It used to drive me nutso when my narcissist mother showed zero respect for my belongings. She’s sold my bed for gambling money, given away my infant’s baby bed, stolen my credit card, broken my valuables, drained my childhood savings account, and worse. Every time, I am left helpless. I can threaten to call the police, threaten to take her to small claims court, try to bargain with her…but it will never work. The narcissist knows that the law isn’t going to get involved and that all you can do is stew in your frustration. The narcissist mother LOVES to watch you squirm and beg for her to return your belongings. And it’s not just me.
When I joined support groups after I learned that there was a diagnosis for my mother’s malicious behavior, I found dozens of other women with the same story. The narcissist, especially a narcissist mother who is competing with her daughter, has no respect for others or the things they own. They will take pictures, they will take heirlooms, they will take from you or your child, they will do it and enjoy it. Every minute you plead with them, they get a thrill from the narcissistic supply and attention they are getting.
A narcissist mother will destroy your belongings either on purpose or by neglect, and she will always make it your fault. When I had to make a sudden move, my narcissist mother invited me to store things in her unused spare bedroom. I had no choice as I had nowhere else to take things and no money to store them. She assured me she didn’t mind. However, dozens of my items were broken or given away. For several months, she has refused to return the rest. She knows I want my things back, and she enjoys withholding them. I had a friend intervene and she refused. I had another friend ask and she refused. Last time I was able to make a trip to pick up my belongings, many of them were destroyed or missing. And she blamed it all on me for trusting her and leaving my things there…after she invited me to! In a normal world, with a normal mother, you can feel safe storing your belongings–but not with a sick mother.
At this point, I have to cut my losses. I have spent money to re-buy things she stole from my children, and I will spend money to re-buy the other things I’ve lost–at least the ones that are replaceable. I have no other choice. Every time I ask her to give my things back, she is exerting control over my life and holding me hostage. I’ve dealt with these games for 36 years and I don’t want to be a narcissistic monster’s hostage anymore. That’s the way it always is with narcissists. You have to cut your losses because escaping their mental illness and malicious sickness is the only way to “win.”
My mom is the same way. She stole $16000 from my insurance and expects me to never ask for it back. The money was all ready spent on kitchen appliances, furniture. Window replacement, and a grill. She “promised” to help me replace my car and she lied. She makes promises and breaks them. This has been going on for 27 years. I am angry and the thought never ceases. I feel extremely stuck. that $16000 was to replace my car that I needed to drive for cause where I live there is no public transportation and with my son in the pic now he is now 3 months it’s like she doesn’t care what others are going through and asking for help from her is a battle. I need to escape here and I can’t. I feel like she constantly reels me into her petty selfish life. I can’t drive or take my son to his appointments. I need help.
please tell me you’re suing her.
Okay, so I realize this is an old thread and might not get seen – but in the off-chance that it does – I thought I would give it a shot anyways because at this point I literally have nothing left to loose. I could go on for pages, but my mother has always been oddly competitive with me… something I did not even recognize until I had numerous friends, and exes and my current boyfriend point it out to me. She is always happiest and nicest to me when I am going through a hard time… but when I am experiencing success, she is constantly trying to belittle it or even make me feel bad for it. We have been having much more issues in the past 5 years or so – noticeably when I had to start really taking care of my little sister, not just packing lunches, dressing, bathing, doing homework and chores with anymore… now I was having to raise her entirely as my own… emotionally, psychologically, financially. If i did not, my sister went without. So as an 18 year old freshman in college working on three majors, holding four part time jobs, participating in the honors program, schools elite choirs and so on… I was also spending every possible moment driving back to check on and take care of her “T”, every second calling her and skyping her while we worked on homework and college essays together, sending money home and getting groceries and other foods delivered to her when I couldn’t make it myself. Since then, T and I became very close to one another and this aggravated my mother’s already naturally competitive and dominant nature. But this summer it hit an all-time “high” , you could say. After college I dedicated myself entirely to my boyfriend and relationship for two years, moving out of state with him the last year, making quite possibly the biggest mistake of my life thus far. Upon my return, I was immediately greeted with false niceties – even though I had asked for her to help me move back (something she was constantly reminding me that she would do, and always telling everyone she offered to me) and she said nothing. not an empathetic shrug. just “i told you so” and see you later. So carless (months earlier my sister had gotten my car impounded with no apology or attempt to retrieve) and now homeless I made the trekk with my boyfriend and dog, staying up with his family for a couple of weeks while saving up and figuring out permanent housing for myself down south. I will skip over all of the drama and headaches there. It was less than one week before both sets of his family had in one way or another told us we were not welcome… and around when I found that my mother had been planning this with my boyfriends parents the whole time, and unknowing me was ambushed by her and her horrid boyfriend whilst showering before making the final trek of our journey down south. She would go from being kind and caring and what feels now almost like “luring me in” to get me to open up, give her something she could use. And of course i do, every time, because I so dearly want family, and that closeness and love. And the next second she was coming at me, fists clenched, chest puffed, backing me into a corner screaming at me. Somehow she had managed to coerce me into sending her back with all of my day to day belongings that she had promised to immediately drop off at my father’s house for me, so I would already have them there when I arrived the next day. (Boyfriends B-Day). Little did I know she had also somehow managed to get the other 450 pounds of clothes that I’d stored at my boyfriend’s mother’s house as well… and had no intent on returning them to me. After nearly a week at my father’s without so much as clean underwear, or my dogs allergy medicine; I had had it. She’d given me every possible BS excuse, and I had already caught her in so many small stupid lies that she was telling me just to manipulate me and get me to do what she wanted. So I took my dog and we left… got air, space, time to think. But even from hours away and hundreds of miles away she continued to harass me, bully me, destroy my reputation. She had begun gossiping about me now not only to my boyfriends parents, step parents, sibling, but my own father (who she will happily tell you that she loathes – no but now they’re good.. they are bffs) sister, friends from high school, boyfriends friends, friends from FB she had never even heard of before. It had become a game to her . Mousetrap. After speaking with friends and counselors, and trying to reason with her and make things work, i finally decided to let it go and leave that relationship in the past. At which point I sent a calm rational to the point message asking for my belongings returned… nothing. more gossip, more nasty text messages, emails, etc. I had already reached out to my older brother (the smartest person, possibly in the western hemisphere), and just heard from my little sister and decided to try to meet with her and see what they had been hearing etc. At this point I felt I finally had a friend again, someone I could trust… she told me that she was going to let me borrow her car while she was traveling internationally and she would take my dog for the week to get his medicine from my mother and then meet up the following weekend to give me the car, the stuff from my mom and of course my baby.. It was so hard to even watch her take him, I think I said goodbye for an hour. the day we were supposed to meet up i get a message from my sister saying that now she is not going to let me use the car (she is putting it in storage) even though I gave her my car whenever she wanted or needed it, then when she was 16 I gave it to her entirely, oh and then she went and got my new car impounded without saying sorry!.. so no car.. no medicine for my babe, no stuff from my mom. and now she was trying to hold my dog hostage. And I just know that my mom is loving every second of this, and hoping I will come begging to her again (blocked her contact – restraining order) … and I am not sure if I am going to yet or not. This is too far now. he is my world. he is my baby and they both know that!
Sorry for the long background story, but please please please… if anyone has advice or words of wisdom or suggestions… anything
Thank you so much… just for “listening”
Well its nice to know I am not alone.
Unfortunately it is too late for me to escape. The end.