The Family Curse

It's a dark spell seeping from my bones.

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A curse cast on my family generations ago.  Yes, I am so dramatic. Because drama helps me emote.

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Narcissism plagues from both sides. My mother, the invisible child. Her father tortured her with constant bait and switch, gaslighting, bread crumbing, narcissistic rages, love bombing, minimising her emotions. She barely existed except when he needed a narcissistic meal. Always beneath the boys, given scraps so she knows she is LESS. And she believes him because there is no one to tell her different. 

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She still believes it. Twenty-five years after his death. A narcissistic abuse survivor.

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Elder brother is the scape goat, younger brother the golden child. My grandfather toyed with my grandmother, using her up and tossing her away. And the female programming in our family, the enablers and the excusers, lived on in mom and me. She taught me to avoid the problem, to cope using escapism. To give, and sacrifice, and excuse, and never attend to my own needs.

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My only purpose is to shrink so the men, my brother and father, always feel large and important. I am here to feed them. Brother never questions and uses the curse often. Keep sister small. Prove to her through words and actions that she will always be less. 

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And I believed it, because there was no one to tell me different. 

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My father. His narcissistic family worshipped the abusive patriarch and never addressed their mother's mental health issues. So my father never went home. Ever. He turned to crime at an early age, and only white male privilege saved him. No prison time and a leadership program to put him on the right path. He absorbed narcissistic traits to save his soul and eventually found mother, a well-trained enabler.

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They made a home. It looked so perfect from the outside.

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