I Stole My Life

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Nine years ago, I made the best decision of my life: to never speak to my mother again. It started fairly simple, at first. She had revealed to me that she’d intended to take advantage of my godfather for as long as he was willing to let her do it. At that point, she had been kicked out by a number of friends who rented her a room in their house. My godfather had no room for her but offered a bed in his living room anyway. While we had a toddler in a two-bedroom apartment, my partner and I offered her a space — if she agreed to look for work. She had also had a lot of trouble keeping a job. You will know why if you have read my previous posts (or know my mom) but I will remind you that my mom has an un-diagnosed narcissistic personality disorder.

I am not one to typically throw out diagnoses, but I have a weirdly perceptive mind to patterns. I’ve always seen it as a strong suit. However, the most damning evidence, for me, was reading work from adults who had lived through narcissistic abuse. While doing research for my thesis on domestic violence and domestic terrorism at UCI, narcissistic abuse came up more than a few times. Having already…