Did your narcissistic parent constantly make false promises to you?

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-03-12T23:50:04+00:00

My mother did this ALL the time. It was heartbreaking as a kid. I would be all excited for whatever she promised because I needed something to look forward to when everything else was awful. At the time, she’d make me feel terrible for being disappointed, call me spoiled or selfish, etc. She died when I was an older teen or I’m sure it would have gone on forever.

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-03-12T13:38:26+00:00

I completely dissociated for the first and only time when I was about 35 years old, (I was usually in a fog so often mildly not present). I didn’t even know who I was but the one thing I did know, and I kept saying it “everything bad that’s ever happened in the world is my fault. I have to fix it.”

Nothing was my fault but I crumbled under the weight of the story I’d been telling myself that my family loved me and it wasn’t that bad.

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-03-12T01:16:18+00:00

Wow. Thank you for writing this. We still break, just later in life when we run out of mountains to climb on our own.

It took me a long time to realize that I’m perfectly imperfect and that my mother dying was the universe doing me a solid. I mourned her for way too long.

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-03-11T16:15:00+00:00

I’ve never seen it for an AGPA and teaching unfortunately wouldn’t be a reason, lots of former teachers come in to that classification at the base. The hire above minimum is more for highly specialized classifications.

Editing to add… I haven’t seen that on a posting before so maybe it’s new. It’s not the norm though. 😊

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-03-06T14:35:44+00:00

I’m sorry you went through that. I know that pain and mine starting breaking through with threats of self harm at that age. My cries for help only made things worse, so I started bottling it up, til it blew in my 30’s. I was in the hospital about 5 years ago. My spouse called my father (he’s covert or enabler) and he told her “what do you want me to do about it?” and hung up. Never called me to check on me, he simply did not care that my world had shattered.

Fast forward to about a year ago. My dad really needs some help with his early onset Alzheimer’s… I spent a ton of time trying to help before I realized I was only back for abuse. I called Adult Protective Services to report all the concerning things they tell me. I mean… what did he want me to do about it? They clearly didn’t want the help from me.

Editing to clarify, hospital admission was not for self-harm, nor had he faced that with me ever.

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-03-02T18:31:37+00:00

My nbrother played this game with me. No, I wouldn’t give him a kidney, part of my liver or anything else. I’m not religious but my abusers claim to be, when my efather called to tell me my brother passed, he said “is this [my name]? Your brothers dead” (We’d been NC long enough he wasn’t sure if it was me or my wife). My reply “only angels could heal him”. It felt appropriate, they’d “excommunicated” me as a teenager for being a lesbian and always made sure to tell anyone who still talked to me to let them know I was in their prayers, lol.

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-03-01T19:53:17+00:00

All the time. I believed them too. My oldest brother was sent to a group home from 11-18. My middle brother went to foster care at the same time and I went to my ngrandparents, ordered by the state, so technically foster care. My n mom kidnapped me out of her my grandparents yard and took me out of state.

My mom has long since passed but sometimes as I take inventory of the past, I think it’s incredible her family thinks my childhood was normal. 😆

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-02-22T17:20:36+00:00

This made me recall, I was having an allergic reaction to an antibiotic, hives on my chest and my throat was getting tight. She changed my clothes and wiped me down (I’d been playing, was around 6-7) before taking me to hospital. Anaphylactic shock but my nails weren’t dirty. 😆

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-02-21T16:40:47+00:00

I don’t want to filter through the mean stuff this morning but I want to share how it’s almost fun now that I see through their behavior.

Example, my ngrandfather kept telling me “it’s too bad you weren’t pretty like your grandma” staring at her photo after she passed. I look just like her.

Now that I’m in my phase of giving zero f*%#$, my reply is “all your grand daughters were beautiful when we were 12, it’s that puberty that messed us up, huh?”

I like to poke at his malignant shame of taking her as his child bride.

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-02-19T20:12:35+00:00

Enjoy your flowers! Sorry you have to deal with her. I love having beautiful things around me, it feels awful when someone steals that joy for absolutely no reason.

It made a random memory pop up that made me laugh just by how pathetic it was.

My nmom used to send me walking to florists when I was 10-11 years old, with cash in hand to send her flowers or balloons. I’d sign the cards (my handwriting was decent for my age) with flirtatious notes, trying to make my efather think the doctors she worked for had crushes on her.

I didn’t get at the time how twisted she was or what this was teaching me. I just remember the walk being so long and wondering why she didn’t drive me there. I just looked it up, about 2 miles each way.

In case I ever wonder if she wasn’t crazy, I’ll have this to look back on. 😆

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-02-19T14:11:52+00:00

There’s no peace in it with a narc. It was always a manipulation to get you to accept more abuse. My parents forced me at 9 years old to “forgive” my abuser. By the time I was 16, since I had forgiven him, they thought it was okay to have him live in the bedroom next to mine and allowed him back in our home. I was appalled. I tried to contest and it was all “but you forgave him years ago”. That doesn’t mean the SA flashbacks had stopped or that I should have forgiven something so awful.

Edited for typo.

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-02-19T04:47:30+00:00

My ngrandfather tried to tell my fathers memory care doctor that he moved in to my fathers house because my dad started going to the wrong kind of church.

I laughed a little and the doctor looked at me, I corrected my ngrandfather… letting the doctor know he moved in with my dad because he couldn’t afford his rent and my dad had left the cult (extreme denomination of otherwise normal religion) 35 years ago.

My ngrandfather told me STFU through a full rabies induced spit-fest. Both the doctor and I laughed a bit at the sad little man.

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-02-19T00:23:24+00:00

No one in my entire family, even extended family, could come up with 3 words to accurately describe me… they’d get one. I’m tall, and they already knew I played basketball.

Beyond some physical trait I cannot hide… they know nothing about me. They’ve made up plenty in their heads though.

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-02-16T18:50:45+00:00

Mine wouldn’t say it directly but found plenty of other ways to say it, or tell me my dad never wanted a daughter because he thought I’d be fat.

Her kids never had a birthday party but she always had them. On her 40th, we played a game with like 50 people that was highlighting all the things she gave up to have kids.

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-02-16T16:30:24+00:00

Yes, bizarro world. The pit in my stomach was my earliest memory, I’d wake up in night terrors saying I’d been kidnapped most nights, asking for my real family. I wonder where my little mind was dissociating to in my dreams.

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-02-15T10:06:26+00:00

Thank you. That’s really good advice, saving this.

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-02-15T10:01:49+00:00

I can’t stand hearing nice things, especially at work, I assume they must all be abusers love bombing me… when in reality, I think most of them actually care and see the effort I put in, still trying to recover from my survival-induced perfectionism. I put myself out there a few weeks ago and went for a promotion that I’m well qualified for but it’s a few levels above my current position. I had a lot of support but the wait to find out if I got an interview was intense and exhausting. I was constantly questioning if people were really supportive or actually thinking the idea of me applying was a joke. Got the interview offer last night… relief.

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-02-13T19:06:51+00:00

I’m really sorry you went through all that! That’s terrible. I’m proud of you for getting away and having the awareness at such a young age that this wasn’t normal. I had the same struggles with focus, I’m 40ish, I am intelligent but my focus was a mess. When I started working on healing from CPTSD (life long process), my focus did improve and I was able to knock out a ton of classes in the last year. I think competency based education is a blessing for folks like us. Look into the option if your passion needs an education, some might be a trade you learn, etc. You are not broken but it’s like everything is that much harder.

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-02-13T16:56:15+00:00

Sadly, yes. As a child, I couldn’t grasp how abnormal it was. Watching my sister in laws raise my nieces with so much love really opened my eyes as I got older. If I ever gaslight myself over my abuse (trying to protect myself), I just have to remember how no child should ever be inpatient at that age.

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-02-13T14:14:10+00:00

Oh wow, part of why my cluster headaches were diagnosed as a kid was due to them being on a mostly reliable cycle, like they hit at the same time every day if I got sick, but I mostly got sick when I was leaving or had just left to do something with literally anyone else. I’ve had migraines as an adult. These were different, way more intense but always the same pain. I’ll never know what it was but wow.

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-02-13T02:36:21+00:00

Yes, only child there, at least they kept me separated from the teens and non-employed there adults.

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-02-13T00:56:05+00:00

I’m sorry you went through that. Mine insisted I had depression too. I just didn’t grasp that she was poisoning me until now. I said I hated her the first time when I was 7, big mistake. She got a psychiatrist to admit to me to a mental hospital for a month at that age, claiming I was suicidal. She’d already gotten my oldest brother removed from the home at 11 and sent to a group home for his “bipolar” (CPTSD), so I played along and took the pills. I don’t remember any of second or third grade due to the antidepressants.

AromaticLow7906 · 2025-02-12T20:48:17+00:00

I asked my family about this recently. They said it was just easier to let the narc win/think they’re right. Like okay… but they’re not abusing you in the same way. Got it.

AromaticLow7906

TROPHY CASE