“My Family And I Are Free”: 59 Stories That Reveal The Emotional Toll Of Growing Up With A Narcissistic Parent

I’m in my 50s and still unpacking things about my mom.

Growing up, she was always extremely emotionally absent. There was almost no affection, no comforting, and very little interest in my inner life. If something difficult came up, it would usually be minimized, dismissed, or redirected so it didn’t disrupt her version of things, and the perfect image she liked to portray.

A few examples:

When I had postpartum depression, she told me it was “just the baby blues.” When I raised concerns that my daughter might be autistic, she shut the conversation down immediately. When I struggle with something, the topic usually gets deflected rather than supported.

This week brought that pattern into sharp focus.

I had surgery to remove plates and screws from my leg from a bad break last year. My mom had said she would pick me up afterward.

When I woke up from anesthesia, I texted her that I was ready to go. Her response was something about dinner. Not directly saying she wouldn’t come, but enough that I got the message.

So instead of pushing it, I called my son.

He immediately got on a bus, came to the hospital, and we took an Uber home together.

My kids have stepped up all week; cooking, checking on me, making sure I’m okay. And it’s been impossible not to notice the contrast.

My children instinctively showed up for me when I was vulnerable. My own mother couldn’t even pick me up from surgery.

I think the hardest part is realizing this isn’t new. It’s the same pattern I’ve lived with my whole life. I do feel relief as well that I can finally confirm that it was her and not me, because I have been very confused.

And at least I know the cycle stopped with me.

My mom’s message:

“After fighting with your dad to get him to agree for me to get pregnant, having a risky pregnancy (I had periods of bleeding) that made me have to give up work, putting on over 20 kilos during pregnancy (that I never got rid of), you being breech position at end of pregnancy, 5 days labour, me haemorrhaging when you were born due to multiple cuts inside me from the birth canal..... Happy birthday [Inquiteapredicament]”

Boy am I so glad not to be in that household nor that family chat anymore. Soon we’ll be flying abroad again too so a timezone difference to offset them financially ever making the effort to come down to see us.

I don’t know how many times I have to remind her I never asked to be here in the first place. And yet I get the age old “be grateful you are here” and “I can take you out of this world just as I brought you in”.

For me, it was when I bought a new keyboard for the family computer to replace the broken one and they started constantly harassing and accusing me of trying to claim the computer as my own by buying bits of it one at a time. I didn't mind spending my pocket money so that everyone could use the family computer again, and I needed it to do my homework!

I'd have only been 14 at the time, but I instantly realised that it's not a normal way to think and gave me an insight into their broken way of thinking of things.

For the next 4 years I skipped lunch and walked to school every day to save up for my own computer, and learned to never share anything ever again.

When I was about 21, had a 1.75carat natural diamond ring. One day I took it off to wash my hands and accidentally left it in the bathroom of my mom’s house. I texted her shortly to tell her to keep it for me because I left it. Fast forward maybe a few months after, I was contemplating on whether I should sell the ring so I could invest in a business. At this point I was supporting my mother even if I had no job, not a lot but just a little so she had extra spending money. I also talked my siblings into each of us giving a little to her so it would add up. I brought the ring to my jeweler only to find out that the ring had been tampered with and the stone was now a cubic zirconia— At this point I knew my mom had switched it when I left the ring at her house. I wanted to give my mom a chance to return it so I made up some story, I told her I went to a jeweler and was told my ring was not real, and I wanted her to check in with her own jeweler (because my mom was also into jewelry), I hand her the ring and told her to get back to me. The very next day I receive a call from her; she sounded panicky; frantic…. she said she lost my ring…. she said she put it under her bra to safe keep and lost it oj her way to the jewelry shop… at this point I knew for sure she had done it and was just trying to hide the evidence that the stone was fake. What’s worse is the band itself was made of gold and even that she took from me. I stopped talking to her at that point and told her I knew the stone was already switched and I was just giving her a chance to switch it back. I felt so traumatized knowing my own mother would do this to me.

So, I'm 40 lol. Single, childfree woman, youngest girl in a family of 7 kids. Mormons. My mom is a covert narcissist, which has been a fairly new realization of mine.

There is currently some family conflict about family heirlooms and my mom called me to try to triangulate. I let her tell me her side of the story. Complete revision of facts, by the way. Of course, she's the victim.

I was able to say almost nothing until her baiting became obvious. She was begging for me to weigh in, to agree with her, to validate her. But instead I suggested that we all take time to cool down and revisit this once we've really had time to think about it.

My mom went silent at first and then was like "you're right, I shouldn't have said anything." I asked why she was upset with me and she denied being upset! So I pressed, I thought we were having a nice conversation? I listened to her? All I said was we all need to calm down?

She said she didnt appreciate being psychoanalized by her daughter and hung up on me! Im not sure how I feel about it. I had a rush of adrenaline that I'm still trying to calm down from.

I've never understood why I hate being watched while doing something. With housemates, for example, or even a partner, I will refrain from doing the most mundane task in front of another person.

I can’t even comprehend what goes through her mind at this point.

A few weeks ago, she reposted a funny video on her instagram account, which consists of existing videos with added music / text. (80 followers). This post reached 300k views and it made her completely obsessed with social media. All she talks about is how many likes and views she gets everyday, how people love her content and how she is a genius. (Adding to the usual monologues about herself). She gained like 100 followers and has now decided she was switching careers next month.

She wants to become a content creator who reviews products. She thinks she’ll just sign up to some UGC platform and get sent a ton of expensive products for free, make a quick video and get paid thousands from the start. All of this with AI filters to hide her real face of course. She’s worried about running out of space since brands will send her so many things. She’ll make sure to chose only luxury brands, food or travel stuff.

How can people become like this ? This is only a small portion of her behaviour and of course I shall not dare say anything because a 26yo has no experience on life.

One of many for me is when I flew across the country to visit my Nmother over spring break back when I was in college. (She had paid for my plane ticket). While there visiting, she and I got into an altercation that resulted in her throwing me out of the house while I was barefoot and in my pajamas and she then proceeded to throw my suitcase and all of my clothes at me while I stood in the front yard sobbing. The last straw was her tearing up my plane ticket and telling me to “find a way home”. (This was back in the day when plane tickets were printed out and mailed to you).

With Mother’s Day approaching, this hurtful memory crossed my mind and it made me wonder what other people‘s experiences were with their narc parents.

For me, I remember being like 3 or 4 years old and it was my birthday.

My mom took me to Toys R Us (iykyk) and told me to "pick out anything I wanted for my birthday, but nothing too expensive" which made me very excited because my birthday wasn't until the weekend. I picked out a big Little Mermaid doll you could take baths with. When we got home and I wanted to open it and play with it, my mom explained "No, you have to wait for your birthday. We have to wrap it up and you need to open it at your party. And pretend it's a BIG SURPRISE and that you didn't know what it was, and that it's the BEST gift among any of the other gifts."

Which I didn't understand, and was upset about because that's not how gifts worked at any point in my tiny life. You don't give them, then take them away, and you don't tell what it is.

Looking back now, she wanted her gift to be the best and wanted all the attention for it, without doing the work of knowing me AND making me budget the toy myself.

So yeah, mine started really young lol

I have been low/ no contact with my mother for over a year now. LC only because she just kept texting me, pretending nothing ever happened between us, so I sent her one last, very long text a few months ago about how she should get her narcissism under control and to leave me alone. Since then I've muted her and fully ignored her. The only reason I haven't blocked her is because I'd like her to be able to contact me in the event my childhood dog passes away, since I'd like to have him cremated.

Today during a phone call with my father, he let it slip that my mother planned to show up to my wedding in 2 months. She has obviously not been invited and I never expected her to attempt something like that, so I was flabbergasted. I asked him to elaborate and his answer was that she 'wants to see me on my wedding day'. That's it. She wants to drop by for her own, selfish desire to I guess be present at her son's wedding? She'd obviously not be allowed inside, I think I would've tried to ignore her/ pretend I don't know her, but realistically I know it would've absolutely broken me to have it happen without knowing beforehand. Maybe that's what she was hoping for, that I'd cause a scene and yell at her, while she can continue to pretend to be the poor concerned mother, who only wanted to show support for her child.

I just think it's ironic that she got so offended when I called her a narcissist, only to then turn around and plan the most textbook narcissistic thing I could ever imagine. It's my wedding, I didn't invite her for a reason, how entitled can someone be to look at the situation and go: "My son isn't talking to me at the moment because I refuse to take responsibility for any of the things I did over the course of his life, what's the best way to fix this? I know! If I show up to his wedding unannounced, I'm sure he'll forget about all of this and goes back to being the family scapegoat!"

I'm honestly in disbelief over the sheer audacity of this woman. But at least it shows me that I definitely made the right decision in cutting her off. Now I just have to hope that she never finds out about the time and date of the ceremony.

This is a recent one, happened today, but my mother posted a picture of his note. It wasn’t addressed to her, it was for his wife and kids. She had to go to the police to specifically request a copy of it. They hadn’t seen each other in 1.5 years, because my mother is awful. It’s the final personal letter of him, I have been offered to see it but don’t want to because it’s not addressed to me. In my opinion it’s for his wife. If he would have wanted to write to anyone else he would have.

I just wanted to pass along a thought that maybe we all agree on, children of narcs aren’t able to learn life skills the way they deserve to, bc the parents do way too much. Parents tend to be aggressive, critical, manipulating, and controlling. You can’t even ask a simple question without them making up horrible assumptions about your intentions, thoughts, or feelings. Even in situations as simple as asking for preferences, they don’t care to teach you. They won’t allow you the chance to develop your own skills because they believe doing it all is a way to control you. It’s so annoying.

So, I have always been afraid of butterfly (lepidopterophobia), since I was a child.

Yesterday I was talking with my therapist about the fact that pregnancy truly scares me (even seeing a pregnant person triggers me). I was ... Uncomfortable talking about that, because that's not normal right?, and suddenly I said to her "I know that's crazy, but I am also afraid of butterfly, so ..." I was so nervous.

Well, I have dug my own grave lol. She started asking me what scared me so much about butterflies.

They fly in a erratic way and I just KNOW that they can sense my fear. My nmother has a mountain house and even when I was a child, I remember that as soon as I saw a butterfly, I would start running away and they would like, chase me? I know it's crazy, but ...

Their horrible, hairy body, hidden behind their fckng colourful wings. It truly makes me wanna puke. I can't even look at a photos of a butterfly. They're just ... awful. Disgusting.

She just nodded the whole time.

And then she asked me: what is so unpredictable in your life that scares/has alway scared you, and, what doesn't look as "golden" as the outside, in your life?

I felt like she had just punched me in the face. Because it's so obvious. Since I was a child, my mother's random tantrums have always scared the Hell out of me. And my family, on the outside have always looked... Perfect.

I was flabbergasted. My therapist told me that phobias are never connected to the things we seems to be afraid, but we are projecting over them (in my case, the butterflies) what truly scare us.

I wish I was able to explain this thing clearly, as she did to me.

I have alway thought that I was afraid of butterflies but hey, in reality it was all about my nmother.

I saw a great Facebook post today that reminded me of something buried in childhood memory.

For many daughters of narcissist mothers, hair wasn't just hair. It was the one of the first places we were controlled and invalidated.

Did your mother always have a ready comment on your hair? Was she obsessed with how you looked? Did she ensure you had unflattering haircuts or get it cut too short? Mine did.

When I expressed my own style or independence it was seen as rebellion. Course she did.

This is very typical of them I know, such a small matter in the big picture - but I'd forgotten just how difficult this was growing up.

They spend your whole life telling you how horrible and worthless you are. Convincing you that you are evil and disgusting just for existing.

If you ended your life - then they could have a big pity party and endless sympathy. They could continue to blame you about how selfish and hurtful you are. It’s perfect.

lol I may not be correct but just saying how I feel.

My N mom was visiting for two weeks. I came home from work and my husband and my 7 y girl came running to me and we did a big family hug and I love you serenade.

And then I saw my mom’s face, filled with disgust and hatred.

WTH is wrong with her. She wanted to come to my house whenever she wants, staying months at a time. When she started to go through the house and screamed at my home keeping skills (I am a working mom) I have set boundaries and she got super depressed. After 1 year of banning her, I allowed two weeks this time and she is now finally on anti depressants so it was much better than before. She was able to shut her mouth when I told her to stop.

However, seeing that face of hatred because I have a loving family makes me think that she is genuinely a monster. She has emotional mentality of a child so an immature one, thankfully scared enough to not harm others but just mentally torment the easy and safe ones - her family.

WTH could be her problem? She [pressured] me to academically succeed, get a good job, threatened me to break up with a boy I really liked because his family was poor. I now have a good job, wealthy life, wealthy husband and in-laws and a perfect child and she is not satisfied. WTH is in her brain?

I had a baby just over a month ago. My husband and I decided we wanted everything about the delivery to be private- no visitors at all. We just thought it may reduce some stress, and we felt it was an intimate moment for just the two of us to share.

Anyway, my delivery was long and hard and ended in a c section. We ended up not telling anybody that our baby was born until about 24 hours after the fact because we were just exhausted and wanted to be sure nobody showed up without an invitation.

My husband’s family reacted so well to the news, they were super excited for us. My parents did not react well. My dad blew up on us saying we should be ashamed of ourselves, and how dare i break the news so late to them since they “helped pay for my college”, “came to emergency situations”, and raised me….My mom then sent me and my husband a message basically guilting us for the decision we made and for not telling them sooner.

The next day my dad sent me this long, hateful message essentially saying I did my parents wrong, I’m abusive, my husband is [mistreating] me(my husband is literally perfect so I don’t know where this came from) and that I will “be on an island alone with no love and support”. I responded and said I was sorry their feelings were hurt. I tried to understand where all these accusations were coming from, that I thought it was not right that we were getting treated this way for a decision that was ours to make, and that I was hurt that he would treat me this way and not even ask how I was doing so freshly postpartum when I’m already dealing with enough as is. My dad basically blew me off saying he didn’t ask how I was doing because I should just be giving this information without him having to ask, that he would not be following the rules we made for our child because we “do not control” him, and to not bother inviting him to see me and the baby because he “is done and to have a good life”.

This whole situation is sad and this reaction is just insane. My dad hasn’t spoken to me since, and I don’t feel like I should reach out at this point even though I feel sad about things going this way. My mom eventually said she felt bad for the way they acted but is now acting like nothing ever happened and I don’t know how to feel about that… I just want to know if I’m missing something and treated them poorly? I feel in my core that I just want to be done because it feels so exhausting pretending everything is fine but I also don’t want to lose contact with my family. This is just confusing and frustrating.

I (34F) got an apartment with my mother. At first, it was wonderful, like living with my best friend. We would have dinner and watch TV while having a drink. I never really noticed but I became a habitual drinker. I never really drank that much before we moved in together.

Well, my new acquired habits gained me 40lbs. As a ex powerlifter and middle distance runner, it ate at my soul that I let myself go, to the point none of my clothes fit. So I decided I would join a gym, not only to try and get back into shape but also change my detrimental newly acquired habits.

When I told my mother I was joining a gym, the first thing out of her mouth was “why are you wasting money? You could be using that money to buy a rug for the front door or bones for the dog.” After blinking a couple times, I joined the gym anyways and attempt to drag myself there after work instead of sitting on the couch. I still get home reasonably early enough to watch an episode of something with her before my bedtime of 9pm.

Well, now she goes to “sleep” at 630pm with the sun still out, even on my rest days. I hear the TV in her room. She won’t even say goodnight anymore. I am made to feel like I have done something wrong when all I’m trying to do is decrease the amount of self loathing I’ve developed by moving more.

Years of minimizing and suppressing my feelings have left me unable to properly vocalize how I feel but I do know I don’t like how this feels.

Okay so I genuinely need outside opinions because every time I tell this story people either laugh or just stare at me in shock.

My parents have always been pretty strict, especially my mom. Recently she found out I got my septum pierced while we were sitting inside somewhere public. She looked at me and was like “Is that a septum piercing?” and I tried to brush it off and act like it wasn’t.

She didn’t really react inside the building, so I thought maybe she was just annoyed but letting it go.

Then we got outside into the parking lot and out of nowhere she takes off her shirt and is literally standing there in just her bra in public while yelling at me to take the piercing out of my nose immediately.

Like ???

The whole thing felt so surreal that now I laugh when I think about it because it sounds fake. But at the same time I’m like… that’s actually such a bizarre reaction?? I genuinely can’t tell if this falls under “strict parent moment” or if that’s objectively weird behavior.

Has anyone else’s parents done stuff like this or am I right for thinking this was completely out of pocket?