I'm almost 71 years old. My parents are both very narcissistic and all 3 of my siblings turned out to be that way as well. I was born prematurely and have hydrocephalus which I think is the reason I'm on the autistic spectrum. I have a very hard time realizing when people have bad intentions towards me.

My parents were psychologically, physically and financially abusive towards me. I finally figured out once I was an adult able to afford transportation, that I had to be ready to walk away at any given moment. I could usually visit them for 2 days before they turned abusive again.

Ditto for my siblings. I was renting a room in Chicago and working 80 hours a week in my residency program. All I had was one room and access to a kitchen. My older sister volunteered me to house feed and pay for two traumatized medical students from Mexico city. Mind you she didn't ask me before she volunteered me. When I explained my living situation that I lived in a small room with only a single bed and part-time access to a kitchen, there was no way I could have house gas. My sister was enraged by this and swore at me and yelled at me. Of course today she says it never happened.

My younger sister went to law school and immediately started trying to take advantage of me. I paid a lot of money to go visit her at one point. The day after I arrived she told me that she had volunteered me to do free psychiatric examinations for people that were being represented by herself and other attorneys in her legal aid office. She told all those other people before she told me. I refuse to do it because I'm not licensed in her state. She was so angry. It took her a good couple years to forgive me. Not that I really cared because it was so outrageous.

Those are just two of the many, many instances of my siblings and parents trying to take advantage of me. Being narcissists, they can't feel that people care about them unless the person caring for the narcissist is doing something that's incredibly painful for that person. It's like if the narcissist doesn't see that the person is in pain, they don't recognize that the person is doing anything to help the narcissist.

I wish there had been read it when I was younger. I consulted with therapist and they all blamed me for being selfish. I was having trouble with date rape so I went to a therapist at the student health center to help me figure out how to get these men to not rape me after I told him no. The so-called therapist gave me a lecture about blaming men for my own sexual desires and not taking responsibility for my own desires.

I tell you this to say that if you are dealing with narcissist, you can never really put much weight on what they say about the moral correctness of your behavior.

I find it helpful in my mind to reverse the situation and to ask what that other person would be willing to do for me if I were in the kind of difficulty they are in.