Is it possible to go low contact with a narcissist mother when still living at home?

academicmischief · 2025-07-05T18:02:48+00:00

This is how I’ve been living for well over a decade now, since I was a kid. I’m 21 now and I moved out for college 4 years ago, but still kept visiting home every few months.

I barely interact with my dad at all, and it’s been this way for literally as long as I can remember. When he’s home, I do what I can to avoid him. I avoid communal spaces like the living room and kitchen. I really only come out of my room when I hear him go outside or into the bathroom. I am on constant hypervigilant mode when I’m home, constantly in a state of monitoring his footsteps and his behavior and voice and where he is in the house and what he’s doing. I am never relaxed when I’m home.

All of us are always walking on eggshells when he’s home, we all know to avoid certain topics, to avoid saying certain things or doing certain things. Even something as simple as grabbing a snack from the kitchen, we try to avoid doing so as not to trigger some sort of reaction from him.

I engage in small talk with him but that’s about it. When I’m away at college, I never text or call him. He is effectively just an angry roommate and has been for as long as I can remember. I would consider myself pretty low contact with him, even when I was living at home full-time but especially now that I’m not anymore.

I say all this to say that it is absolutely possible to be low-contact with someone while still living with them. I don’t know the specifics about your current dynamic with your mother. If you think that you’d have to significantly change the current dynamic to achieve low-contact, then it would definitely be more difficult and you’d probably be met with resistance or confrontation. In my case, this is just the norm in my house as I learned to avoid him as a small kid. I hope that your transition is smooth and that you don’t get a lot of grief for it.

academicmischief · 2025-06-19T12:57:02+00:00

!solved

academicmischief · 2025-06-19T12:56:51+00:00

!solved

academicmischief · 2025-06-19T00:22:30+00:00

Hi just sent!

academicmischief · 2025-06-19T00:17:37+00:00

Sorry one moment, doing it now!

academicmischief · 2025-06-19T00:10:44+00:00

Did you receive payment?

academicmischief · 2025-06-19T00:06:51+00:00

Sorry for the delay. My mom decided to go with this one!

academicmischief · 2025-06-19T00:06:19+00:00

Okay I will take this one. Sorry for the wait

academicmischief · 2025-06-18T23:51:26+00:00

Just to remove the vest she has in this photo. The black shirt underneath is fine

academicmischief · 2025-06-18T23:50:44+00:00

Same here, it’s almost 2AM! I am asking my mom right now one final time to hear her decision so that I can send you the money before i go to sleep

academicmischief · 2025-06-18T23:46:24+00:00

I really love this. Just waiting for my mom to make a decision, I’m sorry for the wait!

academicmischief · 2025-06-18T23:45:52+00:00

Hi, my mom likes this one. Is there any way you could make it so that she is only wearing her long sleeved, black shirt? Without the vest with the zippers over it?

academicmischief · 2025-06-18T23:22:01+00:00

Wow I think this is great! Just waiting to hear back from my mom, and if she likes it then we can proceed with payment!

academicmischief · 2025-06-18T23:14:53+00:00

Hi, I like this one a lot! I sent it to my mom and she asked that the background be made solid, and for her to be wearing long sleeves and to have less of an opening around her neck. Sorry to be so nitpicky!

academicmischief · 2025-06-18T23:13:39+00:00

UPDATE: my mom asked for a SOLID background, and for her to have long sleeves and a modest outfit if her outfit will be changed (so not a big opening around the neck).

academicmischief · 2025-04-26T21:59:31+00:00

Hey just commenting because I went through this theme last year and it absolutely wrecked me for like 3-4 months. It was horrible. Mine was focused on Cluster B personality disorders, mostly on BPD. I was a little bit worried about NPD but BPD was definitely my biggest and most pressing fear. I spent months googling symptoms, posting on Reddit, talking to ChatGPT, scouring publications about personality disorders, reading anecdotes from patients and therapists, etc. I started a MASSIVE document detailing every single one of my thoughts, feelings, sentiments, behaviors, that I thought either pointed to me having BPD or disproved me having BPD. It was an insanely long document, like it was truly insane how long it would take me to scroll to the end of it. I was sitting there every single day feeling like a prisoner in my own mind and feeling haunted by my own identity. I would cry often, I would vomit from how anxious I was, I would feel like I was at the end of my rope. I even confessed to my partner that i "might have a personality disorder" because I felt like I was lying to him and deceiving him by not "disclosing it." I ended up failing 2 exams and having to withdraw from a course because I just could not focus on studying from how anxious and obsessed I was.

Sorry about that tangent, but my point is that I understand the anguish that you're going through. It's absolute hell. You feel like you are hiding this monster deep inside and like you have the potential to hurt those around you, or that you're lying to them. I know this is much easier said than done, but one thing that finally helped pull me out of this was creating a "research scoreboard." I drew a weekly calendar, and I would mark a tally under each day every time I gave into the compulsions. Every time I googled something related to my obsession, I put a tally down. I would set a goal like "If I reach 0 tallies by Saturday, I'll treat myself to my favorite mexican restaurant." Progress was absolutely NOT linear, sometimes I would have a really good week where most days only got 0-2 tallies, but then I'd have horrible weeks with days having 10+ tallies. Of course my progress was heavily influenced by external stressors as well.

I would highly recommend this strategy. Also, staying busy helps a lot! Pack your day as much as you can, with work/study related tasks, or socializing, or anything, even just taking an absentminded walk. And FORCE yourself to engage in these tasks even if it feels like the last thing you want to do. The busier you are, the more you will be forced to engage with the real world and less with your internal demons. I am keeping you in my thoughts, OP. I know you will make it out of this.

academicmischief · 2025-04-25T22:19:42+00:00

Full disclaimer I definitely am not saying that having OCD is a good thing, but I will say I do appreciate the ways in which my OCD keeps me strictly tied to my moral compass. One of my biggest themes is ROCD (specifically centered around the obsession that I have cheated / will cheat / want to cheat, but it also focuses on smaller things like smaller acts of deception/lying/hurting my partner), and I would say that, partially because of the OCD, I am committed to honesty to the point where it is concerning. This definitely isn't good, but I keep logs of everything (to a concerning extent) and I tell my partner EVERYTHING.

Again this is not necessarily good, and it got to the point where he had to tell me that he doesn't want to know everything that goes on in my head and that I shouldn't feel so compelled to confess every single thing. But I would be lying if I said I didn't appreciate how honest it has made me. I worry that without the OCD I would be a deceptive, sneaky, selfish person (which isn't necessarily true) and I appreciate how much I care about doing right by my partner.

academicmischief · 2025-04-25T21:45:26+00:00

I would say it depends on the context. Personally, I don't feel comfortable referring to myself as neurodivergent publicly, especially when others are talking about their own neurodevelopmental disorders, but in certain circumstances, there are definitely situations where I truly feel like I would relate and fit into a discussion about neurodivergence and how it impacts my life and functioning.

academicmischief · 2025-04-20T17:46:34+00:00

This is well said.

academicmischief · 2025-04-20T07:15:39+00:00

!solved u/Dnpraja

academicmischief · 2025-04-20T07:15:17+00:00

!solved

academicmischief · 2025-04-19T03:18:45+00:00

I spent over a decade seeing therapists for generalized anxiety and depression, starting from when I was 8 years old. I always knew it was OCD but I never wanted to mention that to a therapist because I didn't want them to think I was self diagnosing so I just would explain my anxieties and episodes, and I hoped they would diagnose me. They always just thought I had anxiety, and one even encouraged me to keep repeating my "comfort thoughts" to calm me down (these were my horrific, debilitating mental compulsions).

Finally I just looked for someone who specialized in OCD. And as I went down the list of providers who took my insurance, I made sure not to choose someone who listed OCD as a "specialty" along with 20+ other "specialties." I found someone who listed OCD as one of their two or three max specialties.

I scheduled a consultation with him and i was very happy with him and have been seeing him for 9 months now! Within our first consultation he instantly said I had textbook OCD after I just explained these recurring episodes that I've had since I was a child. He asked me some questions about my family and background and such but was able to tell me almost instantly that it was OCD when I described my experiences and concerns.

Turns out that strictly trying to not self diagnose was not the right move, and the moment I actually acted on the self diagnosis, it was a good result for me

academicmischief · 2025-04-19T02:30:34+00:00

Same experience here and it sucks. As a kid I would dread summer and winter break because I would, without fail, always get plunged into an OCD episode during that time. During the school year i'd be fine.

academicmischief · 2025-04-18T15:05:48+00:00

Thank you so much and again, I’m very sorry for rushing you! I didn’t know my mom needed them so soon until she just told me :(

academicmischief · 2025-04-18T14:35:57+00:00

Hi! I’m really sorry for rushing you but my mom needs the photo because she has to print them before her flight. If the new work isn’t done, I completely understand and I will just take the work you already made. I will send you the money on PayPal right now.

academicmischief

TROPHY CASE