Do Narcissistic Parents Usually Embarrass Themselves at Funerals?
Last week I attended a funeral for my narcissistic mother’s first cousin. He was 92, and had a lot of health issues, so I’m glad that he’s no longer suffering. But he was a truly kind and wonderful man, and all extended family who gathered for the funeral was grieving, and understandably sad because we all will miss him.
At the same time, I was just praying and hoping that my mother wouldn’t make it about herself somehow, and embarrass herself. She had done it before when we buried her mother sometime back. After that funeral, at the remembrance dinner, instead of celebrating my grandmother’s life, she instead cried and complained about how hard it was for her being caretaker for a while! And how hard it was for her because she had to visit her own mother in the hospital as she was dying! Excuse me…my mother was not the one who died; it was my grandmother (a great woman, by the way)!
So based on all that, I was hoping last week that she wouldn’t embarrass herself again, and disrupt the funeral for her first cousin. Of course, that wasn’t to be. As soon as we got there, as well as the rest of the extended family, we saw the wife of my mother’s first cousin (the man who just died). She herself is almost 90 (with lots of health issues), and she was clearly shaken, and crying uncontrollably. This somehow clearly made my mother very uncomfortable. She pointed her finger at the woman who just became a widow, and yelled loudly, “Don’t cry, don’t cry! I’m begging you!” Apparently in my mother’s eyes, the widow (who’s also my mother’s friend) had no right to grieve, or cry after losing the love of her life, whom she’d been married to for over 40 years!?!?! Plus, now the attention would be not on my mother, but on the widow…how dare she?!?!
When this happened, I was stunned in a way. I don’t know what my face looked like, but I must have looked at my mother confused…like what on earth are you doing?! My daughter later told me that she actually gave my mother a dirty look. In addition, my cousin at that point, stepped in and told the widow to get it out, but try to gather yourself, so we can start the funeral ceremony. Then a bunch of us came up and started hugging and comforting the widow. Now my my mother looked even more uncomfortable, and possibly a bit embarrassed. However, I truly believe she didn’t even know what she did wrong…she just figured it out based on others’ behavior that she must have done something wrong. So for the rest of the funeral she just sat a few rows back, and didn’t even approach the widow anymore.
I get it that funerals must be difficult for narcissists because they are not the center of attention. In my mother’s case, she also doesn’t like facing her own mortality. At 88 years old, she’s no spring chicken herself, but she always talks and acts like she’s never going to die. Aren’t delusions great! It’s almost like she’s too darn special for her life to ever end. But the other epiphany I had after this last funeral is that narcissists truly seem to be uncomfortable when they see others in distress and/or grieving (like at funerals). They actually have no idea how to comfort or console others because that requires being connected to human emotions, and that is clearly something they struggle with. This must make them feel very uncomfortable at funerals, and perhaps on some level they realize this.
Have any of you had similar experiences where some of your narcissistic parents’ behavior seemed very off and/or inappropriate at a funeral?