On this week’s ‘Adult’ segment, one woman asked how to enjoy Mother's Day when her mam always ruins it for her.

“I have a very difficult relationship with my mother and I can’t bear to be faced with all the fake outpouring of love that is the charade around Mother’s Day,” she told Moncrieff.

“[My mother is] a narcissist and has tried to turn my own children and partner against me over the years.

“She’s manipulative and always makes me feel guilty for not seeing her more when I call her three times a week and I try to have her for dinner at least once a month.

“Since I became a mother myself, I’ve never been allowed to have a Mother’s Day celebration of my own because she always makes it about her.

“I’m one of four children but the only daughter, and the expectations for me to bend over backwards are so much more.

“How do I get through the day without the usual hysterics?”

Daughter, mother and grandmother arguing at home. Image: Lev Dolgachov / Alamy. 5 May 2019

Broadcaster Barbara Scully said that perhaps this writer could placate her mother for the day, and then arrange for her own family to celebrate the occasion later.

“If you mother’s a narcissist and you do want a quiet life and she wants a fuss, probably, if you can, suck it up for the day and just do whatever it is,” she said.

“Dance to whatever tune that your mother would like you to sing on the day to show your love and all the rest of it is fine.

“But don’t get that mixed up in your head with the marking of your own Mother’s Day, if that’s what you want with your kids."

Barbara said that for many women, Mother’s Day is only special in the sense that they are given a night off from cooking the dinner.

'Giving way'

However, TV personality Declan Scully said he sees this as “giving way” to the mother’s controlling behaviors.

“A lot of narcissists cultivate a certain kind of response in their children, which is to react – and the daughter is kind of helpless in this instance,” he said.

“She’s kind of reacting to her mum’s nonsense and then it’s upsetting her, and then it happens again, because that’s the cycle of that dynamic.

“For a child, you can’t uncouple yourself easily from your parents and so, she’s known that cycle all of her life.”

Declan said perhaps this woman could call on her siblings to get more involved and do some heavy lifting for her this year.

Main image: Stressed woman in the kitchen. Image: Chris Rout / Alamy. 19 October 2019