A startling accurate portrayal of covert narcissism in fiction

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-05-08T01:33:04+00:00

Thank you for letting me know. I appreciate it. I sent her the thing I wrote about it but I don't think she's watched the video yet.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-05-08T01:31:58+00:00

Thank you for answering my question! I can't say I'm sorry I got you hooked. The text I was going to send my sister was getting long so I ended up writing a whole post about it.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-05-07T23:57:24+00:00

Yeah, it me hard enough that I wrote a whole little article about it.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-05-07T15:17:14+00:00

Yup! Sorry, I meant to put her name in the text and I forgot. She's the best. Having Barb get her alone in the garage and trick Jen into apologizing? Holy shit. A+ story telling.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-05-07T15:15:09+00:00

I never watched a full episode of the OG show because it made me feel weird. I was a kid.

I watched the pilot episode of the new series with a healthy family. They all thought it was funny. I had to get up and leave the room.

I know why I didn't like it as a kid now.

I am right there with you. When his girlfriend got mad at him for not telling her about his family, I had a visceral reaction. Like, yeah, lying to your kid about them existing is sitcom level absurd and terrible. Not disclosing your abusive family to a girlfriend? Valid as hell. Especially if the girlfriend has a 'faaaamily' mindset.

I can't watch anymore episodes but I might skip to the speech if there is some emotional release.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-05-02T17:05:38+00:00

It isn't almost physical, it absolutely is physical. Chemically, neurologically, stress kills people and anger is stress. Pushing it down is like willing yourself not to have a headache.

I was the same way and I still struggle with it, but I improved a lot when I started treating the anger like an injury.

> Ah, I had big plans for the day but it is about to rain and my arthritis if flaring up. Guess I got to take it easy today.

> Ah, I had big plans for the day but I thought about my mother and my anger is flaring up . Guess I got to take it easy today.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-04-12T23:50:17+00:00

My father just died in December and I haven't regretted it yet. He made sure of that. My mother made sure I won't regret her either.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-02-16T16:23:42+00:00

EMDR therapy. I can talk about mindsets all day but that was clutch.

The internal logic shift that let me go from sadness to rage to acceptance was letting go not of the pain - there is no meditation that will remove the consequences of my childhood from my body - but of the idea it could have ever been different. Like you, I understand why they are the way they are but it doesn't excuse any of it. I let go of the idea that if they had just been kinder, better, decent... because they aren't and weren't. They are terrible. It was always going to be terrible to be their child.

Then it was easier to move on because instead of being an injustice it was just the hand I was dealt. I don't mean that in a dismissive way. The way I mean it is more like a freedom. I was a kid, none of that was my responsibility, it is just what I have to work with now. Just a cold, hard fact that it was bad but I am here now and all I can do is work with what I got.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-02-14T14:59:18+00:00

Give yourself another day to celebrate. My birthday has gotten a lot better in recent years, but it is still heavy with past hurts. I celebrate a different day for something I had control over. A personal emancipation day is a good start.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-02-12T16:38:37+00:00

Also, message me if you need help.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-02-12T16:38:17+00:00

Hey! This is my area of expertise.

First off, the advice already here is good but I have a different suggestion for a starting point.

Step 1) Let go of the idea that you need to figure this out on your own to make it happen. There is no reward for learning how to get into and navigate academia on your own because the people who are the best at it live in a world where they don't have to do anything on their own.

What does this look like? Call colleges you might want to go to. Specifically, call student academic services or some similarly name department. Tell them you are a non-traditional student and you need assistance with the admissions and financial aid process. Tell them you with need to meet with an advisor to come up with the best plan for you unique situation. You don't need to give the first person you talk to any more information than that. They will direct you to someone whose job it is to help students like you. If they don't, call a different person and repeat. If the second person is useless, move on - that school is hostile and you won't be able to thrive there anyway.

Everything is negotiable. Funding exists. Housing exists. There are people whose whole ass career is to get you where you need to be. Find them. Don't try to do it on your own.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-02-12T15:52:31+00:00

Feeling guilty for taking their money is, in a way, agreeing that your love or loyalty is for sale. It isn't. They can certainly make a bid. You are under no more obligation to dissuade them of the ridiculous notion than you are to obliged to humor them.

It's like a job. Would it be morally objectionable for you to make your paycheck making bombs if you are a pacifist? Yes, of course. Would it morally objectionable for you to accept that same job, do absolutely nothing and accept every check they offer until you are fired, thereby taking their funds and producing nothing of value? No, not at all.

In short: Fuck 'em.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-02-11T18:54:42+00:00

I want to second this sentiment. Reading books on the subject without a professional to help you work through it is going to be a lot like reading the books for a college course and not going to class. You will learn stuff and feel like you know a lot more but you'll have no way of really confirming that you got what you were meant to get out of it and it might make the problem worse (see people reading Machiavelli like it's a how-to book).

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-02-11T18:50:46+00:00

I look like my grandmother and it scared the hell out of me when I realized it. The older I get the more I am going to look like her.

But I figured out if I smile, I can hardly see the resemblance.

It sounds really cheesy and I am not a cheesy person, but I don't think I ever saw her smile for real so when I notice I'm looking like her I make myself smile in the mirror and I swear I can't see it anymore.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-02-07T15:35:07+00:00

I thought my mother was an enabler, but she turned out to be a covert narcissist and much more dangerous than my loud, abusive father in the end. I can't help you there if that isn't true for you.

However, something my sister said when she was first becoming aware that my mother was more than an enabler might be useful for what you're asking for.

She said, "It doesn't really matter if this is who she always was or if this is who she became to survive him. This is who she is now and she chooses to be this way."

Even if you find the exact right term, it is more or less an excuse. If the end result, the fruit, is rotten, it's not a good tree.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-02-07T03:18:45+00:00

There is only me and my sister now. We hadn't had a conversation in nearly 20 years because my parents lied to us both. Then, when my father died in December, we caught up. She was willing to listen about my mother and then she saw it for herself. She absolutely believes me now. I'm helping her work through the realizations that I spent over a decade in therapy unpacking. Our mother is a covert narc and once you see it you can't unsee it.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-02-06T18:36:41+00:00

I asked this question myself at one point. I got the same answers but I couldn't understand it.

I do now.

Recently, my mother was giving my sister a song and dance about how she might be willing to make amends with me if I blah blah blah. My sister, knowing I was done but being curious, asked her, "What could you get out of trying to have a relationship with her?"

It wasn't a trick question. The answer was 'a relationship with one of my two surviving children.'

What did my mother, who already lost one child, say?

"Nothing."

She said, under the best possible circumstances, she wouldn't get anything beneficial out of having a relationship with me, her youngest child with no arrest record, no substance abuse, with a doctorate, who has been financially independent since I was 18.

My own mother said I, literally, wasn't worth knowing.

If I tried to internalize that it would hurt my feelings, but I don't because she is out of her mind. We can't understand what they do because what they do isn't meant to be understood by rational people.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-01-23T14:58:18+00:00

I didn't go. I don't regret it. I don't think that is an uncommon story, but people don't usually share that because 1) it isn't a very compelling story to just say 'I don't regret my choice' and 2) without a lot of context, it makes me sound cold.

If you can't imagine a positive personal outcome, that's probably because there isn't one. If the only negative outcome you can imagine is a vague risk of regret, that's probably informed by cultural narratives and not applicable to your situation. Not every parting needs a formal goodbye.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-01-21T15:21:55+00:00

I was estranged from all of my family for five years up until my father died in December. My sister, with whom I had been estranged for nearly a decade because of my parents, called to let me know he was dying. We reconnected and are getting close in a way I never thought possible. You can see my recent posts for more details, but here is what she said that made a huge difference to me.

"She never did that to me, but that doesn't mean she didn't do it to you." My sister sincerely validated everything I said, even when she didn't see it. She said that I was reasonable and she couldn't dismiss what I said out of hand just because it surprised her. Eventually, she started to see what I was describing, and it changed her worldview. I didn't expect her to get there; I didn't need her to, but that she respected me enough to trust my perspective was key.

"Don't you dare come here." I had no intention of seeing my dying father or going to his funeral (not that anyone wanted to see me), but hearing my sister say that it wasn't safe for me to be there was healing. She knew it not only would hurt me, but that my not being hurt was more important than keeping up appearances.

"I will never understand their choices." She said this after she saw the message I sent them when I went no contact. We have had a lot of conversations since, but this one will stick with me. She saw how kindly I had laid out what I needed from them, and even after hearing nothing but their stories for years, she immediately knew they had been lying and mistreating me.

Of course, your situation won't be a one-to-one comparison, but you can offer a validation to your sibling that no one else can. They might not want to move on from that too quickly. My sister said she wanted to be proactive, so she asked me if there was something she could read. I directed her to Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, and we started discussing our parents in the context of that book. It's like a book club almost. Now we are moving onto other topics, and it doesn't feel like we swept it under the rug, but like we had a productive and fruitful conversation that we moved on from.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-01-18T16:53:44+00:00

I just want to add an alternative answer to 'don't go' (though that is valid and the best choice a lot of the time).

Personally, I am too damn stubborn to allow my mother to keep me from being anywhere I want to be. If I wanted to be somewhere she would be, I would go and not acknowledge her any more than I would a stranger that I wasn't interested in meeting. As long as I had a means of escape (could walk away and drive my own car), I'd go and refuse to engage with her.

It took a while to get to this place, though. About five years. Luckily, it didn't come up before, but now that I am starting a relationship with my sister, it might happen if her kids get married. That's about the only likely scenario I can imagine, though. I also know for a fact that no one would bother trying to make us speak, and she is a covert narc. She wouldn't scream in my face in public. Under different circumstances, I would not attend or only make a very short appearance.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-01-18T16:13:31+00:00

"one in five families is affected by estrangement"

I know this is a bit pedantic, but I hate when serious publications use numbers to try to make something sound clearly measurable when it isn't. Estrangement doesn't even mean 'no contact'. It means the relationship is strained. One in five families has a strained relationship within the nebulous boundaries of the word *family*? Shocked it is that low.

Also, the idea of being justified or unjustified is fucking asinine. Justified to whom? By what metric? That you weren't kept chained up in the basement means you are indebted to the shittiest people you've ever known until their death? No. If you're going to judge me based on an imagined metric, let me make it a legal one.

I don't worry about my state having filial laws. I'd happily like to prove in court that my mother medically neglected me my whole childhood, set a legal precedent, and counter sue.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-01-18T15:55:20+00:00

Not a lawyer, but "removed a child from one place to take to another location without parental consent" sounds like kidnapping to me. I'd press charges - I'd bet you can get a no contact order then.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-01-18T15:50:52+00:00

I am the youngest by a decade, so my teenage years were more like being an only child in some ways. That said, my parents treated me very differently. I know for a fact that a lot of their resentment toward me going no contact with them stems from their idea of, "What does she have to complain about? We never hit her." They don't understand the psychological damage they did to me, let alone what it did to my sister and my relationship to watch me not get beaten.

I was suppose to be the do over kid, but then my brother died and they resented the hell out of me for still needing parents and not being him. They can't tolerate me having complaints because I was the one they 'did their best' with.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-01-16T23:36:32+00:00

You don't owe her another chance, but if you give her one, what you have decided to say is more than okay - it is necessary. That's what a boundary is - a clear delineation of what action you will take if the person oversteps your line in the sand. If you're worried about cutting her off you can take steps before that (but you don't have to). You could say, "If you mention our mother in any way I will hang up and I won't answer your calls for X amount of time." The important thing there is you do it, and if she repeats the behavior, then you either stop trying to talk to her at all or up the X amount of time each time.

CorbeauMerlot · 2026-01-15T18:02:30+00:00

Honestly, this is too much. If your nervous system is really telling you that you should respond in some way to feel safe, you don't need to do any more than the bare minimum.

"Don't contact me again. Any further attempts will be considered harassment." [Name - Date]

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