Hello, my name is Angela and my mother has Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). She has not been officially diagnosed (most narcissists are not) because she would never believe or admit that she has any kind of problem. I discovered information about this disorder very recently, after many years of suffering her abuse. Not physical abuse (that was dad's department), but psychological abuse. This "discovery" has rocked my world and I am coming to grips with it. It is equal parts liberating and devastating. I created this blog as an outlet for my thoughts and feelings and it may make absolutely no sense at times. I have repressed some memories and as I research NPD they are starting to come flooding back.
My mother is very cruel and manipulative and for years I believed that I was the one with the problem. She would mask her cruelty as concern and saved her blatant cruelty for when no one else was around to hear. If I dare to confront her, she denies what she said, which I have learned is a technique called gaslighting* and is very common with NPD. It is intended to make the "victim" feel as though they are the crazy one and for years I fell for it. Over the years she has become more relaxed around my husband and he has been witness to some of her abuse. A few years ago I also started saving her emails and instant messages as a way to verify to myself that I was not imagining her abuse. From the outside, we look like the perfect family and this is of the utmost importance to her. Appearance is everything and she must look perfect at all times. It is no exaggeration when I say that she puts on full makeup to go check the mail.
I am not going to try and explain my mother's NPD in one post, it's just not possible. I intend to write about events in my life as I recall them and can now process them with the new knowledge I have. I'm hoping this will serve as a type of therapy, even if no one other than me ever sees this blog. I'm hoping to heal as much of the damage from my past as I can so that I can enjoy my life, which is really quite wonderful. I refuse to let my mother extinguish my light!
*Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse in which false information is presented to the victim with the intent of making them doubt their own memory and perception. It may simply be the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever occurred, or it could be the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienting the victim.
