This is great information and sharing. Thank you all for being so honest and helpful.

I've always been afraid that I might acquire some of my mother's objectionable behavior, and I think I have become overly vigilant. How can it not rub off when you are surrounded by it? After all, if you were raised by wolves, you'd mimic their behavior. Even after you realized that you were human, I bet you'd still howl at the moon sometimes without even knowing. So I went in search of answers.

I was reading an excerpt from Malignant Self Love, By Sam Vaknin and stumbled across this paragraph which describes my mother perfectly.

Some people adopt the role of a professional victim. In doing so, they become self-centered, devoid of empathy, abusive, and exploitative. In other words, they become narcissists. The role of "professional victims" - people whose existence and very identity rests solely and entirely on their victim hood - is well researched in victimology.

It also posed the question, "Is narcissism "contagious"? Can one "catch" narcissism by living with a narcissist?"

The answer is more complex than a simple "yes" or "no". Personality disorders are not contagious in the restricted, rigorous, medical sense. They are not communicated by pathogens from one individual to another. They lack many of the basic features of physical-biological epidemics. Still, they are communicated.

The narcissist's behavior becomes tiresome, irksome and cumbersome. Ridicule is supplanted by ire and, then, by overt anger. The narcissist's inadequacies are so glaring and his denial and other defense mechanisms so primitive that we constantly feel like screaming at him, reproaching him, or even striking at him literally as well as figuratively.

Ashamed at these reactions, we begin to also feel guilty. We find ourselves attached to a mental pendulum, swinging between repulsion and guilt, rage and pity, lack of empathy and remorse. Slowly we acquire the very characteristics of the narcissist that we so deplore. We become as tactless as he is, as devoid of empathy and of consideration, as ignorant of the emotional makeup of other people, and as one track minded. Exposed in the sick halo of the narcissist, we have been "infected".

Now I just need to figure it all out and apply it to my quest for healing this relationship.

Thank you for listening.

Peri