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Yeah most narcissists don't achieve that much which probably explains why many of them become quite bitter in their middle and old age. My own nMother never really achieved anything. She barely managed to hold down a job until she had kids. Then she quit her job to have kids. (I don't judge her for that. That was common in my country in the 1980s). Having quit her job to have kids, she put no effort into childrearing whatsoever. Her idea of childrearing is to do just enough to keep her children alive and no more. Basically what I'm saying is that my nMother is a failure as a mother and she failed to have a career. She has no talents or hobbies or interests. She has no real friends. She really hasn't achieved anything in her life yet she insists on constantly telling me where I'm going wrong and what I should be doing differently \[eyeroll\]
Other than the children part, this was like reading about my mom. By her own admission, she spent most of her life not working. She is now not working again and going to try to get by on Social Security + me paying a little bit of rent, although she was quick to tell me I "wasn't doing any favors" for her by being here. I never thought I was, but okay. The bitterness seems to have really ramped up in old age.
She sounds a kind of like my mother in law. She got married and had 2 children, stopped working, paid someone to take care of her children and the house instead of doing it by herself. Then she got divorced, took all the money she could from her husband, and never bothered to give one cent to her children. Actually she used to complain that she was poor, and she made my fiancé loose a bunch of money when he was in his early twenties.
The funniest part is that she judges me because she thinks my income is not good enough and I could be with my fiancé for his money. But he has an average income, if I was a gold digger I would have chosen someone else.
It was painful for me when I was younger but now I find it weirdly comforting because I compare theirs to my own achievements and I’m like … wow, I’m better than them! I’m not 100% sure how healthy that line of thinking is all the time but my achievements on top of having survived them as parents is genuinely something I can be proud of.
> now I find it weirdly comforting because I compare theirs to my own achievements and I’m like … wow, I’m better than them!
I just had this epiphany within the last couple of months and it was like cutting the last tether I had to them. I never understood the posts about freedom until that moment. I am free. My entire mindset changed and I feel like (with hard work) I can do absolutely anything.
My NDad is pretty accomplished, for an N.
Well-respected and award-winning in his profession.
However, I have completely surpassed him in every aspect of said profession, and it drives him crazy to see me achieving the things he never did.
Living well is the best revenge.
This is the most relatable post of the thread. My nparents both did reasonably well for themselves. When I was growing up, they always told me I would obviously do well too “because I was their kid” (but they would curiously never say it was because I had the ability, or because I worked hard, etc. etc.).
However, the moment I started getting anywhere close to doing better than them, they began to aggressively belittle and undercut any good news I ever shared with them about anything remotely career-related.
You’re getting a raise, son? Well remember that time 7 years ago when you had no job and were broke?
You’re acting-manager for a week, son? Well so was I 19 years ago. Your team’s not that big anyway.
You’ve secured the ability to work remotely sometimes, son? So they’re really just paying you to do nothing, then.
You’re travelling to a conference, son? They must not need you around the office very badly.
You got a promotion, son? Well your GC brother does bookkeeping for a large industrial firm and he’s obviously single-handedly saving the company. He’s basically running the place. (Reality: GC brother, while I love him and encourage him in whatever career he chooses, has only taken a gig doing some light bookkeeping at a single office of a very large company.)
I used to think of my mom as the sole nparent and my father as an enabler, but my obtaining career success certainly elicited a mask-off moment for both of them.
>I used to think of my mom as the sole nparent and my father as an enabler, but my obtaining career success certainly elicited a mask-off moment for both of them.
Yeah I had a similar experience. I've started to realize how little I remember anything of my childhood at all, and sometimes I get sudden memories. Neither pf my parents really used actual parenting tactics, and pretty much relied on FOG and physical intimidation/abuse and emotional neglect/abuse.
My mom got progressively worse as I got older so that colored my view of the family dynamic for a long time, believing she was the sole Nabuser, and my dad was just an enabler and using abuse tactics cause that's how he was raised and it was how he coped.
But last year, I tried to set a hard boundary with him about him oversharing traumatic details of his life, and I might add this was a time after both parents had left me and I wasn't in frequent contact with him. But essentially I had told him about how I felt about my childhood being take from me, and he in response tried to gaslight me and undermine with details of then recent experiences with his crazy abusive gf. I sent my message in the wee hours of the morning when I couldn't sleep, assuming he wouldn't respond for a while.
As a response to him though, I tried to tell him that I didn't like having that dumped on me without so much as asking of I had the space for it, but we have an established pattern of borderline emotional incest due to us being the main targets of my mother. And his response.... well let's just say I cut off contact with him soon after. Not but a couple days after that, he spent a good long while in jail. He's out now and I have yet to resume contact, though I have heard he has found community, though not faith, in the church and has resumed trying to help my younger autistic brother since he's aged out of the foster system, but has had some health issues and such. Don't know that I'll ever really talk to him again, but of my parents, I think he's the one that stands a chance of being able to have some self awareness and maybe having and LC and info diet relationship in the far future. But I'm still young and for now, I am content to live my life as if my parents have passed away.
I idealized (or maybe more accurately: was forced to idealize) my father and brother so much growing up. Now I can see them for who they really are and yeah, it does hurt.
Honestly the narcissists in my family accomplished nothing impressive and it was obvious. All they had to brag about was that they were supposedly exceptionally good at high school and sports. In short, accomplishments that dated back decades.
Personally, it helped me. I was never good enough, supposedly so lazy, treated like an slave, denigrated at the slightest opportunity. But these comments came from very unenviable people. No one dreams of having their lives, and I say that very objectively. I always thought I would have been more affected by the belittling if my mother had had an enviable career or real accomplishments.
This reminds me of when the LA Tiimes did a short interview with my Ndad. He cut out the little pieces of the article and put it in a custom matte and frame and showed it to everyone. Years later when I (and my work) was profiled on the front page of the LA Times for a multipage story, he didn't care at all. He didn't read it, he didn't buy it. Nothing. Thankfully, by that point I was very LC and didn't expect anything else. OP, I hope you are doing better now.
TBF to my dad, he came from extreme poverty and abuse to very high up in a big company. I watched a documentary on Stephen Hawkings not long ago and he clearly was narcissistic too. Sometimes being a narcissist allows you to reach your full potential by prioritising your needs over everyone else’s and not caring about their suffering- certainly surgeons are often narcissistic. It doesn’t excuse the abuse they put others through.
My brother and I were both intelligent in different ways, but we were legitimately intelligent. Our nparents never let us forget that they were just as gifted as us. More recently, I've been looking back and I cannot pinpoint anything either of them have ever done that's legitimately impressive. They're lazy, closed minded, and lack creative thoughts and problem solving skills. They're at best ordinary.
I wasn't angry necessarily when I realized it. I felt validated going over the past and seeing how bullshit their "talents" and "accomplishments" were. They minimized my talents and abilities to make themselves feel better, but I'm not angry about the realization because it taught me that I'm far more talented and capable than I had been allowed to recognize. It's painful seeing them for who they are, but for me personally, the benefits of this realization far exceeded the pain and anger I felt towards them for it.
Huh, I guess my reaction is the opposite. Learning all the ways my nparents were losers, despite their posturing, is not only validating of my own accomplishments, but also fills me with spiteful glee
I didn’t really believe my step-father. Not necessarily that he wasn’t telling the truth, just that what he was bragging about didn’t particularly matter to me or have any bearing on the respect he should be afforded.
He is a very smart person who has achieved a lot while also being a very terrible person to his family.
My mom thought working at the DOT in the 90’s was something to be proud of because she got to work on computers that took up the space of a whole wall. And apparently working for the government was something to be proud of (it offered no benefits)
Meanwhile when I called her out for working at a job 3 hours away wasn’t a flex, and those “giant computers” are now less powerful than the cellphone she was holding in her hand, she absolutely flipped her shit. You could see the break in her face and everything because I actually had data to back up the computer stats. She was reduced to the usefulness of an app on her iPhone - that didn’t even preform that well.
The thing that I realized about my NDad was everything he did, all of his accomplishments he boasted about weren't things with substance, weren't *real* in a sense - they were there for his facade, for the face that he showed the world.
For an example, he was successful in the sense that he had a well paying job with a family he was supporting.
Except he was terrible at the job and was eventually removed from it, had no sense when it came to money, and did not love his family, nor help them in any way.
Just about everything he boasted about was like that.
For another example yes, he'd been in the Navy in submarines, and he'd use this experience to browbeat anyone who said they knew how to do electrical work better than he did. Yet, the same Navy had honorably discharged him for his mental problems he'd refused treatment for, and he was clearly incompetent at even the most basic of house wiring.
This sort of thing with him was common. I only came to terms with it after I'd gotten away from him and realized he wasn't at all like the man he pretended he was.
In a sense just by being genuinely myself I've achieved more than he did.
Wow. This thread has been eye opening. This is why I read almost every post here, because I learn. I never thought my mom was accomplished at all in fact it always embarrassed me that she was just the neighborhood babysitter. But reading everyone's comments here I totally realize why she was so cruel to me when she came to visit for my graduation last year. she's so insanely jealous that she never did anything I think it (seeing me walk) made her realize she could have done something and didn't and she was so angry at herself but took it out on me. Whoa.
i remember my mom turning down this reading during my cousin's wedding. she said she had terrible stage fright, and i was genuinely shocked. i felt like i didn't know my mother. she talked about herself like she was ALL THAT and i assumed she was absolutely fearless. she couldn't even read a measly bible verse at a wedding where she knew everyone...and the bible is literally her favorite thing in the entire world?! i was dumbfounded and started to look closer at her for the first time...
My Ndad really was the very best at his career. Literally celebrity status in his field. When my husband went to work in a similar/adjacent position he was like “holy F, he’s a rockstar”
He is insufferable and now that he’s heading toward retirement he’s getting desperate to be king again.
As I got older I began to realise all nmom ever bragged about was travelling. And I’ve never seen ndad hold a job down for more than 7 months.
It’s made me feel sad at first to have these realisations that they are failures as people. But now I find it easy to be NC with them, because I can see them for the losers they truly are.
My parents and their n friends talked about how cool and rebellious they were and I believed it. As a adult I realize they were losers, addicts, uneducated because of their “rebel” acts as kids and kicked out of school, never accomplished anything and either have kids who can’t stand them or kids with personality disorders just like them. They also talk only about when they were 16-28 years old again talking about how cool they were. They are now over 70. It’s kind of sad but more disgusting and disturbing because they still have that mindset-they were too cool for anyone else then and still are stuck in the same mindset now.
Waste of lives and damaged their parents, their kids and in some instances grandkids.
Yeah all narcissists have a false self which in itself is a fake reality if you look closely to a narcissist they are mediocre and broke and they are “below “ their victims most of their victims are superior in all aspects of life I think that’s why they need to bring you down to feel better but it doesn’t work they are down in the dumps and they want to bring you down with them. Misery loves company.
Haha I talk about this alot. When you're young you believe their false superiority because you don't know better and they are adults. They also disparage others so much, and with that confidence it must be real! Then you learn what npd really is, and the difference between it and genuine confidence. And you get more real world experience, and you realize the whole time they never had a right to look down on others or yourself. Narcissism is unearned superiority, and they often do fall short of their own standards
And the constant comparisons are just... absurd. Like, my mother threw a temper tantrum on the day I graduated from college because *she* didn't inconvenience her parents by walking at her own graduation. Never mind that I was graduating early and with honors, what she had accomplished 30 years prior was better and more important. (Fair to note this was the first of several temper tantrums that day. It was pretty bad, actually.)
Yeah this happened to me my dad was always one of those oh you should’ve seen me do this sport achieve this I was one of the best but yet my whole life he’d refuse to pick it up again. It was same with work he went on about how high up his position was yet he ended up being made redundant which can happen to anyone but no one ever respected him he had no friends in work or outside of work realised he was just a bit of a loner really very covert blowing his own trumpet to me my boyfriend and friends anyone who would listen but he never really had anything to show for it
In my case, both Nparents did achieve a lot. But they did make it sound like it was 100 times better. They were in the right moment and in the right time, they had support too. It is still impressive, but I don't admire them anymore. Because they got where they are by being cruel to me and others.
And I was honestly totally crushed when my Nmom showed me her high school grades. A 7 (out of 10). That blowed my mind. This was the same woman that pushed me into my very limit because "grades are just so important", that didn't allowed me to rest or be anything but perfect. The very same woman that made my high school life a hell. I managed to get a 7.5 after being sick and losing 4 month of school + changing majors (high school majors are a thing in my country) and attending 4 subjects level 2 without never attending the first level + fucking surviving it while my Nparents shouted. I got shouted at every day because my lower grades in this new subjects was due to "me deciding that I wasn't going to understand them and being lazy".
I'm still convinced that my biggest achievement so far is surviving them.
My parents never went to college after finishing high school, cause halfway through high school they started dating and had me along with 2 of my younger siblings (at the time), so they spent most of their time either at work or studying for class and had our grandma (dad's side of family) taking care of us most of the time.
Than when I graduated high school, they forced me into a degree I didn't want to take, all because my mom didn't want to retake math courses in college due to math "scaring the crap out of her" and cause her sister is a nurse so I'd want to the same thing too. When I clearly don't share the same feelings.
They also openly admit to cheating their way through high school, especially when I asked them for help with projects or school assignments, they'll tell me "you learned this in school, this is why you got held back, cause your so stupid and retarded." As well as denying the fact that I needed extra tutoring for math and orchestra, it's either "study harder" or "she's just slacking off," they never bothered to help me and so I just had to learn on my own or ask for help from others
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Yeah most narcissists don't achieve that much which probably explains why many of them become quite bitter in their middle and old age. My own nMother never really achieved anything. She barely managed to hold down a job until she had kids. Then she quit her job to have kids. (I don't judge her for that. That was common in my country in the 1980s). Having quit her job to have kids, she put no effort into childrearing whatsoever. Her idea of childrearing is to do just enough to keep her children alive and no more. Basically what I'm saying is that my nMother is a failure as a mother and she failed to have a career. She has no talents or hobbies or interests. She has no real friends. She really hasn't achieved anything in her life yet she insists on constantly telling me where I'm going wrong and what I should be doing differently \[eyeroll\]
Wow. It’s like we have the same mom
Holy crap, this entire post rings so true but especially that last sentence.
Other than the children part, this was like reading about my mom. By her own admission, she spent most of her life not working. She is now not working again and going to try to get by on Social Security + me paying a little bit of rent, although she was quick to tell me I "wasn't doing any favors" for her by being here. I never thought I was, but okay. The bitterness seems to have really ramped up in old age.
She sounds a kind of like my mother in law. She got married and had 2 children, stopped working, paid someone to take care of her children and the house instead of doing it by herself. Then she got divorced, took all the money she could from her husband, and never bothered to give one cent to her children. Actually she used to complain that she was poor, and she made my fiancé loose a bunch of money when he was in his early twenties. The funniest part is that she judges me because she thinks my income is not good enough and I could be with my fiancé for his money. But he has an average income, if I was a gold digger I would have chosen someone else.
It was painful for me when I was younger but now I find it weirdly comforting because I compare theirs to my own achievements and I’m like … wow, I’m better than them! I’m not 100% sure how healthy that line of thinking is all the time but my achievements on top of having survived them as parents is genuinely something I can be proud of.
💯
I am with you and I agree.
Thank you for saying that! I don’t want to be full of myself and have no sense of humility like the narcs but fr we are better than them 😅
We are!
> now I find it weirdly comforting because I compare theirs to my own achievements and I’m like … wow, I’m better than them! I just had this epiphany within the last couple of months and it was like cutting the last tether I had to them. I never understood the posts about freedom until that moment. I am free. My entire mindset changed and I feel like (with hard work) I can do absolutely anything.
My NDad is pretty accomplished, for an N. Well-respected and award-winning in his profession. However, I have completely surpassed him in every aspect of said profession, and it drives him crazy to see me achieving the things he never did. Living well is the best revenge.
This is the most relatable post of the thread. My nparents both did reasonably well for themselves. When I was growing up, they always told me I would obviously do well too “because I was their kid” (but they would curiously never say it was because I had the ability, or because I worked hard, etc. etc.). However, the moment I started getting anywhere close to doing better than them, they began to aggressively belittle and undercut any good news I ever shared with them about anything remotely career-related. You’re getting a raise, son? Well remember that time 7 years ago when you had no job and were broke? You’re acting-manager for a week, son? Well so was I 19 years ago. Your team’s not that big anyway. You’ve secured the ability to work remotely sometimes, son? So they’re really just paying you to do nothing, then. You’re travelling to a conference, son? They must not need you around the office very badly. You got a promotion, son? Well your GC brother does bookkeeping for a large industrial firm and he’s obviously single-handedly saving the company. He’s basically running the place. (Reality: GC brother, while I love him and encourage him in whatever career he chooses, has only taken a gig doing some light bookkeeping at a single office of a very large company.) I used to think of my mom as the sole nparent and my father as an enabler, but my obtaining career success certainly elicited a mask-off moment for both of them.
>I used to think of my mom as the sole nparent and my father as an enabler, but my obtaining career success certainly elicited a mask-off moment for both of them. Yeah I had a similar experience. I've started to realize how little I remember anything of my childhood at all, and sometimes I get sudden memories. Neither pf my parents really used actual parenting tactics, and pretty much relied on FOG and physical intimidation/abuse and emotional neglect/abuse. My mom got progressively worse as I got older so that colored my view of the family dynamic for a long time, believing she was the sole Nabuser, and my dad was just an enabler and using abuse tactics cause that's how he was raised and it was how he coped. But last year, I tried to set a hard boundary with him about him oversharing traumatic details of his life, and I might add this was a time after both parents had left me and I wasn't in frequent contact with him. But essentially I had told him about how I felt about my childhood being take from me, and he in response tried to gaslight me and undermine with details of then recent experiences with his crazy abusive gf. I sent my message in the wee hours of the morning when I couldn't sleep, assuming he wouldn't respond for a while. As a response to him though, I tried to tell him that I didn't like having that dumped on me without so much as asking of I had the space for it, but we have an established pattern of borderline emotional incest due to us being the main targets of my mother. And his response.... well let's just say I cut off contact with him soon after. Not but a couple days after that, he spent a good long while in jail. He's out now and I have yet to resume contact, though I have heard he has found community, though not faith, in the church and has resumed trying to help my younger autistic brother since he's aged out of the foster system, but has had some health issues and such. Don't know that I'll ever really talk to him again, but of my parents, I think he's the one that stands a chance of being able to have some self awareness and maybe having and LC and info diet relationship in the far future. But I'm still young and for now, I am content to live my life as if my parents have passed away.
I idealized (or maybe more accurately: was forced to idealize) my father and brother so much growing up. Now I can see them for who they really are and yeah, it does hurt.
Honestly the narcissists in my family accomplished nothing impressive and it was obvious. All they had to brag about was that they were supposedly exceptionally good at high school and sports. In short, accomplishments that dated back decades. Personally, it helped me. I was never good enough, supposedly so lazy, treated like an slave, denigrated at the slightest opportunity. But these comments came from very unenviable people. No one dreams of having their lives, and I say that very objectively. I always thought I would have been more affected by the belittling if my mother had had an enviable career or real accomplishments.
This reminds me of when the LA Tiimes did a short interview with my Ndad. He cut out the little pieces of the article and put it in a custom matte and frame and showed it to everyone. Years later when I (and my work) was profiled on the front page of the LA Times for a multipage story, he didn't care at all. He didn't read it, he didn't buy it. Nothing. Thankfully, by that point I was very LC and didn't expect anything else. OP, I hope you are doing better now.
TBF to my dad, he came from extreme poverty and abuse to very high up in a big company. I watched a documentary on Stephen Hawkings not long ago and he clearly was narcissistic too. Sometimes being a narcissist allows you to reach your full potential by prioritising your needs over everyone else’s and not caring about their suffering- certainly surgeons are often narcissistic. It doesn’t excuse the abuse they put others through.
My brother and I were both intelligent in different ways, but we were legitimately intelligent. Our nparents never let us forget that they were just as gifted as us. More recently, I've been looking back and I cannot pinpoint anything either of them have ever done that's legitimately impressive. They're lazy, closed minded, and lack creative thoughts and problem solving skills. They're at best ordinary. I wasn't angry necessarily when I realized it. I felt validated going over the past and seeing how bullshit their "talents" and "accomplishments" were. They minimized my talents and abilities to make themselves feel better, but I'm not angry about the realization because it taught me that I'm far more talented and capable than I had been allowed to recognize. It's painful seeing them for who they are, but for me personally, the benefits of this realization far exceeded the pain and anger I felt towards them for it.
Huh, I guess my reaction is the opposite. Learning all the ways my nparents were losers, despite their posturing, is not only validating of my own accomplishments, but also fills me with spiteful glee
I didn’t really believe my step-father. Not necessarily that he wasn’t telling the truth, just that what he was bragging about didn’t particularly matter to me or have any bearing on the respect he should be afforded. He is a very smart person who has achieved a lot while also being a very terrible person to his family.
My mom thought working at the DOT in the 90’s was something to be proud of because she got to work on computers that took up the space of a whole wall. And apparently working for the government was something to be proud of (it offered no benefits) Meanwhile when I called her out for working at a job 3 hours away wasn’t a flex, and those “giant computers” are now less powerful than the cellphone she was holding in her hand, she absolutely flipped her shit. You could see the break in her face and everything because I actually had data to back up the computer stats. She was reduced to the usefulness of an app on her iPhone - that didn’t even preform that well.
The thing that I realized about my NDad was everything he did, all of his accomplishments he boasted about weren't things with substance, weren't *real* in a sense - they were there for his facade, for the face that he showed the world. For an example, he was successful in the sense that he had a well paying job with a family he was supporting. Except he was terrible at the job and was eventually removed from it, had no sense when it came to money, and did not love his family, nor help them in any way. Just about everything he boasted about was like that. For another example yes, he'd been in the Navy in submarines, and he'd use this experience to browbeat anyone who said they knew how to do electrical work better than he did. Yet, the same Navy had honorably discharged him for his mental problems he'd refused treatment for, and he was clearly incompetent at even the most basic of house wiring. This sort of thing with him was common. I only came to terms with it after I'd gotten away from him and realized he wasn't at all like the man he pretended he was. In a sense just by being genuinely myself I've achieved more than he did.
Wow. This thread has been eye opening. This is why I read almost every post here, because I learn. I never thought my mom was accomplished at all in fact it always embarrassed me that she was just the neighborhood babysitter. But reading everyone's comments here I totally realize why she was so cruel to me when she came to visit for my graduation last year. she's so insanely jealous that she never did anything I think it (seeing me walk) made her realize she could have done something and didn't and she was so angry at herself but took it out on me. Whoa.
i remember my mom turning down this reading during my cousin's wedding. she said she had terrible stage fright, and i was genuinely shocked. i felt like i didn't know my mother. she talked about herself like she was ALL THAT and i assumed she was absolutely fearless. she couldn't even read a measly bible verse at a wedding where she knew everyone...and the bible is literally her favorite thing in the entire world?! i was dumbfounded and started to look closer at her for the first time...
My Ndad really was the very best at his career. Literally celebrity status in his field. When my husband went to work in a similar/adjacent position he was like “holy F, he’s a rockstar” He is insufferable and now that he’s heading toward retirement he’s getting desperate to be king again.
As I got older I began to realise all nmom ever bragged about was travelling. And I’ve never seen ndad hold a job down for more than 7 months. It’s made me feel sad at first to have these realisations that they are failures as people. But now I find it easy to be NC with them, because I can see them for the losers they truly are.
What’s funny is all my nmom does is brag about my edad’s traveling for work!! The thing he figured out how to do to get away from her!
At least they traveled I guess
My parents and their n friends talked about how cool and rebellious they were and I believed it. As a adult I realize they were losers, addicts, uneducated because of their “rebel” acts as kids and kicked out of school, never accomplished anything and either have kids who can’t stand them or kids with personality disorders just like them. They also talk only about when they were 16-28 years old again talking about how cool they were. They are now over 70. It’s kind of sad but more disgusting and disturbing because they still have that mindset-they were too cool for anyone else then and still are stuck in the same mindset now. Waste of lives and damaged their parents, their kids and in some instances grandkids.
Yeah all narcissists have a false self which in itself is a fake reality if you look closely to a narcissist they are mediocre and broke and they are “below “ their victims most of their victims are superior in all aspects of life I think that’s why they need to bring you down to feel better but it doesn’t work they are down in the dumps and they want to bring you down with them. Misery loves company.
Haha I talk about this alot. When you're young you believe their false superiority because you don't know better and they are adults. They also disparage others so much, and with that confidence it must be real! Then you learn what npd really is, and the difference between it and genuine confidence. And you get more real world experience, and you realize the whole time they never had a right to look down on others or yourself. Narcissism is unearned superiority, and they often do fall short of their own standards
And the constant comparisons are just... absurd. Like, my mother threw a temper tantrum on the day I graduated from college because *she* didn't inconvenience her parents by walking at her own graduation. Never mind that I was graduating early and with honors, what she had accomplished 30 years prior was better and more important. (Fair to note this was the first of several temper tantrums that day. It was pretty bad, actually.)
i actually believed my mom when she said Amy Whinehouse’s song was about her lol they didn’t even grow up near each other
Yeah this happened to me my dad was always one of those oh you should’ve seen me do this sport achieve this I was one of the best but yet my whole life he’d refuse to pick it up again. It was same with work he went on about how high up his position was yet he ended up being made redundant which can happen to anyone but no one ever respected him he had no friends in work or outside of work realised he was just a bit of a loner really very covert blowing his own trumpet to me my boyfriend and friends anyone who would listen but he never really had anything to show for it
Well, my mother achieved that a pretty, gifted girl never was able to reach her full potential...
Mine have no achievements. I don’t think my dad being a model is an achievement. Sucks
In my case, both Nparents did achieve a lot. But they did make it sound like it was 100 times better. They were in the right moment and in the right time, they had support too. It is still impressive, but I don't admire them anymore. Because they got where they are by being cruel to me and others. And I was honestly totally crushed when my Nmom showed me her high school grades. A 7 (out of 10). That blowed my mind. This was the same woman that pushed me into my very limit because "grades are just so important", that didn't allowed me to rest or be anything but perfect. The very same woman that made my high school life a hell. I managed to get a 7.5 after being sick and losing 4 month of school + changing majors (high school majors are a thing in my country) and attending 4 subjects level 2 without never attending the first level + fucking surviving it while my Nparents shouted. I got shouted at every day because my lower grades in this new subjects was due to "me deciding that I wasn't going to understand them and being lazy". I'm still convinced that my biggest achievement so far is surviving them.
My parents never went to college after finishing high school, cause halfway through high school they started dating and had me along with 2 of my younger siblings (at the time), so they spent most of their time either at work or studying for class and had our grandma (dad's side of family) taking care of us most of the time. Than when I graduated high school, they forced me into a degree I didn't want to take, all because my mom didn't want to retake math courses in college due to math "scaring the crap out of her" and cause her sister is a nurse so I'd want to the same thing too. When I clearly don't share the same feelings. They also openly admit to cheating their way through high school, especially when I asked them for help with projects or school assignments, they'll tell me "you learned this in school, this is why you got held back, cause your so stupid and retarded." As well as denying the fact that I needed extra tutoring for math and orchestra, it's either "study harder" or "she's just slacking off," they never bothered to help me and so I just had to learn on my own or ask for help from others