When you live with a toxic narcissist, you don’t always know it. I didn’t. They are charming, social, engaging to outsiders. They often shine at special events and in public. Then when the doors are closed or you are one on one, their true nature comes out. Deception is their favorite tool. They use gaslighting to make you doubt your own reality. They use triangulation, specific to mothers to emotionally separate family members and maintain the power dynamic. They are masters of deception because their lives depend on it. The charm hides the exploitation and manipulation. It takes a long time for those around you to learn that you are not the problem, if they ever do at all. You can’t blame them. It is the toxic person’s greatest strength, the duality. Plus, if you don’t know, how can people on the outside know? For the person living in it? It is an oppressive fog to extricate from. It is your normal and you can’t see outside clearly enough to realize it’s not.

I didn’t really know my family was different. I had glimpses of it when I visited friends and spent time in their homes. But because my normal was what I knew, I just assumed that’s how it was for others. That they, too, grew up with a mother who could not be pleased, who withheld love as a form of manipulation and employed silent treatments as punishments. I hear people joke that they are afraid of their mother. In that way that steers them toward better choices and actions that make parents proud. That makes sense. Healthy fear. I didn’t have that. I was afraid of my mother. Afraid afraid.

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