Yesterday was one of those days that felt like a culmination of every absurdity that comes with living with an elderly narcissistic mother. At 87, she was the picture of indignation after receiving two phone calls in close succession from her internet service provider. One of those calls was clearly a scam—when she handed the phone over to me, I realized that right away and hung up. The second call was a legitimate attempt from the company to upsell her services, but in her mind, it hardly mattered. To her, these calls were the equivalent of a personal attack.
Anyone who has lived with a narcissistic parent knows how quickly these situations can escalate. My mother became a whirlwind of anger and frustration. She couldn’t sit still, pacing around the living room as if she were trying to outpace the injustice of the world itself. To her, it was a conspiracy: the phone company was betraying her, selling her number to all sorts of unsavory characters, and she was ready to take drastic measures. I decided it was best to let her vent and pulled back for a bit, understanding that her 87 years didn’t do much to quell the fervor she had for dramatizing the world around her.
She marched over to the phone, her eyes ablaze with fury, and began dialing up her provider. The IVR system seemed to be designed to test her patience, with an endless chain of “press 1 for this,” “press 2 for that.” With every button she pressed, her anger intensified. Eventually, she threw the phone down, swearing under her breath about the incompetence of it all. She handed the phone to me, clearly at her wit’s end, and I navigated through the options for her. After some agonizing moments, the line finally connected, but she was met with the dreaded message that all agents were busy and she should try again later.
That was the tipping point. She flipped out, erupting into a tirade that could easily rival a soap opera monologue. When she finally did manage to speak to an agent, her voice was a crescendo of accusations, blaming the poor representative for selling her information and threatening to cancel her service unless they provided immediate relief from these unwanted calls. The agent, probably well-trained in dealing with irate customers, calmly assured her that they would place her on a do-not-call list before hanging up.
That response did nothing to placate her. My mother, still on the edge of a volcanic eruption, couldn’t grasp why the situation hadn’t improved in an instant. “But what does that even mean?” she demanded, waving her hands around as if casting spells to ward off the stresses of modern technology. I tried my best to explain that her phone number was listed publicly and that anyone could access it online, including scammers. “If someone is looking for my number and wants to find me, I want them to be able to look me up,” she responded defiantly.
“So… that means scammers can look you up too! What do you want your phone company to do about this?” I asked, exasperated. This only led to her yelling, “I DON’T CARE! THEY SHOULDN’T BE GIVING MY NUMBER TO PEOPLE! I CAN’T EVEN FEEL SAFE IN MY OWN HOME!” In these moments, it was like speaking to a brick wall—one that was actively crumbling with indignation. It became clear that logic had no place in this heated exchange.
After she had simmered down a bit, I figured it was a good time to remind her that the world wasn’t out to get her, even if it seemed that way from her perspective. She turned her ire towards me, claiming that I was “too nice” to people on the phone and that I needed to start standing up for her rights. “You should be telling these people to stop bothering me!” she insisted, as if I had some magical power to control the universe’s telemarketers.
“No, I’m not going to change how I deal with people on the phone,” I replied, standing my ground. That only intensified her fury, and she became a whirlwind of movement, bouncing up and down in her chair with all the vitality of someone half her age, running off to the bathroom every few minutes with an urgency only exacerbated by her frustrations. The whole scene was a spectacle—absurd, frustrating, and yet, strangely entertaining when viewed from a distance.
Days like this remind me why living with a narcissistic parent is so complicated. The world is against her, and everyone else is simply a pawn in her elaborate game of victimhood. It’s exhausting, to say the least, but at this point, I’ve learned to navigate the chaos with a kind of resigned humor.
More from Cultivated Comfort:
- 7 Vintage Home Items From the ’60s That Are Collectors’ Dream Finds
- 7 Vintage Home Goods That Became Collectors’ Gold
- 7 Fast-Food Chains That Changed for the Worse
- 7 Frozen Dinners That Were Better Back in the Day
