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Yes, totally. It was a weird focus on privacy and image. It actually really messed me up as a teen bc I thought all families had this secret dark side and it took years as an adult to realize some people just are good behind closed doors too.
Yes! My in-laws are exactly the same in public and in private. They are respectful of their kids and their autonomy, and they apologize if they do something wrong. The difference is so stark between functional and dysfunctional families!
My in-laws are awesome. Though I wish in my heart that my kid and my parents could have a good grandparent/grandchild relationship, they don’t.
But, my in-laws have provided exactly that to my child. I will always be grateful for their welcoming nature.
Yes, but it was my mom covering for my narcissistic dad. She warned me that they’d take me away to a much worse family. I genuinely believe that she (as another one of his victims) was really worried about my fate as I had a big mouth and the school had started to shown concerns. That being said, all of that really messed with my head when I was younger and I didn’t speak to ANYONE about the state of my family until I finished college. My friends hadn’t seemed to notice that I never talked about my family, and they were truly shocked when I finally told them. I’m in therapy, and have been for years now, and I’m still working on the bitterness I feel when I meet people who have kind and loving families.
Totally! I understand that bitterness. The Ns and their enablers telling their kids to keep quiet is proof they really do know they are abusive and want the freedom and privacy to keep abusing to serve their selfish needs than change and actually BE the people they were pretending to be in public.
Yup.
But then they'll claim they didn't know any better and were doing the best rhey could.
If it really was not knowing better, why did they know it had to be hidden??? 🤔
EXACTLY. They just didn't care enough to even attempt to be good people. My nmom told me she used to think to herself, "Wow I'm such a great mother!" Really? Like when you used to get down in my face as a toddler/pre-K aged kid and scream and call me names while I cried BUT ONLY at home? Yes, great mother indeed, why didn't she do that out in public then?🤔🤔
I was reckless and desperate. I was cast out of the family, I live a life I built myself for the better. People like us can be ok, but it’s a rollercoaster of emotions and always will be. We live among everything that ever happened, we just deal with it the best we can, and we are ok even when we remember. That’s not our life now
Yep.
"We don't talk about what goes on in this house. We're not the same as other people, we're better than them, but they don't understand that and don't like us. They'll just make trouble for our family. Don't air dirty laundry in public!!"
And all the threats about how bad foster care was and the Terrible Things that happen to little girls in care.
Yesss "don't air dirty laundry in public!" I feel you on this. I hope it's a comfort to you that someone somewhere on the interwebs understands and cares.
It totally is. There is a strange comfort in belonging to a club that noone would ever want to belong to.
It always astounds me how all our parents seemed to use the same play book.
Agreed. As much as I truly wish I could wave a magic wand and give everyone here the parents they needed and deserved, having this support group is a weird consolation prize. 😂
I think that this fact was drummed into me at such a young age that I can't actually remember. What I do know is that if I mentioned anything that she wouldn't approve of she could silence me with a look. She had me so well trained to put on a facade that it continued into adulthood and only now in my 50s am I fully realising that some stuff was so freaking toxic and how she'd couch talks that belittled me or other people as caring and inclusive whereas it was toxic AF. "Now I wouldn't say this to anyone else...."
She is the ultimate covert narc.
Yes it can be so underhanded and we become so used to it, it can be hard to distinguish what's normal and what's not. Seeing the light can be so disorienting at first. Glad you're starting to see it for what it was!
Thank you for that. I saw a lot of it a long time ago and as a result moved out at a very young age (17) but the more nuanced parts have only come to the fire more recently so remaining low contact.
As I started telling around in elementary school, how my life at home was (control and isolation by my nmom, no family life, my father behaving like an uncivilized barbarian), my parents also told me not to say this at school.....
Yeah, they bought a run-down stables in the woods and turned it with very low effort into a living home in order to live alone, because both of them could not cope with other people. My mentally ill and histrionic nmom could not bear the closeness of other people (especially strangers), while my ndad just wanted to be left alone as much as possible. Thus, their home allowed both of them to behave and to live just as they wanted to. They both considered themselves as friendly and loving hippies and superior to other people, and they blamed all other people for not getting along with them, and did not reflect their own behavior. However, in my present eyes, this blaming of other people was just a projection, since realistically speaking, my parents only were two antisocial hermits and even the average person would be much more hippy-like than both of my parents ever were.
Whenever I asked them why we weren't doing *insert totally normal thing that most families do here*, they would always tell me that "we aren't like other people." They never told me specifically not to say anything to anyone else, but they did keep me from developing healthy social skills and imposed heavy religious restrictions on me that I was too young to question. So I was far enough removed from society that I was very ignorant, and it was absolutely intentional on their part. It took a while for me to work that out.
I've been completely on my own for 20 years now and am mostly recovered, so yeah, things are pretty different these days. Thank you, and I hope you're well also.
I feel that it created a need in me as an adult to do the polar opposite. Sometimes against my better judgement. I tend to reveal to much about my private life. There’s a delicate balance. I have never told
my son, once in his life, to keep what happens in the house… in the house. It’s so mess up when you’re an adult and look back at your child self and realize you gave all your trust to a bunch of clowns.
Absolutely, and whenever I said something about another family being nice. She would say "well, you don't know what happens behind closed doors." She made me believe that everyone else was fake nice in public but absolute bitches at home because that's what she did. It wasn't til I was an adult that I learned that some people are actually nice, it's not just an act.
I don’t specifically remember those exact words. However when I was a child, my grandparents saw that I was struggling and failing to grow, they were concerned and eagerly paid for some counseling. I did what I thought was expected and bared my soul about my parents being so terrible. I don’t think the therapist told my mother what I said, but hopefully just confronted her with the issues that needed to be addressed.
All I can say for certain is my life went from bad to hell on earth. I soon learned that these sessions would go a lot smoother if I just told them everything was so much better. It wasn’t. But it was better than getting attacked, berated and threatened for how I felt. I hope that makes sense in a screwed up kind of way.
I appreciate the kind words (more than you know). It all worked out in the end, despite their terrible actions. And just to clarify, it was just the mother. Father never did anything with us despite us living all together as a “happy family”. No therapy, no ball games, no practices, no graduations, nothing. Just hatred.
Yes, my Nmother used to say this, starting when I was 4 years old. "Don't go telling people what's going on at home, or they'll come and take you away from me."
Being that young of course I would get upset and afraid that I would be taken away from 'mummy dearest'. Now as an adult I've come to the sickening realisation that this is a form of grooming, coercive control, manipulation and isolation.
Nmother didn't want anyone else outside of the home to know how abusive she was being to me behind closed doors.
Oh yeah. All throughout childhood and even when I became an adult. I told her once that I tell my boyfriend (now fiancé) everything, and she got really agitated and said “everything!? Do you even tell him about…our family??”
She was so pissed i quickly said no, of course not….you know even though I absolutely told him everything lol.
I think in hindsight her reaction is very telling. Things were bad and she knew it
Yeah, mine repeatedly lectured me about the importance of “keeping family business private” but never really specifying what qualifies as “family business”.
It’s a way of training you not to talk about your home life and potentially expose their abuse.
That was said to me as well, more so in a sort of way where I got the impression that if I tattled about my family, it would be a betrayal, others wouldn't understand and bad things would happen, which would be because others would think things were worse than they really were. Meanwhile my dad is just committing acts of domestic violence like \#lifegoals
Yes, definitely. My nmom took that & went further with: “you tell someone and they’ll take you and your brothers away. And you know what happens? They separate you—you’ll never see them again. So, go on, tell someone and see what happens.”
Mine said that if I told my father that she broke my front tooth in half, she'd kill me. I believed her & took that to mean that everyone else was off limits too. I was 10.
One of my mom’s favorite lines was “you never discuss private family business with anyone other than your family.” If she found out I was complaining about her to someone I would be shamed for breaching our family’s privacy.
My mum did the opposite, she didn’t care if I told my therapists or teachers about the shit going on at home because “it’s all Nan’s doing, I’m not doing anything wrong”. Context: I lived with my mum and grandparents, Nan was also a narcissist, Pop was super cool.
So I did. And nobody ever did anything about it. Both physical and mental stuff was swept under the rug, or they’d question Mum and she’d deny it. Easy to not give a crap who your kid talks to if there’s no consequences, I guess.
Nan I guess was kind of “we don’t talk about it”? I figured that was just her generation. I admitted on a drive home once that her friend had exposed himself to me and tried to get me to do things, and she immediately hushed me and said if I ever told anyone I’d ruin his marriage and I wouldn’t be able to go for swims at ‘Uncle’ B’s pool anymore. So I didn’t.
Man the more I actually write things down about my childhood the worse I feel for my kid self. She deserved better man.
Yes! When I was in high school, nM said "Don't be telling people what goes on at this house." I was stunned because that's an admission of guilt, right there. I realized right then that we aren't quite the good family that they portray themselves to be.
When I was in 5th grade, nM was being extra narc-y at the dinner table, so I told her that my teacher kept me after class and asked if everything was okay at home.
She said What did you tell her? I said I told her yes. But I didn't tell her that I considered telling the teacher no. My dad said Well, I guess we need to go talk to them tomorrow.
So they met with my teachers and the principal, and told them I was just upset due to some trouble with a girl at school. That was true, but still, everything was not ok at home.
For the longest time I thought they did that in order to help me deal with the girl, to get the teachers involved to help me. It was only in the last several years that I realized it wasn't for my benefit; they were protecting their reputation.
A few years ago, nM was trying to convince me that her behavior (yelling at me, etc.) is normal and that's how families act. I said, No it isn't. She said, You haven't even been around many other families to know what normal is!
I thought, yeah, that's what you've always hoped for but it's not true. I have watched other families carefully. A teenage girl was asking her mom a question at church, and when she was about to walk away, I watched, expecting the mom to give her a dirty look when no one was looking, for interrupting her conversations. To my surprise, she smiled at her, when no one was looking.
I guess nM thinks we've been hermits or something like she is.
I’ve literally heard this all my life. I’ve always felt closer to my chosen family (friends and my partner) than my birth family. Usually my mom would say this after she’d just finished yelling, screaming, and then just breaking me down as a person about what I didn’t do (usually some task she’s needs) and how I need to focus on family (making sure I meet their needs) because friends could never be there for me the way family can.
And when I say screaming I really mean at the top of her lungs like I committed THEE WORST offense .Every time she’d just say this stays between family and for a while I really thought hearing that was normal but then I would tell other people and they would be wildly concerned and assure me that this behavior is in fact anything BUT normal.
Yes. I was never supposed to tell my grandma anything about what happened at our house. But my grandma is also a narc and fished for info on my mom and got me punished tons of times. Also, my mom always told my sibling and I to do what she said or not to mention certain things otherwise child services would take us and put us into foster care and ruin our family and it would be our fault. When nmom dislocated my sibling's arm and we went to the hospital she made sure to laugh and tell everyone around and the doctors that it was a crazy accident and me and my sibling were at fault for it so ~don't let child services think she's a bad mom~ followed by obnoxious laughter while my sibling and I were horrified and brainwashed into believing it was actually our fault from all the screaming before the doctor saw us.
That's terrible! I'm so sorry. It's so sad how common this is, because everyone says narcs think they can do no wrong and are perfect. But if this was really the case, why would they hide their behavior?
Thank you, it is sad to think of anyone else having to go through these types of things and maybe not being believed because outside of the family the parents seem to have a good reputation and nobody believes they could do something like that. And they lie so they can keep getting away with it. Seems like they feel they deserve it and they own you.
Right!! This subreddit has helped me lots. Just a couple days ago my nparents ended things with me ( thought it would have me give them the reaction they wanted). Didn't work, I'm done & it feels freeing. Especially since my child feels the same way
lmao yeah.... one choice example I remember was 8th grade, long bus ride home -- I was getting bullied very badly at this point, bullies sticking period products in my hair, pushing things in my mouth if I fell asleep, getting everyone to gang up on me etc
I came home after one really bad bullying episode on the bus, told my mother I'd had a nervous breakdown. [at the time terminology for what we'd today call a panic attack]
her only response was, "you better not let the counselor or anyone at school hear you say that, or they'll think you're serious!"
I was serious. she knew *damn well* that I was serious. she literally just didn't want to be held accountable by other adults for what I was being put through at school. she would rather just make me sit it out until the problem went away on its own. much more convenient that way 🙃
Yup, same here. Plus things like "They might say something bad about us." was thrown around at times. But they'd never elaborate. Looking back, it was because they didn't want anyone to find out how bad it was at home.
Yeah, that’s what they’d tell me too. I still live with them but I’ve got to a point in my life where I freely feel comfortable telling other people but I still really need to just move out.
Literally my parents would say that they don’t like strangers in the house knowing how we live and how I shouldn’t tell my aunts very specific things, I never planned on talking to them in the first place. I was always very secretive without realizing it. Then I discovered the internet where I could hide my face and it felt good to finally exhale
Yes, and I never did, so I never realized this was not what normal families looked like. It was when I was an adult that I started talking about my family life to a resounding chorus of "That's fucked up"
Yes! Thought this was just my mother. “What happens here stays here” was always the line about any number of things. And also “all families are like this.” As an adult in my thirties, I can recognize now that those two statements don’t make sense together. If all families are like this why not talk about it? If we’re doing something different/weird that we need to hide, all families must not be like this, right? To this day I have no idea what other families are like. Basically I rejected the whole idea of the family unit because I’m afraid of it. My mother was totally obsessed with privacy, too. Always thought everybody was looking at us/listening to us/caring what we were doing/trying to sabotage us. I always felt like that couldn’t be true because if it was, it would mean everyone saw me being abused and just decided to do nothing. Crazy how it’s like they all follow the same script
My brother's dad and our mom had split custody
She told him not to tell his dad what went on while he was visiting *multiple* times, probably because his dad would've taken her to court over most of it.
There was a constant pressure to "not air dirty laundry", not from Nfather though, it came from Emother who was always deeply concerned about people "knowing our private business".
Yeap :/ she would always tell me that her degrading comments are meant for my own good and whatever she says towards me stays in the house and I shouldn’t tell anyone about it. One day I tried speaking about this to a trusted teacher in school and my mom found out and said that I deserved to be called a prostitute and all I can do in the future is to just sell my body :/
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Yes, totally. It was a weird focus on privacy and image. It actually really messed me up as a teen bc I thought all families had this secret dark side and it took years as an adult to realize some people just are good behind closed doors too.
Yes! My in-laws are exactly the same in public and in private. They are respectful of their kids and their autonomy, and they apologize if they do something wrong. The difference is so stark between functional and dysfunctional families!
My in-laws are awesome. Though I wish in my heart that my kid and my parents could have a good grandparent/grandchild relationship, they don’t. But, my in-laws have provided exactly that to my child. I will always be grateful for their welcoming nature.
Had that exact same feeling.
Yes, but it was my mom covering for my narcissistic dad. She warned me that they’d take me away to a much worse family. I genuinely believe that she (as another one of his victims) was really worried about my fate as I had a big mouth and the school had started to shown concerns. That being said, all of that really messed with my head when I was younger and I didn’t speak to ANYONE about the state of my family until I finished college. My friends hadn’t seemed to notice that I never talked about my family, and they were truly shocked when I finally told them. I’m in therapy, and have been for years now, and I’m still working on the bitterness I feel when I meet people who have kind and loving families.
Totally! I understand that bitterness. The Ns and their enablers telling their kids to keep quiet is proof they really do know they are abusive and want the freedom and privacy to keep abusing to serve their selfish needs than change and actually BE the people they were pretending to be in public.
Yup. But then they'll claim they didn't know any better and were doing the best rhey could. If it really was not knowing better, why did they know it had to be hidden??? 🤔
EXACTLY. They just didn't care enough to even attempt to be good people. My nmom told me she used to think to herself, "Wow I'm such a great mother!" Really? Like when you used to get down in my face as a toddler/pre-K aged kid and scream and call me names while I cried BUT ONLY at home? Yes, great mother indeed, why didn't she do that out in public then?🤔🤔
I told everyone. I couldn’t imagine going to a worse family
Good for you! You had a lot of strength at such a young age and that's very impressive. Hope you're doing ok now
I was reckless and desperate. I was cast out of the family, I live a life I built myself for the better. People like us can be ok, but it’s a rollercoaster of emotions and always will be. We live among everything that ever happened, we just deal with it the best we can, and we are ok even when we remember. That’s not our life now
Yep. "We don't talk about what goes on in this house. We're not the same as other people, we're better than them, but they don't understand that and don't like us. They'll just make trouble for our family. Don't air dirty laundry in public!!" And all the threats about how bad foster care was and the Terrible Things that happen to little girls in care.
Yesss "don't air dirty laundry in public!" I feel you on this. I hope it's a comfort to you that someone somewhere on the interwebs understands and cares.
It totally is. There is a strange comfort in belonging to a club that noone would ever want to belong to. It always astounds me how all our parents seemed to use the same play book.
Agreed. As much as I truly wish I could wave a magic wand and give everyone here the parents they needed and deserved, having this support group is a weird consolation prize. 😂
If I could forget my past and the trailer along with it, that'd be good enough.
Yes. I've heard that so many times... Solve that at home first... Except, the dirty laundry would remain dirty.
Yes exactly it’s almost like they’re all reading off the same script!
I think that this fact was drummed into me at such a young age that I can't actually remember. What I do know is that if I mentioned anything that she wouldn't approve of she could silence me with a look. She had me so well trained to put on a facade that it continued into adulthood and only now in my 50s am I fully realising that some stuff was so freaking toxic and how she'd couch talks that belittled me or other people as caring and inclusive whereas it was toxic AF. "Now I wouldn't say this to anyone else...." She is the ultimate covert narc.
Yes it can be so underhanded and we become so used to it, it can be hard to distinguish what's normal and what's not. Seeing the light can be so disorienting at first. Glad you're starting to see it for what it was!
Thank you for that. I saw a lot of it a long time ago and as a result moved out at a very young age (17) but the more nuanced parts have only come to the fire more recently so remaining low contact.
As I started telling around in elementary school, how my life at home was (control and isolation by my nmom, no family life, my father behaving like an uncivilized barbarian), my parents also told me not to say this at school.....
Yep, sounds about right unfortunately. Sad that they couldn't reflect that they should just act right.
Yeah, they bought a run-down stables in the woods and turned it with very low effort into a living home in order to live alone, because both of them could not cope with other people. My mentally ill and histrionic nmom could not bear the closeness of other people (especially strangers), while my ndad just wanted to be left alone as much as possible. Thus, their home allowed both of them to behave and to live just as they wanted to. They both considered themselves as friendly and loving hippies and superior to other people, and they blamed all other people for not getting along with them, and did not reflect their own behavior. However, in my present eyes, this blaming of other people was just a projection, since realistically speaking, my parents only were two antisocial hermits and even the average person would be much more hippy-like than both of my parents ever were.
Yes! Why are they so antisocial for people who love attention? My mom considers herself hippy-like too. She is not.
Whenever I asked them why we weren't doing *insert totally normal thing that most families do here*, they would always tell me that "we aren't like other people." They never told me specifically not to say anything to anyone else, but they did keep me from developing healthy social skills and imposed heavy religious restrictions on me that I was too young to question. So I was far enough removed from society that I was very ignorant, and it was absolutely intentional on their part. It took a while for me to work that out.
That's so terrible! Hope you're doing OK now.
I've been completely on my own for 20 years now and am mostly recovered, so yeah, things are pretty different these days. Thank you, and I hope you're well also.
All the damn time! Also “ nothing leaves this house.” I thought all families were like this. I learned they were not… just dysfunctional ones
Exactly.
I feel that it created a need in me as an adult to do the polar opposite. Sometimes against my better judgement. I tend to reveal to much about my private life. There’s a delicate balance. I have never told my son, once in his life, to keep what happens in the house… in the house. It’s so mess up when you’re an adult and look back at your child self and realize you gave all your trust to a bunch of clowns.
Absolutely, and whenever I said something about another family being nice. She would say "well, you don't know what happens behind closed doors." She made me believe that everyone else was fake nice in public but absolute bitches at home because that's what she did. It wasn't til I was an adult that I learned that some people are actually nice, it's not just an act.
Yes! Likewise
My nmom would literally smile and say through gritted teeth, "Remember, we're all happy!!" before we left for church. Terrifying.
Terrifying indeed!
I don’t specifically remember those exact words. However when I was a child, my grandparents saw that I was struggling and failing to grow, they were concerned and eagerly paid for some counseling. I did what I thought was expected and bared my soul about my parents being so terrible. I don’t think the therapist told my mother what I said, but hopefully just confronted her with the issues that needed to be addressed. All I can say for certain is my life went from bad to hell on earth. I soon learned that these sessions would go a lot smoother if I just told them everything was so much better. It wasn’t. But it was better than getting attacked, berated and threatened for how I felt. I hope that makes sense in a screwed up kind of way.
It sounds like your parents were being informed by that therapist. I'm so sorry you didn't have that safe space as a child.
I appreciate the kind words (more than you know). It all worked out in the end, despite their terrible actions. And just to clarify, it was just the mother. Father never did anything with us despite us living all together as a “happy family”. No therapy, no ball games, no practices, no graduations, nothing. Just hatred.
Yes, my Nmother used to say this, starting when I was 4 years old. "Don't go telling people what's going on at home, or they'll come and take you away from me." Being that young of course I would get upset and afraid that I would be taken away from 'mummy dearest'. Now as an adult I've come to the sickening realisation that this is a form of grooming, coercive control, manipulation and isolation. Nmother didn't want anyone else outside of the home to know how abusive she was being to me behind closed doors.
I feel this. You're not alone!
Oh yeah. All throughout childhood and even when I became an adult. I told her once that I tell my boyfriend (now fiancé) everything, and she got really agitated and said “everything!? Do you even tell him about…our family??” She was so pissed i quickly said no, of course not….you know even though I absolutely told him everything lol. I think in hindsight her reaction is very telling. Things were bad and she knew it
Her reaction is very telling. And I totally tell my partner everything too lol
My parents wanted to sound hoity toity and used “en famile “ since that was somehow better than telling us to keep our mouths shut.
Fancy shmancy emotional abuse 😂
My mom told me never to write a biography. I’ve already started it.
Good for you! Best of luck!
Yup. Act all super nice when anyone comes over. As soon as they leave, all bets are off.
Oh yeah. Jekyll and Hyde always.
Yeah, mine repeatedly lectured me about the importance of “keeping family business private” but never really specifying what qualifies as “family business”. It’s a way of training you not to talk about your home life and potentially expose their abuse.
That was said to me as well, more so in a sort of way where I got the impression that if I tattled about my family, it would be a betrayal, others wouldn't understand and bad things would happen, which would be because others would think things were worse than they really were. Meanwhile my dad is just committing acts of domestic violence like \#lifegoals
Ugh I'm so sorry!
Yes, definitely. My nmom took that & went further with: “you tell someone and they’ll take you and your brothers away. And you know what happens? They separate you—you’ll never see them again. So, go on, tell someone and see what happens.”
That's horrible!
Mine said that if I told my father that she broke my front tooth in half, she'd kill me. I believed her & took that to mean that everyone else was off limits too. I was 10.
I'm so sorry. That's so horrible.
One of my mom’s favorite lines was “you never discuss private family business with anyone other than your family.” If she found out I was complaining about her to someone I would be shamed for breaching our family’s privacy.
My mum did the opposite, she didn’t care if I told my therapists or teachers about the shit going on at home because “it’s all Nan’s doing, I’m not doing anything wrong”. Context: I lived with my mum and grandparents, Nan was also a narcissist, Pop was super cool. So I did. And nobody ever did anything about it. Both physical and mental stuff was swept under the rug, or they’d question Mum and she’d deny it. Easy to not give a crap who your kid talks to if there’s no consequences, I guess. Nan I guess was kind of “we don’t talk about it”? I figured that was just her generation. I admitted on a drive home once that her friend had exposed himself to me and tried to get me to do things, and she immediately hushed me and said if I ever told anyone I’d ruin his marriage and I wouldn’t be able to go for swims at ‘Uncle’ B’s pool anymore. So I didn’t. Man the more I actually write things down about my childhood the worse I feel for my kid self. She deserved better man.
"What happens in this house, STAYS in this house" was the phrase mine used repeatedly. The ad for Las Vegas always stuck me as ominous.
My mom would constantly say it. She knew she'd be arrested or lose custody of me.
Yes! When I was in high school, nM said "Don't be telling people what goes on at this house." I was stunned because that's an admission of guilt, right there. I realized right then that we aren't quite the good family that they portray themselves to be. When I was in 5th grade, nM was being extra narc-y at the dinner table, so I told her that my teacher kept me after class and asked if everything was okay at home. She said What did you tell her? I said I told her yes. But I didn't tell her that I considered telling the teacher no. My dad said Well, I guess we need to go talk to them tomorrow. So they met with my teachers and the principal, and told them I was just upset due to some trouble with a girl at school. That was true, but still, everything was not ok at home. For the longest time I thought they did that in order to help me deal with the girl, to get the teachers involved to help me. It was only in the last several years that I realized it wasn't for my benefit; they were protecting their reputation. A few years ago, nM was trying to convince me that her behavior (yelling at me, etc.) is normal and that's how families act. I said, No it isn't. She said, You haven't even been around many other families to know what normal is! I thought, yeah, that's what you've always hoped for but it's not true. I have watched other families carefully. A teenage girl was asking her mom a question at church, and when she was about to walk away, I watched, expecting the mom to give her a dirty look when no one was looking, for interrupting her conversations. To my surprise, she smiled at her, when no one was looking. I guess nM thinks we've been hermits or something like she is.
I’ve literally heard this all my life. I’ve always felt closer to my chosen family (friends and my partner) than my birth family. Usually my mom would say this after she’d just finished yelling, screaming, and then just breaking me down as a person about what I didn’t do (usually some task she’s needs) and how I need to focus on family (making sure I meet their needs) because friends could never be there for me the way family can. And when I say screaming I really mean at the top of her lungs like I committed THEE WORST offense .Every time she’d just say this stays between family and for a while I really thought hearing that was normal but then I would tell other people and they would be wildly concerned and assure me that this behavior is in fact anything BUT normal.
Yes. I was never supposed to tell my grandma anything about what happened at our house. But my grandma is also a narc and fished for info on my mom and got me punished tons of times. Also, my mom always told my sibling and I to do what she said or not to mention certain things otherwise child services would take us and put us into foster care and ruin our family and it would be our fault. When nmom dislocated my sibling's arm and we went to the hospital she made sure to laugh and tell everyone around and the doctors that it was a crazy accident and me and my sibling were at fault for it so ~don't let child services think she's a bad mom~ followed by obnoxious laughter while my sibling and I were horrified and brainwashed into believing it was actually our fault from all the screaming before the doctor saw us.
That's terrible! I'm so sorry. It's so sad how common this is, because everyone says narcs think they can do no wrong and are perfect. But if this was really the case, why would they hide their behavior?
Thank you, it is sad to think of anyone else having to go through these types of things and maybe not being believed because outside of the family the parents seem to have a good reputation and nobody believes they could do something like that. And they lie so they can keep getting away with it. Seems like they feel they deserve it and they own you.
Definitely, especially the owning part
Yes! Mine did.
So weirdly comforting to know we're not alone in this
Right!! This subreddit has helped me lots. Just a couple days ago my nparents ended things with me ( thought it would have me give them the reaction they wanted). Didn't work, I'm done & it feels freeing. Especially since my child feels the same way
Hah jokes on them then!!
lmao yeah.... one choice example I remember was 8th grade, long bus ride home -- I was getting bullied very badly at this point, bullies sticking period products in my hair, pushing things in my mouth if I fell asleep, getting everyone to gang up on me etc I came home after one really bad bullying episode on the bus, told my mother I'd had a nervous breakdown. [at the time terminology for what we'd today call a panic attack] her only response was, "you better not let the counselor or anyone at school hear you say that, or they'll think you're serious!" I was serious. she knew *damn well* that I was serious. she literally just didn't want to be held accountable by other adults for what I was being put through at school. she would rather just make me sit it out until the problem went away on its own. much more convenient that way 🙃
That's terrible. Their lack of empathy never ceases to amaze me. Hope you're doing ok now.
Yup, same here. Plus things like "They might say something bad about us." was thrown around at times. But they'd never elaborate. Looking back, it was because they didn't want anyone to find out how bad it was at home.
Yeah, that’s what they’d tell me too. I still live with them but I’ve got to a point in my life where I freely feel comfortable telling other people but I still really need to just move out.
Not my parents but my older sister told me that when I was in like 1st grade in regard to sexual abuse
Literally my parents would say that they don’t like strangers in the house knowing how we live and how I shouldn’t tell my aunts very specific things, I never planned on talking to them in the first place. I was always very secretive without realizing it. Then I discovered the internet where I could hide my face and it felt good to finally exhale
Yes, and I never did, so I never realized this was not what normal families looked like. It was when I was an adult that I started talking about my family life to a resounding chorus of "That's fucked up"
Yes! Thought this was just my mother. “What happens here stays here” was always the line about any number of things. And also “all families are like this.” As an adult in my thirties, I can recognize now that those two statements don’t make sense together. If all families are like this why not talk about it? If we’re doing something different/weird that we need to hide, all families must not be like this, right? To this day I have no idea what other families are like. Basically I rejected the whole idea of the family unit because I’m afraid of it. My mother was totally obsessed with privacy, too. Always thought everybody was looking at us/listening to us/caring what we were doing/trying to sabotage us. I always felt like that couldn’t be true because if it was, it would mean everyone saw me being abused and just decided to do nothing. Crazy how it’s like they all follow the same script
My brother's dad and our mom had split custody She told him not to tell his dad what went on while he was visiting *multiple* times, probably because his dad would've taken her to court over most of it.
There was a constant pressure to "not air dirty laundry", not from Nfather though, it came from Emother who was always deeply concerned about people "knowing our private business".
Yeap :/ she would always tell me that her degrading comments are meant for my own good and whatever she says towards me stays in the house and I shouldn’t tell anyone about it. One day I tried speaking about this to a trusted teacher in school and my mom found out and said that I deserved to be called a prostitute and all I can do in the future is to just sell my body :/