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@SoberSassy - since you started the thread, do you want to share some of your NPD experiences with the group?
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Oh of course. I suppose I can’t ask others to be vulnerable, but not open up myself!
That’s probably something I learned from my mom 
Well I was homeschooled and grew up in an extremely fundamentalist religious home.
During my childhood it was my father who was villainized by my mother.
He was just the one trying to teach us the tools we should’ve learned to survive, but he also had to work full time.
So that left me and my brothers left home all day to the narcissist. We were only there for her to control, manipulate and emotionally abuse.
There was no education being had and she only insisted on the homeschooling for complete control. She thrived in the church atmosphere as many of those types do. She put on a good image of being a Christian woman and stay at home mom. All the while spending my father’s savings secretly, turning us against him, keeping us from any education and terrorizing our self esteem.
There’s a lot to it of course, but ultimately me and my brothers were and always will be just objects to use and drain the energy from (if we allow access).
She’s moved on to multiple relationships since my childhood and has left all of those men broke and broken. She’s an embezzler and a fraud.
It’s been an awakening and a challenge to try and accept that she is incapable of love.
Thank you for asking and giving me the space to share. 
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Thank you so much for sharing, I am terribly sorry you and your siblings had to endure all of that 
This really resonates with me, my mom (who is not religious) did everything under the sun to keep up appearances while behind closed doors everything was on fire. My experience is that this makes it even harder on the kids, cause who’s going to believe them when they speak out?
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Thank you hugs
It sounds to me like your mom very much is somebody with some type of NPD (my unprofessional and unsolicited opinion 
)
The masks of the narcissist are some of the most confusing to wrap your mind around. Not only as a child but as someone with real empathy.
We just don’t understand and then we gaslight ourselves into thinking we’re crazy.
Because of THEIR conditioning.
What a circus.
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Or in my case: we rebel and become the black sheep of the family. I am glad I did and managed to break the cycle, it sounds like you broke away from it too?
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@SoberSassy Thank you for sharing. I didn’t dare to ask so I am glad @Dirk asked you to share some. When I read your story I think in your case your mom created by homeschooling you also complete isolation and no one able to see what was going on. How did you deal with the isolation and of course manipulation what comes with it?
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Hi! Daughter of a mother with NPD. So much of what all of you said above resonates with me. I have a bit of a happier ending though. So my mother is the martyr and attention seeking type of narcissist. She didn’t drink and neither did my adopted father. But opportunity was her main focus to satisfy her self centered needs, at all cost. I am thankful for my grandparents who were always there for me. I am also thankful for friends who saw the dysfunction and to this day, still give me love and validation. I was the oldest and target child. I was the nanny to the younger siblings- no childhood or teenage life for me. I felt guilty to being the worst sister until I realized that I was a child, myself, with expectations to be a parent at 10 years old. It’s hard when the biggest bully in your childhood memory was your mother. I married a narcissist at 18 because that’s how I equated love. So, after I was able to escape, my father became the target. She was so so cruel, demanding, demeaning, and hostile. My father didn’t last but 3 years with it. He died of a sudden heart attack at 41. She imploded with no one to attack and the VA got a hold of her (she was an army nurse in the 60s/70s). They treated her with meds, weekly groups, psych assistance monthly, and disability for mh. What a game changer! She’s not the same person now thankfully and we’ve been able to move past a lot. She doesn’t apologize and nor can I corner her because she’ll go into a fit of a pity rage and cry hysterically (some behaviors just don’t leave). Her memory of the past is inaccurate. But, I can only be thankful of a decent adult relationship. Don’t get me wrong- short visits, low tolerance to her b.s., and living 6 hours away is still needed lol My biggest repercussion is that I truly have an issue in believing a person will truly care about me. I struggle with that one and it has been the biggest catalyst to my drinking. But I’m working on it. I also get some pretty nasty trauma responses and hear her sneer and verbal abuse in my ear sometimes. But, again, I’m working on it. And it’s easier to deal with when I’m sober. I feel for you all, and just know, we didn’t deserve any of it. Big big hugs 
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That’s a great question.
I think I was in denial and I allowed her to write the narrative of what took place for my childhood years. I let her make me believe it was my dad who was controlling and emotionally/mentally abusive.
He wasn’t perfect, but he was her codependent and her victim just as much as we were.
With wisdom and experience I now see what happened. I know her patterns. I know how every job, relationship and friendship ends for her.
I’m sure you already know this from your own experience, but narcissistic mothers especially see their daughters as threats. For whatever delusional reason.
She has immeshed herself in all of my friendships and relationships. She tries to compete with me over men. Which I just thought was maybe a normal thing women do 
And the one thing that really bothers me most is something called ‘forced consumption’.
They like to coerce people into eating and drinking things they don’t necessarily want to in order to exert control and show dominance.
As a child that’s what she did to me all the while making me feel like my dad thought I wasn’t skinny enough.
The last time I saw her she tried it again (I’m 39 now) She offered me food and I declined. She insisted. She doesn’t like being told no.
I kept saying no until she practically shoved a fork in my face.
I just looked at her and left. I wasn’t going to give her any reaction.
I now know that was the beginning of my ED’s and substance abuse.
Again, I know these topics are heavy but I think with community we find healing and the source of some of our addictions and emotional issues.
Thank you again for listening and sharing your experiences.
I look forward to learning more. The bad and the good. 🩷
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Oh yes absolutely.
I think that sort of extreme environment usually goes one of two ways. Extreme in my own rebellion and independence in my case.
Some of which I should probably not mention.
I think it’s important that you did. That children of NPD do, because narcissists don’t have a sense of self and they try and rob you of one too.
They are black holes 
What’s a rebellious act you’re proud of? If not all
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Thank you for sharing your story!
What a ride she’s taken you and your loved ones on.
I know it’s a terrible mental disorder, but it’s nice that she’s actually getting some help for it! I think so many of them don’t. Much like with all sorts of disorders. But with that one, they usually have to be able to admit something is wrong with them to begin with.
Your poor dad 
I don’t blame you for escaping. Though it was out of the frying pan and into the fire.
That’s something I hate about it. We learn to equate it with love and seek it in all the wrong ways.
I heard a quote once that said ‘If you haven’t been fed love on a silver spoon, you learn to lick it off of knives.’
It sounds like you’ve found your boundaries with her and know how to love her from afar.
hugs
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Thank you so much for sharing and being open and honest. I hear you. It can’t be easy putting these experiences on (internet) paper for the world to see and I’m so proud of you. Abusive parents can FRO.
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I am making this into a poster for my wall!!! This is good. Something you guys said just now- female narcissists are threatened by daughters. Omg yes! I didn’t catch on to the competitiveness until later… but yes. Why is that?
This is a good thread that you’ve started. I think there’s so much pain underneath addiction and locating it and discussing it is so beneficial.
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And now I have to make two posters 
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I’m going back thru this thread later to reply and digest but while my mind is on what you said @Ravikamor then I will try to explain what I recently heard on a mother wound session I attended.
We are part of the patriarchal system as second citizens. There’s no infinite resources available to women, so women fight with women in our little space given. Historically, this must have been worse…I have hope we are leveling up. You will see countless examples of intra family feminine competitiveness at play. We never question whether a brother or father could back the fuck up. We have to jostle within our female inventory.
The mother cannot allow a daughter to take any resources from her as it’s a perceived slight to take space, and an act of importance (inside the system) to be on top of what you got. Women will cut women in friendships and family systems, because they are safeguarding the droplets of attention and money and sex and prestige they have.
Sad.
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I look forward to reading more about that 🩷
In my personal experience with narcissistic women, mostly my mom is they really use the patriarchal system (or any system) for their own hierarchal agenda.
Whether it be playing the victim or supporting it completely or both.
My mom is definitely a misogynist.
I feel sad that trauma and a flawed system made her the way she is.
Because you’re right, we shouldn’t be fighting amongst other women. We should be supporting and uplifting one another.
I think that was where I had a hard time separating her narcissism from her being a woman.
I did believe she was the victim to the scenarios she created.
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@SoberSassy Thank you so much for sharing. I can’t express the positive effect your story has on me. It gave me so much insight in things I still up to the point of reading your story thought were normal. The whole “ forced eating” thing to me was just labeled in my mind as “ a foster mom over concerned I would not eat enough and yes perhaps slightly abusive” never realized it’s another way of having total control. For you to stand up when she shoved a fork in your face and just leave is so powerful. I went through intense therapy for a year, but, never had to chance to hear stories like this in this topic. It gives me a different perspective. I am curious in general to all reading this: Does anyone still have the fear or anxiety of upsetting people? Does anyone still to this day first put the blame on themselves? Because it seems like the “easy” solution. I still do, like you said some things never go away, regardless how hard you try. I would like to ask please, how would you describe your relationship with your mother right now? If it’s too much of a personal question just say so. I don’t mean to be up in your business. I don’t have any relationship anymore with anyone from the past. So I am wondering what is it like when you do have a relationship and how do you navigate that in a healthy way. Thank you for being so open . I really appreciate it
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Hi @Solange sorry it took me a while to circle back around to this thread. A narcissist doesn’t know they need to change, and it sounds like you are really aware and putting the work in. I commend you, and am sorry you experienced such a rocky start yourself.
Good luck with the future and now, those day to day decisions make all the difference in recovery and building relationships. I hope you and your daughter are in a good place. Thanks for putting in the work on yourself and your relationship, it’s the cycle breaking difference. 
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My mother is a misogynist too! Only men work hard, women just sit looking pretty and getting paid for it (my jobs, any job I had, she put me down as a lazy person doing nothing and getting paid). She enforced that Men need the lion’s share of the food; I used to get the dinner she was making, minus any protein or meat. Instead, she would have two steaks and he would have two steaks, all piled up on their plates… My plate would be just vegetables. 
She would make me and my sister wash up and dry up every single day, even having to take the plate from my brother’s lap. It was so frustrating 
Sending you hugs @Ravikamor, thank you for sharing your experience here. I know those pity and martyr rages well!!! Wow, it was like witnessing an exorcism some days with her on the floor screaming like a toddler!
I’m glad you reached some common ground, and I applaud your use of healthy boundaries. So necessary to maintain, as you deserve nothing to impact your peace. I’m very sorry about you losing your dad so young! 
Hey @Dirk so nice to have you here. I’m really sorry your mom was part of this special club too! Hugs
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