I belong to too many of these kinds of subreddits it's like I'm looking for valid—oh wait I am

[omaewokorosu]

From the Narcissistic Parents subreddit we have Have you ever secretly recorded narcissist abuse to show others?:

Hi,

My mum is a covert narcissist - but no one besides her sister and my brother who sees something is wrong will believe the extent of her horribleness behind closed doors. She is an absolute angel who uses a soft voice and a vulnerable and loving persona outside to friends... but is a raging bull with no boundaries to my behind closed doors.

I've raised it with a few friends and they say it sounds horrible but kind of brush it off like - aww yeah that sounds bad, why would she do that? and even the questioning pisses me off. They cannot understand - I havent told my brother that I believe she is a Cnarc yet but I will - its just that he loves her dearly, sees she has major mental health issues but I doubt he would fully agree she is a CNarc because she treats him sooo differently.

I want to record her rages, and her absolutely aweful use of language towards me, the mocking and shouting and baseless attacks and let them listen to it and be like: HERE YOU GO! I bet you've never heard this tone of voice, and use of worwds before?!

It's not uncommon for a narc parent to treat all of their kids differently. In Egg's case the way she treats Rob is different from how she treats Michael and how she treats both of them is different from how I get treated. We all had distinctly different upbringings. So I'm not surprised your brother sees her different than you do. That's how this operates.

Now I did record Egg (as everyone here knows) but it wasn't to show her off to other people, it was a measure I had to take for myself to hold her accountable and stop the gaslighting. You can't gaslight me into thinking that you didn't say this when I have the literal audio of you saying that very thing in my hand. But they try to! She tried that bullshit with Aleks a few times and he would quote the line she said verbatim and get a "well anyway" from her as if we can just sweep that bit of verbal abuse under the rug. I wasn't doing it as an exercise in showing Rob or anyone else "oh look at this woman!"

Did I quote bits of the transcripts in places? Yeah, I did.
Did she deny it? Absolutely, as I knew she would. You don't get the truth from narcs and if you do there's a reason behind it.

Comment #1:

Yes, but it can be risky showing it to anyone. Remember, most people are enablers.

If not enablers they are definitely good at justifying it as something else; Rob just thinks Egg is losing it because she's getting old, nevermind she was always this way and has gotten worse. Unlike most enablers though Rob at least takes my side and understands.

Comment #2:

No but I’ve 100% wanted to. I have some extra door cameras, I have to find a place to hide them that would still be in view, but she also won’t notice and freak tf out.  Once I get the chance, I’m showing as many family and friends as I can so they know to not believe her “ I’m a nice girl !” Persona.

Narcs will just justify their behaviour. "Oh well they caught me on a bad day/I wasn't thinking clearly!" Egg has backtracked in real time many times. This is the "most famous" example...

(Aleks used to go by a name I abbreviated to H so H is Aleks.)

H: But, you know. I can’t say either way. But if we end up moving out we end up moving out. We have to do what we have to do and what’s best for us.
E: And you have to take everything with you
H: mmhm.
E: You know, have to get a moving van
H: mhm
E: You have to do and that’s it.
H: Yep. Cause we can afford to rent a house.
E: and then I’m gonna have to change everything in the Will. Gonna have to leave it all to [RM]

[a few minutes later]

E: I don’t really know if I’ll do that though. With it. But the house. I don’t know what’s gonna happen because I’m not gonna be able to mow the lawn and all that
H: You would have to sell the house.
E: and you know.
H: But to even say, like that was the first thing out of your mouth, “Oh well I’ll just have to leave everything to [RM].” After everything I have done. Everything I have done
E: Yeah well you have done a lot.
H: That would. That would would be a slap in the fucking face.
E: But I appreciate everything you’ve done
H: But clearly not because you are so willing to disinherit me if I move out
E: But, well (she’s getting frantic to try to defend herself) I. Maybe not I don’t know. Maybe I said that out of haste. I don’t know. Because I know you did do a lot for me. You really did.
H: Yeah and that would be the thanks I get.

Comment #3:

i have recordings.. lots.. my dads rages made me develop ptsd so anytime he starts raising his voice i forget everything i kinda needed the recordings to remember what horrible things he said to me but i always had to do it secretly multiple times he caught my mom recording and it wasnt good recently he grabbed her phone out of her hand and threw it so hard it shattered and guess what i was also recording so i have a video of him breaking her phone :) but i cant really do anything with it besides watch it myself ive wanted to send it to family members so they could see how horrible he really is but genuinely what are they gonna do about it probably tell him about it and then hes gonna smash my phone

Comment #4:

I recorded the abuse for my own use. I forgot what happened the last time we were together, so I got myself reminders to never go back a 3rd time. He spent 10 years trying to get me back, it worked, but he didn’t change like he showed me.

Comment #5:

I haven't but I've read of a lot of people doing this. Dr. Ramani (she has an amazing YouTube channel about narc abuse) talks about how she had many clients who did this and then brought the recordings to their therapy sessions as a way to validate their experience and stop from gaslighting themselves. So I think it's good to do that for yourself if you're starting to doubt yourself. But I honestly wouldn't do it in order to show others, even your friends (and I challenge the idea that these people are genuinely your friends if they are gaslighting you and invalidating your experience) and brother (who sounds like he gets it, at least partly, so he wouldn't need the validation). Since they're invalidating your experience and gaslighting you, they're not on your side. Suppose one of them decides to tell your mother (for one reason or another)? As far as I know, it's illegal to record someone without their consent and that could get you into trouble. So I would say to think about why you're doing it if you do it and keep it very private for your own use.

Dr Ramani has taught me via her videos that you are under no obligation to ever forgive those who have hurt you and that has had a very profound impact on me.

Comment #6:

The last few conversations I had with mother were texts only for that very reason. She would lie lie lie and deny deny deny so I got it in writing and sent it to my brother. Haven’t heard from her since. My brother now does the same. She calls and reprimands him because he allows it. I’m trying to help him get off the crazy train with encouragement and love but ultimately it will be on him. Love you lil bro.

Comment #7:

I’ve done it. The narc basically turns it into a “How dare you record me without my consent”. Remember, they are always the victim. It’s a good piece of video to keep on hand when they gaslight you tho. It reminds me that I am def not the crazy one!

lmao depending on the state you don't need her permission :) Also depending on what your plan is with it too.

And of course because I have a lot of experience with this... I chimed in:

Oh absolutely, both using apps on my phone and using actual audio recorders set up where I knew it would pick her up. I bought the recorder so I had a reliable, better quality way to record her when I wasn't around (and therefore, would be more likely to speak freely) and it picked up so much: her narc rages, her (hopefully empty) threats to harm the neighbours (both adults and kids), how much she hated my wife... And things I didn't expect (like how much she seemed to hate me in addition). I kept recording her up until I moved out, so I have literal months of audio. I haven't gone through a lot of it (it's a lot, each recording it 12 hours in length before it starts a new track to record on), just on days where I especially knew she would be going off on something. I live in a one party state and since this tiny little recorder could pretty much pick up the whole house, obviously my wife and I had no problems with ourselves getting picked up every now and then lol.

She found out that she had been recorded when we had to call the cops on her (some of the threats made were, uh, violent to say the least) and the officer basically told her, "Well this was picked up on an audio recording." We had pet cameras around as well that could also record audio and that was our "cover story" because like hell was I going to give up my secret recording location! Since my nmother did nothing but sit in the same spot all day watching TV, pausing only to pay a bill or use the bathroom or grab food, it was really easy to find a secluded spot to record and get audio.

(Because of how the rooms were positioned in the house, everything was right next to each other, so you could hear her in her bedroom, office, living room, and in the kitchen to some extent...all from the stairs. So I hid the recorder in one of my shoes I kept on the stairs. My recorder has the option of turning the recording LED off, which is what I did, making it more or less invisible. She never found out where the recorder was.)

So after she found out she would go off every once in a while about "how sick it is that you have to record your own mother, that's disgusting!" not realising that her behaviour is the reason why I have to record in the first place. If she behaved like even half of a human being I wouldn't have to do what I was doing! But logic escapes narcs lol. (In reality she was probably upset she couldn't get away with anything anymore.)

My only advice would be...make sure you know your location's laws about recording. Some places are one party (where you only need one person's agreement to record) whereas others are two party (both people need to agree). If it's just to show other family it might not matter as much though, but I believe in covering your ass as much as possible.

This is quite detailed
THANK YOU sometimes you have to think like a literal terrorist lmao

Who came up with the idea to start recording her?
That was Aleks, who started with a free (with a paid option available, which we sprang for for cloud storage and syncing) phone app and then decided we needed an upgrade. After the events of March 2nd and her going off a few days later, Aleks felt it would be best if we started phone recordings. So both Serena and us did that.

Who came up with the idea to hide it?
Oh it was always hidden. Serena would put her phone out in the hall pointed at her so it would (hopefully) record her saying shit. Which it would, because Egg has one volume: loud. (The TV would sometimes be louder.) Once we got the recorder it was Aleks who suggested hiding it on the stairs "in plain sight" (for once my clutter came in handy) and then later on after we nearly got caught putting the recorder back into place, Aleks moved it closer to the stair landing inside a shoe so it was easier to grab when it came time to empty the SD card. We had it connected to a USB extension cord plugged into a wall adapter plugged into an outlet in the back room.so we didn't have to worry about it losing power at the worst possible moment. The cord was also hidden.in plain sight (we left it there but took the recorders).

I should state that there were areas of the house that the recorder couldn't hear, like if you went into the kitchen (and didn't stay by the doorway) because the TV was at blaringly loud volume... So we would have our phone recording to make sure that we covered all of our bases.

This is some black ops shit.
I mean...if you are familiar with Aleks' source, that probs comes as no surprise lmao Sometimes you need to set up your own bugs, you know? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯