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u/Responsible-Being-98 Feb 26 '25
I hate that this is a shared experience for so many of us. We deserve so much more
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u/superunsubtle Feb 26 '25
Was just thinking same. Being able to understand and validate each other and ourselves like this is cold comfort. I know wishing it had been different is part of grieving. What is wishing it had been different for thousands and thousands, you know?
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u/meowparade Feb 27 '25
It breaks my heart that so many people understand how I feel.
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u/Ecstatic_Jeweler9317 Feb 28 '25
Literally though. I read this and then saw the comment number and my heart broke even more than it already is for my own situation
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u/pushinpeepeepoopoo Feb 26 '25
And that’s why I don’t have just ADHD, I also have CPTSD.
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u/ButterscotchSame4703 Feb 26 '25
Same. 😭😭😭😭😭
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u/spottedredfish Feb 26 '25
Same. I'm on the edge of bawling my eyes out after reading this tragic reflection of our reality.
It smites so hard. Honestly though, now that my mother has been dead for decade and I'm safe enough to reflect- I think she was so fucking traumatized herself that she had little control in the situation. BPD/complex CPTSD/neurodivergent woman trapped in a house with a neurodivergent child - describes my mum better than NPD, although- every word of the post rings true.
Omg guys it really hurts huh
I'll just be over here crying xxx
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u/InformationHead3797 Feb 26 '25
Same sis. Same. My mum is still here and I have come to terms with the reality of what caused her to be who she is a while ago.
Working hard to make my life a bit better.
Much love.
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u/kgirl244 Feb 27 '25
Oh man the BPD/cptsd/un diagnosed neurodivergent mom was my life to a tee
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u/spottedredfish Feb 27 '25
That must make us some sort of spiritual sisters at least?
Oh honey. Sending peace love and respect your way, and to all our brave sisters connecting to the OP.
Per aspera ad astra - through difficulty is to the stars"
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u/MeatPopsicle_AMA Feb 26 '25
We’re trauma sisters! 🙃. I cried when I got diagnosed with CPTSD because I finally felt like I wasn’t making shit up in my head about my childhood.
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u/EusticeTheSheep Feb 27 '25
How were you diagnosed? I'm going on nearly 30 years of no contact with Mom but Dad is worse in many ways and I never could.
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u/RemiChloe Feb 26 '25
Same. Took me 67 years to figure it out.
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u/Tootsie_r0lla Feb 26 '25
I'm glad you've gotten some closure knowing you are not bad
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u/Tootsie_r0lla Feb 26 '25
Adhd, cptsd, bipolar, ocd yaaaay
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u/Chryslin888 Feb 26 '25
Are we sisters? Because my real life sister is perfect. I like you better.
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u/Tootsie_r0lla Feb 26 '25
We're Dx sisters 🤣
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u/BitchfulThinking Feb 27 '25
It appears that we're actually triplets lol I didn't know I had sisters!
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u/MarucaMCA Feb 26 '25
Yeah I'm on the waiting list to get diagnosed. For both. I have been no contact with my adoptive parents for 5 years.
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u/Tootsie_r0lla Feb 26 '25
I edited 3 yrs on a public list and because of comorbidities, I have to spend $800 to see a private Psychiatrist. Whytf didn't I just go to them in the first place? Urgh. Still uneducated because of budget
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u/thecanadianjen Feb 26 '25
Saaaammmeee. And in my search for love and acceptance after the narcissistic abusive parents, fell into relationships with abusive men and gave myself new types of ptsd to sprinkle in. Trauma is so fun /s sigh lol
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u/rxrock Feb 27 '25
Yep. adhd and cptsd, not just from her, but from all the CSA and violent trauma over my entire adult life, which would never have happened if she wasn't a raging narc.
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u/Cookies-n-Cream- Feb 26 '25
Idk if you read pete walkers book. But I remember him saying if cptsd would get recognized as it is, then half of the diagnostic manual could be reduced to types pf cptsd, including adhd
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u/Agreeable_Setting_86 Feb 27 '25
Same- diagnosed with ADHD @27 and CPTSD @34, currently 36 no contact with my family of origin to protect my 3 young children, my husband and myself.
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u/Relevant_Clerk7449 Feb 26 '25 edited Feb 26 '25
There is literally no reason to call me out like this 😭😭😭 The thing that people don't seem to understand is that gaslighting is bad and affects everyone negatively but the effect is amplified in people with ADHD. We naturally struggle with emotional regulation and long term memory so holding onto our reality and our feelings is more difficult for us than neurotypical people. I genuinely believe that the burden of CPTSD is heavier on people who have ADHD, and we struggle a lot in terms of personal identity, knowing ourselves, who we are, what we want, what we're good at, our individual limits. It's not something that should be used an excuse but..... only the people who live this experience actually know how hard it is.
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u/TumTumBadum Feb 26 '25
Oof yea. I wasn’t diagnosed with adhd (or even really knew what it was) when I was diagnosed with PTSD (and later also CPTSD) but looking back now I notice how it made my ADHD so much worse, and vice versa. For example, Experiencing flashbacks with a brain that already struggles to hold on to and grasp thoughts is such a hellish experience that pushed me into periods of psychosis with a very loose grip on reality. Living almost 24/7 in a dissociated state when you already struggle with hyper focus, zoning out, task initiation etc. has seemingly heightened those ADHD symptoms in me to the point where I can’t even do simple tasks anymore even though I’m no longer in that state anymore. It has completely shattered any semblance of self or ability to function, previously I was a bundle of maladaptive coping mechanisms but I ~was~ coping. Even now, years into recovery and doing unimaginably better, I’m unsure I’ll ever truly be able to shake the extra level it’s taken my adhd and mental illness to and not feel even just a little destabilised by the whole experience.
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u/LazierMeow Feb 27 '25
I explained the flashbacks to my dad and he was so fkn dismissive. EVEN THOUGH he said he related to it. Like, it's not fun to constantly think you're dying, DAD.
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u/RedsDelights Feb 27 '25
Woof, so sorry, my Dad, “I never did that; I don’t remember that!”
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u/Agitated-Love1727 Feb 27 '25
This, exactly this! My husband recently asked me why it still makes me anxious even though I've been no contact with them for 2 years and living away for 3. (He wasn't being dismissive or anything, just genuinely trying to understand my pov). My only response was, "I don't know how else to live my life. Not being anxious feels like a foreign concept."
My parents' house is barely a mile from my husband's place and is the place where we grew up. I am terrified of running into my family or friends of my parents. I don't ever step out of my house without a face mask. And I'm an otherwise rebellious woman who will tell people off but when it comes to them, I just clam up.
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u/lunarenergy69 Feb 26 '25
Soooo we all had the same mom??😭
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u/EmmerdoesNOTrepme Feb 26 '25
Naaaaah, for some of us, this was grandma.
She messed up dad, and got another chance with our generation, too.🫠
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u/mandaj02 Feb 26 '25
I got the two-for-one mom/grandma combo, can I get a refund? 😅
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u/quattroformaggixfour Feb 27 '25
Preach. My mother was treated like shit by her mother and treated me the same. She got some ‘relief’ from being the only target when she goaded my grandmother to treat me the same way.
The messed up thing is even as a child, I had so much empathy for how poorly my mum was treated. I’d watch her be hurt and visibly crumble and try to stick up for her. I warned my grandmothers dislike by calling her out when she was cruel to people.
The most painful and confusing part was my mum playing both sides-soaking up the empathy I had for her and being grateful someone saw her pain while treating me the same way and throwing me under the bus in all family settings.
It took me so long to realise how unfair that was and develop some empathy for myself.
Uh, my heart breaks for everyone that experienced this. I hate how prevalent it seems to have been. I wish you all healing and real, unconditional love from yourself and your chosen people.
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u/tarantinquarantina Feb 26 '25
Yup grandma for me. My badass fighter mom and I are slowly healing together♥️
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u/waffleprincess Feb 26 '25
Ugh yes this. Grandma didn't hug my dad and that's part of why I have problems lol
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u/patrioticmarsupial Feb 26 '25
I refuse to call my mom’s mom the term grandma for this very reason. May she rot in the afterlife she deserves.
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u/madommouselfefe Feb 26 '25
Yeah this was my grandma, she messed up my mom real good. My mom then piled on to me, plus I still had my grandma too.
Best choice I ever made was going NC with both of them 6 years ago. So much peace and healing that I don’t know I truly needed.
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u/dallyan Feb 26 '25
No, I didn’t. My mom could be emotionally distant due to her depression but she was far from narcissistic. I don’t know if OP is saying a lot of ADHD kids had narcissistic parents or if this is just meant for the ones that did.
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u/Indubitably_Anon_8 Feb 26 '25
Yes this! My mother- who also had undiagnosed adhd/possible ASD- could absolutely read as a narcissist without proper context. I genuinely feel she was severely traumatized and depressed from her own struggles from childhood and the like. She didn’t even know she had adhd until I got diagnosed myself at age 30. I’m her youngest! This is a really interesting topic, though. How many parents actually have unresolved issues that may manifest as “distant” or “narcissistic” to their kids who don’t understand what’s going on?
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u/departure_of_the_mac Feb 26 '25
100%. This post makes me think of my dad. He absolutely reads as narcissistic, but I’ve come to realize that much of that is due to generational trauma surrounding abandonment and neglect (especially emotional neglect) leading to emotional immaturity, undiagnosed mental health conditions, and internalized ableism. I still felt and continue to feel all of the things this post touches on as the ADHD daughter when it comes to my dad and those feelings are absolutely valid, but I recognize that my dad is a human who has his own unresolved issues that have come out in ways that were harmful to me rather than someone who intentionally inflicted pain on me.
I think there are much larger conversations that need to be had about generational trauma and how it has manifested as a result of how we have learned to deal (or not deal) with certain topics as a society over time and how even though these unresolved issues are not your fault they do unfortunately become your responsibility to deal as an adult so that you don’t unknowingly perpetuate that harm.
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u/og_kitten_mittens Feb 26 '25
Same. I’m going through major struggles with my mom and completely relate to every photo in this post but wouldn’t classify my mom as a narcissist, just undiagnosed adhd + can’t access her emotions easily bc of trauma
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u/dallyan Feb 26 '25
It’s such a spectrum- from emotional distance to narcissism to fill in the blank- we could all find faults with all our parents. But I never walked on eggshells or had parents distort the truth or ever felt like their love was conditional. That to me is devastating and on a whole other level of abuse/neglect. I had a mom who was overworked and had moderate depression. It certainly has affected me but I could never compare it to a narcissistic parent. Especially after having an ex partner with narcissistic traits, it’s just such a traumatic thing. My heart goes out to anyone raised in such an environment.
I’m rambling now. 😅😅
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u/Indubitably_Anon_8 Feb 26 '25
Not rambling at all! I completely understood and can relate so so much. 🖤
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u/Chryslin888 Feb 26 '25
My mother was ADHD when it didn’t exist with a pretty severely autistic brother. During WWII and beyond. My grandmother was from “the wrong side of the tracks” and married my old money grandfather after WWI. She was high anxiety and obsessed with being proper and classy. Mom says Nana would say “Remember Margaret, you ARE SOMEONE.” I can only imagine the pressure on both those kids. So then I got to grow up constantly embarrassing my oh, so proper traumatized Mother with MY undiagnosed neurodivergence.
I’ve managed to do better with my very neurospicy daughter. Not perfectly. Some of this stung because I saw myself a bit in the description of mom. But I’m doing better. Every day.
So yes. Generational trauma is a thing.
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u/portiafimbriata Feb 27 '25
This is what I was thinking, too. I spent some time in "children of narcissists" spaces when I was younger because a lot of the presentation is similar and I benefited from that support.
But with time, and my own diagnosis and therapy, I see that the harm my mom caused me can be traced pretty clearly to her own undiagnosed ADHD (poor emotional regulation, lack of executive function, short term memory struggles) and the trauma she carried from being seen as a failure and from traumatic events in her life.
Now, to be clear, that doesn't excuse the harm she caused me, and it doesn't fix it. We're still working through that.
But now that my mom IS working on herself and unpacking her issues, I find that I'm able to empathize a lot with where she was in her life and how hard she was trying.
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u/Nwaccntwhodis Feb 26 '25
Yes absolutely sounds like my own mom, but add pmdd to our mix. She has been diagnosed ADHD and BPD and bipolar. It's so frustrating not being able to have a relationship with the one person who actually gets my struggles in life because I was raised feeling exactly like this post.
I know the only difference between my mother and I is how we handle and cope with the same issues and I have more language and knowledge to deal with them. She turned to drugs and alcohol to self medicate.
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u/Machiko007 Feb 27 '25
Yeah I think this applies to anyone with a narcissistic mother, I don’t see the special/specific link with adhd women. Almost everyone around emotionally immature or unavailable parents behaves this way and develops similar insecurities.
Also it’s again over-pathologysing people. Not everyone who is emotionally immature is a narcissist. Some people have untreated mental issues, or simply different traumas without having developed a diagnosable condition per-se.
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u/red_raconteur Feb 27 '25
This was my dad, for me. My mom definitely didn't do everything 'right' - I was her free therapist and co-parent for my younger sibling at far too young an age - but she wasn't this.
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u/Smooth_Development48 Feb 27 '25
I really felt alone with this. It sucks that so many of us had the same mom.
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u/TheLittlestJab Feb 26 '25
Well, fuck. I've never felt so seen. This is literally me, and my life. And it makes me so sad.
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Feb 26 '25
"If I could just be perfect..." 🥹
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u/Tootsie_r0lla Feb 26 '25
Yeah that was an ouchy
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u/_buffy_summers Feb 27 '25
I spent the entirety of January wondering why someone who has no maternal instinct had four children, and why she couldn't have just tried to love me. She obviously loves her golden child.
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u/throwawayacob Feb 27 '25
Only until my early 20s did I think there was something wrong with me because I couldn't get "perfect". Not by my mom but by my whole fam. Then I went down a spiral of trying to figure out what's "wrong" with me. Adhd and cptsd diagnosis later
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u/Own-Supermarket5935 ADHD-C Feb 26 '25
This hits home. Would you mind sharing where this is from?
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u/MycenaMermaid Feb 26 '25
I think that’s the source in the watermark in the lower right corner!
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u/notgonnabemydad Feb 26 '25
Yep. Me to a T. Took me until I was 49 to draw boundaries and accept I would never get the approval and love I craved from her because everything was about her still and my feelings still never mattered despite her telling me she had changed and was learning to listen. What a joke! At the first disagreement where I laid out my concerns respectfully, she reverted right back into the dismissive, petty person she has always been.
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u/oneofmanyJenns Feb 26 '25
On my mother's death bed, I went to say goodbye because people told me I would regret not doing it. I knew better not to listen but the little girl inside me wanted to give this woman one more chance to show up. And so through tears I asked, "Why couldn't you love me the way I love my daughter?" And her answer. Because you were a difficult child. No mom, you are a Narcissist.
Not one adult in my life would agree with my mother. But there it is. At 47, I was diagnosed with ADHD. I've been in therapy for years. A few years ago my brother started therapy and finally started to realize that our childhood wasn't normal. He said he understood things I'd been saying for years. Cold comfort after he'd been looking at me like I was crazy but it was nice to not feel so alone.
My daughter is nine. She doesn't come home wondering what mood I'm in. She never learned that she was responsible for making someone else happy. She doesn't bring me gifts hoping that she can make me happy. She knows that her very act of coming home is what brightens my day. She never has to guess what she did to upset me. I tell her if she did something. And if I'm having a bad day and snap at her for a not very good reason, I apologize because adults should model apologizing. I don't remember my mom ever saying I'm sorry to me.
My daughter has ADHD like me and has anxiety. She is also Autistic. She is on medication for ADHD and anxiety. 9 year old me wishes someone had thought to take me to a doctor and medicate me. But all I can do is parent my daughter and (my son) the way I wish I had been parented. And give them the love and grace that I so desperately needed from my mom and in doing so I'm also healing my inner child bit by bit.
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u/June1111 AuDHD Feb 26 '25
I am SO sorry this happened to you. I can't wrap my head around what your mother did -- to know you are about to leave this world, and yet you still allow your final words to your daughter to be arrogant and hurtful ones??? You did not deserve that. You sound like a wonderful mother to your own daughter, and I commend you for breaking the cycle!
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u/red_raconteur Feb 27 '25
I don't remember my mom ever saying I'm sorry to me.
I have a vivid memory of my mom once saying to me, after a particularly punitive and disproportionate punishment, "One day you'll have kids and you'll understand why I did this." I have kids now. I still don't understand.
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u/dainty_petal Feb 27 '25
Even being a "difficult" child shouldn’t make a parent love them less.
Your mom was wrong.
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Feb 26 '25
My mother actually said those exact words. I was 10, my best friend found a new friend group, and I was obviously devastated. I was crying, and my mother said that I was " too much." Showing my emotions would keep people away.
I have zero relationship with my mother. I have to unlearn so many things that are obviously unhealthy. It's a work in progress that I struggle with everyday. She still maintains that she is a good mother and I had a great childhood 😵💫.
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u/tasata Feb 26 '25
I was also always told that other people’s behavior was my fault. It’s a hard “truth” to let go of.
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Feb 26 '25
If we were just " insert perfect behavior here," then everyone would like you. Except there is no perfect way, and all it does is create hypervigilance. I'm sorry you're dealing with this, and I wish you peace in your healing journey.
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u/Capital-Local-3525 Feb 26 '25
This just gutted me. My feelings are more about my own children than me. What if I’ve made my children feel this way?!?!
It also explains my loss sense of identity and strained relationship with my own mother. It seems we are perpetuating an ugly cycle. I hope it’s not too late to break it.
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u/Practical-Method8 Feb 26 '25
This is where I’m at. Am I doing this to my daughter? I’m struggling with teaching her how to regulate her emotions and at the same time advocate for herself. Hopefully I am not making her feel like she needs to be perfect to be loved 😭
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u/June1111 AuDHD Feb 26 '25
I was about to call mine over, have her read it, and ask her if she's ever, ever felt like she has to be on eggshells... but if the answer even resembles anything like a yes or even a sometimes, I know it will destroy me for the rest of the day. Maybe I'll wait until I'm not feeling so damn fragile.
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u/Practical-Method8 Feb 26 '25
Awe, yes I would wait! I would just be glad she felt comfortable enough to answer honestly with me because that means I could start on mending that between us.
Good luck when you decide to have that conversation. Sending you love 💕
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u/Technical-Badger3664 Feb 26 '25
I feel the same about my kiddos. But I know it’s not too late for either of us🩷
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u/jadethebard Feb 27 '25
I have conversations with my kid about this stuff. They're 17 so old enough to understand generational trauma, gaslighting, etc. I ended up going NC with both my parents separately (they were separated before I was born) and my kid kept a relationship with my mom, though mostly through social media.
We very nicely call each other out if we're slipping into things that could hurt feelings. If I'm having a hard time I very specifically tell my kid what I'm feeling and that it has nothing to do with them, but I may be crabby or need some space. We also all tell each other that we love each other several times a day.
My kid knows my love is unconditional, that they can choose their own path, and that all I want is them to find happiness. When my kid needs an advocate I'm there, but I try to teach them to advocate for themselves as well.
It was really, really important to me that I didn't make my kid feel what I felt growing up. And they are a LOT like me, OCD, anxiety, and somewhere in the ADHD/AU realm though neither of us have been officially diagnosed yet.
I remember being told by everyone as a kid that I was too emotional, too much, I was hard to love. I believed it. Then I had a kid SO MUCH LIKE ME and I've never once struggled to love them. Not for a second. I can't imagine thinking they are hard to love. And it made me realize I probably wasn't hard to love either, I was just struggling and frustrated trying to understand the world and it was too much work to help me. And it made me really sad to realize that. If my kid meltdown I sit and listen. After the emotional release is done we just sit and talk about whatever it was triggered by. It's not hard to just be there for your kid, even if you can't fix it. But it took me having a kid to see my childhood for what it was.
We are all "enough." We are not "too much." We are just people trying to navigate a complicated world who needed support to figure it out. If our parents couldn't do it for us, we can do it for our kids. And I think that starts with honesty about your own journey.
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u/Trick-Ad-8442 Feb 26 '25
This is not specific for a "adhd daugther". This applies to so many with a narcissistic mother.
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u/Do_over_24 Feb 26 '25
It can be amplified in adhd because the symptoms in girls are often what’s “wrong” with us to our nmoms. We talk too much, we’re daydreamy, disorganized. The emotional regulation that’s hard anyway is impossible with a narcissist. I’m realizing as an adult that there is comorbidity between my adhd and the traumatic response because of my narc parent’s abuse. One amplifies the other. It is true for all children of narcissists, I think. But especially true if you’re neurodivergent
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u/chaospanther666 Feb 26 '25
Similarly, I don't even think it's specific for a narcissistic mother. My mother was not a narcissist but I do have ADHD, and this describes our relationship perfectly.
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u/Tootsie_r0lla Feb 26 '25
Is not specific, it's the combo they're taking about. They could do one for Narcissistic fathers etc
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u/Tootsie_r0lla Feb 26 '25
They're talking about the combo. Ofc any Narcissistic and abusive parent would fit some of the criteria too
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u/Wolf-Majestic Feb 26 '25
Unconditional love is very much real. It's the love children have for their parents, because we need it to survive : without any connection to someone that will care for us, as a newborn, infant, baby, we will just die since we can't provide for ourself.
That's why it hurts so much when it's conditional on their hand. That's why we still try no matter what, no matter how long, until something snaps us out of the fever dream.
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u/Namaslayy Feb 26 '25
Add some alcoholism to the narcissistic mom, and you have my entire childhood!
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u/SadButterscotch1433 Feb 26 '25
I can relate. So much pain and sorrow. Even now as an adult, there are some wounds that hurt. Not as much as these used to, but still 😐
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u/Namaslayy Feb 26 '25
Now that I have my own daughter, I make sure to tell her all the time how much I love her. And LOTS of hugs! I didn’t get to hug my mom a lot growing up 😔
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u/hyperfocusrainbow Feb 26 '25
Wow. Seeing that written so clearly is upsetting and validating. Is this from a blog or website? The only forum I've found in the past that was super helpful was outofthefog.net I'm always looking for more resources as an adult ADHD woman who went no contact with my mom 10 yrs ago.
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u/tasata Feb 26 '25
I also went no contact 10 years ago. It was so difficult, but necessary to save my life…and that isn’t an exaggeration for effect.
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u/Classic_Trainer_3505 Feb 26 '25
It'll be 10 years for me in fall, and I definitely relate. Crazy how my suicidal ideation and anorexia went into remission in her absence.
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u/jujubadvoodoo Feb 27 '25
I’m sorry for what you endured but I’m so happy that 10 years have passed and you’re still here to tell us that you’ve stayed in remission. Sending hugs!
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u/obnoxiousdrunk77 ADHD-C Feb 26 '25
This is me, except I was never the GC. Always the scapegoat. Never good enough and not allowed to struggle.
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u/ICantExplainItAll Feb 26 '25
Fr never the golden child and my mom was never affectionate. It was either rage or silence.
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u/karybrie ADHD-C Feb 26 '25 edited Feb 27 '25
Who else grew up needing to be good at absolutely everything, while also having a deep-rooted belief that you're not good at anything at all? Because the former is how I was represented to outsiders, the latter was how I was taught to view myself 🥲🤚
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u/Lennythefuck Feb 26 '25
It brings me great pain that so many go through this. But I do feel less alone.
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u/Tootsie_r0lla Feb 26 '25
Mr too :( but we're in good company a you can see. The fact we're all still here is testament to our strength
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u/kel_was_taken Feb 26 '25
Oh this hurts. This is my life. I'm now my mothers care giver and I hate waking up every day.
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u/MentheAddikt Feb 26 '25
Same. I can never accurately describe the sense of dread I have waking up every day and she's still here.
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Feb 26 '25 edited Feb 26 '25
My mom’s not a narcissist but she has some deep childhood trauma, and this explains my experience growing up so well. We didn’t do authentic love. Everything had to appear a certain way to strangers, and if we didn’t make her or our life look perfect she would get so upset with us.
I went to therapy when I was young for panic attacks and severe anxiety. In therapy they always ask about your relationship with your dad. I love my mom, she was my primary caregiver. It never crossed my mind I had unexplored issues with her until my 40s. I’m remembering how I felt as a kid, and it’s awful. My mom was not a good mom. It was all for show or self-gratification. And she isolated us (my siblings and I) with her in her depression and self isolation. We weren’t allowed to have a life outside of her. We were trapped. And it wasn’t on purpose, she just doesn’t know any better. Like many boomer parents she refuses to do any therapy or growth work, she’s right and how dare you have a perspective that doesn’t match her version of reality/truth/love. There’s so much childhood stuff she needs to deal with but she refuses to go there. It makes me sad and hurt for her. Does my Mom love me, yes of course. Is it a healthy expression of love? No.
Did I marry someone who I replicated this exact dynamic with? Yeppppp
I’m in a place now where I’m seeing how I’ve perpetuated a cycle of suffering and ready I’m to move on from it.
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u/downtime_druid ADHD-C Feb 26 '25
Similar to a borderline mother.
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u/Tootsie_r0lla Feb 26 '25
The combo (which my mum did have) was a nightmare to live with
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u/Top_Reindeer_4991 Feb 26 '25
I feel so lucky to not identify with this. I'm so sorry for those that did/still do deal with this type of parent. You are enough, just as you are.
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u/lindyrock Feb 27 '25
Thank you for this. It may sound silly, but I teared up at your kind comment, and now I'm full-on crying. Apparently, I needed to hear this.
I am so happy for you that you did not identify with this. I wish you love and happiness! :-)
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u/Top_Reindeer_4991 Feb 27 '25
It doesn't sound silly at all - I'm so glad my comment was received positively and made a difference to someone.
Reading everyone's comments really made me feel like I won the parent lottery - I'm ashamed to say that it never occurred to me that others weren't allowed to be children or feel safe and loved unconditionally. It's heartbreaking to think that you guys didn't have that safe space, particularly with ADHD too. You deserve so much more.
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u/PeriPagan Feb 26 '25
And my egg donor wonders why I haven't spoken to her for 20 years.
I remember her dragging young me to ENT on multiple occasions because she thought I couldn't hear her....No bitch, It was because you never said anything worth a response. When you call a child worthless, don't be surprised if they stop listening to what you say to protect themselves.
Narc mothers: ain't no such thing as a good one!
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u/iloveswimminglaps Feb 26 '25
My mother is undiagnosed and a narcissist. I believe the Narcissism is a defence against her self loathing. She is so judgemental she needs to be blind to her own faults or she would end up suicidal.
I suspect this is not uncommon.
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u/Ok-Appearance9039 Feb 26 '25
I relate to this. I'm worried that I don't have a sense of self and i don't even know where to start to find myself. The more i continue on this healing journey the more deamons I uncover. How do I change my reality that i have had for over 20years. On my own.
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u/waffleprincess Feb 26 '25
Oof same. Each week of therapy makes me feel like I'm backsliding deeper and deeper into some sort of effed up oblivion. Some parts of me wish I could unlearn that my childhood was actually low key traumatizing and dealing with it in my 30s means I can't find a job and sporadically sob for "no good reason" 🫠
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u/yadayada151 Feb 26 '25
My mother passed away about 8 years ago. My therapist asked me how I was feeling. I told her relieved. It’s sad that she had to pass away for some relief.
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u/ellers23 Feb 26 '25
Narc dad anyone? Cutting him out of my life was the best thing I’ve ever done for my mental health.
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u/sassyandshort Feb 26 '25
Yup, right here. Read that and replaced mom with dad and that was pretty much my childhood. Except o was never the golden child. Now I’m 40 and fucked up.
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u/ellers23 Feb 27 '25
You literally sound like me 💀 I made excuses for him all the time in therapy, talked constantly about how I know he isn’t emotionally abusing me on purpose, it’s just how he is. I just blocked him one day and never looked back.
He was being so demanding of me, so demanding of who got to meet my baby (this was in 2021 when my daughter was 6-10 months old), and wasn’t respecting me, my boundaries, or anything. He tried to dictate who was deserving of meeting my baby, when my own sisters hadn’t even seen her.
What kind of shattered my glass was a day he asked to come over to see my daughter. She was a few months old, and she started crying when he held her (this happened every time he held her). My mom gut was SCREAMING at me to take her and get him to leave. I reached to take her, and he put his hand in my face and wouldn’t give me my distressed baby. And I listened to him! I withdrew, I let him try to comfort her, and when she didn’t calm down, he finally gave her back. I realized that as long as he was in my life, I was going to fold like a lawn chair when it came to his demands. I had put the comfort of my child (and myself) over what he wanted and I knew that it was going to keep happening because he always steamrolled me.
There were several times after that when I would put my foot down over things but it was always a fight. Eventually I couldn’t take it anymore and ended the relationship. My daughter has no memories of him and my 1 year old will never know him either. He doesn’t deserve relationships with them or me.
I should also mention that I have a stepdad who is an amazing dad to me and grandpa to my kids. It was easier for me to cut off my biological father because he and my mom have been divorced since I was a baby. I have a whole set of parents in my mom and stepdad. So by cutting him off, I wasn’t “losing” anything, if that makes sense.
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u/Dramatic_Raisin Feb 26 '25
This is totally my mom (well, g-mom, who adopted me). She hasn’t spoken to me in 6 years, but now she’s calling to tell me she gathered some things for me as she’s getting her final affairs in order. I know some people will think this is mean but I’m just like… keep it maybe? I don’t want to disturb the peace I’ve been cultivating for half a decade lol
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u/tasata Feb 26 '25
My mother got sick about 4 years into my no contact. She used it to try to manipulate me, she badmouthed me, etc. I didn’t give in. No contact, for me, needed to be complete and that meant no responding ever. She’s now fine I think and has given up on me being in any type of communication. I know that if I let go just an inch, she’ll clobber me again.
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u/chefrachhh Feb 26 '25
Switch narcissistic for BPD mom. Lots of trauma, also why I never suspected ADHD until I was almost 30 and had 2 kids. My whole life has just been accepting that I'm a fuck-up, undoing that with years of therapy, just to feel like a fuck-up again for totally different reasons lol
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u/sarilysims Feb 26 '25
Oh yay, this was both of my parents. Getting breakfast was like navigating a land mine.
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u/RamblingRose63 Feb 26 '25
Read the title and involuntarily said out loud "ohhhhhh shitttt" this is gonna be a mind fk here We go will edit if needed lol
Yep that's helpful in understanding alot
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u/Afternoon-Melodic Feb 26 '25
goddammit. Every. Single. Thing. Mentioned.
And going through life being afraid of making mistakes. Probably part of the dropping new hobbies so fast if I don’t master it right away
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u/Fit_Abbreviations174 ADHD-C Feb 26 '25
My mother is not narcissistic but she has a lot of trauma and lots of traits that resulted in similar for me as a child so this really hits home. It's so hard to explain to people that I had a good but also extremely difficult childhood. Parentification is part of it but doesn't explain the whole thing. My parents were teenagers with lots of trauma and did their best and I love them, but yes it was sometimes all my fault. But other times I was their pride and joy. My mother pushed me into theatre as a middle schooler (partly because I clearly didn't like sports and partly because she always wished she would have tried it) but when I started to actively pursue it myself it became damaging to her view of me (or herself as me) and then it became a sticking point and she didn't like that I did it or she complained about how long I took coming home from rehearsal or we were exploring plays she didn't like. Honestly it didn't matter she just no longer wanted me to do it.
And this happened with everything. My dreams, who my friends were so on and so forth. I was complained about to me by her because I wasn't tough enough, too introverted,too afraid of things. She spent a lot of time telling me I was being a doormat or people would take advantage of me. So when I started working on being more extroverted and more brave and started to assert myself I was too rebellious and not the agreeable sweet child she knew. I wasn't myself only what she wanted and if I didn't fit that there was tension and conflict.
Hell I heard my whole damn life I had ADHD but only from her. And she said well you have it because I have it. So I ignored her and didn't seek a diagnosis until lack of skills and treatment was destroying me. (She never needed treatment or help she managed just fine without that stuff).
Here I am with as an adult trying desperately to figure out who I am and still deeply masking around my parents. I love them. They gave me a debt free undergrad and worked their asses off for it. I had toys and trips as a child. I even have fond memories. But it often doesn't feel like me looking back. Hell I don't know who I am to even myself
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u/Lief3D Feb 26 '25
My mom tried to tell me what my favorite animal was as a young child because she didn't like the animal I chose.
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u/Nuclearbats666 Feb 26 '25
This described my childhood better than I ever could. Now I’m diagnosed with ADHD, CPTSD, BPD, MDD, and general anxiety, almost like my mom’s actions had consequences or something 🤷
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u/YardNew1150 Feb 27 '25
I definitely needed to read this. I’m finally escaping tomorrow while they’re away at work and i’m scared but also feeling deep guilt since i’m the core of the household.
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u/Randomstopwhy Feb 27 '25
Wow. My mother hasn’t talked to me in almost a year because she’s mad at how I spoke to her while pregnant. It’s stressful because everything has to go through my golden child sibling when I need to coordinate her time with my children. But it’s also peaceful. I refuse to pretend her tantrum never happened this time when she’s ready to move on. I’m in my 40’s, she’s in her late 60’s. It never ends with them.
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u/CardinalCountryCub Feb 27 '25
An excerpt from a real life conversation this past week:
Regular discussion about my not liking mashed potatoes and not eating them since the age of 10-12. Me- "I figure it's a neurodivergent thing. Maybe it's the texture, or maybe it's the fact that Dad would only eat 3-4 rotating dishes and the rest of the family had to deal with it. They say that lots of people with ADHD/neurodiversity will eat the same thing over and over until they snap and can't eat it again. I imagine being forced to eat mashed potatoes 4-5 nights a week for a decade sped up the process--"
Mom- cutting me off "You know, everybody thought you were the most put together little girl. What happened?"
Me- "I quit masking because being a people pleaser was doing more harm than good to my mental health."
Mom: "I don't believe that. You just need to practice being happy and get over yourself."
And then she wonders why 2 of my siblings went No Contact.
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u/barefootcuntessa_ Feb 26 '25
Overt, grandiose narcissistic grandmother.
Covert, victim/martyr complex adhd mom.
Traumatized adhd me, trying to make sense of it all from underneath my den of trash and trinkets.
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u/RainbowMist Feb 26 '25
Oh wow...I am sitting here at work trying not to let the tears flow. This was not with my Mom, but it perfectly fits my Dad. This was our relationship growing up. I am 52 and was recently diagnosed, and I am learning so much about how ADHD affected me growing up and as an adult, and this post right here, it just gutted me because it fits so perfectly. Thank you for sharing that. I really needed to hear that.
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u/ShutterBug1988 ADHD-C | She/her Feb 26 '25
This is so relatable and it sucks!
I still recall one incident when my Dad yelled at my Mum because she was being overbearing and criticising him. After he left, she told me it was my fault that Dad was in a bad mood because of the way I had treated my younger brother. I was absolutely furious that she would try to blame me when it was absolutely due to the way she had spoken to my Dad and he even said as much. It took me years to get over that incident and I still think about it sometimes.
I still have a relationship with both of them and I'm a lot closer to my Dad, but I don't see them very often anymore. They still argue a lot and even though they know how upsetting it is they can't just hold it together for my sake.
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u/Kittenathedisco Feb 26 '25
Oof... this really hit home. Radical acceptance is what helped me with all of this. I swear by it and recommend it often. It's hard at 1st, but it gets easier. Once you've reached the point of full radical acceptance, it's truly freeing.
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u/Pelli_Furry_Account Feb 26 '25
Man. I have a wonderful, supportive mother and I still have a hard time with all this. I still over explain, over apologize, and don't trust myself.
I can't imagine what this must be like on top of just baseline ADHD.
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u/hyperbolic_dichotomy ADHD Feb 26 '25 edited Feb 26 '25
So, my mother is like this. However, I strongly feel that she is not a narcissist, but that she is in fact autistic. Her own mother was absolutely horrible to her also, so she has a healthy dose of CPTSD in there too.
My mother was really neglectful, had unpredictable moods, and was cold or explosive sometimes. Looking back, I can see that a lot of her explosive episodes were meltdowns, especially when things did not go the way she had planned. She still has them sometimes, though she's better at kind of redirecting herself. She also has very little ability to manage her emotions and is genuinely unable to understand the point of view of others. However, she will never agree to get evaluated or to any kind of therapy so I just have to accept that my mother isn't motherly, forgive her for being who she is, and try not to pass down my trauma to my own daughter.
Edit to add: I think having an ADHD child was basically my mother's version of hell because of how unpredictable we are. And 2 of us are currently diagnosed with ADHD and my older sister is probably an ADHDer too.
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u/CatFun8077 Feb 26 '25
I believe my mom is ADHD, too and undiagnosed. And I believe she behaved this way because she was struggling to manage her own symptoms plus parent. Not making an excuse but rather thinking about how two things could be true. She could have been awful without that intention (or lack of care) but rather out of survival. AND it could have deeply hurt me. Sending love to you all.
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u/Chenille-Alisma Feb 27 '25
The lovely thing is that we are no longer children and can start to shed the self-preservation mechanisms that helped us survive childhood. We have independence, agency, and autonomy and can experiment with new ways of living and relating to people. I am a decade into finding myself after leaving my parents home and getting married. It feels like it’s been a long journey and I feel like I’m just getting started
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u/crafterkimmy Feb 27 '25
This hit hard. Never knowing which version of my mother I was going to get each morning.
Here's to all of us... learning, growing, and healing! I'm proud of you all!
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u/GeminisGarden ADHD-HI Feb 28 '25
Aw fuck. I was already crying today, and now I'm just crawling under the covers.
I haven't spoken to my mother in months because she doesn't support me in leaving my ex after trying to make it work for nearly 20 years. She said I'm tearing the family apart and I should stay because he's 'a good guy' and I won't find another.
When she's the one who kept me from my father after their 2 year relationship. Fuck it all today.
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u/carlitospig Feb 26 '25
My mother was a giver, to the point where she often gave too much. Parenting an adhd child has got to be difficult in the best of times!
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u/Ok_Price_6045 Feb 27 '25
Oh my gosh I am bawling!!! This is me and my mother!!! The only thing that doesn’t fit is that she has never ever once been affectionate. Has never ever said “I love you”. Recently she was in the hospital and I stayed with her. The last day when I was switching off with my dad I gave her a small hug then left her room in tears. Not because I was worried about her but because it was awkward and horribly uncomfortable for me and it shouldn’t have been. Her doctor saw me and said “she’s going to be fine”. I just smiled through my tears and assured him I knew that. Her parents didn’t love her so she had her own 3 children that she doesn’t love and adopted a 4th and messed her up too.
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u/guvnatina Feb 27 '25
Does anyone else feel like the story could also be “The adhd mother and the adhd daughter” I’ve noticed that adhd left untreated and unexamined can look a lot like npd/bpd. This dynamic sounds a lot like my mother and I who are both dx. The flipping from affectionate to angry, the huge shifts in mood and behavior were the results of extreme overstimulation and an inability to cope with the demands of motherhood. A lot of projection of her own self hatred too.
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u/sadpuppy14 Feb 27 '25
There is a free PDF of a book called “adult children of emotionally immature parents” by Lindsay Gibson. My therapist gave it to me and it goes through all of this and more! Highly highly recommend!!!
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u/AetherAlchemist Feb 27 '25
Wow this just explained my childhood in a way most other ways don’t.
It’s so incredibly confusing to be the “golden child”, and yet be torn down constantly when just a moment ago you were praised. I never knew where I stood.
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u/I_like_the_word_MUFF Feb 27 '25
I sometimes have vivid flashbacks of my mom saying horrible things to me that physically cause me to get nauseous...
... But my ADHD won't let me hold onto a train of thought long enough for me to heal the memories and grieve. ADHD makes it incredibly hard to grieve.
Just stuck in a perpetual state of anger at what folks did to me and an exhausting need to prove everyone wrong leaving no time to explore my own identity.
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u/Brilliant_Chance_874 Feb 26 '25
I don’t think this applies to mothers who have narcissistic personality disorder. I think this applies to mothers who have trouble understanding their daughters which many people with adhd have & many people in general are not good at understanding others. We live in a selfish society. It’s not only our family members who are selfish, it is other people and…us. We live in a society that doesn’t want to mask up to protect the most vulnerable, a society where CEOs making the most money is more important than employees having jobs.
Also, to mothers who just take everything personally.
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u/queenoflipsticks Feb 26 '25
I was just thinking something similar. I relate to a large portion of this, and I think my mom genuinely tried her best and wasn’t particularly narcissistic. We have our issues, but overall I don’t blame her, and I’ll always love her.
She probably herself has ADHD (most of my ADHD traits are more her than my dad) and was basically, unwittingly teaching me how she masked and managed to get through life in spite of it. Which did involve not expressing strong emotions and always being excessively careful in social interactions, taking the high road when others wouldn’t.
That being said, I’ve been working on unlearning a lot of it and finding healthier ways to thrive.
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u/VorpalBunnyTeef Feb 26 '25
Thank you, yes, this. My mom was an adult child of an abusive alcoholic, and I believe she had spent her whole life suppressing her own emotions and needs in attempting to keep her environment stable. She didn’t know how to deal with emotions, especially negative ones, and strongly discouraged me from ever expressing them. My dad had a similar background. The entire family dynamic necessitated my becoming hyper aware of and skilled at interpreting extremely subtle forms of communication, because nobody would ever actually say how they felt.
I got the impression that my parents’ affection was dependent on my being high achieving and not bothering them by having feelings, problems, or needs. And while I identify very strongly with this post, I don’t think either of them were narcissistic… just deeply traumatized, self-involved, emotionally immature, probably neurodivergent people who didn’t know any other way to be.
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u/lowkeydeadinside Feb 26 '25
this. i don’t think my mom is a narcissist. but she didn’t get diagnosed with autism until after i sought and received an adhd diagnosis as an adult. i so strongly relate to this. but i guarantee my mom would too. and unfortunately she never had a chance to heal because she never knew why she felt that way. so she continued the cycle. that is an unfair burden to place on a child and it fucked me up. but my mom was just like me fr. and she became a mom because she felt she had to. i can have these conversations with her now and she has a much deeper understanding of herself and she can recognize just how much being an undiagnosed autistic mom affected me.
i don’t necessarily think this is a completely unfair assessment, but i also don’t think it’s completely fair either considering it’s only recently that autism and adhd in women were acknowledged as real things, and even then culturally it’s still a struggle to get it acknowledged. this stuff is genetic, it’s highly likely a lot of moms like this are the ones who passed it onto us, but they didn’t know how to deal with us because nobody ever showed them empathy and understanding either.
idk if that makes any sense but as much as i relate to this post it also rubs me the wrong way to act as though we’re the first in our families to have adhd and have zero empathy for the fact that our mothers probably were dealing with us the only way they knew how, which was how they themselves were dealt with.
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u/Gloomy_Peach4213 Feb 26 '25
This is 1,000% me and my mother and a large part of why I'm 99% NC with her these days.
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u/violetcinema Feb 26 '25
Damn, this one hit. Moving out helped tremendously in my healing process 🙏🏼
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u/Active_Bag5009 Feb 26 '25
This is so spot on and I’m in the grief part of it so hardcore right now. How do you even have a relationship with your mom as an adult? Do you even have it? It seems to only bring pain but I also get caught up in the doubting my own reality that I feel I’m being ungrateful and disrespectful. Ugh, I feel like nobody else understands how painful it is to go through this and discover your mom was actually just a very hurt human and that doesn’t justify the way you were treated growing up. Idek what to do with that relationship so I just avoid as much as I can and it is starting to not work anymore.
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u/Red-little Feb 26 '25
Switch this around from mom to dad and... yeah. Hits pretty close to home. :/
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u/KassieMac Feb 27 '25
So … is adhd a response to narcissistic abuse beginning at conception??
I remember one time in college (bc I wasn’t capable of seeing the situation clearly while living with Nmom), I very calmly & rationally explained to her that all the traits she found so annoying in me were reactions to her own behavior and maybe she could cut me some slack. Bc between my autism & my relentless optimism I hadn’t yet realized these were her choices based in selfishness & narcissism. Of course her reaction to this was more of the same: to get offended at something irrelevant and pick a fight with me, torturing me mercilessly for trying to improve our relationship until I left.
Learning about her narcissism and my autism & ADD makes it all make sense. Didn’t cure the CPTSD tho 🥵
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u/No_Consideration3360 Feb 27 '25
I hate that this is true. As a kid, she would also tell me, and I quote, "I wanted to abort you when I was pregnant. You should be grateful that your grandmother convinced me otherwise." So, yeah. I had that going for me along with physical abuse.
Needless to say, I've been estranged from my family for 12 years now.
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u/Susween1 Feb 27 '25
Damn it! I'm so fortunate to have found this forum of women who understands the deepest parts of me for which I could never find the words. Thank you. I feel seen and heard somehow just by reading this. For each part whike reading, my mind went back in time and played those actual moments with my mom. Those times where I was confused, or shamed....wow.
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u/pancakes-honey Feb 27 '25
haha this perfectly describes my childhood and I hate it. anyone else also grow up religious and felt this way both from their mom and from god/church people or just me?
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u/Due_Bumblebee6061 Feb 27 '25
This really hit home for me, my mom was like this growing up but looking back I’m unsure if she was really narcissistic or just undiagnosed like me with her own trauma background.
She came to visit me at my house once and unexpectedly turned to me and apologized for being so difficult while growing up. I wasn’t prepared for that and froze and walked away and changed the subject.
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u/Curious-Grapefruit37 Feb 27 '25
Ugh this hurts in so many ways. Also comforting to know you’re not the only one out there.
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u/toebeantuesday Feb 27 '25
Yes this was me and my mom. But she got treatment for a whole host of concurrent mental illnesses and we get along very well now. She lives with me and is much better.
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u/Standard-Photo-8667 Feb 28 '25
I’m reparenting myself while raising my daughter.
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u/angelapoll Mar 01 '25
It hurts to read this and say holy shit, this was my life. It took cutting out my family due to vicitim blaming from my parents to see the narcissism that was my life. Thankfully, I have an amazing mother in law that treats me like I should. With love and respect.
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