My mother is delusional and my father is enabling her.

In My Humble Opinion
41

Don’t dog on the OP for not cottoning on to the fact that her mother will never change. Many victims go their entire lives without gaining that awareness. Perhaps it all seems very simple when you’ve never been ensnared within such a dysfunctional dynamic, but it’s not that easy. Oftentimes the unwitting enablers of the most damaging narcissists are the LEAST likely to “get it,” because when you live every day under the thumb of a self-absorbed crazyperson, that becomes your normal. It would be weird to live any other way, which is what **Ecamp1 **is currently struggling with.

But anyway, Ecamp1, now that you’re aware of the level of dysfunction in your mother’s relationship to you, you can work on learning to overcome its effect on your life. Therapy would be a very good idea. Try to avoid focusing on how her behavior has messed you up; rather, you should focus on how to mitigate the effect you allow her to have on you and your family in the future. If you focus too hard on the past, you’ll get more and more resentful and LESS likely to escape her grasp (even if you sever contact with her, your internal demons will still be in control).

42

Also check out Toxic Parents. It helped my wife a ton with her BPD mother. It also helped that I kicked her mother out whenever she started acting up.

Things have gotten a lot better. There are still flare-ups from time to time, but nothing that a month or two of dumping her doesn’t fix. People say it’s incredibly hard to fix someone with BPD, and that may be true. But I think the key to fixing it is for everyone that has to deal with the person to smack them down hard whenever they get out of line. They seem to get crazier and crazier the more you try to engage them, so you just freeze them out. I’ve been there- it was the only way. And now the “freeze-outs” get shorter and shorter in duration when they become necessary, because she knows we’re not going to put up with even the tiniest ounce of her shit.

43

The advice I’ve seen here, and used in my life, is to sit down with your husband, while it’s calm, and draw boundaries.

A while ago, I was having problems with my father pressuring my SO and I to have children. I had to come up with what my boundaries were, and then convey them to my dad. It was not a fun conversation. It came down to “We will not have these discussions in my house. If you insist on having them, you will be asked to leave.” I did not negotiate. These were my boundaries and they were not to be crossed. Yes, Dad did try to cross the line a few times over the next months, but I stuck with “We will not have this discussion” and it hasn’t happened again in the last 7 years or so.

I’d suggest taking a break from your parents, and at some point, when you feel you can do it, make a list with your husband. The list should contain absolute lines; include the consequences. “If we say that Junior doesn’t get cookies or cake, then he doesn’t get cookies or cake. We will not leave him with you any more if you do.” “No disparaging remarks about you or your husband or your parenting. If there are, we will leave/you will be asked to leave/I will hang up the phone.”

44

Oh, hey. I think your mother went to the same school mine did – University of Batshit Crazy, class of nineteen-mumbledy-four? Mine uses Dad as her favorite flying monkey, too.

The reason you keep thinking you can change this is that whenever you point out she’s nuts, she says, “I only act this way because you…” When you change the way you act and she doesn’t change the way she acts, you assume you’ve failed to hit the correct button combo on the controller. Really, she’s lying. Oh, she doesn’t think she is – she’s convinced that she only acts the way she does because other people force her into it, so obviously nothing is her fault. But really, you haven’t got a remote control for her, and her telling you that you do is unfair and manipulative, not to mention dead wrong.

Mine started behaving better when I started gaving her one warning that we weren’t going to talk about whatever she was picking on me for and then hung up on her. I eventually moved across the country without leaving a forwarding address.

My mother’s mother was the same way, and let me tell you, crazy + crazy does not equal sane. We spent family holidays at my grandparents’ house. From the perspective of the kid, I can tell you that as soon as Christmas stopped being 100% about Santa and shredding wrapping paper – maybe 5 or 6 – I started dreading having to go over there, and in middle school I started refusing to get in the car, although they didn’t let me get away with it. (I have an awful story about my mother hauling me to a Thanksgiving dinner to do my filial duty with a terrible head cold, after I’d taken too much decongestant and been up the entire previous night. The first time I tried really drinking alcohol was during a family Christmas, because it made them all seem quieter; I got in a bit of trouble, not for getting into the booze, but because apparently I was drinking Mommy’s coping mechanism.) I put my foot down when I got to college and arranged to take everyone else’s work shifts for the holiday season as an iron-clad alibi, ensuring I couldn’t leave for the family dinners. You might think you’re hiding that you’re having a shitty time during the visit, but you aren’t, and if the adults are all miserable then your kid won’t be having much fun either.

45

Thanks for all the understanding comments and especially from those who also have crazy mothers. It’s reassuring to know that I am not the only one who grew up thinking my parents were normal, only to find out my mother was nuts the entire time, and my dad never stepped in to fix any of it. I feel like they really had no business raising children since they were unable and/or unwilling to give us the unconditional love and support children need. I am doing everything in my power to provide that for my son.

46

Pretty much this. Your mother is bat shit crazy. If you’ve known her for 40 plus years and she has never apologized, admitted being mistaken or wrong, etc. as you have stated, she is a severe emotional danger to those around her. You undoubtedly have your own baggage as an inheritance from her. Your chief duty is to your son, who needs to minimize his time around psycho granny.

47

Sock reported.

48

Ecamp I would say one other possibility here is your mother has some form of OCD. Fear of children she cares about getting hurt seems to be a theme with both your son and with you as children, and this isnt typically what you see in borderline or narcissism as such. If it is this kind of thing, its less about ‘being right’ and more about being terrified if what she believes is needed isnt done.

She must be incredibly frustrating to deal with, but this might be worth seeing someone about and getting some more professional help about what the possible issues here are - the situation may not be as entirely unsalvageable as it currently looks, although it is still a strong possibility.

Otara

49

Ecamp1, your mother sounds like mine - she has narcissistic/histrionic personality disorder.

It’s common for husbands of these women to enable their behaviour. It’s also very common for their kids to not realise there is something dreadfully wrong with their mother (who are you supposed to compare her to?).

There is nothing you can do about it, people with NPD are almost impossible to treat.

If you Google the condition and/or narcissistic mothers/toxic parents, you’ll find loads of blogs and sites for those of us who have had to suffer this most insidious, and damn near impossible to prove, form of child abuse.

50

Otara, I know you mean to be helpful and you may well be right, but it is not Ecamp’s job to even pass this idea on, because at this stage even that opens a can of worms that is too much to ask of her. If mom is ill and does not know it, it’s mom’s husband, friends, parents, siblings, physician, cousins, co-workers, etc. who have a responsibility to get her into treatment. All of them failed. Her own children are frankly going to be too damaged to take on that burden, especially 40 years in. This is (probably) not something Ecamp can do, and for that reason, while intellectually interesting, it’s kind of cruel to suggest it.

It doesn’t matter why mom does what she does and did what she did. It doesn’t even matter if there is a way to slowly change it through various forms of drug / behaviour modification therapy, because Ecamp has a young child who cannot be exposed to this any further. What matters is that she is toxic.

51

Im not suggesting she should get her mother to a professional if that’s what you’re thinking, more that she might to see one to talk things through more. I think people are being a bit too prescriptive on the basis of extremely inadequate information.

So I also understand you and others are trying to help her as well, but not convinced your advice is necessarily the best way to go and other possibilities might change the best interventions to be made.

Otara

52

Fair points. This is a really bad week for me and parent issues, as I’m at the tail end of an existed visit. I’m probably projecting more than a little bit.

53

You are right! This is/was a form of child abuse! I never really understood that before. And since my mother was never obviously cruel to me as a child I assumed that I grew up in a house that was abuse-free. But looking back now I see how that was misconstrued as “normal” when it was not. Thank you for that response!

54

Otara and Dr. Drake: I like both of your suggestions. First, my son cannot be around my toxic mother, and second, I should seek some help in learning how to deal with whatever mental condition my mother has. Yes she has narcissistic tendencies, but she was never downright, blatantly cruel, at least not until recently, so her issue is more like paranoia/OCD with a dose of NPD for good measure. Complicated shit…

55

What was the clincher for me, with regards to my parents and kids, was although we could work on boundaries and have a superficially acceptable relationship, all bets were off when there was any kind of stress or crisis.

I didn’t want my kids to have a “grandparent” relationship with people who couldn’t be there for them when the chips were down. The poor kids would be thrown into an adult role of dealing with the batshit crazy.

As sad as your son may be at losing the relationship, there could be a lot more pain for him if you continue it.

If you do sever the relationship, we just simply explained that grandma was doing and saying things we felt were harmful to our family, and that daddy and I had to give her a time out from us. We gradually broached that it may well be permanent. The good thing, at 5 years old, is that kids social spheres open up pretty quickly, and friends will soon be of primary importance in your son’s mind, over extended family.

56

I have a number of friends who have extremely problematic people in their lives (family, lovers, friends) and I regularly have conversations in which the person picks apart everything the toxic person says, pondering whether there’s something they (my friend) might have said or done wrong… I patiently reiterate what we’ve already discussed, help them draw links, and over time, they internalize that reality rather than the one they’ve been fed, but it takes time.

With parents, they’ve spent their entire lives with that reality. That takes time to dismantle. I know from my own psychotherapeutic odyssey how much it takes to disinter and remove these traps and unhelpful ways of thinking: recognize them for what they are and get over them. They are way easier to identify from the outside, and getting rid of them is also infinitely easier said than done.

57

Wow…to find this nearly identical scenario is sadly comforting. So nice to see that while I hate others have struggled with this situation, I’m not alone, nor am I crazy. My mother is a queen bee, narcissistic, selfish beast. I absolutely HATE the way she treats my father, let alone me. He puts up with her snide comments, her overblown agitation at every little thing he does. And he just adores her. It’s unreal. One of the reasons I was divorced is because my ex was truly afraid that I’d turn out like her. Sad, but true. (it’s okay-he wasn’t quite the catch I thought anyway). It’s gotten so bad and she’s almost delusional, will say the most inappropriate things and doesn’t hide her meanness or anger at the world–and it’s all my fault. I get the “Well it’s just too bad you got me for a mother, dear” comments, even in front of my kids (ages now are 14, 18 and 22). I’ve been rather successful in keeping them from her nastiness but it’s gotten much worse recently, even ruining Thanksgiving. “You need to get to know God! The Ten Commandments tell you to honor thy mother!” Um, not when you’re saying hurtful shit to my kids, to me, about me, about anything, treating their grandfather like garbage. So I told her, “No, my Number 1 responsibility to God is to take care of my kids, and I’m protecting them from this bullshit and we are leaving.” So, no Thanksgiving, and she even told my kids, “Well, not sure if and when I’ll see you agan” ==basically saying, I’m cutting off ties with your mother (me). Then when she was basically pushing us out the door, she yells at me: “SHAME ON YOU!!” It’s unreal. And my dad just sits there. It’s happened all my life, and while it had gotten better in the last few years, this “event” this week is just the peak of recent escalations in her behavior. She’s 71, is very lively, active and intelligent (except emotionally). My dad, aka SPineless, is enabling her and probably just desperate for his own self-preservation. I’ve seen him protect her even when she was yelling at/saying hurtful stuff to my kids when they were little, so he’s as much to blame (it’s not just me–I guess he’ll enable her to even hurt his grandchildren). So, I tried to make ammends and have them here for dinner (yes, i know-prob a bad idea)–and didn’t even get a text back, an email, a phone call, NOTHING. So I guess she’s drawing a line in the sand===im’ a horrible daughter, always have been, don’t care about her, blah blah blah. Just sad. Especially around the holidays. And like you, she has NEVER apologized in her life–even after spanking me for something she then right away realized I did not do (yes, these events flash in my mind, even as a 49 year old). The stories are endless, depressing and hard to accept. I need to get that book. And my dad needs to get a backbone. My mom needs to get some meds. Thanks for letting me just get it all out here.

58

1st choice: Move.

If you do remain nearby, do not offer any further assistance - esp the part about driving her. The less mobile she is, the better off your family will be.
Note I am using “your family” to mean you, your husband, and child. That is your family now.

Your parents refuse to accept you as an adult. Your response should be to refuse to recognize them as family members.

I don’t know the routine, but along with your critical medical info you should always have (medical conditions, drug allergy, etc., add the names of your parents with the note that they DO NOT have visitation rights to any of you. The last time you want this loon ranting is when you are sick and weak. I suspect the medical types are familiar with dysfunctional families, and will be happy to have it in writing as patient’s directive.

59

If you’re replying to the OP, you do realize this thread was started in July, 2012, don’t you? The post above yours is the first reply in 16 months.

60

Maybe this requires its own thread but: with so many people chiming in with “my mom’s like this too!”, are there any stats on the gender prevalence of this problematic behavior?

(which, based on comments in this thread, is described as narcissistic/histrionic/borderline personality disorder)