Living with my mother who has NPD is always a challenge.  Sometimes it gets easier.  But it's so strange, because she will get better, but then just stop, out of the blue.  People with NPD have such erratic personalities, that it feels like a roller coaster when you're around them.  

I've talked about the door issues before, how she will open my door without knocking or waiting for me to open it for her.  That's ceased again, but I know it will start up again soon.  

But twice this week she's body blocked me.  It's her thing.  I've learned to avoid it, but and she's stopped doing it for such a long time, that I kind of forgot about it.  But then this week, she's now done it twice.  When she body blocks me, its either in a doorway or a hallway and she will see me coming and either already be in her spot and refuses to move or she will move into place when she sees me and and refuse to move.  And this week she's done both.  The second time she got in my way on purpose and then acted like she didn't know she was in my way, even though I will say "Excuse me.  Excuse me.  Excuse me." over and over again until she moves (and she never does when she does this).  One time was an emergency (kind of) and I was rushing past her to get to my dog who was making really weird noises in my room (turns out, he was outside and angry nobody was letting him in LOL).  She knew this, and moved herself into the hallway that leads to my room and just stood there.  I had to reach down, grab her hips and move her myself.  She was very surprised!  

See, to my mother, body blocking a way for her to have power over you.  Back in the day, before moving here, she'd do it as a "joke" (except it was never a joke, it was the same thing and for the same reason, but she wanted you to think it was a joke).  Now she just pretends like she has no idea you want to get around her.  So when I reached down and moved her myself, she was completely weirded out, because her plan did not work.  

So the second time she did it, it was very blatant and much more aggressive, as though she was going to stand her ground this time and not let me move her.  And yet I did it again.  And again, she was surprised.   Well, if that's what I have to do move around in my own home, I will.  Granted, I also will adopt my old ways of just hiding from her when she moves herself into a hallway or doorway, so I can avoid the situation entirely if I can.  Only because apparently my mother likes to lie about me and told her BFF Christmas that I committed "elder abuse" on her because I kept her home during the pandemic (apparently a stay at home order equates to being held hostage).  So who knows what she will tell her next if I keep having to physically move her out of my way.  

Another thing she did was take all my bags I had on my couch and empty them out and put all my stuff lined up on the kitchen table.  The reason I keep bags in the living room for day or two after buying stuff is because I do not know where to put something yet, mostly because I do not want her to know I have it.  My mother has a thing for chemicals and cleaners and poison and all that fun stuff.  When my son was little, they left that shit laying around where my 2 year old son could get into it.  And one time, he did!  So I said "Could you please put this stuff up where he can't get hurt from it?"  And I was told "This is MY house, and if you don't want your son touching MY stuff?  Then don't let him out of your sight!"  Yet, my mother babysat him when I worked, so how I was supposed to not let him out of my sight if he wasn't with me?  That's her mentality on things.  She will also lay down weedkiller where her dogs and cats all walked, and said "If they die, then they know they shouldn't get into it!"  So I do not let her buy these things in our house.  So if I buy them, I need to find a place to put them she won't get into them and use them in inappropriate ways.  But alas, she emptied my shit out all over the kitchen table, as though it was her stuff to go through.  

Here's my deal: I am super, super sensitive about privacy.  If something is mine?  Don't fucking touch it unless you ask me.  And I am only speaking to my mother when I say that.  Because my kids touch my shit all the time, as does my hubby (though he's a tad more respectful LOL) and it doesn't bother me.  It's just her.  Ever since we've moved in, she's treated my stuff as though everything in this house is hers and she does whatever she likes with it.  I've battled her and battled her and battled her and asked politely, and then yelled not so politely about not touching my shit.  Once she said to me "You need to stop thinking of things as your stuff and my stuff, it's our stuff!" and I burst out laughing so hard and said "The fuck it is!" and she stomped off like a baby.  But with enough complaining, I thought she had finally relented.  But like I said before, then something like this happens.  I feel I am safe in doing something, and then she proves to me I am never safe and never have been.  Hell, she's probably been going through my bags this entire time, I just didn't know it.  

I was so angry about this, and waited for her to say "Oh, did you notice?  I cleaned out your bags!"  They were just there from the day before, so I don't get why she thought that was okay.  But she never said it.  If she had, I was going to say "And never do that again."  Now I feel weird bringing it up, so I won't.  But it still feels like an invasion of privacy.  It's none of her business what I buy.  And it's none her business where I choose to put it.  

I bought special toilet cleaner (we have SUPER hard water, it's so annoying), some weed and grass killer (for the driveway), some paint for the railings I installed in back (so she won't fall off the porch), and other misc. stuff at the hardware store.  She has a huge hard on for weed and grass killer, and I have to be careful where I put it because we have four dogs and seven cats (we used to have ten...three have died in the past year).  And they don't mess around in the driveway, thank goodness, but if it was up to my mother, she'd spray it all over the backyard, and we'd end up with more dead animals.  Because my mother doesn't give two fucks about anyone, except for what she wants.  And that's the honest truth.  She has fed people and animals things they shouldn't eat just to prove the point that she can.  She just doesn't care.  All she wants is power and for people to never tell her what to do.  (I am not joking...I told my uncle's doctor what my mother was feeding him---and the doctor yelled at her about it, and then went home and fed him more of it, even though it was something he couldn't eat, just to show that nobody could control her).  

And I told my mother she could use my nice pretty rolling cart to put a paper bag in to get weeds with.  I said "Just be careful with it, as it's my only one".  I went outside to find she had put a tiny plastic bag inside of it that didn't fit and tried to fill it up with dog poop.  Sigh.  So I took the fucking cart and put it back in my basement, where she can't get to it.  She knows I love that cart and I want to keep it clean the only reason I said she could use it was to help her out.  She has confiscated my other stuff that I've bought for myself to use in the yard, so I don't know why I thought she'd treat this any different?  It's a very pretty cart and in very good condition and should not be covered in dog shit.  But that's what she thinks of my stuff.

Mother covets everything I have.  She always has.  She had a friend in her inner circle named Valentine.  Valentine was a user and she also coveted everything that everyone had, and always asked "When you're done with that, can I have it?"  And my mother thought that was atrocious!  I always wanted to say "Well, your way is so much better.  You just take people's stuff without asking."  It's funny how much she hated her for that, yet she did it worse.  Valentine would never steal from anyone.  She always politely asked.  Granted, it was rude as fuck, but still.  So everything since we've move in, if my mother has wanted it, she will take it and not give it back.  When we moved in, I had this sofa table I loved.  And she swiped it and used it for her plants.  And I was never going to get it back.  Then one day she said "I'm going to use that for my desk in my room."  I said "No you're not.  That's mine.  You stole it from me."  She said "So?  I need a desk."  She did not need a desk, she had one, but it wasn't good enough.  So I said "Then buy one.  If you're done with that table, I want it back."  She left her plants on it and I never got it back.  Well, until she went into rehab and I put her stupid plants on the floor and put my table in the basement.  

She's still mad about that.  Oh well.  

So I recently bought a wagon off Facebook Marketplace and she was freaking out about how she's always wanted one and blah blah blah and how she was going to use it.  And I said "Well, it's mine.  And I was planning on using it."  And I haven't yet, because I get this nasty feeling of shutting down when she does that kind of stuff.  I refuse to do something if she tries to take over it.  I leave it for months and months sometimes, because I cannot bring myself to do something with it, because it stopped feeling like my item that I bought for myself, and now it's some kind of item that's in a war between a woman who's trying to take control over another woman's life and the other woman who's control is being stolen.  I just want to buy something, and use it.  That's it.  But when I do in this house, it gets stolen by another person who covets it, because she wants everything for herself.  

Not just that, I don't think it's just the fact that my mother wants it.  I think she doesn't want me to have it.  I think she cannot stand when I do something or have something that makes me happy.  Last year, she coveted my garden and then killed half of it.  When I get something cute, she will bug me until I give it to her.  She's always done that.  Ever since childhood.  To this day, she says my boyfriend and his sister (who was my best friend gave her two birds.  No, they were my friends, and they gave me the birds.  But she stole them and kept them in her room, because she didn't want me to have something of my own.  Which is also why she used to clean my room and throw everything away that I loved.  

This is why I cannot buy things for the lawn or outside.  Because if I do, she will take them down and rearrange them a thousand fucking times.  I am not allowed say so over my own things in this house.  So I just don't buy anything.  Another reason I do not like her going through my bags.

She's like a fucking selfish little tornado who wants to steal everything from me, which is partly whey she acts like my hubby is her husband.  It's gross.  But we laugh about it and make plans for our escape in the meantime.  

Thank goodness she's finally left my lawn gnomes alone.  I mean, it's only taken over a year.  But I assure you, they will be moved again soon.  Because that's what she does.  Lulls you into thinking something is over and BAM!  There she goes again.