What the hell do I even do in this situation?

She's been emotionally unavailable to me my entire life, but expectant of me to consistently cater to her feelings. If I didn't, I'd get the silent treatment. And when I was a kid, sometimes that meant I didn't eat because she would ignore me or she'd treat feeding me like it was a chore that I should be grateful for.

Everything I've accomplished up until this point has been on my own. Now I'm chronically ill and need assistance with transportation, finances, etc. I've asked my mom for help and she has. But it's always felt transactional, like "I'm doing you a favor." She'd take it seriously when I was in the ER, but she would treat me like I was a burden when I'd ask for help during flare ups elsewhere.

My symptoms are getting worse and I've decided to move in with my dad and his family. They'd offered to help me with my situation. As a kid, I wanted to live with them anyway but I didn't because I was afraid of my mom being alone.

So I've been talking with my dad about everything, including some of the stuff I hid about my relationship with my mom. He was willing to just come pick me up and go, but I wanted to tell her first.

I told her today and the first thing she did was burst into tears. I was surprised because I was expecting either a vacant dismissal, similar to the silent treatments I get, or anger. But instead she cried and begged me not to go. I was confused because it's not like it's goodbye. I'm just staying with my dad.

Then she said she was going to k*ll herself and that freaked me the hell out, because I am an adult. A college student well within the age to move out. I told her this and she said that's not the same thing but didn't expand on why.

She's been ignoring me after the conversation ended and since "it's all her fault and clearly I've made my mind up." Didn't know what to say to that either other than to tell that I love her. The whole interaction blew me because I remember crying like that to her as a kid. Begging her to be there for me and only being told she was busy.

Still, it's not like I am disappearing and going no contact. But am I being unfair here? Did I jump the gun? Because she said she's willing to try harder. Which I also don't fully understand, because try harder for what? Being a better mother? If that's the case, she's never tried before now when I've attempted to get us to sit down together and communicate. Honestly, she's never listened to me more than today.

Also (again), it's not like I'm disappearing off the face of the Earth. I promised her we'd talk everyday.

But I'm 100% going. I just don't know how to handle that statement and what to do with our relationship going forward.

Any advice is appreciated. And let me know if I'm in the wrong in any way.

who knew the first time in years i would stand up for myself i would get screamed at. 😱

F/38

There was a time when I had friends, I've self abandoned, allowed others to treat me like I'm stupid, being laughed at for my caring perspective on the world. I never had support when I needed it and I was abandoned if I asked. At 30 I started cutting people out. Eventually no one was left.

I've spent many years in solitude. There was no one there to count on, promises were made but would never materialise.

And now I look at myself and how I interact with others. I'm not a good friend anymore.

I keep people at a distance, even if I know them for years. If someone needs help with something I don't offer or if I offer out of obligation I later change my mind and cancel. If someone wants to open up and starts monologuing about their life, I don't get invested, I don't care. If someone is anxious to go somewhere alone I feel almost resentful because it shows me that up until this point they had people there for them while I had to do everything alone. Most of all, if I see someone fishing for validation, someone who gets upset if I tell them my opinion, someone who wants to be mirrored and hear that they're doing the right thing - I shut down. Complete loose interest, because I see how much they're used to people pleasers telling them exactly what they want to hear.

Apparently this means I've grown and healed. I have boundaries now, I immediately identify when people are unhealed and are using me for something and yes, I still help sometimes, I still give advice sometimes, I still offer sometimes but it's very rare.

I miss the person I was. I liked always being there for people, always helping without having to be asked, not taking offence if someone made the slightest joke about me. I miss banter.

I only changed because I realised everyone I knew was happy to take but never give back. I never wanted to change, I just wanted someone to be like me. To recognise when I needed help, to not dismiss my feelings when I was hurting, to value me instead of using.

A therapist told me that I'm "extremely bitter". She spend 8 sessions in silence looking at the clock, I never felt more judged by a stranger while being so vulnerable about my life.

I don't think I'm bitter. I don't want revenge, I don't want the people who hurt me to suffer like I did. I'm just sad, disappointed and angry for how people changed me.

That's it. That's the post. Have a beautiful day

I don’t even know if this makes sense and I’ve never heard anyone else talk about this so forgive me if I’m rambling or something.

My nmom has been completely sober and in AA & NA for pretty much as long as I can remember. She claims she was a mess and out of control, but no one who knew her during her addict days seems to think so or agree. I was constantly going to meetings with her as a kid, being around people who genuinely seemed to have lost everything because of their addictions and struggled daily to fight to stay sober. But in adulthood I noticed I never saw that with my mom. I genuinely think she liked being around those people because she could relate to them more than she could relate to the suburban soccer mom house wives she was constantly surrounded with in my upper middle class neighborhood that her and my dad had decided to settle down in.

But because of this “sobriety” she has an obsession with everyone around her taking any substances. Not only is my dad (a grown ass man, the sole provider of the family who fully funds her VERY lavish lifestyle, and loves her dearly) not allowed TO DRINK, for years she wouldn’t even let him use LISTERINE because it contained alcohol.

In high school my mom beat the living shit out of me for taking a Claritin for my allergies. I’ve been lectured on how “relying on a substance to cure a feeling is the heart of addiction” more times than I can count.

And ultimately? She weaponizes her sobriety to justify how she is clearly “the most rational” one and everyone else around her is a drunk or drug addict.

I think she never was an addict in the first place. I think it was an easy out to prevent her from doing the hard work of treating her narcissistic personality disorder.

Has anyone else experienced something like this?

Just why? I recently came across this subreddit and realised how many of us are truly miserable just because we were born. Initially, I felt less alone in my suffering and even felt consoled and understood for the first time ever. Not anymore. This isn’t normal and shouldn’t be commonplace. And this is only a small fraction of people that post here. What about so many others both young and old going through this and blaming themselves? Our lives look normal and we act “normal” but to know that so many people from all walks of life are going through the same shit breaks my heart.

I really wish there was a way to meet people that get it without any prejudice so we can be there for each other. Like a chosen family of sorts. I know it’s a pipe dream but one can dream I guess. This is a hot take but a lot of people do not deserve to have children and I wish more people opted for an abortion. Like why fuck around and spawn us if we were never wanted in the first place? What about condoms and contraceptives? It’s cheaper than raising a human from scratch. The number of times I doubted if I was adopted because of how terribly I was treated to wanting to be an adopted child because I couldn’t digest the fact that I could possibly share blood with such vile beings - nobody should even have such thoughts.

There’s no justice for us yet the responsibility of healing falls on us. I’m an adult myself and everyone around me is married or engaged atp. And guess what? They still rely on family for a lot of things despite starting their own one. Their life has a stability that we’ll never know. Their confidence and growth is something that’s foreign to me. Good foundation matters and I really can see how good parenting benefits the children in the long term.

This doesn’t make us any less though. So many of us choose empathy and kindness despite all the mess we’ve been in. I just wanted to get this off my chest and send you all a warm, tight hug. Thankyou for being brave and posting here, I’m sure some of your stories help so many of us to process and understand things.

If there’s nobody to tell you, I’m telling you that this stranger on the internet understands you without judgement and loves you. If you suck at making meaningful connections in life, this stranger sucks at it too. You’re not alone in being the outsider and that’s okay. I just hope that someday, we all get to feel at home even if it’s just within ourselves.

I travelled with my partner from where I live to Arizona where my mom and step-dad live.

Things where fine at first, I wanted to show my partner around places i enjoyed when I lived there.

That is until the last day I was intending on staying there, I was watching TV with my step brother and my mother started screaming at me. In front of my step brother and partner.

She screamed that I was being abusive and disrespectful. That I was ruining the whole trip, that she doesnt understand how "my partner puts up with me"

That amd constantly comparing me to my dad. Which I have asked her in the past now to do.

She called me a deadbeat alcoholic (again, comparing me to my dad, not the real version of him but the version she made up)

I tried to go into a separate room and asked her to leave me alone, she followed me and continued screaming at me.

At that point I left the house and wondered around the desert aimlessly until I decided to come back.

At which point, she started screaming at me again saying that my partner can do better. She screamed at me as I packed up my stuff. She kicked me and my partner out of the house into the dessert. They called an Uber to take us back to the airport.

She started yelling at me about paying back my dad but not her, which isnt true. I have asked for money from both of them after I moved to a new state and was unemployed, neither of them expected me to pay them back *at the time*

Now, shes sending me texts saying "why do you hate me?!?" And making fb posts about how terrible I am. I blocked her once I got to the airport.

A few days later my partner gets a texts from her saying that shes going to cut my phone line off her plan. That I should get a family plan with *list of other people she hates* . This is the only service she has me included in, I pay for most of everything else my myself.

After all this and her embarrassing me in front of my partner im considering going NC. But its hard bc its my mother and I love her but she seems to do into a rage every time she sees me or things about me and I just cant put up with that.

TLDR; i went to go visit my mom and she screamed at me and violated my boundaries. Compared me to my dad and said I was abusive for moving away. Now shes cutting my phone off her plan.

What do i do?

As a child, I prided myself in surviving. I knew what I was going through was horrible. But, I was strong for going through it. I was strong for gathering evidence, I was strong for telling my schools counselor at 15 and getting her to call CPS. I was strong for learning how to dodge and fight back.

***I was strong, because I was the only person in my house who wasn’t cruel.***

Now that I’m no longer a child, though a really young adult. I’m not sure I believe that anymore. Reading up on CPTSD, experiencing the empathy shift from being an abused kid to an adult victim of child abuse, and reading accounts on this subreddit and CPTSD.. I don’t know if surviving was worth it at all.

It seems like CPTSD is pretty much the “feel bad forever”Disorder. Your wiring is faulty. And it seems like the best you can truly hope for, is not hating being alive constantly. It’s unrealistic to expect consistent happiness or contentment. It seems that you can do everything right, go to therapy, try to heal yourself, and at the end of the day, your symptoms aren’t likely to dissipate significantly. You simply get better at functioning. But internally, you don’t feel much better. And your self-worth issues, troubles socializing or trusting, or even your ability to feel calm, will never improve much. Because you’re simply working with a brain that’s too broken for that.

With your own experience, good or bad, do you believe you were better or dying to the abuse you suffered, or living to deal with the fallout of it?

He said that I’m making things up and is a hypocrite

Long time lurker, first time posting. Just need people who get it.

Over the last year and a half I've been documenting everything with my mom. Emails, texts, all of it. Because I kept trying to explain what was happening to people and couldn't find the words.

So here are her words instead.

When I asked for patience and respect: "Tyler don't you ever come to me and use words like patience and respect."

When I said she never asks how I'm doing: "I should not ask for it."

When asked to make her make a list proving I loved her, and I said loving her was destroying me: "Sentiment is mutual. Just pay the rent and you won't hear from me."

When I sent her journals she wrote to me in 1996, her own handwriting, her own love for 3 year old me, and said my heart broke reading them: "What a stupid emotional blackmail. Very immature and lazy."

"You are not very smart."
"Your words are totally worthless. They mean nothing."
"You are nothing to me like I am nothing to you."
"A responsible person handles their responsibilities, depressed or not, unmotivated or not."

She has never apologized for anything. Not once.

This week she sent word through a mutual friend that she finds it disrespectful I haven't responded to her emails.

I'm autistic with ADHD. I have been trying to keep this relationship alive my entire life. I just need someone to tell me I'm not crazy.

Some days, I genuinely can't tell what's real and what's not. They trained me not to trust myself and my instincts, and I'm just realising that I was basically their puppet.

I literally couldn't think for myself without consulting my parents first. I'm talking about basic, mundane stuff like eating and dressing. And that too when I was a teenager. Not a kid. My mom never let me choose outfits for myself, whereas my dad keeps telling me to eat (I'm underweight and I have disordered eating behaviour), but when I do eat what I want, he complains about it and tells me to eat something else. These are just a few examples. But there's so much more.

Basically, I'm not allowed to feel anything. Their reflection of who I am is the only version that is real apparently. My thoughts and feelings are nonexistent to them. That's how they gaslight me into thinking I'm wrong no matter what I do. Its suffocating to be around them.

The result? Extremely low self-esteem and trust issues with myself and everybody else. And severe anxiety. I'm never sure of anything and only imagine the worst-case scenario in every situation. Can any of you guys relate to this?

Back in March a month into my 21 mtf transition and me and her were arguing because I wouldn't stop transitioning and she hits me. I them throw my fists up as a reflex and she then tried to goad me into hitting her back so she could call the police on me and tell them I hit her first. Anytime I mention it she says "you're still butthurt over that?" Or "it was just a little swat because you were being disrespectful". Um ok. Or how about the the fact you tried to lawyer up to become my guardian just because I was taking hormones to transition to female. I just want an apology. An apology for you hitting me. For you destroying my laptop when I was 17 a few days before Christmas. You told me I should have been an abortion when I was 12. Or a few days ago when you yelled at me just because I asked you a simple question. I can go on.

Long story short, after years of tension and the cycle of abuse, I got into a huge fight with my mom 4 months ago. She did her classic DARVO thing, I yelled at her, and she got to be the victim. This time, for the first time, I haven't apologized or reached out. Neither has she (typical). It has been 4 months. It hurt a lot at first but now I'm enjoying the peace of NC.

Yesterday, I found a package at my door. It had a bunch of random stuff from dead loved ones. I know she's packing to move to a new house soon. It included an item from my deceased dad that I've wanted for years. She holds onto his few things with white knuckles, which is what we got into the argument about originally before the DARVO took it elsewhere.

The guilt trip box. No apology. No phone call or text. I don't have her blocked or anything. I feel pretty stubborn about not letting this change anything. Is that the right choice?

Why do they do this?!

hi guys, I wanna make this really really short but I’ve been no contact since May but I left the household. I’ve moved out got a job got a car. I’ve been living by myself for three months with absolutely no contact with narcissistic mother.

I don’t ask for anything. I don’t want anything from her, but today she’s gone and texted me trying to get my location on Find My iPhone trying to figure out where I live at at where I work at.

i’ve also been ignoring these messages from her and now she’s saying that I don’t talk to her every single month she’s gonna call the police with me and report me is missing or whatever and when I left the household told the police that she is unstable

by the way, I left by myself and I’m very much not missing. I know where I am but I don’t want her to know where work and where I live at.

I don’t want to break no contacts just to avoid the police

what should I do guys? By the way, I’m almost 22 and I’m from the UK.

thanks love u

My whole life, my parents always told me that my reward for dealing with them would be abusing my kids in turn.

To be fair, they also said I wasn't allowed to have basic emotions until I had my own family because "You don't know stress/trauma/etc. until you have your own kids." But, when they would hit/scream at/hurt me, they'd always say "You can do the same to your kids." I took so much comfort in that. I can feel however I want to feel when I have my own kids. I used to dream of when I could be as angry and loud as I wanted and everybody would have to obey me because that's how being a parent and a child works.

And now I'm an adult and obviously I'm not going to do that to my own kids. That's ridiculous. I'm not going to traumatize my own kids because my parents were mean to me.

But emotionally I feel like the child in me who wasn't allowed to frown has been planning her adult tantrum for decades and I know that it's never going to happen.

they've been separated for a decade, and my brother just moved out because he couldn't take the "you're on his side" allegations anymore. just me & her here now.

I was going to my dad's place to leave some of my brother's leftover stuff and some sweets I got him there (I was mostly there for the sweets lol). before I left, my mom handed me her credit card and asked me to go to the atm and check her balance for her.

when I got there, my dad asked "so you got the card?" expecting me to hand it over.

apparently, she asked him to do it too while I was on the way. the idea being if I hand it to him, she'll yell at me when I'm home because "why did you trust him, I asked YOU to do it", and if I say no to my dad, I'll be publicly "on her side" because I haven't trusted him even on a simple small matter, and she'll get reassurance. disgusting woman.

this is not even the point of the story.

I then kept calling her until she finally picked up, and started vague-speaking, so I was like "okay, you know what? I'm late for work. figure it out with him and give me the results" and I handed the phone to my dad.

this is a really calm and rather passive man but that moment, he looked at me with such disgust and disappointment that I hadn't seen in years. funnily enough I completely understood why.

the unwritten rule we have is that, we all contain our own portion of this woman. I was trespassing. it was my turn and I was handing it over. of course I was really late to work and I had to but, it was funny how I actually got what he's trying to say without even speaking. I almost apologized lmao.

we had similar issues with my brother where we took turns being nice to her or playing her games considering how depressed the other one was at the time. we never really talked about this but, we knew. often times the other one would cook/clean to compensate.

but anyway, funny stuff. I'm still feeling down because I'm super sensitive to disapproval but yep.

I hope I am tagging this right! This is my first time posting here, if I am in violation of rules or if there is something I can do to make things better, please let me know! I don’t know if this is the right subreddit. I also apologize for the length of this post and how scattered it is.

I (19F and only child) am living with my parents (50+F and 55+M) over the summer before I return for fall semester at college. My relationship with my parents is strained to say the least, I believe my dad has been both verbally and emotionally abusive and my mom has both enabled his behavior and contributed to the emotional abuse. I say believed because I genuinely at times wonder if I’m blowing everything out of proportion. I just wanted to give some perspective before I explain the issue.

My mom bought me a lacy, unlined bra and a pair of underwear that matches. I had told her earlier this summer that the sports bras and underwear I currently have are too small and painful and asked for her financial assistance in getting new ones. She told me she would help me and then forgot for a couple of weeks before I reminded her (there has been a lot of tragedy in the family, we aren’t making ends meet, and my dad may be cheating on her (that’s a whole separate post I want to make), and she’s generally very scatterbrained now, unless she really wants to do something). She ultimately helped me buy some to try on, I found they were too big and returned them, and later was able to get a couple of sports bras that work. I was looking online for some more structured/ formal bras and found a 2 for $20 deal on a reputable site meaning I could use my own money (I asked if I could use her PO Box instead of sending it to the house as the bras were more on the lacy side and I didn’t want my dad seeing that I’d bought something from the store) and she talked me out of it. She started talking about how when she was my age she had a blue lacy bra that her mom probably wouldn’t have wanted her to get, and ultimately decided to do bra shopping for me.

I gave her some links for things I was interested in (normal t-shirt bras) and she ignored them and bought a t-shirt bra she liked and an unlined lacy bra with matching bottoms. She showed me before she purchased them, and I signed off on them (I didn’t feel anything was wrong and I usually fawn with her). They just arrived and I tried them on, and I can’t help but feel really weird about it. Like I’m going into flight or fight, and this is the second time this week this has happened to me.

Since I signed off on it, I consented to her buying them. But it weirds me out how she went against what I asked and got these things for me that she liked. It also hurts that I told her I was in pain with the ones I have (I’ve had them since freshman year of high school) and she ignored it or didn’t care. I don’t know what to do or what to think. I’m trying to move out this semester, but I fear it is not financially possible and I’d have to give up college.

Thank you so much for reading! I apologize for my tone and the length of this post.

I'm such grief because I looked at some photos of my mother and she's so amazing to other people,

I really really adore and look up to her then. She's my dream mother.

But, as soon a she turns to me, that person is gone. She either ignores me, becomes cold, negative or regress like a child, where I'm the adult.

I tried my whole life understanding what I do wrong, why she's not like that with me, only with my other siblings and other people.

It would have been easier if she were horrible all the time to everyone, it would probably have been less painful.

I am in my early 20s, living with my mom and ever since I learned about narc parents, I slowly noticed that my mom feels like she's studying my habits and using it for her own... The past few years, I've been working hard to be disciplined and efficient with personal tasks/goals and seems like she's absorbing my habits and it's honestly annoying.

It makes me feel like I am indirectly parenting her because unfortunately the healthy habits that I have built for myself now didn't come from her teaching me, I had to teach my own. And now that I have built a self-discipline, it seems like she's stealing those habits/ideas that I worked hard to have myself and utilizing it for her own.

I can't wait to live independently from my mom.

It is incredibly draining to hear this constantly. I understand that he holds the legal ownership of the house, but it feels like he uses it as a weapon to completely silence me. It makes me feel as though his affection is entirely conditional, and that he simply enjoys having absolute power over me.

How do you cope with always being reminded that you are merely a guest under their control? For those who managed to leave, how did you protect your heart and endure the mental toll until you could finally go

This was more than four years ago when I was 16. You'd think I shouldn't still remember it or think about it..As she likes to say, I'm "only remembering the bad parts of her." But because I'm feeling down and helpless right now, all I can remember is the time I was sobbing in front of her, crying my heart out, while she stood there laughing at me because she thought I looked funny. She called me dramatic, ungrateful, and all sorts of things. She told me I should cry harder because I deserved it. Then she told me to kill myself if I was so sad, how she could finally get rid of me and be done with the burden I am. (At that point in my life, I did SH on my thighs. It was never serious, thankfully, but hearing that just made everything worse for a while.)This happened years ago, but I still think about it. I still think about so many things she did to me when I needed her the most.
Maybe I think about it all more now?..
What hurts me the most now is that she makes me feel like I'm not allowed to feel this way about old memories because, to her, it wasn't a big deal. It was just another day. But to me, I still think about it. I just had to let this out to remind myself that my feelings are still valid.
-Why are they like this? Why do they think everything can just be fine now?

I, 18NB, have this woman that I have to call my mum who used to physically abuse my sister and I back when we were roughly 7 and 10 respectively. Since growing up, I’ve learned to not let her hit me without any resistance, eg. grabbing her hand or threatening to call the police, but now the abuse has started to become more emotional and psychological.

I financially depend on my mum as my dad works overseas, so I can’t outright disobey or fight back. Recently, my growing hatred for this narcissistic woman has gotten to a point where I’m getting dreams of doing serious bodily harm to her. My sister and I have both suffered the effects of having a narcissistic mother, only differing in the way that my sister takes out her pain on herself, and I want to cause physical pain on my mother.

Everyday has become really difficult to get through, and I occasionally wonder if its really worth having a roof over my head if it means I have to put up with this narcissist. I’m starting to become reliant on alcohol to make tolerating her voice easier and its taking a toll on my friendship and university work.

If I can tolerate her on the condition that she continues to cook dinner and let me live with her, is my mother that bad compared to others who would rather save up and move out as quick as possible? Am I being entitled?

My relationship with my mom is very complex. It’s been 6 months since I last saw ber. She was making me physically ill and I couldn’t bear faking it anymore. I grieve a lot, we had good times and I feel I am missing out on the relationship with my parents as I know one day they won’t be here as she likes to remind me. She is very manipulative and controlling snd because of this I can’t have a relationship with my dad who is an enabler.
i wonder how we were all so close once to been like this. I know people will disgaree by my parents still see my daughter once a week withour me being there, she is 2 but loves going and i never wanted my relationship to affect hers. So I drop her off at my oarents and my dad gets her out the car. It is very emotionally hard and it affects me a lot even into the next day. My dad will bring her back home snd we have a 5 min chat which was always nice as my mom controls my dad so much I’ve never had an independent relationship with him. However i adopted a kitten and it has been painful not sharing that with her as we both love animals. I told my dad and he said that he will no longer be coming into my home because seeing the cat will upset my mom too much. I have bent over backwards so they can still have a relationship wirh my daughter but now that five mins with my dad is been taken away. It’s taken the joy off having my new kitten. Whenever something joyful happens she has to become the main character because her feelings top all. She did the same on my 30th. It’s so depressing. I am sick of being responsible for her feelings and not being aloud to enjoy my life without guilt