Parents that think they are mentally well when they are not

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You could have been writing about my mother there. It's impossible to talk to her about problems, because her only response to any issue you raise is that she had exactly the same problem, only ten times worse. The implication is that she had to put up with it, so you'll just have to put up with it as well. She does actually admit she has psychological problems (much worse than anybody else's, naturally...) but she refuses to either seek professional help or talk about it with anyone else who tries, and then, conversely, complains that nobody cares about her.

My father is incapable of admitting that he's wrong, and incapable of saying the word 'sorry'. I only realized a short time ago that I can't remember him ever truly apologizing about something. Nothing is ever his fault. No matter what mean or ignorant thing he's done, he either can't see anything wrong with it, or it's somebody else who's driven him to it, he's absolved of all blame, and they're the ones who should feel guilty. Whatever he does or likes is always held up as the 'normal' way to behave, and anyone who disagrees with him is the peculiar one. He has, in fact, what I would call an obsession with trying to present as 'normal'. Face and appearance are everything to him. He couldn't really care less if somebody is actually miserable, providing they show him what he wants to see and act correctly in front of people outside of the family.

You can add me to the ranks of having a narcissistic mother. She's never wrong no matter what, thinks she knows everything including what was best for me, and whenever something goes wrong, someone else is always to blame.

For example, even though she's the one going around telling people that I'm disabled (even though I'm really not), but when I got put in the "special needs" classes or did not get to do what I wanted to do with my life, It's always because of something someone else did even though she's the one saying the things that make people at the schools think I'm incapable of functioning at a "normal" level. She even has gone as far to blame my father who I haven't even seen in 20 years for the Social Security Administration trying to (wrongfully) collect money from me because of an overpayment. Never mind that she was the one that got it in her head that I needed to apply for SSI/SSDI, instead of me being allowed to have appropriate educational and employment opportunities, or that she filled out the application and spoke with the case managers and both times told a whole lot of completely exaggerated B.S. about me being unable to function or have a job. Never mind the fact she also was in control of the money and continued to spend it when I got a (marginally) better job and was no longer supposed to be receiving the payments.

She always has an excuse for everything, even for things that are absolutely inexcusable. Her excuse for not letting me finish high school, for example, was "kids were beating me up", including I was "getting beat up in the halls", etc. That never happened, and I know since I was there of course, and she wasn't. That is her excuse for not letting me have appropriate educational opportunities, and even if that was true there were other programs available that would have suited me better anyway. And I was 18 by then, so it was a blatant violation of my legal rights as an adult.

Again, nothing she ever did was wrong, no matter what. There was nothing wrong with keeping me from finishing high school, or dragging me out to the Vocational Rehab office where it was determined that I was incapable of having a decent job or receiving a decent education and it wasn't recommended that I try to attend college. It wasn't wrong that I ended up being pigeonholed into a horrible sheltered workshop where I was not allowed to do what I knew I was capable of doing. Also, whenever I got upset about how I was being treated, anything I did because I was upset (or the mere fact I was upset, for that matter) was used as a justification doing whatever made me upset in the first place. It was automatically my fault that people were doing hurtful things to me, despite the obvious fact that I would not have been upset if these things were not being done to me in to begin with. It was the most #$%@ed up example of circular logic I've ever seen!!

She's just so perfect and incapable of being wrong, while everyone else is at fault when she makes a bad decision. She is just like her mother, who also thought she was perfect and nothing she ever did was wrong. I can go on and on about this for at least a few hours, so I'll just stop now.

This is a very scary thread, not only because I recognise my own parents in other people's descriptions, ( so exactly that it feels almost spooky );

... the "never being wrong", never saying sorry, always knowing better than anyone else, and if they did do something wrong it is because did it on the advice of someone else, and how everybody else is ignorant/asleep/tom dick and harry/sheep, except for the special people that they admire and respect who are almost always writers/philosophers that they never meet, highly critical and controlling everything, and if they lost control washing hands of you, etc etc etc,

but also because I am a mother too, ( myself undx'd Aspergers; my 9 year old son AS/PDD ), and know that many of these things are true of me. Except that I do say sorry!

I am pretty sure that both my parents are on or near the spectrum; my father old-fashioned classic aspergers, and my mother the less typical female presentation/expression of it, so it may not be a question of sanity/mental health so much as AS parents. I think that AS in one's own parents might look like NPD, because of the power that they have over you simply by being parents/adults and you a child.

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Last edited by ouinon on 08 Dec 2008, 3:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

Um, wow, you just described my family situation. Down to a letter. Only my mother doesn't lie all that much, just sometimes. Or is in denial, which is a very real possibility for her.

I would have never imagined my mother as narcissistic. Huh, but this description works perfectly.

This is interesting. The only dependable information I have comes from cousins who know that my grandmother pretty much isolated herself from family and doted on my mother. And my mother did have that sense of entitlement in a *huge* way. This makes sense. I agree that there is no completely understanding families like ours, but it's helpful to have some pointers in the right direction, so thanks for that.

An aside: I have a photo of my mother that looks exactly like me when I was the same age. (I think she is about 10 years old in the photo.) I showed it to my daughter, who was 13 at the time, and she said, "The two of you don't look alike at all. Look at her eyes and her mouth. She's angry and mean." My daughter never met my mother, but she got her exactly right. Nice to have an NT daughter--no face-blindness there!

Well, let's see: My mom's overly dependent and has repeatedly suffered from complicated grief. (Unlike autism, that is something you really DO suffer from.) I've had both depression and PTSD, plus moderate self-injury problems. My sister saw a therapist for depression and the feeling that she didn't have an identity. Married into the family are a Vietnam war veteran with the obligatory PTSD, a sociopath, and a guy with bipolar disorder.

Yep. We're perfectly sane.

Oh, and we all have decent lives, except for the guy who had the bipolar--he died of unrelated causes--and possibly the sociopath, who left my mom and is hopefully never coming back.

Mental illness doesn't have to ruin your life. Complicate it, yeah; make it more difficult, definitely; but we're OK now and will probably weather further storms much more handily than we would've without it.

My mom still won't admit she has Asperger's traits, though. Even as she obsesses about messianic Judaism (she's not Jewish) and has social subtleties repeatedly fly over her head. Nor has she ever managed to get help for her having to get over a couple of loved ones dying, which she didn't do easily. (Mom also never admitted I had problems--she blamed it on my not having a proper father... actually I think she blamed just about everything on my dad dying. Oh, well, she's better now, like I said.)

My mom has quite a lot of health problems but luckily no mental issues, her only “problem” in this respect (at least a problem to me, she is O.K. with this) is her extreme neurotypicality (read: extreme small-mindness).

She’s 100% sure it’s her views and formulas for happiness are the best and everybody who doesn’t share them is an idiot, a deviant or a madman. She doesn’t have any other opinions than those the society has taught her to follow though.

Her only opinion forming which she didn’t follow the crowd is her pretty original religious beliefs. She believes in reincarnation… well, it isn’t a dumb idea but what is ridiculous is the fact that in the same time mom believes in heaven/hell theory and it’s impossible to persuade her that both those beliefs exclude each other.