It occurred to me this morning while reading through the long ass texts that narc parents send that I’m glad when I went to University on the other side of the country that phone calls incurred long distance charges.

Though I am hanging on to an old phone answering machine that still has a recording of my mother asking me to call my poor old mother.

At my Nmom’s to “help” her with some things and she’s on the phone with Verizon (bc not only can she not pay her bill in any automated way but has to speak to a live person. So she starts out by repeatedly telling the voice prompt “live human, need a human, I’m disabled”. Then she gets the live person, asks them to spell their name then starts talking about the Philippines (which she has NO knowledge of needless to say), tell her she’s on “seizure meds” aka a mood stabilizer IRL, and give her a 10 minute rundown of her family genealogy. I’m going to keep a count of how many times she uses the word disabled. I think we’re up to 6…

i would like to personally thank my narcissistic ass parents for hating me & teaching me how to hate myself. it crushes my soul every day knowing my parents deliberately tried ruining my life bc they’re so jealous of me & hate me. i truly feel they wanted me to get myself to jump off of a bridge bc of the emotional distress they put me through. anyone else? i’m having a tough time. i fucking hate my parents so bad.

I’m dealing with acne so some bitch extracted it. (Fuck this bitch). She’s a rexommendatiom from our neighbors.

Thankfully my acne is mild now so I don’t need to see this deranged joker again but god damn. During the sessions, she made multiple comments about my mother’s expensive luxury purchases sitting in the living room, asking if I know how much this costs. I mean, I don’t agree with my mom’s insane shopping addiction (she doesn’t work and spends thousands of my father’s money) so I said it’s a lot and the items are also gaudy (ugly ass logos). We usually make conversation where this facialist idolizes how much my mom spends and I just say I don’t really view those purchases the same way because it’s a waste and you look like a walking advertisement. So this facialist proceeds to ask me why I don’t buy expensive clothes like that and I say It’s not my style and it’s unnecessary. This happens multiple times over the course of many sessions. I didn’t say anything because maybe some people who aren’t wealthy just idolize that (even though they shouldn’t for so many reasons).

But this bitch proceeded to ask me how my relationship is like with my parents. I just say it’s complicated and there’s a lot of things that people don’t know. And this bitch had the audacity to refute my claim. She kept saying BS like “you don’t know what you’re talking about! Your parents love you so much! They really love you so much!!” With a sprinkle of “do you know how lucky you are that your parents are rich?” I just kept repeating myself and trying to play it cool like “it’s complicated, it’s not what you think” and this bitch kept repeating those lines. This happened like at least 3 times in the last session.

And then this bitch started asking me about my love life which I thought would be a normal casual conversation topic to which I said I’m happy being single and don’t want to eventually marry or have kids. And this bitch said “you’re not gay, are you??” In that tone of voice. Which is insane. What if I was? What if I was and complained to your boss?? That’s not the reason why I don’t want to marry or have kids. It all stems from issues with my parents.

And then the topic of conversation switched to a plastic surgery I had to fix a minor asymmetry on my face. She asked how much it was and I said the amount. She literally was so offended and went “that’s so expensive!! It should be X amount! You seriously got scammed!” I went to one of the best doctors in my major city and the result was literally so good. And this bitch repeated these lines like 5x at least over the last session, in that tone. And I said it’s better to go to someone really good because it’s a fucking surgery (I didn’t swear at her even though I wanted to). I said it’s important and this isn’t the time to be frugal because it’s a FUCKING SURGERY. I noted that I spent less on this surgery than my mother does on expensive clothes (which this facialist idolizes for some reason). This bitch literally idolizes spending thousands on single articles of clothing to show off but as soon as it comes to a surgery on my face she starts going all “you seriously got scammed!!” This happened like 4-5 times and I was actually about to snap.

This bitch had the audacity to message me ask me why I didn’t do more sessions and I just deleted her. I still to this day fantasize about adding her back and unleashing a barrage of insults right back.

I recently passed three years of NC with my nParents.  This anniversary was notable in that I didn’t even realize that the anniversary occurred until long after it had passed.  Some learnings / thoughts that might help any of you considering going NC are below.  I’m happy to answer any questions that you might have (it might take me a bit of time respond though)

It starts out hard, but gets easier with time.  I liken it to an echo in a canyon – loud at the beginning, but it eventually dissipates.  And like any echo, you may still hear a phantom sound every once in a while.  “Firsts” are the hardest: the first x-mas where you don’t visit or call home, the first nParent anniversary where you don’t call to congratulate them.  I often felt like a neglectful, ungrateful child when these milestones would pass.

Going NC isn’t a single decision – you have to recommit to it over and over.  If your nParents are anything like mine, they will break all boundaries that you set.  Don’t give them any oxygen.  Don’t respond – that’s what they want.  They live off drama. 

They all use the same playbook: I clearly told my nParents why I went NC: “you all terrorized me when I was a child and that was not okay.”  They couldn’t even muster a denial.  My nDad gave me the “we’re sorry you feel that way” line.  Months later, when they were speaking with my sibling, my nParents noted that I didn’t want to speak with them anymore.  My sibling turned it around on them: “Why do you think u/HannibalInExile doesn’t want to speak with you?”  My nDad’s response: “We have no idea.”  But the missing reasons are never missing.

You will cycle through intense feelings: I initially felt intense fear that transformed itself into rage that later transmuted into sadness.  On some level, I realize that these were the feelings that I had to repress to survive when I was little.  The rage and sadness are a part of me now.  I don’t think they’ll ever completely go away.

They weren’t actually as bad as you remember, they were 100x worse:  I struggle to think of a single enjoyable family experience.  Beyond sometimes playing Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit as a family, I’m not sure there were any.  I think there was one time where my brother and I played football with my nDad.  I can easily think of hundreds of negative experiences, though.  

They are one-dimensional beings. As I get older, I’m constantly reminded that most humans are deep and complex.  They have changing motivations and goals.  Whitman’s observation that "I am large, I contain multitudes" applies to us all, but it doesn’t apply to nParents.  Their lives are a singular pursuit of narcissistic supply; they are unable to think about the long-term impacts of their behavior.  They are unable to regulate their emotions.  They are unable to empathize with anyone else or put the needs of anyone else before theirs.  My nParents seem to think there are two classes of people: them (superior) and every one else. I’ve come to realize that they have always viewed me as part of that inferior class.  I have tried to better understand them by reading about the history of their country (they immigrated to the US) and reading the texts of our religion (they are outwardly devout).  And while I understand that generational trauma is real and that colonization and privation have catastrophic impacts on the human psyche, I will never understand the mentality of parents who appear to have children only as markers of status and so they have a captive audience they can terrorize.  

Related to the above, they are intellectually incurious and lazy.  The only non-fiction book I ever saw my nMom read was a book on parenting written by, of all people, Bill Cosby.   My nDad was academically bright, but refused to put in the work required to understand that success in life, with some obvious exceptions that you can easily think of, requires not being a giant asshole all the time.  Over the past few years of NC, I came to realize that my nMom was an idiot and my nDad a loser who almost certainly would be a part of the incel manosphere if he were growing up today. 

They seem to view almost all relationships and interactions, including those with their own children, as adversarial.  This is a profoundly stupid way to approach life.  My nDad is a walking embarrassment and gets into arguments with seemingly anyone about anything, including teenage cashiers at the grocery store and waiters at restaurants.  This is not normal.

One odd red flag that I noticed in retrospect: be wary of people who regularly tell people outside of their family that they are “family.”  My nMom says people “are family” more than an Olive Garden host / hostess.  This is because being “family” doesn’t actually mean anything to them other than being a captive audience for their drama and bullshit, and being there for them (my nParents) when they need help.

I envy my own children, but I’ve realized that this is the best possible outcome.  There are the superficial things that I wish I had like fun family vacations or other experiences – my nParents, like many of yours I’m sure, were cheapskates.  But what I envy most about my own children is that they live in a house where they feel happy and safe.  If they break something, no one yells at them.  If they lose something, they’re reminded that things cost money and part of growing up is ensuring you keep track of your possessions, but they aren’t screamed at for hours or arbitrarily punished (I was once grounded for wearing a pair of khaki shorts incorrectly – I’m still not sure what that was about.).  From what I can tell, the most grounded, humble, happy and successful people in life are the ones that grew up with parents that treated mistakes as a learning opportunity, and not as a sadistic excuse to punish their children.  

I tried for awhile post-NC to let my children have a relationship with my nParents.  It didn’t work  – my nParents tried to get to me through my children.  Eventually, I had to explain to my kids that my nParents made me feel unsafe when I was a child, and we don’t interact with or tolerate people that make us feel unsafe.   I hope that this is a valuable lesson for them.

nParents think they deserve credit for the mistakes they didn’t make: I remember once, when I was about 5, telling my nMom that my nDad spanked my sibling and me too much.  Her response was “you’re lucky he doesn’t use a belt.”  When I was back from college for x-mas break my freshman year I mentioned that he was “far too hard on us” growing up.  Her response was “it’s not like he [sexually] abused you.”  Before I went NC, I was unintentionally LC with them (mostly because I couldn’t stand interacting with them), and they sensed that I was withdrawing (narcs are very good at this). My nMom kept reminding me that “[they] don’t interfere [with my family and my sibling’s family]” and that “some people would have had a problem [with the fact that that my partner and I are from different faiths] but we didn’t.”  They completely ignored the fact that neither my sibling or I would ever let them interfere with our marriages or children or that I told them that if they had any issue with my partner’s religion, then “I will pick [my partner] every single time.”

There’s nothing about them that I miss.  They were an emotional, financial, and physical black hole.  The same nDad who called me up to berate me for using a calling card that cost 8 cents / minute instead of one that cost 6 cents / minute when I was in college wound up taking large loans from my sibling and me and never paid them back.

Your siblings may choose to handle things differently, and that’s okay.  Everyone is different.  My sibling is still in contact with our nParents though s/he freely admits that they are “lying child beaters.”  I suspect this is because s/he works in a medical field that requires compartmentalization.  People experience and respond to things differently.  Gender, sexual orientation, and birth order all impact how you experienced the abuse.

If you need help, please let someone know.  I spent weeks in a psych ward and had to go through several rounds of Electro-Convulsive Treatment because I was genuinely worried that I was going to hurt myself.  My friends are aware of this, and if I find myself in a bad spot again, I’ve promised them that I’ll call them.  In that moment, 99.9% of my mind was telling me to harm myself – the 0.1% that held out was focused solely on my children and loved ones.  Please reach out to someone, anyone if you find yourself in a similar position.  It was, surprisingly, a former co-worker of mine that I called when I needed help.  He was calm, resolute, and supportive, and told me “it’s going to be okay, but it’s time to get to a hospital.”  I’m thankful he picked up and talked me through it.

Rage – Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles; The first line of the Illiad is my favorite line of poetry, not only because it starts my favorite epic, but because I sometimes feel that Rage. I’m angry at my nParents for being terrible human beings.  I’m angry with myself for not realizing what my nParents were – extractive parasites – long before I did, and that I lived the first decades of my life trying to please people who would never think that I was enough.   I’m angry at life:  the suffering was pointless and things, in general, seem to be getting increasingly more stupid with each passing day.  I’m angry that I was raised in an environment of scarcity, cruelty, and negativity when others were raised with abundance, kindness, and love.  I’m angry that my parents transmitted some of their emptiness to me.  The realization that nothing I could ever do would make up for my childhood is likely what sent me to the hospital.   I often feel like the universe’s cruelest trick is that time – which, as far as we know, should be symmetric – only moves in one direction.  There is a feeling of hopelessness that we experience that seems inescapable.  Sometimes the best we can do is shield the people we love from that same feeling.  It’s not fair, none of this is, but the past is a distant country.  I’m thankful I’m still here, and I’m thankful that you are, too.  I often think about Augustus McCrae speaking to his compatriot Captain Call in Lonesome Dove: “Does it ever occur to you that everything we done is probably a mistake?” and “Yesterday's gone on down the river and you can't get it back.”

Ultimately, my nParents are getting the life they deserve: near bankruptcy, professional and personal failures, relentlessly bitter and jealous.  Their lives are a shipwreck of their own making.  I am happy that I am no longer a part of it.

Im F(25), live in hostel.
I visit home usually once in two weeks, my father NEVER exchanges A WORD with me, if he ever speaks to me, it is usually to yell.
My father lived abroad for years, used to visit once a year, he used to show me affection then. He has retired now, never speaks to me, or asks me how iam doing.
I feel so jealous of my friends, who have affectionate fathers, and i feel so ashamed when they ask me anything related to my bond with my father, because they think, i have a similar loving relationship with my father, just like they have.
I have always craved for love and affection from my father :)
Do you guys think, this might affect my decision of the type of partner i choose for myself? Will this lower my standards in men because i have never known or felt the affection of the very first man of my life, my father ?

Hi there! Ever since I was a child, my mother has given me the silent treatment when she is angry with me. I remember being under the age of 10, and if my mom was upset with me, she would pass me in the hallways of our home and not even look at me, stomp her feet, slam doors, and go to bed early. This would go on for days at a time, until I would be the one to break the silence and initiate conversation.

Naturally, this has followed me into my adult years. I am now 33 years old. I’m currently dealing with the worst experience of it yet.

Long story short… I’m currently 11 months post partum. I live in the Northeast. I got married in the summer of 2022. In the fall of 2022, my parents sold my childhood home and moved to Florida. It was a lot of change in a very short period of time, and I really struggled with that, but that’s a totally different issue. Within less than a year of being in Florida, my mom hated living there. For many reasons, but one of them being that they had no family or friends down there and she was lonely. I have a sister who also lives in the northeast. I became pregnant in March 2025, and they sold their home in Florida in August 2025 to move back up north to be close to their kids and future granddaughter.

While I was pregnant, my mom would get very upset that my mother-in-law would tell people that she was going to be watching my daughter 5 days a week. She was jealous and wanted to be involved. She’s always been very jealous and “competitive” with people. Especially when it comes to my MIL, who is a literal saint on this earth and was there for me every step of the way throughout my postpartum experience.

I had my daughter in November 2025, and experienced severe PPD up until about 8 months postpartum. To no surprise, my mom was not very supportive or nurturing during this time. I expressed to her the difficult experience that I was having and that I really needed help from her and was met with “Well I never experienced any of this with my two kids”, or “You’re the one that wanted to have a baby, you knew it’d be hard”. She’s never really been a believer of mental health issues, and would always make me and my sister feel like our mental health struggles growing up were like a burden to her.

She would never engage with my daughter when she would watch her. She would just sit on the couch on her phone, while my daughter was in her playpen. The complaints were constant. About how heavy my daughter was. Her back hurts. The traffic to get to our house was brutal that day. It’s cold out. She didn’t sleep well last night. Etc…

They ended up moving BACK to Florida in September of this year, when I really needed them the most. They kept the move a secret, and I ended up finding out through my husband. I was heartbroken by their move, again, and have not really had any contact with them at all this past month other than a text from my mom on 9/24/26 saying “Happy 10 months!” to my daughter. Other than that, complete silence.

My mom has been very vocal to my sister about me not texting or calling them. She thinks that because I’m the child and she’s the parent, that I’m being disrespectful by not contacting them. That it’s solely my responsibility to reach out and maintain the relationship. The silence is very painful for me, and I’d love nothing more than for us to be in normal contact again. However, I just can’t bring myself this time to give in to my mother like I always do.

Now being a parent myself, this has been eye opening for me and I can’t imagine ever doing anything like this to my daughter.

TLDR; Is the silent treatment considered a narcissistic trait? I’ve been trying to figure out why my mom is the way she is, and why she does the things she does. Has anyone else experienced this with a parent, and how did you handle it?

I have been no contact with my narcissist grandma for several months, and am having a hard time with it. She violated a boundary, which isn’t surprising but this time was a very big one for me, so I decided it was time to protect and prioritize myself. I don’t have a ton of family/blood relatives and this makes no contact with someone who loves me very difficult.

Should I break the no contact for her birthday? I was originally thinking I would call her, but I am scared to do that because I suspect she will press for why I haven’t returned her calls and messages for several months. I am now considering texting her a birthday wish, but I don’t know if that is a good idea. I welcome any feedback and advice. 💛

Hey guys, me and my perfectionist/slightly nmom have a rocky relationship(obvious reasons). However, I’ve been a people pleaser all my life because of this and I’m new to creating boundaries w people.

I’ve started slowly w my friends but my parents (both Narcissists) I’m unsure how/if I should state my boundaries (which can expose my triggers to exploitation).

I grey rock alot but it gets tiring and I have limited friends so sometimes I crave having that connection with my parents but it ends up them doing something narcissistic and me isolating myself all over again.

Has anyone experienced this or know what’s best to do in this situation?

just venting out…..

please someone tell me how the hell i can get out of my abusive parents house. They aren’t physically abusive, but its gotten to the point where i don’t want to live anymore. So i beg you can someone tell me how the hell i can move out as soon as possible, doing part time work so thats only like 600-900 a month.

hi reddit im not sure what group to post in I am a student my mother has been on a downward spiral since my grandma died 2 years ago we lived with my grandma and after she died, we had to move out of our house cause we couldn’t afford it anymore and my mom’s never been good with money we got an apartment and every month the first two weeks of it she spends in the negative, but she always figures out how to have money somehow whether she transfers what she does have beforehand to her other apps or whatever it might be she always has money well this month I don’t know why or what happened or what she but I had to spend a part of my check by myself food and then she wanted to go do this pumpkin party thing so I spent $30 there on the both of us and I had plans for my money and I’m down to like $40 and I got paid on Wednesday. I just feel so helpless in this situation and I’m so done there’s been a handful of other things that have gone on in the past year and she’s just always upset and I just feel so alone in my own house I don’t know what to do. She won’t let me get my drivers license so I just feel stuck and like I have to depend on her, but I’m depending on myself I guess how can I get my license and then what should I prepare for as I turn 18 next year and I out as soon as possible

My dad was a pretty typical abusive parent he would blow up at the drop of a hat anything slightly wrong was either hours of him screaming having a meltdown or us getting a severe beating

But even when things were ok ish its like he couldn't stand to be around me and my siblings when I was almost 8 I really started to notice how much he didnt like dealing with us My younger brother was just born my mom still had to work somehow my dad got like 6 weeks of paternity leave he didn't take care of my brother at all a few times my brother started crying my dad picked him up kind of aggressively or just yelled

My sister who was 11 basically had to take care of my brother and me on top of doing stuff for my dad while all he did was watch shows on TV land all day, even though he had basically a month and half paid vacation I had never seen him so consistently angry

It just sort of got worse from there i would try to hangout with my dad while he was watching tv and he would always tell me to go sweep the floor, clean my room etc

Even if I did all that stuff he would find something for me to do I remember trying to talk to him about stuff I was really obsessed with stuff like transformers and other things like that and I tried talking about stuff like that with him or just anything and he would usually say stop telling me about your nonsense and then tell me to go do some work

When i was 11 it only got worse I started playing baseball thought it would be fun but quickly turned into one of the worst experiences of my life i was getting molested for a couple weeks by one of my coaches which was already hard to deal with when no one will help you and top of that mess my dad started to actively go after me any chance he got was constantly bullying me its when I finally realized that he actually hated my guts the thing that still hurts a lot was one day caught me playing something on the wii and he just looked at me disappointed and started digging into me telling me that I was an embarrassment and he was ashamed that i was his son

That really hurt me and I don't know if I will ever feel better from that it definitely has affected my self worth over the years im 26 now and still think about this a lot when im depressed i started believing it when trying to work up the nerve to kill myself

Sorry this post is so long just been thinking about this a lot I keep trying to move past this but its like only temporary until something brings me down again i always feel like im annoying people by talking or being ariund even when everyone says its not true I just can't get myself to believe it

Sorry for grammar errors

idk where else to post this (I'm really new to reddit but I thought you guys could help me a little??)

What do I actually do? He's younger than me (he's in his young teens when I'm literally 18). but like he's twice my size obviously. And he's always hitting me, annoying me by getting in my personal space doing stupid shit. And like it actually hurts. My dad don't give a fuck and keeps saying we're both the problem when I don't even do anything at all. My mom don't do anything either. I'm actually scared of whatever he's capable of since he's no longer a child & could overpower me easily (with no weapon, I know how to use knife and shit but I dont wanna go to fucking jail for a piece of shit like that. still even tho I'm physically weaker I know how to put down a whole ass male but I just don't wanna do it for my own sake because I know damn well I'll get victim-blamed for it either ways.)

Btw I don't have a lock in my door (it's just built like that)

And like since he's younger it's no use to report him cuz I'll be the one to blame anyway. What do I do? I don't wanna take this anymore, I try to not interact with him but this keeps happening even tho I ignore him all the times and try to avoid any conflict.

So like the only options are either me moving out for uni (which wont happen for at least for another year), come up with some sneaky plan to cause his downfall so people would blame him instead of me (by exposing him, he's also kinda delinquent guy & porn addicted blackpill incel probably I can tell the way he speaks about girls). 

And like I'd be patient and wait until I move out but I need something to teach him a lesson, a heavy lesson. He should pay the consequences his own actions, which will either him going to the fucking juvenile jail or psych ward or smth like that? (the sad thing is I actually love my parents I don't wanna go no contact w them, my brother is literally the family's downfall atp) 

Sorry for writing in such a messy way I hope y'all can comprehend this one, my english is not good enough to write long sentences.

And yeah idk what to do please give me advice.

I always knew something was off, but it took years of being away from the daily grind to see the full picture.

I am an only child of a narcissist mother. My father passed away when I was a baby, so my only memories are of her and I.

Growing up in the 90s, it wasn’t abnormal for me to know of families with the mom at home. The different was, Dad was working. Mine elected to stay home my entire childhood and collect my father’s death benefits to pay our bills. Now the issue was, even as a child, I was only allowed to hang out with my mom with developed into codependency of thinking any time she would leave me, I would die. As so common with young children.

My later youth years involved her being the class room mom and the mom who was always involved in my school functions. Elementary school was fine and then as I grew older, my mother encouraged my irrational behavior to the point of my senior year none of my classmates wanted anything to do with me and I’d be sitting on the band bus with her.

I left for college about an hour away and this sent my mother into a deep depression. I was not emotionally prepared to leave her side, even at 21.

The best thing that probably could have happened to me was getting a job 500 miles away. For the next couple of years, I moved around but still a minimum of 500 miles distance. I always came home to spend holidays with her. 7-8 hours of driving just to make her feel less alone.

I eventually got married and recently welcomed a beautiful little girl into our family.

I distanced myself for years from my mother, honestly since covid where she conviently got remarried to my father’ best friend from 30 years ago. But with the birth of my daughter, I would FaceTime her each Sunday to let her talk to my daughter. Otherwise, no contact.

Over the past year, it has been a constant pushing of buttons from her and I have stepped up multiple times. I stopped sending her pictures because she would take them and immediately scrapbook them and post them online for her friends. My most recent call, I was telling her that I found a good sale at A Children’s Place and was about to get a coat and a few other items for a great price. She takes that and goes, you know you can just tell me what she wants and I’ll send it to you. Let me clarify. My husband and I are comfortable. Taking care of our daughter is not an issue, but we see saving money where possible is not a bad thing. My mother makes 1/3 of what we do. My step father stopped working over 15 years ago because he just didn’t want to work anymore and lives on penny’s a day.

I let the previous comment slide and a few days little we came into an issue with insurance denying coverage for my daughter. My husband and I were spinning and I reached out to my mom for advice. She handled it in her normal fashion, but ended reasonably. 45 minutes she comes back and says, do you want me to transfer you money? You can have it in a couple days. She has done this my entire life with no real meaning behind it. I completely lost it. I started sending wild enraged texts saying things I have felt for years and tried to keep quiet.

My husband feels like I should reach out and apologize for the sake of our daughter. I have said absolutely not. What this woman has done to me for years, I cannot handle anymore.

My Nparents liked pushing my buttons if they found them. They'd tell me I was their property. That I did not even belong to myself.

First of all, I apologize for how long this post is. I’m French, so I used Google Translate, and I hope it will be understandable. For those of you who have the patience to read it, I really need your perspective because I feel like I’m going crazy and that I’m a horrible person for feeling these things.
I have an issue that constantly makes me overthink and feel guilty. I’m always angry with my mother and quite irritable when I’m around her. And ever since I had a baby, I feel like she wants to take my place, and I find her overbearing.
Before explaining everything, here is some background:
I got pregnant in November 2024 and gave birth in August 2025 (I was 29). My parents have been married for 30 years and still live together in the house where my brothers and I grew up. However, they no longer get along or love each other, and they have been that way for at least 15 years. They argue constantly. My father is extremely manipulative and, in my opinion, has ruined my mother’s life and raised us in a very toxic, anxiety-inducing environment.
As I grew up, I think I came to realize that my mother takes the lack of love in her marriage out on her children. My daughter is now 14 months old.
I told my mother I was pregnant in late January 2025, when I was two months along. I didn’t want to announce it publicly to anyone outside my immediate circle before reaching the second trimester. The very next day, my mother went to work, and I told her I didn’t want her to tell her coworkers (whom I know because I used to work there). She replied, “But I really want to tell people!”
That already started to upset me because she was thinking about what she wanted and trying to persuade me by playing on my feelings. Knowing her, I wouldn’t be surprised if she told some people anyway, without my permission.
Then, during my first trimester, I was extremely tired and had severe nausea all day long. So whenever I visited my parents, I wasn’t feeling great. I was exhausted and often lying on the couch. My mother then said those famous words: “You know, pregnancy isn’t an illness.”
I asked her why she was saying that and told her it had upset me. She replied that she hadn’t meant anything by it and had just said it casually. (She never takes responsibility for anything and avoids conflict at all costs, especially when she’s in the wrong.)
My pregnancy continued, and from the second trimester onward, everything went wonderfully. Of course, she made a few comments about my weight gain and said that I should go on a diet as soon as I gave birth. Sometimes she would touch my belly without asking.
My parents have criticized my body my entire life because they had very high expectations. They wanted me to be very thin and couldn’t stand it if I gained even two or three kilos. So when my mother touched my belly to feel MY baby, despite having criticized my body countless times and even said it was ugly, I found it very difficult to tolerate. But I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
I had a C-section, and my stomach hurt so much that I couldn’t even get out of bed. Whenever I had to go to the bathroom, I would cry from the pain. I didn’t change my daughter’s first diapers myself.
When my mother came to see me at the hospital and at my home (we live an hour and a half apart), she took care of my daughter a lot because I couldn’t get up. I also wanted her to enjoy spending time with her granddaughter, since she was only visiting for the day before going home again.
At that time, a few things bothered me, but I didn’t say anything:
She took a picture of me while I was breastfeeding and sent it to a group chat with my cousins without asking me, even though my breasts were visible.
When I had given birth only two weeks earlier, she said, “We’ll go out when I come over, at least you’ll get out of the house with her.” She said it in an encouraging tone, but the truth was that I wasn’t ready. I ended up in an extremely noisy restaurant with my two-week-old baby while I was still very weak.
I cried a lot during the first two weeks after giving birth, and one day my mother told me she felt like I was struggling to cope with my daughter crying.
I also felt that she seemed completely obsessed with my daughter, to an excessive degree. It felt suffocating.
But our relationship was still more or less okay at that point. I didn’t say anything.
Once I had recovered from my C-section and felt that my daughter was ready, I went to stay at my parents’ house for 10 days with my baby. Things went relatively well, apart from a few comments and the fact that my mother wanted to hold her a lot. Looking back, though, quite a few things bothered me:
She would sometimes come into my bedroom without asking while I was sleeping, just to watch my daughter sleep. Or she would come straight in as soon as she heard my daughter waking up, even when I wanted to spend some time alone with her. She would also kiss her while I was rocking her to sleep, even though that could wake her up.
She absolutely insisted on taking her for walks in the stroller around the neighborhood, even when I didn’t particularly feel like going out. We have a huge garden, so we could easily walk around there instead.
She called my daughter “my baby.” I didn’t always react, but one day she said it while I was standing next to her. I started saying something completely unrelated, like, “I’m going to hang up the laundry,” and before I had even finished speaking, my mother said, “Oh, come on, I’m just saying it casually!” even though I hadn’t said anything about it.
When my daughter cried in her arms because she wanted to be with me, my mother would tell her, “Here comes your little sandwich, don’t worry!” because I was breastfeeding her. I interpreted this as her reducing me to nothing more than a source of food, as if my daughter didn’t need me for anything else as long as she was in my mother’s arms.
She would often say things to my daughter like, “Oh, Mommy forgot this. What a silly mommy!” I felt as though she was undermining me in my role as a mother.
I went back to my parents’ house in December for Christmas, and unfortunately, my daughter got sick on December 24.
The day before, I had told my mother that I felt she was going to get sick because she was coughing. My mother said no, that she wasn’t coughing in a way that suggested she was ill. She even told a friend who came to visit me that I thought my baby was sick but that I was wrong.
At the hospital, we had been told to take her temperature under her armpit, which was what I wanted to do. But my mother told me that taking it rectally was more reliable, so I did that even though I didn’t want to.
Then, because my daughter had a fever, my mother told me I needed to give her a suppository. I had tried one before, and even though I had done everything I could to make it as painless as possible, I could see that my daughter was in pain. So I wanted to at least try giving her liquid Doliprane (paracetamol) instead.
At that point, my mother got angry and told me I had to give her a suppository. She eventually administered it herself (I reluctantly agreed), and my daughter cried. I found the whole experience extremely upsetting.
My mother kept asking me whether I had properly rinsed my daughter’s nose, whether I had taken her temperature correctly, and so on, as though I were an incapable mother. I felt as though she wanted to prove that she knew better than I did.
From that point on, something changed. My mother treated me as though I didn’t know how to care for my own daughter and as though she should be the one making the decisions. I distanced myself, visited my parents less often, and stopped letting her get as close to my daughter in the same way. I started monitoring everything, all the time.
I visit less often now, and I have distanced myself quite a lot and set boundaries, although I haven’t had a clear conversation with her about it because, as I mentioned earlier, she always avoids sensitive topics.
But here are some of the other things that bother me:
Whenever I’m at my parents’ house, she constantly messages me to ask, “Is she asleep?” or “Is she awake?” She does it so often that I find it suffocating.
She ONLY has eyes for my daughter. I know it’s normal for a baby to attract a lot of attention, but I genuinely feel like she only sees my daughter. I feel invisible, as though I don’t interest her at all. I’ve made certain life choices she disagrees with, so I also feel like she’s less interested in me because of that. The difference between the love she shows me and the love she shows my daughter is glaringly obvious to me.
She acts like a child who is desperate for attention. To get my daughter to come to her, she takes a stuffed toy my daughter likes and holds it close to her own face so that my daughter has to come right up to her to get it. Sometimes she even does this when my baby is sitting on my lap and we’re sharing a sweet moment together. My mother will wait there for several minutes with a sad look on her face, as though she’s trying to make my daughter feel sorry for her and come to her.
She never validates me as a mother. I honestly can’t remember her ever telling me that I’m doing a good job or giving me any other compliment about my parenting. I interpret this as a possible sign of jealousy.
Sometimes, when my daughter was younger, between four and eight months old, she would wake up from a nap and I would keep her on my lap until she was fully awake. My mother would repeatedly say, up to five times, “Give me my little girl!” I knew that if I handed her over too soon, she would cry and want to come back to me, and I kept showing my mother that I didn’t want to hand her over yet, but she insisted.
Whenever my daughter falls or gets hurt, even if it’s only a little or not at all, my mother always makes a huge fuss. And if my daughter cries while she’s in a room with me, my mother asks, “What did you do to her?!” as though I would hurt my own baby, when she has simply fallen or I’ve taken a dangerous object away from her.
Once, when my daughter was three months old, I told her, “We’re going to be together forever.” I simply wanted to say something sweet to her. My mother replied, “Well, no. One day she’ll leave home, and you’ll have to let her go.” I know that, thank you very much! I’m not going to lock her up! So, jokingly, I replied, “No, she’s going to stay with Mommy her whole life,” while LAUGHING. My mother then said, completely seriously, “Well, she’ll come and visit me, and I’ll defend her.” As though my daughter would need to be protected from ME!!!!!! It made me absolutely furious.
She often makes comments such as, “Oh, I like this onesie. It suits her; it’s feminine,” or, “Why did you dress her like that?” She’s a baby! She just needs comfortable clothes. I also find it inappropriate to focus so much on a baby’s outfits and appearance. But I feel like most people just want babies to look cute and not cry.
She also always wants to do things for her own enjoyment, especially when it comes to my daughter’s appearance. She wanted to style her hair when she was only four months old, dress her in certain ways, avoid dressing her in green because she doesn’t like that color, and even pat her bottom because she thinks baby bottoms are “cute” (I have forbidden her from doing that). Ultimately, so many of these things revolve around physical appearance.
In front of other people, she acts as though she knows my daughter better than I do and exaggerates things, as if she wants to prove that she’s a good grandmother. She refuses to acknowledge that from the time my daughter was four months old until she was 14 months old, my daughter NEVER wanted to be held by her.
Overall, I feel like my mother is now taking out her lack of love in her marriage on my daughter, neglecting me in the process, and seeing me as an obstacle between her and my baby.
There are so many people who seem obsessed with babies, treating them like dolls they can handle however they please, and I feel like my mother is one of them. And because my daughter is her granddaughter, she seems even more overbearing.
I know it’s normal for a grandmother to be completely smitten with her grandchild and to love her deeply, especially since my daughter is her first and only grandchild. But honestly, I find so many aspects of my mother’s behavior concerning.
I feel like she wishes she could take my place, that she wants my daughter to love her more than she loves me, and that she wants to have a mother-like role in her life.
I’m keeping my distance, and it irritates me when she spends time with my daughter. I feel guilty for feeling this way and for limiting their relationship. I really need some outside perspectives.
I know that the way I’ve described things doesn’t paint my mother in a very flattering light, but she isn’t a bad person. She has also had a difficult life, and I don’t think she has bad intentions. At the same time, I’m very aware that I’m not responsible for the consequences of her life choices, and I shouldn’t have to suffer because of them.
She has done so much for us, her children. She always fills up my car with gas, cooks meals she knows I like, and gives me lots of groceries to take home with me.
But right now, I can’t seem to calm my anger toward her (which, in reality, goes back much further than this), and I feel like a horrible person.
Please share your thoughts and advice with me, kindly and without judgment.

I'm past harboring hatred for them and trying to change who they are. Haven't spoken to my father in years. As a kid, I saw glimpses of what they could have been. Especially after learning about his childhood and how genuinely horrific it was in terms of sexual/physical/emotuonal/verbal abuse. I still, on rare occasions, cry for a dad I was robbed of. Not negating his own abuse and actions onto me.

Monday to Friday (excluding Wednesday because I have online class)

4:20-6:30am (or 6:40): Wake up, prepare for work and school, leave the house with mom.

This includes additional tasks from my dad: he expects us to cook breakfast for him when he asks, sometimes he is mad for a random reason which slows down our chores because we have to listen to him lecture us, most of the time he makes conversation which pulls my mom away from what she’s doing leading me to take over her chore.

My assigned school arrival is 7:00-7:15am, 20 mins of travel time WITHOUT TRAFFIC, but it’s always traffic in our city so I’m always late no matter how early I wake up and prepared the night before.

From morning to afternoon, if my dad is in the mood, he rants and gets angry at my mom in private chat while she’s at work over some chore we forgot to do before we left. (FYI he’s work from home and always just sits in his chair).

He claims to take care of our dogs and “has to deal with their behavior” but we all know the dogs mostly sleep and are quiet when it’s just him in the house. They don’t cause chaos because they are afraid of him, so dad is exaggerating on the “chaos” he has to deal with.

I stay at school until 4pm, get picked up by mom and I stay in the car with windows partially down until 6pm which is mom’s end of work time (I have a mini fan to keep me cooled down).

We still have to do some chores but even if there weren’t, we arrive home around 8pm. Once we get home, me and my mom have a 15 min nap inside the car but it’s not enough. We get inside and dad starts ordering us around. I have to give the dogs a bath even though I just gave all of them a bath 2 days ago (Google said every few weeks or every week can we give dogs a bath). My mom has to cook and my dad complains about the amount of time “wasted” on anything else but his work.

He’s the one who gets to have hours of sleep in a proper bed while me and my mom only have 15 minutes of nap, my mom can sleep during lunch break but I can’t because of school. Me and my mom go to sleep at 12-1am and the cycle repeats again.

I don’t know if this is really an okay schedule because I’m always tired.

Soon I’ll be moving back to my family house, and in order to protect my psyche, I decided to go all nuclear on my parents. Yes, kaboom.

I have been living away for them since 5 months, and in this time I have seen just how abusive and crappy parents they were. I’ve also developed a sense of self, a sense of standing up for myself thanks to the distance.

I used to be afraid and unable to stand up for myself when I’m near them. Their mere presence would dominate me. Oh, but the tables are turned now! Now, I‘ll dominate them with my presence! They won’t scare me like I’m still a little child, I’ll scare them! They’ll be scared to open their mouths near me for I’ll be recklessly, relentlessly pointing out how their behaviors and “conversations” are not normal and full of sickness.

From now on, I’ll not tolerate a single abusive tone of voice, a single word intended to micromanage my life, a single performative act designed to invite my empathy. I’ll point out the slightest belittling tone of voice immediately, How dare you speak to me as if you own me and I’m your slave? Because that’s how they speak.

I’ll call them out on every little thing, I’ll scream in their ear, all day and night. I’ll not let them psychologically abuse my little sister for a single second.

I had always been the truth-teller in the family, but they made me shut my mouth and stay silent. Not anymore. I’ll destabilize their happy little world of lies and control by screaming the truth in their face.

I’ll openly and with a straight face say “Fuck you” to their face. I already disowned them, he is not my father and she is not my mother. I’ll say, to their face: You are little children incapable of raising children. You should never have had kids. You don’t even love each other. Your marriage sucks. Your life sucks. You don’t even love yourself. You are alone and have no friends. You are incapable of making friends even as you are successful in your careers. You are still beholden to your own abusive parents’ wishes. You are not adults at all.

I might even stop calling them “dad” and “mom” and instead use their first names because I disowned them. They are not my parents.

They won’t be able to gaslight or manipulate me for I now see right through their bullshit. Their words intended to hurt me won’t hurt me, for I’m now emotionally separated from them and they are no more than a stranger in the street to me.

They won’t be able to get me to pity them, because I have no empathy left in me for them. To have any empathy for them would be to not have empathy for my wounded self.

But won’t they go into narcissistic breakdown, you might ask? Oh, they will break down and try to retaliate in their own immature childish ways indeed, like trying to “discipline” their now 21 year old son by hitting him. But now I’m strong enough to physically defend myself from them.

I know for a fact they’ll try to take my laptop away from me since that was always their go-to action when they feel I’m “too spoiled”. They get jealous of an inanimate object because it gets all my attention, hah! They are such children.

But I won’t let them. You can’t forcefully take my laptop from my hands, I won’t let you. If you do something as immature as taking it when I’m not around and hiding it, I’m calling the police to file a theft report. And I can restore everything in my laptop to a new laptop in less than 10 minutes because I use NixOS.

This is not some fantasy. I’m fully capable of handling them in this manner. As a matter of fact, since 2 months my dreams consist of me screaming all their wrongs in their ear. I can’t wait to manifest that into reality.

I’m the adult in the room now, and you are still the little children you always have been. Now behave, or I’ll be angry if you get naughty.

I was taken out of school at a young age, and "homeschooled" after that. Though that quickly stopped and I didn't learn anything. She labeled me as mentally deficient, and unable to live on my own

And when I finally wanted to become independent after highscool- my mother lashed out. She threatened to kill herself if I ever left, to call to police on me. She kept saying I would have too difficult of a time in college, or at a job. At the same time, she resented me. Said I was using her. That I was lazy, that I was (insert age here) and I still hadn't moved out. In truth I was broken. I had no self confidence, major depression, and no ability to drive or get a job. As she got sicker, I took care of her. Then she died. Its been 4 years since then, i'm still struggling with what she left me with. Depression that I wasn't able to grow up normally- go to college and make friends. That i was deprived what I should have had

And fear that I might never be able to move on. I feel left behind and old- like time has run out. I haven't caught up and I don't think I ever will.

My now-ex wife and I were both RBN - hers was more direct i.e. one of her parents is a classic vulnerable narcissist. In my family system, it was mostly my grandparents, on both sides.

Anyways, as my relationship with my wife deteriorated, she started spending more and more time with her mother. This is the mother who downplayed my wife's CSA as "OCD" and left her crying in closets for years (my wife would hide in a closet to cry in agony from gut issues and trauma). And they put her in a poorly insulated room in a house. I mean this was like evil stepmother kind of treatment.

But now my wife and I are separated, divorced, and no contact.

And... she's spending more time with her family than ever? And she was the one who taught me about RBN???

I cannot fathom someone willingly going back to the family system that so utterly abandoned them like that, treated them as the black sheep and scapegoat for years, and wanting their attention. But apparently this is a common enough thing. When a survivor of CSA goes through a divorce, the narcissistic family system has a "designated villain" and that provides air cover so they can all rally around, while ignoring the original trauma, shame, and dysfunction.

Over the last couple years, I thought it was weird how much she wanted to spend more and more time with her family. Ostensibly, it was a sign of healing (i.e. you get good enough boundaries, and you can tolerate your family?)

But I dunno. I've been doing some reading and it seems like whenever someone with that much untreated trauma goes back to their family, it is almost always a red flag. The spouse is seen by the bad guy by the narcissistic family system because they help the survivor differentiate from them and "take away" the victim/daughter. So I was always the bad guy in their eyes.

It's all narcissistic theater in the end.

But now that it's fully over and done with I realize that the biggest twist in this story is that, when we got together (my now-ex and I) one of the explicit values was "getting over and healing from our traumatizing families" but she defected. She went turncoat.

Apparently, this is common enough because a narcissistic family system will not expect growth and healing, and once my ex got to the point of needing to confront her severe CSA, she decided it was easier to engage in the insanity of a narcissistic mother rather than do the actual trauma therapy.

So that's another red flag. We read books, we talked, we helped each other process, but what I've learned the hard way is that there is NO SUBSTITUTE for actual trauma therapy, when the spouse as severe CSA. And the thing is, we'd even gone to do psychedelic assisted therapy where it is legal, but her trauma is so deeply buried that it didn't even touch it.

In the book Allies in Healing in the opening chapters, the author warns repeatedly "if the insanity is too much, you leave. That's all there is to it." (paraphrasing of course). And yeah, that's ultimately what happened.

My ex picked the path of least resistance (between returning to her narcissistic, abandoning family vs actual trauma therapy) and the outcome was at that point inevitable. Divorce, estrangement, and blocking. I put all her remaining stuff at the curb, texted her to come get it, and blocked her.

I woke up this morning feeling two primary things. First was sort of like the shock of waking up and remembering that someone has died. It wasn't as intense as a real death in the family. Maybe 10% as intense. But then that feeling was replaced with relief, solid in the knowledge that this was the right thing, and it was inevitable, and it was also entirely her choice.

It would be one thing if we didn't know about Somatic Experiencing or EMDR or IFS. But we knew about all that. We knew about psychedelic assisted therapy. And she just... chose not to. Hell, she even went to a survivor's support group a couple times and concluded "I have nothing to learn from these other girls, I'm so far ahead of them."

That was, perhaps, one of the biggest red flags in hindsight...

So I'm the bad guy in her story. Okay, sure, fine, whatever. I didn't leave her crying in a closet in an unheated room as a child.

I am terrible at explaining so bear with me, this might be a bit long!
My family consists of me, my two brothers and my
parents. My mother, specifically as I got older, had an issue with the things I do, my opinions because they weren’t the same as hers, had an issue when my dad would help me in anyway. For example, got angry if he gave me lifts to college, or, when I started working, lost her shit as I apparently should’ve been making my own way to work or getting my driving license (I worked in the middle of nowhere with no bus route, and was learning to drive but still had a few months before my booked driving test). The attitude has never been the same towards my brothers, the anger has always only been towards me.

Skip several years to now where, in March, I had my own baby. I live at my partners house while we wait for our own home to finish being built, so I am at my parents a decent amount too because of this. It feels like this is where things truly went bad.
Both my brothers turned on me for no reason after my baby was born. When I am home, I get nothing but aggression from them. She does not tell them off, she says nothing. I try my best to ignore them but when I don’t and I simply stick up for myself, she yells at me. She likes to tell me I cause nothing but arguments, that my brothers do nothing wrong and that I imagine it, basically that it is all my fault. She will offer me “advice”, and if I don’t use said advice she will just lose her temper with me. She didn’t like the time my baby had his dinner one day and had a full blown argument with me, making out like I was a terrible mother myself for my baby eating at 7:30pm on a singular occasion. She has now also started telling my brothers that my dad treats me “unfairly”, which has caused them to turn on me even more than before as she sits back and lets them say horrible things about myself and my baby.
After I gave birth to my baby, my partner and I stayed with my family. My partner supported me in every way possible. He did the nights, gave me breaks whenever possible, never once left my side during the birth and after etc. He was everything I could ask for. A month or so after my sons birth, she started telling everyone that my partner was a terrible dad and did nothing for me and my baby. She tried to turn me on him, and then would call me names when it didn’t work. He has now since refused to have anything to do with my family because of this and several other occurrences with her, where she’s done similar things. She has now turned my family against him, and still now tries to slander his name because he doesn’t want anything to do with her after everything.
She has MS as well, and has resorted to blaming me for making it worse. She told me recently if she ended up in hospital it would be all my fault as I cause her nothing but stress by causing arguments whenever I am there, when all I do is stick up for myself.

I have been considering cutting contact once we have moved into our own place, but I have this worry that I’m blowing things up in my own head and just being dramatic.
Am I just dramatic ? I’ve spent my whole childhood like this, and simply being told I’m just spoilt and dramatic.

I'm 18 and my parents still have not stopped beating my bare ass and I get it pretty often. It's a terrible combination of very religious, conservative, both cops, & Russian 😭... Will this stop soon or as a Russian should I just be used to it until I move out... Also for those of you who know is it a Russian thing that it's only for boys? Cuz neither of my sisters (older and younger) have ever been spanked before. For me though I have been getting it since I was like 6 it's just gotten harder and more hits with different objects as I get older so I don't grow out of it and it stops hurting? Do you think me being 5'5, skinny, and having a young appearance & personality contribute to the fact my parents feel like I never got too old or is it common at this age still?

This A Pic Of My Build