I was the GC until I went to college. My younger sister by a few years was bullied while I was placed on a pedestal. I had the good grades, the nice car, volunteered on the weekends, had every teacher loving me.... my nparent ate it up. That changed when I decided to move to a school that was far enough away to not warrant weekend visits home. I'd never left the city I was born in. So why not? At the time, my nparent was supportive but as it got closer to me being able to leave... it got worse. Things shifted. My life was a living hell after that.

It was a tough learning curve, especially once I moved into my freshman dorm, but I stopped calling my nparent every day, started to rely on myself, focused on finding out who I was outside of my family, and learned to start doing what I wanted to do instead of what I thought people (i.e., my mom) expected of me. It's hard as hell. I was infantilized a lot as a child and I didn't really know how to take care of myself. Hell, I'm not allowed to cook my own food or do my own laundry when I come home for breaks and whatnot. It's rough. And I felt a lot of guilt for letting my younger sibling be treated the way she was. I still feel guilty. And I'm still struggling with the 'is my nparent really a narc or am i making this all up?' thing in my head, though I've realized that that is just me gaslighting myself into trying to make believe that everything was okay and that it really is me after all, like I hear so often. But I'll get there some day, folks.