Parents that think they are mentally well when they are not

Post Reply New Topic

My mother thinks that she is "the only sane person in this house". Nothing could be further from the truth that she is sane.

Am I the only one that has a parent that is delusional in this regard?

My parents both thought they were the only sane, moral, people in the world. They thought everyone else was evil and worried when the kids got too close to other people. They didn't like it when any of us got married as well.

My mother also thought she had it worse than anyone else in the world, she was the only one who experienced stress, frustration, etc., and everyone else had it great. She also thought my disinterest in swimming was possibly the worst thing any parent could go through.

She also made up alot of things knowingly lying through her teeth and thinking nothing of it, even when she was caught, or worse, denying whatever she said or did and pinned it on someone else. Nothing was ever her fault, after all, according to her, she was a saint.

My father died several years ago and since getting married, I don't have a relationship with my mother anymore. She can't take the idea of sharing me with someone else, but I just want to be happy.

That's typical. Even parents who genuinely love their kids can be smug and "stupid" at times. Many times my parents think I am totally weird and out there because some of my views are odd and "out there" I don't think they understand a lot of what I mean and it is frustrating. They are usually nice about it though and humor me. Parents often try their best but everyone has flaws and makes mistakes.

Actually I think my mom is the most sane person in my family.

I would rather be considered insane than inane

I spent my entire childhood believing my mother when she told me my dad was nuts and she wasn't. When I was a teenager I realized she wasn't quite so sane afterall. My aunt then told me that my mother has been mentallly unstable her entire life.

Sometimes I wonder if we all delude ourselves...

The quickest way to get called "insane" is by declaring you are the only sane one.

I always considered saying to my parents: "Ahhh do you think I´m weird!! !! Guess what???! !! Asperger´s parents have Asperger´s traits!! !! !! !! !! !! !" or something like "Ok I´m weird but that is all your fault cause I received the genes from you!" However I´ve never said anything like that cause I guess it would be harmful for our relation.

My mother was exactly that way. She was very unstable and unable to feel compassion for anyone else's suffering but her own. But to hear her tell it, she knew everything, she was always right, she always knew how to deal with people, she always knew how people worked, and anything that went wrong was always someone else's fault. One of the many clues that she was not a very sane person was her absolute inability to say the words, "I'm sorry."

She was also an absolutely unreliable narrator. I have discovered many of her fabrications when I've spoken to other family members or just thought about the things she said from an adult point of view. Whenever I say "my mother told me xyz..." I always have to remember that "xyz" is most likely a major exaggeration or a complete fabrication. Of course, I can't discount all of it, because there might actually be something that she said that was true. It's a little mind-bending to have had a mother like that.

It's hard enough making sense of people as an Aspie. Having a delusional parent to complement the undiagnosed and in-denial Aspie one was a real party, let me tell ya.

Is it sane to tell your child that the reason you constantly insult and belittle them is because you love them, and are the only person in the world who will tell them the 'truth'...whereas anyone who is nice to them or gives them a compliment is lying?

PrisonerSix, maybe you should look up narcissistic personality disorder, it sounds like you might learn a thing or two...

Yeap, the word you are looking for is narcissistic. Basically nothing is their fault, the whole world is against them, and lying is their primary means of communication. They will constantly exaggerate, or strait up lie if it suits their self-delusions. They are also impervious to logic. Combine this with an overwhelming need to nag and complain about how everything is so unfair, and how everything is your fault, and how you never live up to expectations, etc. You can see how living with a narcissistic parent can be rather bothersome. I have a narcissistic mother, and a semi-aspie father (not enough to qualify for a diagnosis, but I can see where i get it from). So, I think I am in the same boat as Neshamaruach.

You've just described my mother to a T, so we are definitely in the same boat. My parents have both passed, but I continue trying to figure them out, just to have some peace about them. The closest diagnosis I've seen that describes my mother is Narcissistic Personality Disorder. My dad was definitely an Aspie, though I didn't realize it until the last few years.

He depended on her for his sense of normal. It was very bizarre. I have a lot of compassion for him now.

I'm still working on the compassion for my mother. If I could understand the source of her disorder, it might help. The only thing I've heard is that NPD usually derives from some very early breakage in the mother-infant bond, and that because of this (and because of the fact that the narcissistic person always thinks they're right), it is impervious to therapy. From what my mother told me, my grandmother never wanted to be married or to have children, so there is possible evidence for less than decent mothering, but again, we're talking about my mother's narration, which is not reliable. Other family members have said that my grandmother doted on my mother, and I remember my grandmother as very loving and very safe. It's possible that she grew into the role, but it's just as possible that my mother's craziness derives from a source I'll never know.

Anyone have any information on what causes NPD or BPD?

You just described my ex-husband, which is one of the many reasons why I'm glad I divorced him. He was so bad that he didn't want to get a job, since actually working was beneath him in some way. I'm also glad that I wasn't diagnosed as an Aspie until a few years after I divorced him, since he would have used that against me.

Like me with my mother...I only realize looking back how isolated I was as a child. When I was younger, having barely any friends my own age, I didn't really know any different - but when I reached my teens, I started getting the sense that other kids were having more fun and had more say in their own lives than me, and other adults started trying to fight for me to have those normal teen things, and that was when she came down like a ton of bricks with her absolute need for control.



I don't know. My mother virtually idolized her own mother - a shadowy figure who died when I was very young - but it may all have been just to bolster my mother's own idea that mothers were there to be idolized. I once saw my mother and her sister have a blazing row in which my aunt accused her of being a spoilt brat - she was the youngest. (My mother claimed my aunt was the spoilt one, but it was part of her repertoire to describe anyone who received any kind of normal love or support as a child as being 'spoilt' or their mother of being 'pushy'.) I would love to sit down with my aunt to have a good old conversation about this, but sadly she passed away earlier this year. You just are never going to get an accurate picture with a family like this. I have read theories that say that being given a sense of specialness and entitlement early on in life can be the cause of it, but obviously the jury's out - I guess so few NPDs ever reaching therapy is one reason there's little available information.

My father is just like that.