Was my stepmum a narcissist?

2 Comments

I used to have a stepmum. She made me really scared when I first met her at around 3, but I don't know if it was gut feeling, or just refusing to talk to anybody as a kid. Anyway, she seemed okay for the about 7 years I knew her.

They got married, we moved many houses, filed for bankruptcy, moved a bunch of schools, and ended up at a house, which I will call the "cop house" because there was a police standoff there. I felt everything was normal, being a kid who was comletely fabricating an entirely different personality in year 5, until she left.

After she left, everything felt kinda weird, but in a good way. I wasn't scared to come home, and I didn't have to fake who I was. I didn't have to do out-of-school things I didn't want to. Then, it got me thinking about all she had done. Narcissist isn't the right word, but I can't think of another one at the moment.

The first thing i can really think of is how she wanted me to be a completely different person. Yes, she taught me how to not eat like a neanderthal with my mouth open, and taught me manners, but she also put me into different classes that I did very not want to get into. She forced me into dsnce classes and my brother into football, when he didn't want any sports, and I wanted to do soccer and cheerleading. We were not religious, yet we had to go to church where the only thing I liked was the singing and the eggnog at Christmas Eve.

I remember she would always pop the dogs in the mouth for wanting atterntion, and she always threatened to pop me in the mouth and break my arm for menial things. They might've been jokes, I wouldn't know, but they sounded deadass angry. I also remember her forcing me to give hugs to everyone, and not caring at all if I was touch averse and it made me cry as a young child.

She also made us move out of our amazing old house that we absolutely loved, in a good neighborhood and friends that we trusted and outstanding teachers in schools because it would "never feel like home". Did I mention that she was the one who up and left?

She would also tear into my brother and I when we said or did the most minute thing, but would do so much worse than us. She did hit us, but never too hard. It was so weird to return home after the time she first left, and not be scared of being locked in a closet or being hit, or seeing the animals be hit.

I think that is where a lot of my hatred and trust issues stem from. She left right before my birthday, and I started puberty almost directly on that birthday, so seeing her leave while I'm just starting to go through an important time of my life, I might've internalized the thought that everybody will leave me and are only my friend to get something out of me and all secretly hate me. Not to mention blowing through houses like how fire is blowing through the sky.

She also wanted kids. Like, at least 2. Like popping out babies is going to help the fact that we can't make August's rent and it's October. I also remember that I had a diary, for all of 2 days, before she read through it and yelled at me and punished me for it.

Oh well, what's done is done, and this isn't therapy. I think she was just ultimately too young to be a mother. Thank you.

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Comments ( 2 )
  • Boojum
    3 years ago

    What you describe were your perceptions as a child, and those are never completely reliable. It's impossible for us to ever be completely objective about others and what goes on in our lives, but our lack of life-experience when we're kids means we often completely misunderstand what's going on.

    In any case, I don't see how applying a diagnostic label to the woman is really helpful at this point.

    I think all that really matters is that you didn't feel loved, comfortable or even completely safe around her. If children don't feel secure and cared for, and if they don't have clear, consistent and reasonable rules they are expected to conform to, they can grow up to be anxious, insecure and angry. A parent not respecting a child's wishes, trying to force them to be someone they aren't or - even worse - trying to live vicariously through the child, can create a lot of resentment or even hatred that's difficult to move past.

    Two important adults you don't mention at all are your biological parents. You must have some sort of feelings about what they were doing - and not doing - while your stepmother was in your life. The fact you don't say anything about them makes me wonder if you might feel some resentment or anger towards them, but you can't bring yourself to admit that, so you lay it all on your wicked stepmother.

    Just to play the devil's advocate for a moment, I'll point out that being a good stepparent is very difficult. A couple starting a family and raising kids is challenging enough, but stepparents come into a family that has a history, established dynamics and rules, and often strained relationships between the absent parent(s) and the adult they're involved with and the kid(s). It's also very common for children to feel all sorts of things they can't identify about their biological parents, how their life has been upended by one of them leaving the family and how they're expected to accept the stranger who has suddenly moved into their home. You do hear about stepparents and kids who grow to deeply love and respect each other, but that requires special qualities in the adult and some uncommon interpersonal chemistry between them and the kids. There's a reason why the wicked stepmother is a cliché.

    Whatever her problems were - and whatever your other parent's issues were that made them connect to her and stick with her - the fact is that the things that happened during that phase of your life have left you with problems. You're not unique in this. Parents are only people, nobody ever does any job absolutely perfectly, and being a good parent is one of the most difficult jobs there is. Anyone with any sense will eventually realise that there are things about their attitudes towards the world in general and other individuals that they need to work on.

    It's good that you have sufficient self-awareness to recognise things about your behaviour that aren't positive and healthy, and that you've been pondering where that may come from. For what it's worth, I think you're probably right to suspect many of the root causes were your stepmother's behaviour and your relationship with her. But, as I've said, I'd suggest that you might also consider what messages you were getting from what your biological parents did and said when you were a kid, and their general attitude towards you.

    I'd also suggest you do some thinking about your expectations and attitudes in regard to romantic relationships. We all develop a set of beliefs about how relationships between adults should work by what we observe while we're growing up. People who grow up in a family where the relationship between the adults is dysfunctional often go on to have dysfunctional relationships of their own. In many cases, they unconsciously seek out people who will fill an antagonistic role or they are subconsciously driven to sabotage their relationships in some way, and so recreate what they feel is a "normal" relationship, even though that is very unhealthy.

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  • Somenormie
    3 years ago

    From what you're telling us, is a personality trait of a narcissist.

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