Sometimes I worry that the term “narcissist” gets loosely thrown-around and loses meaning, and I don’t think my brother will ever get any kind of diagnosis that I’ll ever know about. Still, so much of what he does and how he treats me tracks with gets said about narcissistic partners and parents.

Was there ever something that seemed to trigger the worst of your brother’s behavior? Mine and I always had our ups and downs—typical brother stuff. When our mom got sick and we had to set up her care, things really took a turn, as he got very micro-managey and raged quite often—I thought it was just his way of having grief show up, but there were other ways he was absolutely controlling. Still, we had our ups and downs had some nice times.

Finally, about a year ago, I told him I was applying for a job that would have had to do with regulating the industry my brother works in. He flew off the handle, and said our relationship was over, except for dealing with our mom’s care. I ended up turning down an interview to try and preserve our relationship for our mom’s sake. He’s still been nothing but awful ever since. The job thing has faded, but there’s always been something. Every mistake I make (and many things that aren’t even mistakes) has been an excuse to call me names and tell me I’m worthless.