Thanks to My Narcissistic Father I Spent 41 Years Thinking There Was Something Deeply Wrong With Me

I reread the sentence. The words echoed my experiences, but I had never encountered anyone else with these complexities.

Scanning the words repeatedly, ensuring my eyes were reading them correctly, I exhaled. Yes, these were her words and her honest sentiments. Feelings I knew too well.

In Rose McGowan’s book Brave she writes:

I would watch kids with their dads and I would get jealous.

I, too, would watch. I noticed their relaxed bodies, uncontrollable laughter, and high-pitched squeals. I clocked their emotional safety and trust. I watched as they interacted like a sturdy rope of mixed fibres, stronger together and interconnectedly woven. Bonded by mutual love.

I would stare, transfixed, by this alien concept of fatherly love.

In my life, I was oil to his water. I tried to play by the rules, but predicting and presenting the desired behaviour was impossible when the rules kept changing. Just when I thought I had figured out the system, it morphed, leavi…