My mom is coming home from the hospital today...yesterday i wasn't feeling well because i'm menopausal and she made it about her by saying, "happy homecoming"
Thankfully there are other caregivers who come into the home and i have my alone time away from her...
What are some ways you are surviving her personality and not reacting to triggers?
If you didn't grow up with it or marry it, you have utterly no idea what we're talking about. My very used analogy is that this is NOT the Waltons, with happy Granny peeling apples at the table, patting the grandkids on the head.
Survivors of a person with a personality disorder are affected for the rest of their lives. It is impossible to stay sane & healthy while under the same roof. Sometimes while in the same city, state, or country! I moved 1800 miles 20 years ago.
After a lot of therapy, self-help work, and support groups, I am finally able to interact with mom without being emotionally eviscerated, fragile for days & days, sleepless, nauseous, and right back to experiencing all those lovely PTSD effects. It might not be this good if she were living in my home, which was never a permanent option anyway. She is in secure memory care now, and honestly, there is very little required from me for her care other than the odd decision or FYI update over the phone. This is a new era in our relationship.
There really ought to be sainthood available for anyone who has to directly caregive a loved one with a personality disorder, and bonus sainthood for the ones caregiving someone with a PD and a degenerative brain disease. Seriously. Calling some days h3ll on earth is not sufficient.
There must be much more to this case than you cite in your brief question, but from the info given, it just may be possible that you are the one who is making it "all about you."
I have taken care of my disabled wife for five years; sometimes I feel as though I am taken for granted. But those impulses are best resisted,--I think.
I left my (diagnosed) extremely narcissistic husband after 22 awful years and now, after 28 years he still tells people he doesn't know why his family left him and his children have disowned him. Keeping as much distance as possible
is our only relief. So sad, but necessary for our SANITY.
smitty, you just detach and try really hard to be like a duck and let it roll off. You accept you cannot change her so don't waste energy trying or hoping she will change.
Narcissists are abusive, emotionally and some times physically. There are doctors who believe the abuse causes PTSD. I would have laughed at that in the past but I know now that is exactly what I have going on. It is a real deep feeling and reaction that I have no control over.
So no contact or low contact is the best route for most people dealing with a narcissist in their lives. It is the only way you can heal.
Hang in there and take whatever steps necessary to make you a priority, too.
Detaching from narcissists, keeping contact to the minimum -- or going no contact, are the only things that will help. The ONLY things.
Growing up, I didn't realize how awful my mother's behaviors were because it was my only reality. I think it finally struck home when I gave birth to a son with a chromosomal abnormality. We were staying at our mother's home to be closer to the specialists in Wash, D.C. I think you can imagine the stress my husband and I were going through on the morning we were to meet with the geneticist who would reveal the findings of his and our tests. Would our child ever learn? Would we be able to have other children that were unaffected? At 26, we felt like our entire future was about to be spelled out for us.
So, when we got back to mom's place did we get compassion from my mother? Nope. Instead, my mother took me aside and let me know how inconsiderate my husband was because he'd left a few hairs in the shower of the bathroom we were using. Of course, that should have been his first priority! I contrast her behavior with my dear in-laws who, knowing we would be tired and emotionally wrung out upon arriving at our own home, had come earlier and left an entire home-cooked meal for us in our refrigerator, complete with dessert and wine, too!
What I decided to learn from this was that I could never change my mother but I could the yin to her yang, the good to her evil, and always try to emulate the kind of compassion my in-laws demonstrated and that has gone a long way to dissipate my anger and heal my soul.
Smitty, I'm sorry your mother could not see that you were hurting, but I hope you can take some comfort from the many responses that show that others are here to help you.
I hope you will find this website as helpful as I did. I started out by looking up OCD, but reading through the various linked pages on the site, I came to realize that my mother had Narcissistic Personality Disorder. So many things "clicked" (the lifelong episodes of rage, nothing we did was ever good enough, etc, etc), that I realized she had always had it, although certain behaviors became more pronounced when she was elderly. Unfortunately, there is no cure for personality disorders, and going "Low Contact" (which I realized I had already done instinctively) or "No Contact" are the prescribed methods of dealing with NPD personalities. Good luck and stay strong.
Maybe contact Dr England?
She may want to help/ extend her studies to narcissism in parents/elders/ dementia/Alzs patients?
narcissismaddictionsabuse/Narcissist-Depleting-Emotional-Bank-Account.html
Both have been self-centered all their lives. As for not taking on this kind of job when one's own health is not that good, not everyone has a choice. I can no longer work a "regular" job due to problems from surgery and COPD. I had to move back "home" to East Tennessee because I could no longer support myself. Still have to have money to live while waiting for disability hearing.
Best advice I can give is to detach as best you can.
To avoid getting sucked into the mind games takes a lot of practice and mental energy. It's a matter of achieving a state of benign detachment.
Or perhaps she's just one of those people who should be loved from afar.
Blessings for your own survival.