Adult Children Of Narcissistic Parents

I've been on the path toward recovery most of my adult life. Of course, it wasn't always defined as recovery. I just knew I had problems that were considered "secrets."

When I was younger, if you mentioned you were "in recovery," the person you were talking to would've stopped and said, "Recovering from what?" No one understood the aspects of alcoholism, love addiction or recovery from the torture of a narcissist or an abusive spouse.

"Recovering from what?" That's one heck of a loaded question. I'd already read every self-help book on the market.

At nineteen years old, I first sought spiritual counseling. I'd come to the enlightened conclusion that I was in a horribly abusive marriage and was now pregnant with our first child that He Did Not Want!

I'd been married less than one year.

In desperation, I called my Narcissistic mother, not knowing that she was a major part of my problem. She advised me to meet with a local Pastor at a very conservative church for spiritual counseling.

This is part of the mind fuck a NPD Parent causes their adult child. She, my NPD Mother, seemed very empathetic, loving and helpful.

Now I know that she hated having someone else controlling me. We all know how she LOATHED my NPD misogynistic husband.

So there I sat, across from a judgmental, older man still married to his only wife. She appeared so beaten down that when she opened the door to their home, I seemed able to see right through her.

My instinctive antennae, threw up a huge red flag. It screamed: DANGER AHEAD! DANGER AHEAD!

Of course, being a good adult child of an alcoholic as well as being trained for marriage by my mother, who had narcissistic personality disorder and Munchhausen Syndrome, I ignored my instincts and plowed ahead.

I can never forget how translucent the preacher's wife had become under his abuse. He'd turned her into a non-person.

She was me in twelve years.

In walks a willing victim - I'd asked to see him, after all. Boy, did he slam me.

After I told him about my marriage of 14 months, he said, "Either you are a terrific liar or you're in a hopeless situation." Huh.

But what does that mean?

Well, according to the good preacher, I needed to become "a better wife.

Okay."

"Read this portion of the Bible EVERY day for 30 days - model what a good wife is and he will be a changed man.

Okay.

Riggghhhtttt.

No. That definitely did not work. My husband LOVED my new attitude. How submissive I'd become, how I subjugated myself to his every whim, completely under his control.

I tried harder to be a better wife for a man who'd never, ever appreciate my efforts. He'd simply find new, more creative ways to abuse me.

It took ten more years, two more babies, a dear friend dying way too young, before I fell apart again.

I started with cigarettes, with the intention of pissing off my husband. He smoked, so I smoked.

There's a saying in one recovery group, "Eating poison and waiting for him to die." Starting to smoke cigarettes in my thirties is pretty close. He didn't give a shit.

Asshole.

Next, I took a handful of Vicodin and washed it down with a Budweiser. Yeah. Now THAT helped me.

I was able to make a lovely dinner, care for my delightful children and thought I may even be able to endure sex with my abusive husband at bedtime.

Magic.

Thus began my love affair with alcohol and prescription drugs. My children were destroyed, confused by the radical change in their mother.

My husband, however, never said a word.

Alcoholism is a genetic disease that may be successfully managed by total and complete abstinence. This is a medical diagnosis, a fact, and not up for personal debate. Like diabetes, if you got alcoholism, you have it.

If you want to live a long life as an alcoholic or diabetic, you have to follow a plan to stop the advance of all the devastating problems that arise as the result of improper management of the disease.

I researched alcoholism until I came to believe that I would die if I didn't cease drinking. My body could only take so much abuse. I couldn't hold my liquor, but I could take enough pills to kill a horse. Aahhhhh.

Plus? You can't SMELL PILLS! Yay! I'd thought I was tricking everybody. Turns out, I was only bullshitting myself.

My path to recovery was long and hard for those who loved me. I'd had no idea how much hurt I'd caused the people in my life.

I'd begun to abuse my prescriptions to avoid feeling the pain; the anguish of what my life had become. I was dangerous, desperate to escape the pain.

As my children got older, I was stoned for every event in their lives. I'd be wasted by the time we got to each planned event.

They'd become more ashamed of me, while I obliviously believed I was acting normally. My children began to give me a "field sobriety" test before we left the house.

Of course I'd pass...then. But by the time we got to our destination, I'd be an inelegant, clearly-altered, nicely dressed, stoned mess.

My children were mortified, angry and powerless is protect themselves.

Back To School Night was forbidden to me by the kids.

My kids tried humor, tears, anger, recriminations, reenactments and shame. The only thing that made a dent was when my youngest daughter asked for prayer at our church.

I tried the good codependent guilt trip by telling her,"Don't EVER tell anyone what's going on in this house!"

At a sage fifteen, she told me, "Mom, you're the alcoholic, YOU NEED PRAYER."

Ouch.

I entered treatment after my oldest daughter got married - I have little-to-no memory of her wedding. She knew better than to ask me to help her with the preparations since I was as dependable as a cool wind in August. More shame.

We finally discovered a herd of pink elephants in our living room. We've only just begun cleaning up the enormous piles of elephant shit. Thank God it's pink - easier to find.

Who knows how long it will take to finish up the recovery? Every time I believe I've run off the last one, a rogue elephant stampedes through the house.

I never do know what it'll look like, smell like, or the damage it'll do. I just know that I have to deal with it, no matter what.

I earned it.

The good old fashioned way.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder can damage family relationships and cause stress for everyone involved.

This is how it affected her life.

Researching how I'd ended up over fifty, mother of three grown daughters, someone who'd created a "Start Up" before it was cool, divorced and miserable, living with my narcissistic mother, I came across a website:

"Narcissistic Abuse Recovery"

I felt weak with relief - I'd always wondered about narcissists, what it meant to be a narcissist. I'd read the story of Narcissus and thought I knew a bit about the disorder.

Not. Even. Close.

We've all heard of serial killers diagnosed as narcissists; they lack empathy.

Okay. How does that affect me? Why do I believe it affects me?

For years, my self-deprecating joke was that I had an infrared tattoo on my forehead only assholes could see. Normal men never looked twice, but the assholes? They came running.

Sounds bizarre, unless you've been raised by a female narcissist like my mother, who loved a "Manly Man." A Manly Man who drags you to his cave, treats you like the Queen of the castle, er, cave, allowing you make his dinner after he's hunted it.

That kind of Manly Man was what I understood.

My precious father was a man out of his time who had the bad luck to meet a young woman of sixteen and fall in love. My Mother was an angry, vengeful, psychopath who'd yet to come into her own.

A decorated WWII Veteran, my father was a practical man who married a woman that loathed men. She used subterfuge, lies, and manipulation to get what she wanted. Her favorite way was to "Plant the seed and watch it grow."

They married in 1950, when my dad made $150.00 a month working for the State of California. During the first month they were married my mother charged $325.00 at the local mercantile, a store that sold everything from feed for cattle to clothing and food.

My father was outraged. He couldn't understand how she spent so much money - how was he going to pay it back?

I believe that was when he turned to alcoholism. He didn't know what else to do - with her or himself.

He took extra jobs on with the State to make more money, placed my mother on a strict budget and paid the bills himself. Then the babies started to come. Six total. Five sons and one daughter, me.

The only girl in a household of boys and a larger than life father, I learned to stay quiet to attract the least amount of attention - positive or negative. I watched the drama as  my mother created situation after confrontation after altercation with whomever crossed her path, including our neighbors. We never did have a neighbor she liked.

My dad, however, never had a problem with anyone. He worked with the public and wore a firearm - he had to have people skills. He wrote a book about all the characters he'd met. He loved his job, he loved his wife, he adored his kids.

She was the problem; he just never figured it out.

I can understand why - it would've broken his heart.

As I grew older, I saw more. Since no one ever noticed me, my mother spoke without a filter, making comments like "I wonder how he'd like ground glass in his mashed potatoes tonight."

I was eleven years old.

She'd begun to work outside of the home, so I was responsible for the majority of the cooking and cleaning. That's what women did. We had a ten-acre farm, grew our own food, milked the cow - we canned for the winter. All six kids worked hard, were well-fed, and physically healthy.

My father's job began to involve travel, during which my mother began to scheme. She opened charge accounts all over town, and indulged in her favorite addiction: compulsive shopping. Shopping was a nefarious hobby - she couldn't afford the things she bought.

Her shopping sprees continued until I was 14 or 15. By then I had a job and paid for my own things - I was the only one who knew about her shopping habits. As my brothers didn't know, they'd ask her for something they needed, she found a way to buy it.

She was a master of insurance fraud. She insured everything, drilled it into my head to ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS buy the extended warranty: you never know what's going to happen.

If she needed quick cash, one of my brothers' motorcycles would "disappear," and she'd turn in a claim to the insurance company for a check.

My father stayed oblivious, until he got That Call; the one that began, "Are you Mr. So So? Husband of Mrs. Devious?" He stated that he was, and the bomb dropped.

KABOOM.

The jig was up.

My dad had no idea how much trouble he was in; not everyone was sympathetic to his plight - he should've kept better tabs on her.

I suppose he could've hired a CPA team to run the dual incomes and outgo required for a small working farm, six children, plus travel and bartering systems my dad utilized to cut costs. She was just one woman - how much trouble could she cause a big, tough man for crying out loud?

Well, she forged his name on the deed to the farm. She mortgaged a farm my father had paid for. She owed over $100,000.00 in charges to any merchant that gave her credit.

She was arrested for fraud, forgery, check-kiting, even though she was working at the local Police Department. She only avoided jail time because she had a journal about the Chief of Police; who told her she could resign if she made restitution.

By the time the farm was sold, all the antiques appraised and sold, everything liquidated, my dad was a broken man. His spirit was broken.

He never knew how she could lie, cheat and steal. He removed his wedding band and never put it back on. Shortly after, he had his first heart attack, which changed everything. It was only a matter of time before he became a man with medical problems rather than a man with money problems.

He took care of all the money. Period. Only one child left at home, my youngest brother, who had terrible, baffling emotional problems. I'd gotten married at 18 to a man I'd thought was like my father, but turned out to be the male version of my mother.

That was when deviant personality disorders began to make sense. You see, The Band, I'd always suspected something was "off" with my mother. Sometimes, it was fleeting - a look, or an expression on her face, before it vanished. Usually, it was a comment that seemed out of context. Since I'm not confrontational, I let them pass, or ask for clarification.

I'd known my own Mother was fucked up. I'd know for years. My earliest memories are of perverted things she'd tell her small girl. There were times I was positive she HATED me - I couldn't figure out her mixed messages. She'd say "Of course, I love you! Why, your father cried the day you were born!"

Bingo.

She hated me because my father loved me. Whew. I can't begin to explain how relieved I was to figure her out. I'm not her problem, she's my problem.

I'm educating myself about sociopathy, how these deviants go undetected when they aren't committing murder or other felonies.

I've learned that the primary problem with a polite society is just that: polite. A narcissist bets that the victim won't "out" their behavior. If we try, we look like the crazy one. Gaslighting is a built-in psychological manipulation of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

My mother once told me that her grandmother managed to have her grandfather committed to a psychiatric facility for nine months. During which, her grandmother forged her husband's name to checks and made other illegal financial loans. My mother, raised by her grandparents, was born surrounded by narcissistic personality disorder.

The FBI database don't include enough in their profile of NPD. They'll have to keep working until they get the right people to help track down these deviants. People with NPD are excellent at remaining elusive.

Narcissists: Protected BY LAW.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder can permeate every family dynamic.

This is her story:

Smiling down at my beautiful three-month old daughter, her eyes the most beautiful dark, chocolate brown I've ever seen. Her tiny little lips perfect cupid bows, a personality as big as Texas shines from her eyes, lighting up her adorable face.

A crowd-stopper at three months of age - she already has two bottom teeth! I'd swear on a stack of Bibles that she understands me.

Of course, I keep my feelings to myself -  ALL mothers must feel this way about their children, right? This little brown-eyed beauty WAS special; for a secret reason. Only one other human on the planet knew the horrible secret I kept locked deep inside.

This child was almost an abortion.

At twenty-one, I found myself pregnant again, thirteen months after giving birth to another baby, married to a man so horribly abusive that I'd pray for a fist to my face just to get it over with.

I was bound to a theological system misinterpreted by the men who preached it. Looking back, I wonder how many of our religious leaders were covert Narcissists, using a Loving and Benevolent God to abuse the women in their lives and congregations. I'd see it Sunday after Sunday, women in impossible relationships seeking answers to their pain.

Divorce was unheard of; separation with "the intent of reconciliation" was the "Christian" term for what to do when you finally ask for spiritual guidance from the "Leaders." You'd see these women each week, desperate for solace, battered from years of being "obedient," weak from loss of hope.

Surely, God must hate me.

Or, I have to work harder, pray more, be a BETTER wife. I knew he was a bad man when I married him - I made my bed, I must lie in it.

At home, I have one beautiful, precious green-eyed blonde baby, thirteen months old. She doesn't have a mean bone in her little body. She's a sweet, loving baby with a tender heart, not an drop of malice. 

We can tell. Moms. We know.

When my beautiful sweet daughter was thirteen months old, I found myself pregnant again, unable to get a divorce. I know that I cannot have another child with this man.

I told no one.

Finally, I told the only person I knew would never judge me if I decided to have an abortion; she knows I cannot have another child with this man. My loyal to the death sister-in-law, best friend, wife of my favorite brother.

She took me to Planned Parenthood.

Abortion had been legal less than ten years at the time; pretty bold move, if you ask me. 

She and I sat in the waiting room, silent. My brother was watching all the kids, never ever saying a word about the choice I was making. He never judged me, he knew my husband.

As we sat in the waiting room, I prayed to a God I desperately needed to hear from. I was considering the Christian unthinkable.

My decision wasn't the baby's fault; my decision was based upon the monster I'd willingly married. I hadn't known that he was a Narcissist and a misogynist. He no longer tried to hide it. I know that another baby was NOT part of his diabolical plan for world domination.

Needless to say, I changed my mind about the abortion.

I stood up, looked at my best friend and said, "Let's go."

Now, here I was, my second daughter cradled in my arms, about to nurse her. Her sparkling chocolate brown eyes, smiling, her cupid bow lips curved in what appeared to be adoration, her two tiny, sharp as hell, teeth visible. I'm thinking, "Look at her. I almost lost all the joy I feel this moment." Love washed over me as we locked eyes.

With her eyes still locked onto mine, grinning widely, she bit me - a pain sent shock-waves through me. Still, she was smiling.

I reared back, flicked her on her cheek and said, "NO." She just looked at me.

I picked her up, looked into her beautiful sparkling brown eyes and said, "Don't you EVER do that again! Do you understand?"

She started howling like I'd broken her arm.

I put her back into her tiny little bassinet, letting her cry it out. I was PISSED: that kid just bit the shit out of my nipple and ENJOYED it.

From that moment, I knew this child was different from her sisters.

My middle daughter has an off-the-chart IQ, and she was mean. She lied compulsively, even if the truth would've better served her. She created chaos between her sisters. She'd steal.

She was beautiful. Charming. Gifted student. Master manipulator. Opportunistic. Seemingly innocent while being precocious. Musically talented, she sang like an angel, gifted at piano.

Rage was one of her tools. Fear of upsetting her caused an entire family system to revolve around her until she was three.

Then, I outwitted her.

There are consequences for EVERY decision to be bad, do bad, or cause bad and a parent must be consistent, each and every time. Once I understood her motives, it was easier to separate her bad behavior from age-appropriate behaviors.

My kid had to know that if she was going to choose to misbehave I'd move Heaven and Hell to reach her, make her apologize, sit on my bed for 15 minutes. THEN, she had to tell me what she'd done wrong and why. If she decided to be stubborn (and she always did), I had to be more stubborn.

She had to sit on my bed for 15 minutes for me - I knew I had to be calm to discipline her. If I tried while I was angry, it fed her own calm. She fed off chaos. If I removed any scintilla of what she was trying to get, forced her to accept responsibility for her deviant behavior, we both won.

I gave my beautiful, talented, gifted child the gift of shame.

Shame to my little girl equated rage. Discovered doing something intentionally and deliberately wrong, hurtful, deceitful or self-indulgent didn't cause her to feel badly.

No, she became enraged when she got CAUGHT.

I could always tell, like only a mother can, when she switched into survival mode. I called it, "Making her sit down while she was standing up on the inside."

Self-will is incalculable. The strength inside a person cannot be measured.

If this power is used for good, we see people like Mother Teresa. If this human spirit is used for personal gain, we see people like Hitler.

Radical? Nah.

I was raised by a mother with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Munchhausen syndrome, married a misogynist monster narcissist.

When she was fourteen, she chose evil over kindness. By then, I was a newly separated mother of three teenage daughters. Her behavior went into overdrive, becoming worse each day. Every attempt to help, use therapy, use love failed.

Her fangs grew before my eyes. Her rages kept our home in constant fear of upsetting her.

I got pissed.

I told her that I knew and understood how she thought. Why she behaved the way she did. What her motives were and why. The only explanation of my knowledge was divine intervention.

She sat transfixed as I spoke to her.

As I did, she began to cry genuine tears - I did not take mercy on her. I continued explaining, using vivid adjectives that finally reached the shame deep inside her.

My hope, my prayer, was that she would choose to use her genius for good, rather than personal gain and self-indulgence.

Nobody gives a shit about a genius who's an asshole, I explained. Your choice, I told her. Now YOU get to pick whom you will serve. You've just reached the age of accountability.

Self-indulgent genius and future criminal?

Or earn multiple masters degrees? Master many languages? Become a world traveler and consultant?

The choice was hers.

Growing up with a narcissistic parent is one of the most horrifying types of childhood:

This is the story of an adult child with a narcissistic mother:

The story of my crazy life as the daughter of a malignant narcissist with Munchausen syndrome continues.

Last week alone, in one day, she called 911 four times. The fire department came three times, the local police department came twice, an ambulance carried her away once. 

UNFUCKINGBELIEVEABLE. 

Seriously.

Oh yeah, she lived.

Her determination for her narcissistic supply is unmitigated in anything I've read. The only other way to gauge her behaviour is by criminal standards, except she isn't held accountable to anyone. She simply repeats as needed, and has never been found out by any doctor, financial institution, or law enforcement entity.

She called 911 as I wasn't feeding her narcissistic supply needs, and she was out of pain pills - it was too early to get them refilled. She had to have a good reason to go to the doctor and get her pills early. What better reason than the handy 911 Emergency Response System? Perfect for her diabolical plan.

I have never seen evil appear so innocuously as in a well-dressed, funny, smart 78-year-old great-grandmother. an active member of her church and community. She hasn't been arrested for over 40 years, beloved by her grandchildren, but loathed by her children.

Yes, her children loathe her. Why, you ask? Doctors. Lots of doctors. When a narcissist has Munchhausen Syndrome, they love the attention of anyone in the medical field: even a dentist or veterinarian if a medical doctor isn't available.

My mother has a host of medical problems that date back to my earliest memories. At age twelve, she'd just emerged from a doctor's appointment in which she'd been told that she was "obese." I was horrified. Asked her if he could say that; she just shrugged and said, "Well, it's true." I was horrified all over again, because it didn't seem to bother her. This theme of "obesity" would become the way to feed her Munchhausen Syndrome.

Little did I know she was also cultivating a growing love of narcotics and would go on to lie, cheat, and steal to feed that addiction.

Trauma-Drama-Mama is what I've taken to calling her. Her doctor keeps her addiction rolling along, slowly but surely ignoring every warning. She was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver thanks to the pills - her doctor didn't even slow down. She simply visited a new doctor for her new condition. 

She once lost over one hundred pounds, which we'd thought was thanks to her medically supervised diet. It was the pills. Yes, she'd been referred to another doctor for her special diet. And boy, did she lose weight. She lost so much weight that she developed an "apron stomach" and needed a new doctor for a difficult surgery to have the excess skin removed from her abdomen and upper arms.

Her surgery was difficult for all of us. She reveled in any opportunity to be inappropriate; she chose to show it to whomever would look. It was like a train-wreck - you couldn't look away.

The most amazing part is none of us demanded she stop. We say, well, that's Grandma. We're still saying it today because she still pulls stunts like the four 911 calls. Outrageous.

Now she's old, obese, and stretching out the scar from her old surgery. She is dependent on insulin for her Type II diabetes, which could have avoided - but she wanted it. Badly. That ensures she has to see the doctor often. More than monthly, in her case. She's had surgery on her left foot and, of course, she developed complications, as she does with each surgery. She delights in making problems for herself so the doctor must get more involved than is common for the procedure.

Thank God she didn't have Munchausen by Proxy. There were six of us kids and always a legitimate reason to take us to the doctor. She developed and maintained enough of her own serious medical problems without involving us, except to call us to her bedside.

However, when my father was dying of complications of heart disease, she refused to stay with him the night he died. My mother pitched a fit in the hall of the hospital saying, "I just can't take it anymore!"

The doctor implored her to stay, saying he wouldn't make it through the night, didn't she want to be with him? NO way. What was in it for her? He did the damage to himself after all with alcohol. My dad was long gone; the man restrained in that hospital bed no longer bore any resemblance to my father, her husband of over 55 years.

So incredibly selfish. I am still in shock she left him to die alone.

I'm an adult child of a mother with narcissistic personality disorder.

I've known this a while. I periodically read what the Internet has to offer on the subject to reinforce myself. When I've explained what that's like to be an adult child of a mother with narcissistic personality disorder to others, I describe her as an Evil Robot.

To me, it seems she has no feelings; her objective is to destroy me. So I call my mom Evil Robot. (That's her contact name in my phone.)

I broke up with my mother in May 2010.

It was a great victory for me, but also, of course, very difficult. In August of that year, she called me for the first time, as a narcissist does not respect boundaries.

I didn't answer.

Just the idea of talking to her sent me into a tailspin, and I spent a weekend in my pajamas. 

Things have gotten a lot better for me regarding my mother since that summer.

She's established a pattern of stalking me on the Internet and emailing, calling or texting me every couple of months to tell me what she's found. Occasionally, this can be entertaining; once she believed that a homework assignment I'd given my students was somehow a reference to her.

I read her correspondence, but I almost never answer it.

In the time since the split with EvRo, my life has been mostly wonderful. Maybe that's because I shed the skin with her in it or maybe it was time for my life to be good. 

In April, I got married.

It's impossibly difficult to keep wedding registries from posting your name and wedding date to the Internet. She emailed me a hundred times justifying both why she's stalking me on the Internet while chastising me for excluding her from happy events in my life. How dare I keep a good light from shining on her! After the wedding, she emailed the photographer asking to buy pictures without my permission. 

The whole thing is very creepy. When I talk about it to my husband, who has never met her, I feel like there's no real way to convey how this feels. How could anyone understand how wrong the whole thing is? Of all people, my mother helped me out with an explanation. 

This summer I got a panicky email from EvRo saying she had a heart problem. Panicky fake health problems have, on occasion, been a part of the game when EvRo feels like I'm becoming too independent. Still, she's never claimed that she was dying, so I paid attention. I wrote an email back asking for everything I need if she dies. It seemed fair that if she is going to act like she's dying that I do too.

That was probably a mistake.

You have to hold your ground with a narcissist; everything gets reset when you respond. They don't see what they've done wrong. They see what they did that got you to respond.

My message to her asked her for names of banks, lawyers, credit card companies that I would have to deal with if she died. She provided none of that information, but gave me names of doctors she would be seeing and the date in November that she would be having surgery. She also gave me access to a hospital account to check on her health records.

The sad truth about a narcissistic mother is that a mother is the most pure and wholesome thing. And even if calling your mother Evil Robot is putting it diplomatically, you will worry about her when she has surgery. And the sad truth about this story is that she was going for a strong emotional reaction from me.

I stood strong - I did not call my mother on surgery day, because that was right for me. Even still, I doubted myself, staying up all night, crying. I wrote desperate emails to my best friend at 3 AM because it's difficult to validate yourself in the throes of doubt.

And then I checked the health records.

There. Was. No. Surgery. 

The name she provided as her cardiac surgeon was the name of her dermatologist. 

Her manipulation still stuns me. 

I'm an adult child of a mother with narcissistic personality disorder and I've known this for a while. But this act is more callous than anything I could've imagined. In order to get me to respond the way she wanted, she went all the way to a fake heart surgery. 

It's sad, really.

I can't imagine what it's like to have alienated everyone close to you. Both of her children told her that she couldn't be part of their lives any more. If it were me, I would feel like I failed completely as a human being and a mother. But I'm pretty sure she doesn't feel like she failed based on the email I got about a week after the day the surgery was supposed to happen (just enough time to see if I was going to come running).

In true narcissist fashion, she told me there was no surgery but completely ignored the horror of what she'd done. She told me she wanted to me to get over "whatever it is" that's bothering me in our relationship.

She told me that I needed to think about WHAT I AM DOING TO HER. 

In the past, I've been okay at dealing with the emotional scars she left. This fall, I started a new job in a new town and the change has been stressful. Somehow the stress makes the scars more prominent.

This evening, I talked to my husband about the difficulty of dealing with her histrionics. I told him about the reactions I've had when she's contacted me at various times and the struggle of knowing that keeping my distance is the right thing for me. 

He asked me if I would ever be able to talk to her; if I would ever be at the point where talking to her is meaningless to me and doesn't create an internal struggle.

It was a really interesting question.

I'm so angry with her; about how little she values my emotions that I can't even imagine what that would feel like.

What the world where I'm free from her would look like.