For children of narcissistic parents - have you had/do you have physical symptoms of distress?

Ashlynne - wear a burkha, and then no one can see you blush… :) x

I have scars on my wrists and teeth missing due to chronic stress grinding. My mom is gone now and I miss her. What is wrong with this picture?

The racist remarks/attitudes by elderly relatives are cringe-worthy. My MIL was born in Georgia, where the help was "colored." MIL was "raised" by a black woman who worked for the family, her own mother being busy at the time promoting the eugenics movement. (She's mentioned in a number of books about eugenics. Later she was diagnosed as having schizophrenia.) Anyway, MIL frequently praises people for being "good blacks" (I guess she means they are law-abiding and well-mannered. She never calls anyone a "good white.") She once offered a leftover sandwich to a well-dressed man on the subway. He happened to be black, and he politely turned her down. My son , who was with her at the time, asked why she did that, and she replied, quite surprised, "He was black!" As if a black businessman, or lawyer, or whatever the guy was would appreciate somebody's unwanted sandwich.

Oh dear Lord, Sodone… do you laugh or cry?

My SIL's MIL, interrogating my son at dinner, called clear across the table: "Are there any *coloured* children at your school?" He said to me later on: "God knows what she'd have said if she knew I slept next to one…"

Lovely lad from the Ivory Coast whose first day at the school I will never forget - half-sobbing, he said to his mother "… mais ces tiroirs sont tous petits..!" If the inadequate storage for his Lacoste tennis shirts was all he had to worry about it wasn't too bad a start.

My great aunt, my very favourite one, raised an interesting linguistic point, though. When she was a gel, where she came from (then, Calcutta) one would NEVER have used the word "b-l-a-c-k" about people - this would have been considered extremely rude. Now, being the switched-on and amiable person she was, she kept up with these things and was always careful to use whatever term people themselves preferred. But once she got to 97 and was living in residential care in Sussex, things had come almost full-circle on her and the 'correct' description was one she could not bring herself to utter. I am sorry to say that the compromise she settled on was "blackie" - full marks for trying, but 0/10 for social ease. Only it makes me think: what is our generation going to do if, God help us, the n-word should ever become normal again? We'll never be able to say it.

The most comforting thing I can share about this debate is the expression on the face of a black fellow student in a sociology class where we were discussing offensive and acceptable racial terms. 28 years old, he had been freely using the word "y*d" to describe members of his own beloved soccer club since he had been able to talk: it was only at this point in his life that he found out what it actually, or at least originally, meant. Aghast doesn't even begin to describe it, bless him.

Just being around MIL (sometimes even ANTICIPATING being around her) makes my psoriasis act up, and gives me a horrible migraine. It's her smugness that gets to me, that and her lies, plus her insistence on always being right, even when she isn't.

My husband says she was always that way, but it's gotten worse in the past five years or so. My suspicion is that in addition to being an mega narcissist, she's also bipolar, either that, or she suffered permanent frontal lobe damage from being thrown through car windshields not once, not twice, but three times. In her way of thinking, seatbelts trap you inside the car, which may catch on fire if there's an accident. Not wearing a seatbelt allows you to be "thrown free," as she puts it. Being thrown free sounds lovely, and sort of exhilarating, except for the part about crashing through the windshield.

But anyway, that's MIL: stubborn, illogical, grandiose and triangulating like it's her full-time job. A full-time job that she loves.

As an example of her refusal to recognize when she's wrong, about ten years ago, she told me that one of her friends had stage two cancer of some kind. "Stage three is death," she intoned melodramatically.
When I politely pointed out that she was incorrect, and that there are people living with stage four cancer (not feeling super-great, but living) she ignored me. Later, I heard her repeating the "stage three is death" thing to someone else.

Fortunately, her friend's condition improved, and she's still around today, but you'd think MIL would be interested in learning that something she believed to be true was, in fact, incorrect, and then changing her narrative to suit the facts. But no, because that would mean she was wrong about something and she can never be wrong.

For someone who proudly describes herself as "an academic and an intellectual," she is very close-minded. Even before dementia started making inroads on her brain, she was very resistant to learning new things. Conversely, she has a horror of seeming "stupid," so she either ignores her mistakes or stubbornly insists that she's right.

For instance, the device that her boyfriend uses to improve his respiration while recovering from pneumonia is called a nebulizer. She calls it a breathalyzer, which is unintentionally funny because her boyfriend is n alcoholic of the falling-down-drunk variety. When I tried to explain the difference between the two, and what the nebulizer is supposed to be doing for drunken boyfriend's lungs, she cut me off with, "I don't care about all those tubes and things in the human body."

And then she pouted. For someone who's walked around in a body for coming up on eighty-one years, her ignorance of what goes on inside it is astonishing. She insists that eating Mexican food causes miscarriages, because she once had a miscarriage after having eaten some tacos or arroz con pollo or something. When I suggested that maybe her miscarriage was caused by something else, because if eating Mexican food makes women miscarry, eventually there would be no more Mexicans, she just gave me a snotty look.

My refusal to pretend that she's not always right about everything (I always tell her gently when she's wrong about something I think might be important, but most of the time I just let it slide) is part of the reason she calls me "The B*tch." She always insists that she didn't really say that, and I must have imagined it. I kind of like the title.

aaaaarrrrrrggggggggghhhhhh!!!!!!

NOT THE 'THROWN CLEAR' (thrown clear into a lamp post, but what the heck…) HYPOTHESIS!!! Oh GOD if I had a cent for every time I've heard that old chestnut!

Ugh, just take her out for a few nice long drives why don't you..? x

Sodone, you're actually giving me chest pains? I thought I'd left my MIL behind nearly 20 years ago but I think yours might be her identical twin.

The last serious ding-dong (unless you count the mild difference of opinion after which she didn't speak to me for five blessed, peaceful years) we had was about defences to libel. To her credit, she qualified as a barrister when she was around fifty, but it astonished me that, given her recent studies, she didn't know that truth (in UK law, this is) is an absolute defence in a libel action. "Not if it's malicious," she kept parroting. Now, I happened to know this point for complicated reasons I won't go into; and a few days later I recounted the story to an older friend. Who pointed out that when MIL was my age, malice would override a 'truth' defence. In other words, the law had changed, but not MIL. She liked the old one, and she was sticking to it. Hang the law.

But ref the psoriasis - you're going to ruin her games if you won't play, you know. I really do understand how maddening this is, but try the rule I gave my daughter about ten years ago: "nod and smile, dear, nod and smile." It is one form of revenge… :)

Sodone, I still get 'flair ups' of psoriasis, and I get urges to begin twirling my hair again, but so far, I haven't relapsed. Your MIL sounds so much like my mother - ugh! One thing my mother would do that would embarass me, is her insistence on using the British English pronunciation of certain words. The woman was born in the Bronx NY in 1930, and spent her childhood and young adulthood in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio!!!! As far as I am aware, she visited England ONCE. Anyway, when she'd talk about putting a leash on her dog she'd never use the word "leash," she'd say "lead." Which is 100% fine in the context of being in the countries that use that form of the word, but here, it sounds deliberately pretentious. Which is what she is, so, there you go.

Sorry about the chest pains. And here I thought MIL was one of a kind.
MIL stories are maddening but strangely irresistible, like prodding an absessed tooth. You know no good will come of it, but you can't stop yourself.
I won't mention the time she tried to take my son, who was then three, to a nude beach. Or the time she got me unininvited to a family wedding by lying and saying my husband and I were getting divorced (we weren't) and I had gone crazy because of all the drugs I was allegedly taking (my drug use is limited to caffeine) and had vowed to "cause a scene" at the wedding.
There are lots more thrilling tales, but suffice it to say she's an unstoppable, malignant force who's probably going to outlive us all.
Yes, nod and smile, until my head explodes.

Looloo, I assume your mum's motorcar had a glovebox, possibly with a torch inside, and that if the wires came loose under the bonnet, they could be tightened with a spanner.
Was she feeling peckish when she missed a meal, and was she chuffed when you got an A on a test? Did she carry boiled sweets in her purse, and take the lift in department stores?
Did she wear wellies when it rained? And did she say alu-mimi-yum instead of al-loo-min-um? Was that striped quadruped a zeb-bra and not a zee-bra?
She sounds dotty, and kind of fun.

Hands down, Looloo. Or that's what daughter and I say to each other (we both find it equally irksome when the other does it, so it's ok!). Have you got a stress ball to keep your hands busy and help you over the humps?

Sodone, it's all material. And, you know, sometimes, I think - well, more fantasise - "if you can't beat 'em…"

But isn't that the thing - HOW do you go about becoming one of these breathtaking, outrageous monsters? How do you lose all sense of self-awareness like that? WHAT makes them think it's all right? I just don't know where to start, sigh…

Oh boy. Mini-Narc SIL will be in the country in a couple of weeks: two for the price of one when the whole of ex's family heads off to the seaside together. Which would be hugely entertaining for me - flying fur all over the shop - but is potentially very bad news for Lovely SIL/Scapegoat who hugs every shred of blame to herself. I'll look up some guidelines for her.

Sodone, you made me laugh out loud, hee hee! But I have to tell you, NO, my mother is not fun. I would never describe her as 'fun.' At some point, though, I will have many funny stories to tell.

Countrymouse, that's what I do -- "hands down!" :)

Cm, the good thing about being at the seashore rather than captive at a family dinner, for example, is that someone can grab Lovely SIL and spirit her off to check out the most wonderful seashells. If the only trick she learns is to disengage and have to go do something else, she'd be better off.

But that's the thing! When they're not your problem, they're brilliant! And the other thing is, that whenever you think you've heard it all (and that you know a few like them) along comes another one who just makes you think "Wow. Impressive." And, in a strange, appalled way - like with Genghis Khan and Imelda Marcos - you ARE impressed. You just need to figure out how not to let them have anything to do with you. Or anyone you care about. Or anyone they might hurt...

I won't be there, Linda (so I'm all right!); and I'm not sure Lovely SIL's superhusband will be, either. I just found a 12-step guide for scapegoats which I think sounds promising. The difficulty would be answering her all-innocence "who's this for?" Her attachment to her family reminds me of that scene in Alien when they're trying to get the baby alien off John Hurt, and every time they even move a bit of it - like a leg - it tightens its stranglehold. Getting SIL out of this is way out of my league, I'm afraid; I just want some tips to make the holiday go easier on her.

The fun of these stories is because it's gallows humor. We all have the same mother. That's why she hangs on so desperately. She clearly isn't human.

I used to feel this undescribable affinity with certain movies and didn't know why until I stumbled upon BPD/NPD/the Cluster B personality disorders and my mom was actually diagnosed. Movies like Carrie, Mommie Dearest.

My entire childhood was rife with stomach aches, nervous bowel, rashes, shyness, insecurity, and general worry. Every day was uncertain and scary. If mom had a good day, you knew it wouldn't last. If mom had a bad day, be invisible. I didn't realize I had grown up being so hyper vigilant about other people until recently, but it's true. Other people's anxiety, stress, and feelings are just right there in my face when the people owning these feelings might not even be aware of them! It's a real burden to put on a young person to be responsible for everyone in 50 miles' satisfaction with you.

It didn't help that I was reared in a very conservative southern baptist church where it was always hellfire and damnation preaching. We're all worms. We're all guilty of something somewhere even if you don't know it. We deserve to burn in h*ll. It was all about guilt, self-hate, and destruction. No wonder my mom loved it so.

I supposedly had all kinds of food allergies that I mysteriously lost the minute I moved out of the house and moved into a dorm. It's a miracle! I always wondered if she wasn't making me sick on purpose somehow. The stress, non-stop guilt, and uncertainty day to day definitely made me sick.

The way I was reared ended up in some sudden onset fear of flying in my late 20s. I had never been taught to self-soothe. I learned that my fear of flying had absolutely not one thing to do with flying at all. I learned some anxiety control techniques that worked like magic and was able to go to Germany & back with lots of connecting flights. And turbulence. I didn't freak out, throw up, or pee my pants. Amazing. I still use those techniques to this day. Anxiety is anxiety is anxiety.

I wish I could go back in time and tell myself as a little girl a few things. One being mom's nonstop caustic rages were not my fault. That I'd get away one day. That it will all be so different once I do get away. Just hang on. And see the school counselor. There was no need to carry around all that sense of responsibility and worry all that time.

"We have done those things we ought not to have done, and we have left undone those things we ought to have done, and there is no health in us…" Or, as I thought for many years that the vicar was saying: "there is no helpin' us."

There were two Catholic girls in our class who had to go to their own church on Sundays, and I always envied them proper Confession rather than the job-lot we C of E hoi polloi had to make do with. I reckoned it was a great way to get things off your chest, rather than just carrying the guilt around. Why a ten year old was feeling that burdened with guilt I really can't explain: not a narcissistic mother in my case, just an infectiously dread-filled one.

Sandwich, I can't watch Mommie Dearest. The Anniversary, now… Bette Davis in fine fettle, great fun. Fun? What am I saying! What was that you were saying about gallows humour??

Yes! I just got back from a week-long visit. I'll type more on this thread later, I just wanted to jump in so I'll have it on my email.

Yes, I know exzactly how you feel. The up bringing can have a lot to do with it. I was taught NEVER TO CRY and I am 57 and I still don't...just the icing on the cake, so all I can say (I am a fine one to be talking) is I understand fully and I feel your sorrow and pain, I am here if you just want talk, not sure of any good advice I could give, its easy for others to give advice, it helps me to look outside the box and I personally appreciate the advice, but its easier to give than to go and do it.

This past week I had to make two visits which were relatively quick, but were very stressful. Thankfully, things seem to be working out -- fingers crossed! But I did get a small psoriasis 'flare up' again. It's not that bad, but it takes months to go away.

That is just crazy ain't it? it must of been something in the air yesterday my day was past the stressful mode. Then I ended up with a stomach ache and acid in the old throat. There has to be a better way for us to handle these things that are going to send us to the grave...I have always said between mom and my husband they are going to out live me and then they will be ok.

CG, "there is many a true word spoken in jest." Only it's not funny.

CM: I'm so glad you said that..."only it's not funny." As I said earlier, I have the opportunity to housesit for a friend for a few days but don't really have the energy to even pack a bag and am afraid to leave Mom alone in my house, even tho' my niece lives 2 doors down and I'd be about 2 miles away. But, this is 1 of those friends who--when I'm the one going thru h*ll thinks that I should just "get up and get out of the house and go have girl time" with her and LAUGHS at everything I say. What do you DO with people like that? And she wonders why I DO NOT make the effort to go have coffee with her? Yes, I need a good laugh, but not at my expense. And HERE'S THE REAL PROBLEM... she starts out saying, "just come over and hang out, watch TV, eat what's in the fridge" etc etc." But in the next breath, she says, "Oh, and I HAVE SOME LAUNDRY YOU COULD DO FOR ME while you're there!" Excuse me? I don't expect her to pay me, but... DO HER LAUNDRY? Is that her idea of a time of respite?? I can barely do my OWN laundry, or even shower and wash my hair, much less do someone else's dirty laundry?
Even tho' I've never met any of you, it's sad to say, but I feel much closer to the CG's on this site, b/c no matter what I'm going thru, I've always gotten thru tough times when I can talk to other people who are going thru the same thing. And I wonder why my "inner circle" is so small?! Fine with me! Hugs to you all!
PS - If you have the energy, rent or order the movie (I'm a little behind-the-times), Osage County w/Meryl Streep & Julia Robts. It hit SO close to home that I wanted to go into my Mom's room and wrestle her to the floor for no SPECIFIC reason, but I didn't! I'm so proud of myself!
When I got up at 11 a.m. this morning, Mom asked, "What's wrong?"
I answered (scratching at my invisible hives), "I didn't sleep well."
"WHY?" she asks.
Gee, I have NO idea.

KayBee your mother wondering why you hadn't slept well tweaked a nerve with me - my mother peers at me sometimes and says "oo, do you need an early night? Don't worry about me, you get off to bed."

It is two years since she was able to get safely to bed by herself.

Is your "friend" saving the laundry up for you? What, does she think you might get bored in her house or something?! I suppose all you can say is "Gee. Thanks. You think of everything."

I feel relieved reading about other parents racist attitudes. I haven't had anyone to talk to about my mother's behavior. She's made ugly and painful comments (and facial expressions) about certain ethnic groups, and she'd do in front of my daughter when she knows that my daughter has a lot of friends in those groups. My daughter would just stare at her. She complained about the ethnicity of the people who were buying her house. (even though she was getting a good price). But they were so much better than people of this other ethnicity, who she hates more, and didn't want any of "those people" (the foreigners) buying her house.

I agree about having PTSD for life.

I guess Archie Bunker lives on even if just a little bit in folks with dementia. Some of the things my mom has said make him look relatively tame.

Phoenix I loved my Dad and he was a good person who took every individual as he found him, regardless of race or creed; but I remember slamming a dish down on the Sunday lunch table one day when he was trotting out some stereotype or other and exploding at him "DO NOT BURDEN MY CHILDREN WITH YOUR PREJUDICES!!!" He clammed up, looked guilty, and never did it again (or not in my hearing anyway!).

Glad, I think Archie Bunker - our equivalent is Alf Garnett - lives on a tiny bit in most of us, on one subject or another! It's part of the human condition to have some ingrained negative feelings we're decently ashamed of, which is why we're so relieved to laugh at them. It's just that when dementia gets going we get less good at locking them up…:/

CM, very good point!

Just need to share this to get it out of my head, line from "'Til Death Us Do Part", Alf Garnett on Hitler: "...he had his faults, I grant you…"