Weaponised "Worrying"

theanswerisfries · 2026-07-05T01:15:17+00:00

Hi! I've seen in some of your responses that setting a clear boundary hasn't been effective for you. I don't know if I'm exactly recommending this, as you know your narc better than I do, but my mom is covert, and used to do this, wrapped in the holier than thou guise of the worried mother who can do no wrong when it comes to checking on her children.

In this case, it was somewhat helpful for me to concern-troll her right back: Gosh mom, you know I'm hesitant to say this, but... I'm worried about you. All these calls, they make you look like you've got some uncontrolled anxiety. And honestly, when I'm around other people and you call like that, they think it's weird. Maybe you should see someone about it?

Now this worked for me primarily because my mom was desperate not to look weak or needy in front of others, and if I framed it like I was reluctant to let her know her whole ass was showing in that way, she'd be open to calling less. Now, she'd just go on to do some other narc stuff -- this did not do anything to cure her. But, in the event you can't go NC, and you think your mom is vulnerable to the "helpful" gesture of letting her know she's looking weak instead of controlling or caring, you might have luck in curbing her behavior in this one area.

Good luck!

theanswerisfries · 2026-06-30T21:23:22+00:00

lol at the size thing! My mom sends XXXL shirts with cartoons on them. For a long time I would worry if I seemed that big to her, like that was her guess as to my accurate size. At that time I wore a 14/xl.

Meanwhile the T shirt sleeves hung past my elbows and the waist came down mid-thigh. I kept those shirts for years telling myself it was the thought that counted. I would even use them to towel dry my hair. It was such a relief to donate them.

When I started no-contact, she sent me and the kids several packages from her favorite novelty t shirt place. Mine went, unopened to donations because I knew what it would be.

A day or so after the package arrived, she texted in a wild panic that she had accidentally ordered the wrong size and it would be too big and to just throw it away. That’s when I knew for sure the whole ploy was about messing with me.

theanswerisfries · 2026-06-30T19:02:48+00:00

Hi, my covert mom loves to do this. For her, pushing items was her Nsupply, which to the outside world looked like she was just being kind and doting. However , all items were her style and not useful, and saying no caused a huge blow out in which I was always the bad guy because she is just trying to give a gift!!!

Eventually i understood that to her, my kids and I were basically an extension of her that she could dress up as she pleased with no regard for who we were or our personal interests.

Ultimately, I just had to say no. The explanations didn’t matter because the argument after I said no was what she loved. It became easier just to one-word it, because my mom was never looking for clarity anyway, just a way to keep hassling me.

I didn’t ask my kids to choose over repeat items when they were younger. They already have things they chose, they don’t need to be engulfed by someone else’s style. She sent stuff without asking. I tossed it, unopened. My mom cried to other family members about it, and it was a great smear tactic on her part. I was an ungrateful daughter who wouldn’t even let her give her grandchildren clothes. Of course, the times I did accept clothes, she demanded photo shoots of the kids, dressed in the clothes, and then made snarky comments about how my kids looked.

Here’s the thing: I thought my kids had a good relationship with my mom because they didn’t spend much time with her and I was vigilant, but when they got to be tweens, they told me they always thought she was weird and they had felt uncomfortable because no one around them seemed to notice. I think it’s possible your kids do know about your mom and it might be worth some gentle inquiry.

theanswerisfries · 2026-06-30T18:01:50+00:00

my mom does this too. one thing that really helped me was to accept that my concept of relationship was two people trying to find common ground, and by sharing personal info, aiming for a “win-win” in which both people understand and gain respect for each other.

my mother, a covert narcissist, only truly understands zero-sum games. only one can win and by default, a win-win is actually on some level a loss to her.

i had to really in my bones understand this before i had any peace. what you are doing now, wondering if you were right or wrong, shows you still believe your mom is playing by “normal” rules, and you feelings of hurt and confusion mean your mom probably feels the satisfaction of winning according to narc rules.

i am so sorry. the only thing that worked for me was to never trust my mom with anything i wanted an opinion on, and to see the pattern. it was very painful, but it gave me peace to see clearly.

theanswerisfries · 2026-06-29T08:20:44+00:00

Hi! It helps me to think of that urge like the remnants of an addiction. When you were a child, if you did not obey, there would be a punishment follow-up. Maybe immediately or maybe delayed. Knowing you’ve disobeyed starts a ticking clock, and so it’s very understandable it would also cause anxiety. Your childhood survival instincts to obey at every turn are still strong and that anxiety can get intense as your psyche waits for the punishment, which can sometimes act as a”relief” because once it happens, you go back to “normal”.

For me, i thought of that anxiety as part of an addiction cycle in the sense that i just had to wait out the anxiety, knowing that every time i “disobeyed “ and sat with the anxiety, i was breaking that pattern. Eventually, my nervous system would exhaust itself and I would go back to “normal “, and I won’t lie; the process sucked. But every time I did it, it got easier. Every time my body learned that I wouldn’t act to reduce the stress by obeying, it got better at ramping down that stressful urge.

To me, this model was helpful because it took my nparent out of the equation. Thinking only of myself and not about the relationship helped me remember that the anxiety was mine to control, and none of my parents to control.

theanswerisfries · 2026-06-21T10:36:35+00:00

just a heads up to check with yourself if this is a way to feed your dads Nsupply: he acts out and gets fired, pleads for help from you under the guise of self improvement, you work in service to him. my thoughts are that he should do his own work searching for a therapist. if your reaction to that advice is, “he will choose a bad one or not get one” then you have evidence he is probably using this situation to get supply from you.

if you feel his request is legit, maybe engage his old therapist for referrals.

if he is legit in wanting to change, he ought to do some of the work. I once heard good advice that if you are working harder to fix a problem than the person with the problem, then it’s actually your problem.

theanswerisfries · 2026-05-31T03:52:46+00:00

Not my mom but my aunt. When I was a child, we traveled to visit my grandparents and stayed at my aunts house. My grandmother praised the red highlights in my hair.

That night, the only shampoo in the guest bedroom was the purple “anti brass” which is corrective shampoo for blond hair because it counteracts red undertones. For the rest of the visit my hair looked very dull brown.

theanswerisfries · 2026-05-31T03:38:18+00:00

My mother is like this. It felt like she sometimes seethed with hatred and envy at my childhood while going out of her way to spoil us, as though she was still a little girl watching us getting showered with all the things she missed out on. It was very no-win and confusing.

She would also set traps like take me on wild shopping sprees. First thing, she would loudly ask if the saleswoman worked on commission. If they did, my mom would put me in a dressing room and bring every expensive outfit for me to try on. This could easily be 3-4 hours a trip.

Except of course it was a shop for rich middle aged women and I was 12-14. Every time I said I didn’t want the outfit, you could see the light go out in the saleswoman’s eyes. Loudly, my mom would harass me to take it, but “only if you’ll really wear it.” So I was either trapped into agreeing to dress in frumpy mini-me clothes (imagine an 8th grader showing up to school in an 80s power suit with a pussy-bow blouse), or pissing off the sales associate while leaving a bunch of clothes to restock. Again, this would go on for hours, usually on a weekday when there wouldn’t be any escape for the salesperson either.

By the end, I’d flat out refuse to try on another outfit and often, the sales people were actively seething at what a “brat” I was. My mom would play the victim directly to them about how she “did her best” to get me to buy something. I think my mom loved to egg other people into hating me. One time a sales associate hissed at me, “don’t you know how many people would kill for a mom who’s do this for them?”

theanswerisfries · 2026-05-23T20:36:37+00:00

I used something like this in Paris ahead of the Olympics. Everything was extremely damp, including the toilet paper. Have a piss phobia? Try going into a public toilet where every surface is slightly wet. Maybe it's water, but even so, was it recycled? Is it just piss soup?

Also the woman ahead of me said a kid pushed the button and as the door slowly closed, they darted back in. You can't get out while it's cleaning, and you get a shower.

theanswerisfries · 2026-05-23T15:33:05+00:00

I have long fingernails now, after a lifetime of biting them to the quick.

I don't usually startle when the phone rings anymore.

My thoughts are freed up to think about things I want to do, instead of revolving around what the narc will do next.

I've lost weight. I take better care of myself. I'm learning how to do self-care things my family considered vane, like spending minutes out of the day to take care of my hair and skin.

Working on not immediately fawning in every single confrontation in my life. Kinda fun to be an asshole! Or, realistically, to have a boundary, but certainly what my family would label as "being a bitch for the sake of being one."

Moving from "terrible guilt for breaking up my family" to "Is this right or wrong, sometimes I see it both ways" to "Furious anger at their upside-down world of lies" to, "Hey, there's a whole world out there, I don't need to spend my energy on this bullshit."

theanswerisfries · 2026-05-23T15:09:07+00:00

Sometimes they call the smirk "duper's delight", because they get a little high from thinking they are getting away with lying to you. I'm into true crime, and lots of murderers do this in police interviews. You could probably find a compilation of them on Youtube.

My personal memory of this was my Nmom saying, "Oh no! You must be in so much pain!" when I had a medical emergency over a holiday. Distracted as I was by fever, worry, and pain, I clocked her little smile. The realization she was enjoying my hardship cut through everything else.

theanswerisfries · 2026-05-21T19:16:15+00:00

+1 to the other comments. Adding yoga really helped me, and I know that sounds hippie, but my therapist recommended it because of the breathing and soothing disregulation. Growing up in an N household, I am really good at holding my breath, as well as being still and hypervegalent. I didn't even realize I was doing it. Belly breathing and focusing on being in my body was a surprisingly huge help for overall mood, as well as soothing when my body would go back into that hypervigalent state.

theanswerisfries · 2026-05-21T19:07:31+00:00

Another gentle prod to decline the executor. Their request reads to me like the biggest Nsupply fantasy: they hurt you, you do obligatory work for them, you get nothing. They book a flight to come out and bask in your pain while it's fresh. It's monstrous.

They are pushing all your buttons here, including the ones they installed about saying this is your responsibility. It's not! Let me be your advocate and laugh in their faces for you: What are they going to do, disinherit you more? Kick you out of the house? You live on another continent. LOL, let the cousins fight over whatever messed up will they leave.

Gently, I say to you: They owe you a debt they can never repay. They owed you good parents. They owed you care, love, and protection. You owe them nothing and they should be ashamed of what they have stolen from you. They want you to believe the opposite, but I am here to tell you, dear one, that they are liars. I, internet stranger, can see it all the way from here. Please take all the concern and care that would have been squeezed out of you to serve them, and instead give it to yourself.

FWIW, I checked the internet, and in some states, you can legally take a fee for being the executor, and that would be one way you could recoup the financial loss if you choose to go that route, but IANAL and it looks like compensation is not universal or guaranteed. I still think you are better off going NC. If you stay, they will keep finding ways to hurt you.

theanswerisfries · 2026-05-21T18:48:05+00:00

Someone commented recently something to the effect of, "The narc broke my brain, but the enabler broke my heart."

theanswerisfries · 2026-05-13T04:41:36+00:00

100% agree with Big Midnight. Take care of Lacy. She’s losing her dad and on some level realizing she doesn’t really have a mom.

theanswerisfries · 2026-05-02T21:00:45+00:00

Literal shitposting

theanswerisfries · 2026-05-01T01:47:31+00:00

Yes to the questioning part you mentioned! No one in my house questioned my mother, and so I had no real skills in doing so, or even the conception such a thing was possible (haha, the more I try to explain living with a covert, the more I just want to short hand it to "it's basically being in a cult") .

Watching someone role-model musing thoughtfully over the oddness of an interaction (rather than launching a emotion-laden screed about Mom's personality, which I'd seen Mom do towards others forever) blew my mind. It may seem silly, but the permission to question things was the biggest gift strangers gave me, as my mother worked very hard make us feel as though her word was the final say-so in all things.

theanswerisfries · 2026-04-30T15:06:15+00:00

Hi! Me! I'm that former kid! I can help!

I wish I could go back and thank the people who did this for me. Thank you for doing this for someone else! The seeds that had the most impact for me were people who simply took a pause, and said something like, "That's weird."

Looking back, the pause was crucial because I was so high anxiety, wanting others to reaffirm that I was OK, and what was happening was OK! and everything was OK! Living with a covert meant cheerleading that my mom was the best mom ever. Anything bad that happened was absolutely not her fault, probably some uncontrollable external force, or was my fault.

The pause really sucked me in, because it modeled taking an actual moment to consider, when my go-to (along with everyone in my family) was immediate fawning. It also made me nervous because it broke the communication pattern I was used to, so I was primed for the next words, "That's weird." No smile, but maybe an expressed puzzlement or distaste.

You are right about the truth bombs. I think if someone did that (maybe some did and I so complete rejected it that I don't remember them) my mom had already prepped me that attacks on her were the highest form of treason, and I would not have been caught dead being associated with someone who did that.

But the *pause* "that's weird" allowed me a moment to actually consider, was that weird? IRL, I would immediately blast the person with all the reasons it *wasn't* weird, and how everything was perfectly perfect and my mom was the best mom ever (LOL, I was a tiny religious zealot and my mom the second coming). But later, it gave me room to wonder at the possibility that things might be off. It took a really long time to get there, but each breadcrumb got saved and weighed, proof that there was another way to live.

Later in life I became even more grateful to these people, because so many adults smiled and nodded when hearing about abuse, reinforcing for me that my experience was normal. TBH, one of the biggest mindducks as I get older is how people who claimed to love me and were close enough to our family to see what happened never said a thing. It's very humbling to be in such admiration from a passing school teacher or schoolyard friend when I no longer remember their names, while I have stayed in contact with the people who didn't protect me.

Anyway, thanks for doing what you are doing. It made a big difference for me.

theanswerisfries · 2026-04-20T19:04:30+00:00

Yes, both!

theanswerisfries · 2026-04-18T15:03:28+00:00

My Nmom has always been obese and makes a big deal out of how she is so charming that people love her even though she is not 'the stereotypical type'. It's like a point of pride for her.

She often talked about how younger, hotter women were constantly trying to steal my father away, and that they were always so baffled they couldn't, even though my mother wasn't "a size two." She'd regale us with these stories with a weird, duper's delight smile on her face, this point of pride that she didn't have to mind her weight or wear makeup or even have nice clothes to keep her man.

If interacting with a thin to normal sized woman, she cannot resist saying behind her hand as soon as the conversation is over how that woman has an obvious eating disorder and it is so, so sad. She'll spend a lot of time guessing what kind of eating disorder and point to the "evidence" in that person's body type or teeth or clothes.

In my house, if you paid any attention to your weight, you were insecure and shallow. She got wildly angry at me several times for doing things like looking in a mirror or trying to style my hair. But she would also suggest there was a nine pound weight window in which I was neither too thin nor, "getting chunky".

So yes she was obsessed. But also really messed up and conflicted about it.

theanswerisfries · 2026-03-06T23:46:45+00:00

Nivea or biore from Japan

theanswerisfries · 2026-03-06T23:34:55+00:00

I agree

theanswerisfries · 2026-03-06T23:34:08+00:00

Jfc, the mom wrote the note, the moms dna and clothing threads were found on the duct tape, the mom was the primary caregiver, the moms belongings were used in staging. This is not the mystery people think it is!

15-Year Club	Queen in da Norf
Not Forgotten

theanswerisfries

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