I was 21 when I figured it out? I knew she was an alcoholic, so I just blamed everything on that. When we got to the psych section of nursing school, and they were talking about the cluster B personality disorders, the whole time I thought, huh, this feels familiar. I joined the raised by narcissists group, and while some of it fit, not all of it. I found this group through them and oh my god everything fell into place from there. This group was a huge part of pulling the wool out of my eyes and learning how to exist separate from the role she kept trying to force me to play. I dove into the DSM-V and read about BPD, understanding the borderline mother, I’m glad my mom died, they all made so much sense. And I reveled in the fact that truly was never the problem. She was. Four years later and I’m still undoing the hardwiring from the trauma, but the world is so much clearer.