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

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

KayBee I am so sorry for you. I do not know what I would do if my mother started doing that. Oh God, and the cod statistics too..!

My mother has a problem with lady vicars, and with gay marriage, getting more entrenched as she gets older. She was surprised but not disapproving ten or so years ago when a former colleague of hers wrote to say she was having transgender therapy and hereafter wished to be known as Martin. Mother said "I just don't know what to say to her. Him." I wonder if, since then, she's trying more to keep to the agreed line in her marriage - my father died 14 years ago, and his views on gender and sexuality were, er, unreconstructed to put it politely. Do you think your mother might be recalling similar norms from her marriage? Thinking your dad must have been right all along, because of some headline she's seen? I guess in a way it could be a sort of nostalgia for him, whereas when she was a young woman she was looking to the future for her children. Which is to her credit, btw - pity it didn't stick with her!

I've noticed a few comedians lately - I mean professional comedians, I'm not being disparaging - bewailing their parents' and grandparents' "casual racism" as an ugly leftover from the past. I think the socially accepted approach is becoming to sigh heavily, to disagree naturally, but not to feel responsible. You're NOT responsible.

I wonder what percentage of murder victims are black? … but somehow I don't think getting disputatious with her is going to help.

Kay that generation is like that. My mother (88, in a nursing home) lived most of her life in the UK (now in Canada) I've made her an appointment to get her dentures relined at the nearest dental clinic - she's too frail to go far in the para transit bus or she gets sick. I mentioned to her (laying ground work) that the dentists are of middle eastern descent - i.e. they wear long clothing and head scarves (probably of the muslim faith but what do I know or care). Her horrified reaction? "You mean they're pakis!? Good grief. The day I have to shepherd her there and back is going to be a nightmare!.

Oh yeah, my mom is constantly making terrible comments about the dementia patients, in front of the folks. Like "look at that one - she doesn't know what going on." What's amazing is that my dad had Alz for 10 years. Apparently every other member of the family, including the little kids, grew from that experience.....except Mom. She used to refer to people a "colored person" until she got tired of me saying" really - what color? Green, purple".

Why don't you park it and THEN set it on fire yourself. Wouldn't that make you feel better? I know it'd make me feel better after the week I had last week.

My NPD mother, who grew up in the South and raised us in the South, never let us speak negatively of African American people--even tho' my dad was/is a racist. I mean, we were spanked and punished if we did. Now that she's 84 and crazy, her dr's are saying that she only has EARLY stages of dementia. As we were on our way to 1 of her dr appts last week (1 of 2 neurologists), we saw several police & ambulances ahead. It looked like 1st responders attending to an auto accident, but Mom said, "It's probably a black person who killed someone." I said, "Mama, PLEASE!" She knows that I'll correct her and that I HATE it when she talks like that--even tho' I know it's the dementia. Her response was: "Well, you don't read the paper like I do every day." (Unfortunately, I moved back to the South for THIS!). I said, "You DO realize that white people kill too?!" She said, "Yes, but at least 90% of murderers are black." I get nauseated just thinking about it....

No, I told her she could park it on the street in front of her brownstone in Brooklyn, where it wouldn't be musty, although there was a good chance somebody would steal it, or set it on fire. (Setting cars on fire was a fad among hooligans from the nearby ghetto at the time. Now her Brooklyn neighborhood is immaculately gentrified.)

She didn't care for my reply.

Did you not think to offer to put the car in your bedroom, instead? Tsk-tsk.

This is a great topic. My MIL (now with dementia, for extra fun!) Is a big-time narcissist. Everything is about her, to the extent that, when I told her I'd had a roor canal, she replied that she'd never had one because her teeth are "perfect." When my husband and I let her keep her car in our garage while she was in Europe for a year, instead of thanking us, she said the garage smelled "musty" (It's a garage, not a perfume shop.) She'd have to pay elsewhere, and we stored the car for free, but she didn't thank us, just complained that the garage didn't smell like a sunlit mountaintop in Switzerland, or however she thought a garage that had the honor of housing Her Specialness' royal conveyance should smell.

She also has no sense of humor. Absolutely none.

I don't like her, and she doesn't like me. We're polar opposites. Instead of confronting me and clearing the air, she tells lies about me to everyone she knows, her favorite being that I'm a drug addict. I take Sumatriptan for migraines, but it's non-narcotic. I take nothing else. But she's told everybody that I eat Vicodin like candy. What the heck? Every time I'm around her, I get a migraine that makes me feel like my head is full of shards of glass and razor blades. She, in the meantime, is healthy as a very robust horse, except for the dementia.

My mother used to yell a lot very close to my ear. I told her when I was twelve that she was hurting my ears and she just yelled all the more. After that, my hearing started cutting out in the most puzzling way and not only with my mother but in many other situations that made me nervous like oral French tests. Later I had enormous problems with telephones in offices: I was not allowed to touch a phone when I was young and never got comfortable with them. This caused havoc in my life in a subtle, baffling way and made me appear stupid when I was anything but.

Much, much later I realized what was going on. I found out that there are tiny muscles in the middle ear that tense in order to muffle loud sounds and when the person has learned to anticipate a loud sound, the little muscles will start tensing before the sound starts. This is a totally unconscious process designed to protect the ears. It is particularly effective in the young.

By my forties I outgrew this baffling hearing quirk or so I thought. At least, it stopped in any noticeable way. But maybe my hearing function dulled down a bit just because I was older and the little muscles became less effective.

Looloo: I feel your pain (literally). Fortunately, the 1st time I visited this site, I saw a discussion re: being the caregiver of a narcissistic mother. I thought I had written it myself and maybe forgot that I did and that I had dementia, too! Wanna talk about stress and anxiety? But seriously, this site has been a lifesaver. Do a search for NPD or narcissistic personality disorder, either on this site, or Psychology Today or just Google it. The best advice I've been given is to CHOOSE MY BATTLES and remember that it is NOT you. I recently "exposed" (as you put it) or "outed" another family member whose children I'd been taking care of for the last 10 yrs--almost everyone weekend of their little lives. After taking 1 of them to a 3rd psychiatrist for about the "Nth" time, the dr told me that I needed to back off and either report the Mom to child protection services or the child's social worker b/c she not only didn't go to the appts, she stopped MAKING the appts. She's not speaking to me now--which isn't a huge loss--b/c, as you know, relationships with NPDs are 1-sided: it's all about what you can do for them! I don't know about you, but just reading others' stories and knowing that I'm not alone--ESPECIALLY THIS MOST RECENT POST ABOUT BEING THE 'SICK ONE' IN THE FAMILY--really helps. Remember, she's been living with me for 8 months! By the grace of God, I have not yelled at her or done any harm to her, but I WAS suicidal at times, until I started doing whatever the h*ll I wanted to, whenever I wanted to, and vice versa. My NPD Mom has always run circles around me (& I'm the youngest!), and so she expects everyone else to be constantly in motion and productive. Now that I've been resting more and taking better care of myself, she tells people that I'm in bed most of the day, everyday. I finally said (calmly), "Please stop telling people that," to which she replied, "I don't tell people that." She had JUST gotten off the phone w/her brother & had said those exact words!! Crazy-making? Yes, but I just don't care anymore. I don't have the energy to let those stupid remarks get to me. THIS forum has given me even more "permission" to take better care of myself. You do the same, OK? As Ellen says after each show, "Be kind to one another," and I say, "BE KIND TO YOURSELF!" {{{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}}}} and a reminder to everyone anticipating a not-so-happy M's day with their NPD Mom: It's NEVER going to be enough, so keep it simple! LOL!

@overwhelm you need a religion (bored) board. Everytime your parents go on a religion taunt, you win $100. I have a similar Apocolypse bored and have already netted $1 million in 7 months. Of course, I'm using Monopoly money : )

I can't say that I blame you for venting(as you put it)...however, were I in your position there is no way that I could have let all that happen to me...my daughter has Fibro and I know just how low she can get when all the symptoms gang up on her, so i ask you why you are allowing this to go on?
For the sake of your health, and of your relationship with your partner, may I suggest that you pack up and get out of there? There is, in fact, no need for you to hug all this misery to your bosom- the situation won't get better, only worse, and will make you even more paranoid as other people aren't going to be of the help that they could so easily be......there truly is no need whatsoever for you to justify your every action to your mother- you are a person too, and entitled to privacy and respect.......and you are getting neither....
Not enough sleep, and Fibro- headaches don't help! I wish you a clear mind, and the strength to help yourself. Let's face it, no one else will!

Trichsters rock. Looloo I'm so glad you're recovering - and don't give yourself a hard time if you slip a little. I do blame my (non-NPD) mother for that, but only because she gave me the gene! - see Duke University study, c. 2006.

In a word, yes. Both my sister and I have had health issues due to our relationship with our mother. Chronic fatigue and focus problems for me (and I'm also a hair twirler and nail fiddler), heart problems for my sister. looloo, I agree that it's a lousy place to be, waiting for something to happen. But when they refuse to see what's really going on, to take appropriate measures, at some point you have to protect yourself and hand it up. My mom was falling consistently, having blackouts unbeknownst to us. Once we found out, we were able to get her in a SNF, which was the level of care she needed. But she had to blackout,fall and hit her head first. the only good thing of having a mom with NPD is that we are pretty good moms, since we anti-mother....mothering not the way Mom mothered us. And yes, we dread making calls, dread visits. She's driven away her grandchildren, relatives have cut back on calls. But it's good to finally be able to see that this is a toxic relationship and we can control our contact.

I visited my mother in the NH yesterday, taking along a rolling cart for beside her bed. Once again she was on about getting a house and live in staff - been at that one for months. I explained to her if she bought a house, furniture and paid staff in a few months she would be penniless plus of course there would be house taxes, gas, electricity and maintenance to pay for. She was totally convinced that the government would pay house taxes and all household bills {sigh}. Eventually she understood that her plan was impossible, but I'm sure she forgot five minutes later.

Today I dropped off some ginger ale she asked for on my way back from shopping. Every time I visit I'm tired, "nervy" and don't feel well for a couple of days. Only visiting every week or two now.

Onlee, I've read Sandra Tsing Loh's articles about her dad,and completely concur.
Daughterdeb, I'd never considered my mother as someone who was particularly self-controlled or regulated, but it is very true that she is unable to respond to the needs of others -- unless it serves her own immediate needs in some way. And then that relationship is very dysfunctional, of course.

The dictionary definition of narcissism is "self-love". I personally believe that the term "narcissism" has been used to define persons who have such controlled and regulated behavior due to their own neurosis, that they have no ability to respond to the needs of others.
Selflessness is a good antonym, as well as empathy and most OCD patients are guilt prone and overly conscientious from having Narcissistic parents. The list of health complaints of children with Narcissistic parents are hair loss, psoriasis, biting nails, bad nerves, speech impediments, heart palpitation, heart, under and over weight.... and worse yet "self-hate"

Lived their *lives ... as if one *life weren't enough for them. I'm all thumbs when typing from a phone : )
Hang in there. Although it may not feel like it. Ypu got alot of love and support from those on this site.

I hear you, looloo. Pretending to enjoy their company, sacrificing self so that people who've lived their loves can control yours, as if one live wasn't enough for them. I'm so sick of it.
Every week I sit in the waiting room and see sad old faces. Worn out people dragged from doctor to doctor prolonging life that they are already tired of living. And the zombie-like faces of the young who accompany them out having given up their own lives, burdened down, enslaved in servitude to old people that medicine keeps alive prolonging anguish for old and young alike.
I found a great quote on the increasing toll eldery are having pn society on NPR. Sandra Tsing Loh said of her elderly father, “He is taking everything! He is taking all the money. He’s taken years of my life (sitting in doctors’ offices, in pharmacies, in waiting rooms). With his horrid, selfish, grotesque behavior, he’s chewed through every shred of my sentimental affection for him…He’s destroyed my belief in “family” as a thing that buoys one up. Quite the opposite: family is like the piano around Holly Hunter’s ankle, dragging me implacably down.”
Perfecty said!

Onlee, I feel much like you describe right now, as I have an upcoming visit with my mother in a few days. I've also been up all night trying to deal with a matter that would be relatively simple, if I didn't have to factor her ego into it. I'm so sick of having to 'pretend' that I'm doing nothing except enjoying her company when I'm with her -- as if!!! What I AM doing is busting my a** so that she can keep up her pretense of living 'independently.'

Guilt, obligation, high blood pressure, heart palpitations, cringing anytime the phone rings, easily startled, moody, gritting teeth and subsequent headaches. Always tired, neck and back pain, no energy. But that's the way it's always been when I'm dealing with my parents.
I have been hair twirling and rocking to self soothe since I was a toddler. Some of my fondest childhood memories involve rocking, and hair twirling gives me a cascade of great curls, so I consider those features instead of bugs : )
More recently, the last six months or so, everytime I have to physically attend to him (weekly), I have a searing pain in my right side which lasts 4-5 hours after I've returned home. The next day after said visit, my concentration is cloudy, I feel like I've been physically beaten, and I experience a general malaise.
@looloo I completely agree with what you said about boundaries and compassion for yourself and being less able to fake it. I was way late in figuring out these were not normal responses to having to deal with one's parents and the whole narcissistic/boundary thing, and find myself waiting/longing for the day when "something happens" and he can be placed.

Just need to vent feeling overwhelm.
I am caring for my mother she has Parkinson's she is married to my Step-Dad he is always on his computer and I cook for him also and serve them both I am a full time caregiver have been for about 5 1/2 years. but 4 years of that time it was just in the winter then I would go back home and work.Which was 7 hours away including a ferry ride. But not last winter but the one before my Mom ask me to stay along with my partner he was okay with that but now he cannot find work so we are in a bind I receive little pay from my Mom we are in debt and quickly sinking. Sometimes I wonder if I am able to do this job. I get so very tired of hearing the same thing day in and out especially her nagging and religious taunting I said oh my goodness the other day and she went on and on how goodness mean's God and I am saying his name in vain my Step- Dad does some things to help but needs constant direction it's just more handfuls of stress my partner and I pack up and close our house down a year and a half ago and we are in our motor-home on my Mom's property I have siblings that live an hour away once I ask my sister if she could help me for a couple of hours like vacuuming because my back was in pain she freak out and said that our Step-Dad's daughter can come and do it I just said no worries I was hurt because it was me who needed the help? Today was rough I had to clean mold in my motor-home in the bedding area when I was on a break I went into the house to get something out of the dryer and my Mom is going on about a hand towel for her husband I said Mom your laundry is all clean and folded and he can get it himself I am busy and it is my break I was very frustrated when I said it then she was mad at me and wouldn't talk to me or tell me why she was upset so I said sorry for being impatience but man what is wrong with them just go to the freaking closet and grab a hand towel I am not a slave.even if I am trying to have a bodily function she is calling me then I hurry there is so much more I could wright a book don't get me wrong we have good times together but they are stressing me to my limits and I am feeling guilty and having resentment. Help with advice and reassurement.I also suffer from OCD and Fibromyalgia Myofascial pain syndrome neck and back accompanied by fatigue, sleep, memory and mood issues. Yes seen my doctor and on med's

If life is a bowl of cherries then why am I in the pits?

@looloo - where you do from there - as you say and others have had to do, in the case of a stubborn senior (not to mention the other traits) that you simply have to wait it out until something happens e.g. a fall and a further deterioration in their health, that convinces them and/or their doctor that they cannot live alone any more. Do not make up the difference yourself, as she will rely more and more on you. It just postpones the inevitable. I like your statement "the better I'm getting at establishing and maintaining boundaries, and in being compassionate towards myself as well as her, the LESS able I am to fake it with her." I think that is good. Being honest and true to self is the best way for both of you - not always comfortable but the healthiest way. I am moving towards less and less contact. I am looking after mother's business affairs, and working with the professionals to see that she is placed properly. The social worker, as I am sure she is trained to do, is asking if there is any family who will visit. The answer is that mother has burned relationships with family so they are very reluctant. My daughter has said that taking mother out for a meal twice a year with the grandkids is all she can handle. The boys don't try and the local cousin was burned a few years ago. My narc sister comes once a year or so and stirs mother up and leaves a mess for me to deal with. I am stressed by visits or any contact and am at an age when I have to put my health first. My BP has gone up with the stress of the last months, as mother has gotten more and more paranoid. I have PTSD, and startle easily these days. The thought of having to move her once again creates anxiety. No, you are not crazy, but your upbringing was, for sure. Do you really have to make that trip?

@lynne - yes, lifelong PTSD, lifelong higher stress levels, need for recovery and to protect oneself. I have to steel myself for the upcoming move and tell the social worker and psychiatrist that I cannot do this again. We moved mother from her apartment to an ALF, she lasted there 6 months, moved her to an excellent ALF, she started complaining about this and that but has been there 3 years now. The last 9 months she has been impossible, and has been in a geriatric psychiatric hospital since February, with us waiting to find out what to do with her ALF apartment. They have now decided that she needs to be in a mental heath facility I agree and that could have come sooner, frankly, so I will be meeting with the staff next week to discuss the options for her and once again we will have to dispose of some furniture etc. and move the rest to her new unit. Truly, I have other things I would like to do with my time and energy and other priorities in my life that have been put aside, and I can't do that any longer. I will be 77 this summer and time is flying by. I hear you about your mother talking about you going back to those hellish years. Mother had the temerity to suggest that I leave my home, my sig other, my kids and grandkids here and rent a unit in the same AL she is in so I could look after her. She has had these kind of ideas for years. You know what my answer was!

What was it Erma Bombeck said about cherries and pits? Look after you, do what is good for you, be as humane as possible to your narc parent, without harming yourself. ((((((((hugs))))))))

My mother wouldn't let anyone in the house and wouldn't budge either so she manipulated me into selling my home, quitting my career and moving 200km to care for her for four h**lish years. Thankfully I have both medical and financial POA and no siblings to fight with as some do.

Each time I visit she asks if I REALLY like living where I do and wouldn't I like to move?. I think in her N demented mind she thinks I might just love to move back to where we were, live in her gloomy, freezing cold basement, go nowhere, see no-one and wait on her hand and foot 24/7. You're kidding me right?, 2 country acres surrounded by fields and forest, peace and quiet - I love it. The mere thought of going back to that living h**l makes me shudder and feel ill as well as d**ned angry!

Seems to me that your only choice may be to go no contact and even change your phone number if you have to. Sounds harsh but you will never make an N happy and they will keep sucking the life out of you until they die.