1 week ago
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Note: This post contains mentions of child abuse and pregnancy loss.
Even good parents sometimes make hurtful comments that can stick with their kids for a long time. But when it comes to parents who exhibit narcissistic behaviors, these comments can be incredibly damaging. Recently on Reddit, people who were raised by narcissists shared the wildest things their parents have said to them, and it's just unfathomable. Here's what people shared:
Comments have been edited for length and clarity.
1. "My dad called me a 'whore' (direct quote) when I was 12 for wearing a sports bra with an open flannel with jeans, while at home. It was '94, so it was the trend. Basically, starting puberty made me inappropriate. Recently, my 11-year-old came out of her room in a similar outfit, the other day, as she wears one for pajamas around the house, so did my other daughter, without long sleeves over it, and all I see is girls being comfortable at home. Literal children just being comfortable in their own skin and bodies. It’s so weird my dad took offense to me just existing and being comfortable, while at home without company."
2. "When I was 19, my emotionally immature mother said, 'You know, if we were married, we would be headed for divorce court.' It’s been, like, 17 years, and I’m still so fucking dumbfounded and disturbed by that comment."
3. "My dad was single, and dating wasn’t going well, I guess. He lamented to a table full of his own dinner guests that young women like me aren’t interested in men like him; they’re interested in men like (insert my boyfriend’s name). My bf was sitting right next to me. It made my flesh crawl, but it’s not the first time he said shit like that. I always felt his feelings toward me were extremely abnormal, to say the least. I wasn’t surprised he felt that way; I was just mortified he said it in front of so many people, some of them strangers to me. Other people at the table were like, 'Surely you don’t understand how that sounds,' and Dad doubled down. He knows how it sounds. I was about 30 years old when this happened."
4. "My mother would always say, 'I've known since I was young that my kids wouldn't live long, especially my daughter. God told me she wouldn't make it past 16,' and she would stare at me when she would say it with this excited, dead stare. I was so uncomfortable. I was also terrified to turn 16. I thought she was going to kill me."
5. "When I was about 5, my dad told me that it was his job as my father to break my spirit. When I was about 7, I got placed in a highly advanced academic program at school, which was very competitive. My dad was deeply bothered to learn that his daughter was so intelligent. He went on a rant at the dinner table about what a waste of money it would be for him to send me to college, 'just so [my] husband could have intelligent conversation.'"
6. "Hearing 'to be honest, I can't hug you now that you have [gestures at boobs]' from my dad is really up there for me."
7. "She would take my phone and flirt with a boy I dated, pretending to be me."
8. "My mom told me in sixth grade that no man would ever want to marry me if I never showed off my boobs. I was 12 and would continue to wear baggy shirts or jackets to hide my chest until I was out of high school and moved into my dorm at college."
9. "I was pregnant with my first and only child at age 38. Had a great career, debt-free in my own home, a stupendous partner, and was stable AF. At seven months pregnant, my mom asked me if I'd give her legal guardianship of our child. I laughed so hard when she asked, but it was not a joke. She was dead serious. She kept insisting she'd be a better parent than I could and be able to give our daughter a better life than we could. 'You could keep her for as long as you can, but that way it's legal... Just in case.'"
"I was speechless. Like legit, hung up on her, speechless.
I knew I had to have new boundaries in place cause of the baby, but I didn't realize I had to put up the proverbial walls months before the baby even arrived.
In the very few IRL visits we've had since, I've caught her coaching my infant to call her 'Mama.' Nipped that in the bud by explaining that the next time I caught her coaching my kid, she would have all access and communication revoked. Presents sent back unopened. Blocked phone calls. Missed holidays and birthdays.
I can handle my mom's flavor of crazy, but I refuse to allow my kid to be a pawn in her ego games."
10. "When my brother died, my dad said my brother didn't deserve a funeral because my brother was an addict."
11. "We were at my paternal grandmother's funeral. Should note my mother HATED my dad's family...and the feeling was definitely mutual. Anyway, we're at a literal funeral. I was standing with my mother when she suddenly got that mean sneer that she got when she was about to say something horrible, and leaned over to tell me, 'You're just like a [father's last name]. Look at all of them. Ugly with flat asses, just like you!'"
"Then she was laughing and gave me a look like she expected me to join in, while I just...stared at her in horror.
What the fuck was that? At a funeral? I don't even have a flat ass?????
I was in my late 20s when this happened, which somehow made it weirder."
12. "I got pregnant after five years of trying to conceive, at the start of the pandemic, so I was terrified of losing my child. My mom said, 'No big deal, I already have a plot in the graveyard you can use to bury it. See, I always think ahead.' Thankfully, it was a good pregnancy, and I now have a healthy (alive!) 4-year-old daughter."
"My mom had a miscarriage before I was a year old, and always blamed me for it (I left her in a bad state, she had to take care of me and couldn’t take care of her pregnant self, etc.). So as soon as I was learning to talk, she would make me apologize to God in my nightly prayers for killing my baby brother, since I had already been baptized when it happened, and I had to carry that sin until I could atone for it in my first communion."
13. "I was 11 and forgot to take out the trash. My mom decided to tell me I was the reason for her first divorce. My older brother was the golden child; I was the destructor. After she married again and had another child, she said, 'You are the piece of shit that will never allow me to let go of my first marriage.'"
14. "Starting around 8–9 years old, my dad started saying, 'you’re a lesbian,' 'you look like a lesbian,' 'you like girls,' etc. This was the late '90s, and I looked like a basic girl then. He’d say this to me sometimes when I had friends spend the night."
"I always got so much anxiety about how he’d embarrass me in front of them or accuse me of liking my friends in a romantic way. I just stopped inviting them over.
It was confusing. As I got a bit older, I honestly thought I must be a lesbian, and my crushes on boys were wrong. It was fucked up."
15. "My batshit crazy stepmom told my aunt (the sister that was closest to my dad, and the only member of my dad’s family that would tolerate her) that as a teenager, I was 'overly flirtatious' with my dad because I secretly wanted to sleep with him. Luckily, I only found out she felt this way long after my stepmother had died. The confrontation would have been beyond ugly had I known, but I had been estranged from her and my dad for about seven years before she died. Needless to say, I don’t miss that witch."
16. "My mom would say things to make me cry just so she could comfort me. For example, when I was around 11, I had hair growth on my face and shaved it. She told me that I was going to grow a thick beard because I shaved my face. I believed her and started crying. She hugged me and tried to hold me in her arms like I was a baby. It was intentional."
17. "My narc mother announced to my extended family that I got my period at age 12. Like, at Thanksgiving dinner."
18. "My dad has accidentally sent me and my sister porn links MULTIPLE TIMES (now I'm actually questioning if it's an accident...), and he would blame it on random people using his computer. The kicker was he once blamed it on my 85-year-old GRANDMOTHER."
19. "I was sitting at the kitchen table reading (around 11–14), and she was boiling something in a big pot on the stove. Out of the blue, she said that the Bible says in the end times, there will be a famine, and women will boil their babies and eat them. It kind of freaked me out because she was boiling something, and WHY would she tell me that? I knew somehow that she was implying she had complete control over my life, whether I lived or died, and that she thinks God approves of that."
20. "Mom wanted me to put her name on my bank account under the pretense that it was for security reasons. When I refused, she kept trying to talk me into it and eventually exploded, 'If something happens to you, I can't access your money to do anything about it!' She's in her 70s, I'm in my late 30s. Why this is running through her mind weirded me out and told me to run."
21. "My mom said she would buy me a pregnancy test 'cause there was no way I was that fat. I was 26 years old and a size medium."
22. "Creepiest, my mom told me she envied my boobs. Meanest, when I was, like, 14/15, she spent Christmas Eve plastered. On Christmas Day, she was sober, and we went to my grandparents'. She told me as we were walking up to their house, 'I wish I never had you; you and your brother ruined my life.'"
23. And finally, "Don't get married and stay with me forever."
If you are concerned that a child is experiencing or may be in danger of abuse, you can call or text the National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453 (4.A.CHILD); service can be provided in over 140 languages.
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