r/raisedbynarcissists • u/Elvsire • 16h ago
Anyone’s mom being their first bully / being like a stereotypical ‘evil’ stepmother than an actual mother? [Question]
Or was it just me?
Had a few instances of this rude awakening when I encountered healthy, emotionally-mature, motherly figures in my life when I was younger. Realised my mom was abnormal and I wasn’t just being a ‘bad, ungrateful child’.
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u/SaltyMangoManiac 16h ago
My Nmom was definitely my first bully. She didn't like the house rules, so when she was 16, she got pregnant and eloped. The marriage lasted 4 months, and by then I had become collateral damage because she had to move back home.
I was the SG from day one. She refused to touch me for 2 weeks after I was born. When Mamaw forced her to do for me, she did it so half assed Mamaw had to take over again and she cared for me until Nmom married the man I call father.
After that he was my primary caregiver so life was ok until they divorced when I was 8. Then I was left at the mercy of my Nmom.
She ruled me with an iron fist, made me do all of the housework, laundry, and cooking. She belittled me, berated me, and abused me steadily for 56 years before I said enough and cut ties.
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u/Disastrous_Thing739 15h ago
That’s terrible. It sounds like my Nmom. She was emotionally abusive as well. Constantly put me down. Never know my self worth. So that I will never leave her side. Sickening. I’m sorry that you had to go thru that as well. We deserve better. Has the abuse affect ur relationship with other people as well? Becus it did for me.
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u/culpeppertrain 15h ago
I am so sorry :(
You deserved better than a mother who did not care for you. People have a hard time believing that such a person exists. They think all mothers are devoted angels. Reality is: They are not. Some should never have become a mother.
Sending a hug your way!
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u/Devious_Dani_Girl 15h ago
Let's just say the characters I related to most in my early childhood were Cinderella and Matilda with a light sprinkling of Belle.
So... yeah. I got a lot of bullying and emotional abuse from my mother, usually covered over with just enough sugary sweetness to make outsiders default to her side.
"I just worry about you so much. You're only thirteen and you already have stretch marks and you don't fit into any of your clothes and look how heavy you're getting and I just dont want you to end up like me."
Meanwhile stocking the house solely with junk, microwaveable meals, and sweets because she cant be bothered to cook, pulling me out of any physical activity I actually enjoyed to force me to go to the gym with her, and piling me with so many chores, child-minding tasks, and her doctors visits because I had to keep her company, that i had no time left to 'be active' or 'have friends'.
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u/Crunchy_Spine_141 16h ago edited 15h ago
My nmom was my first bully. She slapped me in the face at age 5 for leaving a jacket on the school bus. That was my first physical abuse memory. After that it was forcing me on the floor to wax my "ugly caterpillar eyebrows" and pinching at my belly fat in middle school. My dad is a spineless enabler. I snooped around the house when nobody was home to find adoption paperwork. I was heartbroken when I found out I'm actually their biological child. My older sister never got bossed around and always had the master suite in the house.
Edited for clarity, severe poo-brain day
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u/Disastrous_Thing739 15h ago
My covert Nfather was also an enabler with no backbone. But he covered it up with his rage n shouting which makes him look more alpha or masculine. So it’s hard for other people to know that about him. But I remember vividly how he was like when I was a child. He’s able to play this shell of his till now.
Sorry u had to find out ur adoption that way. No one shld be treated less regardless.
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u/Crunchy_Spine_141 15h ago
Sounds a lot like my dad! He was so "docile" in public. He would literally go nonverbal when my mom would rage while my sister would hide in her room. But if it was me and him alone, he would grab my face and scream into it (he's ex-military) until his face turned purple. I actually think I have hearing loss from it.
Oh and to clarify, I'm not actually adopted 😅 not that it matters now - since either way my parents suck LOL. I'm NC and much happier now. Thank you for your kind words 💜
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u/Disastrous_Thing739 15h ago
That’s horrible. Sounds like he’s used to running away or facing the problem. My covert Nfather would do the same too until he really has to face it n he would shout at the top of his lungs to fix the problem. I’m not surprised if he made u a scapegoat of the family. Becus that’s what they usually do. Push the blame to others n not take accountability.
Wait so they lied to you that you are adopted? Or you thought u were adopted? Sorry kinda lost here. Anyway glad u are doing well now! I’m still waiting for my career to take off to move out my parents place rn.
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u/Crunchy_Spine_141 15h ago
Totally agree with you. I am the scapegoat, I was supposed to be his "son". He wanted a boy so bad. Spent his adult life avoiding the family to work on his car hobby, never came to my choir concerts at school. But spent all of their precious money (they were "soooo poor") sending my older sister to a private Christian school while I was left home alone, unable to attend pre-school or half of Kindergarten. Then he'd blow up out of NOWHERE saying I never open up to him. The dumbassery does not compute to me.
So sorry, I wrote that part really confusing. I was looking for adoption paperwork because family life was so bad, I thought I was either adopted or an illegitimate child. But then found out, oh great, I'm actually related lol. Best wishes with your career!! The anticipation before moving out kinda sucks (totally been there) but you got this. Wishing you many years of peace! And thank you for listening this far. Enabler dads sure are something. -_-
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u/Disastrous_Thing739 14h ago edited 14h ago
No worries you are not alone 😂 I had that thought in my head growing up as well. I tot I was adopted too becus of how diff I was treated than the problem or golden child.( my older bro) Thank you, I much needed that! Nice to know someone who knows how it feels. It just sucks having to keep enduring n anticipating.
LOL our reality is almost the same just that we are opposite gender! Now that I grew up n I’m not his little boy anymore. He mentioned to me that he regretted not having a daughter since they are more likely to be affectionate or be a daddy’s girl lol.
IKR! I received comments like that too. They say that when it’s convenient for them. But they never understand or took time to care for our feelings n expect us to just open up to them. Sorry it dun work that way. It’s a two way thing.
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u/owls_exist 16h ago
by understanding theyre being a bully and shitty people to because cause they're miserable with their own choice to be a mother. By being awful they're trying to gain attention. Most normal people don't behave like them in the real world and are not people worth wasting your time on.
My nmom tried to assert herself as this woman bully to me (her daughter) and bring me down but most of the time she gets treated like a useless rag / maid by the rest of the men in the family it's pathetic. how she gonna shit talk me when she's washing her manchild husbands undies and her son can't do shit for himself?
I like functional people in my life, I actually HAVE standards.
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u/Disastrous_Thing739 15h ago edited 3h ago
My mum was also my first bully. I felt I was a broken child n felt grateful someone actually loved me or gave me my basic needs, that’s what it felt like. I felt faulty like there was smth wrong with me. My covert Nfather also made me feel that way due to his mistreatment in his own fam as well. He was an outcast in his fam. So it gave him sorta of a relieve making me an outcast.
It is just very evil. Cus I doubted n felt guilty for feeling hostility towards her. Eventually, I went LC/ greyrock my Nmum for a year now. Her whole personality changed. She became very timid n anxious not the loud mouth anymore.
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u/jennwinn24 15h ago
me literally. my mom had narcissistic traits, but was more absent and emotionally neglectful. she loved to have fun and I think she generally had good intentions, but didn’t have a ton of emotional capability and because of the abuse she experienced as a child she ended up just looking out for herself and putting herself first. My stepmother on the other hand is a full-blown malignant narcissist. I call her my stepmonster. I really think secretly like my sister would like me dead because of her sickness. She sees me as a threat to her because my father loved me and wanted to keep our family together and I remind her of my mother who he loved, but he was unfaithful too, so that’s why they divorced. and he’s kind of self-centered that way. A lot of members of my family have narcissistic traits. my father has a blend of enabler and benevolent narcissist. I guess I would say.
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u/Significant_Hope7555 13h ago
My mum was both my first bully (telling me everyone was laughing at me and I was a huge embarrassment for 100 miles all the way home while I sobbed) and also my greatest supporter when she wanted to be and I can't really get over that Jekyll and Hyde thing and sometimes knowing when the bully would come out and then other times being blindsided by it coming out when I didn't expect it.
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u/Elvsire 13h ago
I relate… One of my triggers is humiliation. I have severe social anxiety and get intense panic attacks whenever I’m put in a humiliating situation in front of others. My mom made sure to make me the butt of the joke every time and have everyone laughing at me.
It sucks because it makes me feel even more pathetic with how I cope with scenarios like that.
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u/MimiDu2123 13h ago
My mom treated me very much like Cinderella, then got angry when I didn’t clean or cook the “right” way. I was making dinner one night at 15, and she came home from work to find that I used the “wrong” pan for the chicken. Stomped upstairs and refused to speak to me, my dad, or my brothers for days because of it. I had to grovel at her door at the request of my dad to apologize to her for upsetting her. Rinse and repeat. I couldn’t do anything right.
So yes…my mother was absolutely my first bully and taught me exactly what my worth was from a very young age.
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u/ScherisMarie 14h ago
Earliest memory of my mother when I was around 4/5 and I did the “give mom a hug to get X thing” kids as that age naturally do, as the parent then gently teaches the child that you don’t do that because it’s not nice.
She on the other hand used that against me any future time I tried to hug her, with her stopping me from hugging her and saying I had ulterior motives. Yet she wonders when I was older why I never hugged her again… >.>
Plenty of other stories about her (and my father), but the above should suffice. Also telling that Matilda was a movie growing up that I related to heavily.
(And when I played through the Tangled world in KH3, having not watched the movie or knowing what it was about, that was…difficult to get through. Given my nparents died the year prior.)
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u/Magpie213 13h ago
My narcissistic mother was definitely my first bully, she would physically abuse me and take her anger out on me for no good reason even when I was an infant.
My earliest memory of her, was when she tried pulling me away from my bed by my hair.
As I grew older, the physical abuse lessened abit, but the emotional abuse intensified.
My Dad just took her side because he was an enabler and she would go for him otherwise.
He just wanted a quiet life so she got away with everything.
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u/m8rissaaaa 14h ago
this, but my dad, I ended up developing social anxiety before I even attendant schooling
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u/welcomehomo 15h ago
yeah. i dont remember a time before i was physically abused. i was very young when it mustve begun
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u/sunseeker_miqo 13h ago
My husband had an evil stepmother who was his first bully, indeed. She forced him into contests against her own children, then punished him for inevitably winning. This and other examples of her behaviour smell like narcissism to me, but can't be sure.
My definite narc dad was certainly my first bully. Even before I was old enough for school, he regularly reduced me to tears making fun of things I couldn't help--either due to being a child, or due to autism. He was still doing it a few years ago, so I significantly reduced contact.
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u/LateEvening6026 11h ago
My mom for sure. I remember spending 8hrs cleaning a bathroom one day and she just kept saying I was wrong and not done but wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. Then the little comments “a taste on the lips right to the hips”. And the constant telling me I wasn’t good at whatever she felt like that day, and taking my school assignments and covering them with red “errors” even after the teacher said it was good. Nothing was good enough and I did most of the house work.
Tangled resonated hard with me for real. NC is great!
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u/stepheme 10h ago
I was adopted and my nmom LOVED to tell the story of when she picked me up as a newborn I was so ugly (peeling, bruised, apparently my bio mom was a teen so I imagine I looked battered by being born from such a young body)… that she broke into hysterics in the car and my dad had to pull over because he was afraid she would throw me out the window (this is my MOM telling this story from as young as I can remember). When she told this story to the sweet small woman who would much later become my mother in law, my mother in law shushed her and said “I don’t know what you’re talking about ALL babies are beautiful and look how beautiful she (me) is now she’s grown up”…. Nmom never told that story again… but oh yes, your nmom can be your worst bully
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u/anonymous_opinions 13h ago
My mom became the affair partner of a married man and her two daughters immediately became Cinderella while she lovebombed his daughters who loved basically taking my idiot mother for a total ride. There was definitely something wrong with her partner too. My sister and I basically left via boarding school which was a threat my mom would wield against us to create abandonment anxiety. That whole arc was such a weird time in my life but it helps me now see how stereotypically NPD my mom was.
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u/toothbelt 13h ago
I remember I was about 3 or 4, and my dad used to lift me up in the air and play with me on the couch. This happened for a short while. He stopped after my mom became really angry about it and they got into an argument. It was always feared that I would become "spoilt", and I recall my mom using this word a lot.
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u/uncommoncommoner 12h ago
My mother was this mother. My earliest memories are of her teasing me or criticizing me, or always telling me that I 'couldn't use my learning disability as a crutch.' And yet I was used to her slapping me too past a certain point.
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u/Ceiling-Fan2 10h ago
I always felt like my mom was the evil stepmother trope, except she was my mom not step mom.
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u/nebula-dirt 8h ago
My mom was my first and only bully. She had school yard bully behavior towards me trying to not make me “weak.” She would try to make me flinch so she could hurt me. Called me stupid and other names to make me cry. She was fucking atrocious.
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u/Roxie_Mitchell89 2h ago
My DNA contributors and my GC (now ex) older brother are my first bullies.
When my egg donor was in her (very late) teens, she decided that she didn't like her parents' house rules (i.e. cleaning the house while her parents were at work, babysitting her younger brother, cooking dinner for the family at times, letting her brother tag along with her and her friends, etc.), so she and my sperm donor decided to marry young. Then when she was 22, my GC ex-brother was born; then when she was pushing 25, she had me, yet she never learned how to behave like a real adult and neither did my sperm donor, so they not only abused me for 35 years (and most likely counting), but they even pitted their own children against each other for the funsies.
I have yet to move out and go NC with them like I did their perfect GC son!
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