Narcissist One, Narcissist Two

It's odd that my Nfather's narcissism, the wildly blatant malignant narcissism, full of screaming, glaring, finger pointing, and emotional and physical abuse, was so much easier to recognize and come to terms with than my Nmother's cold, judgmental, lips pressed together, neglectful narcissism, the narcissism that's been passed down in my FOO.  We were all so afraid of becoming our Nfather that we didn't see the real danger lurking behind the supposed victim, the parent who set us against each other, set us up for abuse by Nfather and then disappeared.  The first time a counselor asked me where my mother was when Nfather was abusing someone, I was really confused - where, indeed, was she?  I searched through all my memories and couldn't find her anywhere!  I'll remember that moment for the rest of my life - myth was shattered that day.  I wasn't from a family with an abusive father and a victim mother - the Nparents were on the same team!  There had been moments of partial insight before - I thought of them as Harryclara, one person inhabiting two bodies, since college, but apparently I hadn't been willing to go past that observation - emotional orphans resist making it official!

I can remember the WWW telling me that I was adopted, thinking that it was a hurtful statement, but I'd spent years at that early age dreaming about having been adopted - and dreaming that my real parents, the ones who loved me, would arrive one day to rescue me from my uncaring adoptive parents.  This in spite of the fact that I looked remarkably like my Nfather - you'd have thought this would have been an asset in a narcissistic home, but Harryclara had decided that feminine beauty resided only in my Nmother, so looking like Nfather was a decided disadvantage.

When Nmother and I had long talks at the kitchen table when I was a teenager, it was about Nmother's problems, depression, issues withNfather - I knew way more than I should have about their sex life - and pretty much how she couldn't take it anymore.  The next morning, if I said anything about our conversation of the night before, she either slapped my face or glared at me and said that she hadn't said that.  It's a wonder I survived my teen years at all, and no surprise at all that I entered adulthood totally unprepared!