NPD feels that they validate your life

[tisha313]

Nothing in my life is validated unless my mother witnesses me doing something or has proof. It can be as simple as me doing household chores. If she wasn't there watching me vacuum the carpet, mopping the floors and cleaning off the countertops then I have not done anything in her eyes, and I am likely to be a liar. She is like that with anything.

Comments

[amielou31]

My NPD sister-in-law does something similar but not exactly the same. She makes things up about people and declares them absolute truth regardless of how clear it is that they are not. Some of her gems:

*My husband (her brother) only eats junk food and will not touch anything but bacon, burgers, fries, hot dogs and pizza. She regularly talks to friends, relatives and strangers about his his "dismal" nutrition habits and how he is the pickiest eater ever. I have even heard her doing this while he is sitting in front of her eating something like a chicken salad sandwich or a tossed salad. I have repeatedly told her that his favorite dishes that I make tend toward French food (coq au vin, beef bourguignon). But she continues with the junk food story.
*My husband is obsessed with bacon. She claims he eats it four or five times a day and she constantly buys him bacon related merchandise. At Christmas, she makes him chocolate covered bacon which he sort of hates. He has point blank told her that he really doesn't like sweet and salty flavors combined and she still shows up with the chocolate covered bacon. She lectured him recently on how the family has a history of heart disease and he should not be eating so much bacon. Reality: he sometimes likes a few strips of bacon for breakfast on the weekend. We bought a package of bacon last week. First package we had bought for at least five months. And he gives the weird bacon merchandise (t-shirts, hats, socks, band aids...) to Goodwill (well not the band-aids, but the rest) because he thinks it is weird.
*I have no practical skills like cleaning, vacuuming, planting flowers, etc...I have sat at a table and listened to her tell people this. She constantly talks about how hard it is for my husband to live with me because he has to do everything. I will then say, "actually, I do a lot of that stuff". She will tell me I don't because I don't know how. When we rented her business to have a party for my nephew, she actually saw me doing cleaning tasks that she still tells people I do not know how to do. Makes no difference.
*I collect porcelain figurines of figure skaters. No idea where this one came from. I am a fan of the sport. But I own no such thing and have never actually seen such a thing. Since they are nowhere in our house, she once asked me how and where I have stored them. I answered that I own no such thing. This did not change her notion that I do and she later asked my husband where I have stored them.

[sea_of_tethys]

OMG, the thing about the figure skaters is just BIZARRE.

My nan does it to some extent, she'll latch on to some random fact about you and decide it's utterly central to your personality. Like, if you mention in passing that you thought some band or author was okay, she'll decide you're their biggest fan ever and nothing will convince her otherwise. Or she'll do the opposite and decide something is no longer true based on nothing, for example I've had motion sickness my whole life but she's convinced I grew out of it 20 years ago.