Kris – Hugs to you. You and me both! The same thing; my siblings refuse to take me seriously, even though I’m in my 50s now. I’m still the ‘young naive stupid child’ to them it seems.
My violently narcissist mother died in 2018. My mind was still trapped until 2022 when I learned that a ‘good friend’ died in 2017, 9 months before she did. That’s when all the repressed memories came back. I’ve since learned that our bodies only allow us to remember when we feel ‘safe’ to remember.
We do not attract just narcissists. Narcissists cast wide nets and we fall for them, because nobody taught us how to spot red flags. In my case, I was violently forced to ignore red flags and embrace toxic people, as being with dangerous friends and partners kept me safe at home.
I liken it to a family who cares about their children will send them out on a snowy day with a warm jacket, a sweater, warm pants, maybe some long underwear, a scarf, mittens a hat, warm boots, and explain to them why they need to wear those things.
A narcissistic family, on the other hand, will purposely hide all those items, replace them with a tank top and shorts, then send the scapegoat out into the winter then blame, mock and ridicule us for crying or for being cold.
So when a narcissist shows up with a blanket, or a pair of mittens, we feel eternally grateful for the kindness they seem to show during our time of need. what we don’t realize is that they have given mittens to everyone they see, but because the other ‘kids’ already have their own mittens, they reject the ones from the narc. We who are so desperately in need, see the mittens, as rundown, used, dirty or obviously thin, see them as precious!

Thank you for reading, and I’m sorry you know what I’m talking about, too. Now that I’m outside of it in my closest relationships, I’m trying to make some sense and figure out what this has been good for. When the conclusion of the essay comes out, I hope you’ll consider sharing any alternatives for language around NPD (and abuse) based on your own experiences. Be well!

Thanks for that thought, Maureen. I understand how covert narc abuse can leave someone’s cognitive functions scrambled, and I’m sure that wordiness here is partly because I have taken a hit in my sequential thinking and ability to focus, too. (I can’t imagine 25 years of this; that takes unimaginable strength. I wish you good healing.) But this has also been one of my main frustrations with explaining narc abuse (and, as you are very right to point out, specifically covert narcissism): it is so subtle, sneaky, and byzantine, then expertly dispersed and buried, that of course no one around me believed how severe it was or had the time to listen to it all. It becomes exhausting to explain, which is part of why the behavior is a growing trend. Whenever I write about this, I still feel like I’m leaving out a million relevant details; I think this is why we find comfort in group recovery, where you don’t have to start from the beginning and can group behaviors into mechanisms. Either way, I really appreciate the reflection about a target audience’s ability to engage with the writing. Psychological abuse may be hard to prove, but as we know, it is quite literally incapacitating!