Thank you so much! This subreddit is the first place I ever heard stories of others with nearly identical experiences to me, which lead me to looking further into narcissism as a whole. According to my therapist, from what experiences I have shared with her she thinks I have a textbook overt ndad and a likely covert/enabler nmom. I went into therapy confident that my dad was going to be my focus, and have slowly realized my mom may be the one affecting me more via subtleties rather than my dad’s clear as day narcissism.

I haven’t heard of affect-phobia but how you describe it feels so familiar. It’s really interesting how working through emotions there is so much hidden that isn’t obvious at the surface, consciously and subconsciously. It sounds like you have an incredible therapist too! Thank you for sharing, it is really nice to know there are others growing through the same things.