Here’s a perfect example of what it’s like to deal with a narcissist, especially one who happens to be a parent:
Mother has not been receiving her bank statements regarding her checking account, according to her. I doubt this – but OK. She cannot manage to log onto either the mobile banking app nor the bank web site itself. She’s been locked out of the account three different times because she cannot manage to enter a password correctly – even a password that she makes up.
The last time she was locked out, she went to the bank and “created” a new pass word (God only knows how). Of course, she could simply “copy and paste” passwords so they would maintain their accuracy but I wouldn’t even attempt to teach her how to do this. When there’s some type of pop up on a page, she literally freaks out. She cannot read the pop up and act accordingly.
So she depends on me to log into her account if she wants to balance her checking account. Except that she won’t ask me to do that, of course. That would make her dependent on me for something and something narcissists will not do is depend on someone else for anything.
How hard can it possibly be to ask me to run her up on the highway to get Brenda to cut her hair? Or to log into the bank account to balance her statement? You would think – and she gives people the impression – that I am an outright monster who severely castigates her for asking. That is ridiculous. Even when I consider a situation from her perspective, there is no way that she could interpret any reaction from me as having been harsh. I’m more than happy to log in to the app or the bank web site for her.
She had told me she had not received her statement for a couple of months and I had forgotten about it until today. So I prepared myself (seriously. I mentally and emotionally prepare myself to deal with her narcissistic shenanigans) to go over to her house and log into the bank site.
I got logged into the bank app and found the transaction log (no such thing as a “statement on line” with this idiot bank). She said, “Oh, I don’t need to do that anymore. I checked it.” I asked, “You checked it against what?” She (being her usual cagey self), answered, “I balanced my register.” Yet once again, I asked, “Checked the check register against WHAT?” She finally admitted that she had called the bank about missing her statements and that he had mailed them to her.
Apparently, she received the statements within a couple of days, so this entire story is shady as can be to begin with. I don’t believe there’s any way that the bank mailed the statements on Wednesday and she got them Thursday or Friday. But I must needs choose my battles very carefully and not get involved with a lie/misleading loop within a loop.
When I quit my job in February, I needed to see exactly how many assets we had together. I asked her how much she has in savings. Now, let me be clear. If you have, say, seventy thousand dollars that you don’t use and it’s sitting in something the bank calls a “checking account”, I consider THAT to be savings. She said that she has no savings account, although I know that she does, indeed, have $70,000 in her “checking” account that she never touches.
“I have no savings account,” she said.
She usually immediately shreds statements from the bank upon balancing her ledger book. I have no idea why she does this. She cannot access the bank account on line and her notations in the checking ledger are incredibly brief. (You’re getting this, right? It’s a perpetual secret.)
But for some miraculous reason, she saved the xerox copies of the statements that the guy at the bank mailed to her. I asked her if I could see them (to see if he had actually sent originals or what). She had the xerox copies of a couple of statements and an additional original statement that had dropped on June 3, 2021.
And that statement was a summary of a savings account and the interest that it had drawn over the months (about two cents a quarter). I admit, I was shocked, although for the life of me, I can’t figure out why anything shocks me after a lifetime of her ducking, dodging, and hiding.
I said, “This is a savings account that you have!” She said, “Yes, I forgot about it. But it’s only pennies!” I said, “You know I asked you months ago if there were any funds besides the checking account.” And she said, “I know, but there is only pennies in this account so when I got the statement, I didn’t think it was any big deal”
“Only pennies.” She clearly stated this phrase at least twice.
The total in the account? $205 and some change. Repeat that? OK. $205 and some change. “Just pennies”.
Tears and Catharsis 