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With this being the second year I don’t go home for the holidays, I’ve been thinking a lot about family and the kinds of people that raised me. I tend to do a lot of introspection during this time of year, thinking back to some formative moments. I have always hated the holidays, but this is the first time in my life I’m actually looking forward to Christmas. I thought I’d share some of the memories I have growing up, some of the moments that would lead to a multi-year journey to fix all of the cracks and bruises that come from twenty years living with narcissistic parents.
I remember the very first crack I made in the foundation that was my family. My husband (fiance at the time) and I had discovered I was pregnant. I wasn’t really speaking to my parents at this point, because they were mad at me that I didn’t drop everything and tell them I was engaged the second I got engaged, so they were doing their classic “feel guilty that we weren’t in the spotlight of your big moment’ bit they always did to make sure I didn’t feel good about myself. And of course, it worked and I felt broken inside and wondered how on earth I was going to be a mom when I didn’t seem to have one myself.
As some of you may know from my article Why Blood Doesn’t Matter, I was diagnosed with bipolar depressive disorder around 5 years old. I’d been taking medication and seeing doctors and therapist my whole…
