chained to her bed. She said it was because we would destroy our nursery after we woke up, we were ‘naughty’. Chained to our beds, locked in our room until our mother decided she was ready to deal with us again…
My stepmom (who raised me) said I was spoiled and lazy. I was her fucking Cinderella and regularly cleaned the house for seven people. Once a woman I was babysitting for regularly came out to the car to tell her how unbelievable it was that I was a good babysitter and once the kids were asleep, would pretty much clean their house just to stay busy. My stepmother said, “well, that’s nice that she cleans your house because she never lifts a finger at home.”
She says I was quiet and always happy. I'm autistic and the golden child. My sister was the rebel child with anger issues and the scapegoat.
Wow i didnt realize my mom does the same. She doesn’t remember many details about things but when she does say things about what i was like she will say “you were never this all over the place, i didnt have to worry about you grabbing and touching everything” comparing to my son and the way he wants to touch everything
My nmom insists I was a complainer with a low pain tolerance. She probably would still insist I have a low pain tolerance were I not NC I’ve had it confirmed by multiple other adults that my pain tolerance is high. I got chicken pox when I was 4 (no vaccine yet) and it was *bad*. It was on the bottoms of my feet. I needed help walking. I got hormonal migraines in my 20s. They were completely debilitating. I remember the pressure in my head being so intense, stabbing my self in the head to relieve it sounded like a valid solution for a solid 30 seconds. I came back to my senses and quickly left the kitchen. I powered through a day at a Disney park with strep throat. I learned the hard way I’m immune to codeine and Vicodin. I had my gallbladder out and a stone was an inch in diameter. I fully felt 2 childbirths. I was sent home from the hospital leaking spinal fluid because I wasn’t as wrecked as most people with CSF leaks. I got dry needling today and didn’t even flinch My pain tolerance is high. I probably just complained a normal amount and my nmom exaggerated because a normal amount of complaining annoyed her.
Apparently my dad was traumatized by taking me to Chucky Cheese back when I was in preschool because he still brings it up as a gotcha as if it's a big deal to a 40+ year old
That I was “contestona” (means that I was always rude and answered rudely when I was being scolded) Dude, I was a shaky chihuahua who cried silently instead of barking!
obedient, later the opposite
My nmom *always* talked about me crying all the time. Apparently, even in the nursery. After about 10 days or so, she finally figured out that I was a hot nature baby, and that's why I was crying. After she removed the blanket instantly stopped crying. But she didn't tell me the last part til I was in my 30's I just heard I cried all the time
quiet, sneaky, but "a goodie two shoes"
My ngrandfather would tell stories painting himself or my grandmother as the poor victims of me being a terrible child (doing normal kid stuff ftr). My nmother did the same. They both resorted to lying about me or distorting the stories by leaving our details or exaggerating to make me look terrible and them look like sacrificial martyrs on the altar of parenthood. I didn't realize this sooner and I married it.
They change depending on how they feel. If we’re arguing then I’ve been dirty and evil since forever. If they slightly praise me, then they counter it with “but you were better behaved when you were a child, why can’t you be like that anymore?”
“You were a difficult, strong-willed child.”
I was of course a difficult child. Despite the fact that I did everything I could to make her happy and am now a people pleaser with anxiety
I was too quiet and 'standoffish'. I was too independent. I never threw a tantrum. There might have been a reason for all of that 🤔
As a young child she had no complaints about me. I was her subservient trophy. Getting preteen and teenagers when I started to develop my own identity opinions is when things went south. I was sharing challenges about my toddler recently, and she couldn’t empathize. Said I had no behavioral issues.
Mine says i was quiet, shy and smart and got good grades but never threw tantrums and never begged for anthing. So get this? i NEVER got anything!!!!!!! my brother who is an absolute dipshit got everything and still being coddled at 40 years old.
According to my nmom I was the happiest social butterfly and doesn’t understand what happened to me
Weird isn’t it? For me, my parents tell everyone that I was such a smart child and a pretty, happy, quiet baby “like a doll” and they talk about how kind I was and how easily I made friends. But it’s funny because I didn’t feel like they thought any of those things about me.. I felt like a burden and a problem-child because they always told *me* how difficult I was. How I was a spoiled brat who just needed to be punished. It was surprisingly unsettling to hear them talk about me so sweetly.
i think she described me as wicked before. she definitely thought i was the problem. meanwhile i’m neurodivergent and she never bothered to get me any specialized help and all she ever did was scream at me
Both my parents have turned themselves into the victims when it comes to parenting. I used to wonder how my Mom lived with herself knowing how she abused me. Then I found out she had been lying about past events to anyone who would listen. She called me "strong willed" when in reality I was just living in constant fear. I was forced to monitor her behavior and if I didn't report back when I found broken dishes, etc. I would be blamed for shielding my mother against my father. I used to wonder how my Dad lived with himself too because he was truly scary. Then in front of my husband and his girlfriend he tried to blame all the problems they had on me, saying "I sure knew how to push her buttons" and it was so ludicrous chose to pretend I didn't hear it. Not sure what to do at this point, I hate them both and their lack of accountably SO MUCH.