This is a very long post. I accept that you may not want to read it all. If nothing else, I hope that you may see in it an attempt to care, even if all the writing about my experience may seem well, . . . self-absorbed?

I wanted to go to a "walk-in" clinic at the funeral home for years. If no one cares and no one can help, yes, why waste the resources? But, there is no walk-in clinic at a funeral home.

Eventually, after my mother passed away and I had a falling out with her/my remaining family . . . the horrible pain and agony I felt told me that they had, sadly for me, never been able to care about and know me for who I am. Horrible, awful, pain. Blaming myself had been the way I had dealt with it most of my whole life. But I had lucked into a meetup group of people who COULD and did seem to accept me. Without them, I don't think i could have "recovered" My late husband had cared about me, too, but he's been gone for almost 18 years.

It's not my mother's "fault" or my aunts or my grandmother's. It's the way they were raised, too. And I loved them -- and despite the pain and the anger and the fact that we don't talk to each other now -- I still love them. That's in me, a part of me.

I'm an old lady so I have the "advantage" of having seen and read a lot and seen how ideas have changed over the decades, so the current "fad" about narcissism is just that, to me. Narcissism is a source of self-love, which is essential for survival, IMO. But also for people, love of others and a sense of belonging to a community and all that entails, also has survival value. So it evolved. From where? I have my own answer, a combination of science and general intuitions from several religions. But it boils down to, "from the universe". So, the universe cares about you and your life. . .I really know that's inadequate, it has been for me, but it was a cognitive answer that helped me keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Finding the joie de vivre and love for my family of origin despite their inadequacies helped me overcome some anger with one of my children and unexpressed expectations of another. And knowing that I love my mother despite everything certainly has helped me to know that I love my children, and intellectually accept that they might love me. So, in recent weeks I've had very good visits with each of them, we've discussed some stuff because of "mom's" depression, etc., but mostly they seem to want to go forward with as much love all around as possible. Or, that seems to be my point of view and it seems OK with them.

Life is just tough. Maybe not physically so much anymore. But still, it's tough. Society can't function well if everybody cares about only themselves. But my 2 1/2 year old granddaughter certainly needs what looks like narcissism to me! Hopefully/probably she will grow out of it. But her narcissism seems closely intwined with her joie de vivre, too, and that is so fun and contagious! I just loved being with her. Invigorated something similar in me, too, maybe, in a perfectly OK and enjoyable way.

So, to me, it's only when our basic narcissism isn't accepted when we are little, when we are not seen and not heard, when we feel we "don't count" to other people (because they couldn't consistently stay with us, for instance) when we had a survival instinct to need that-- that then we can't go forward loving both ourselves and other people, because -- at least for me -- some of the energy that might have been used in loving what was outside of me is instead used in hypervigilance to prevent me from being "bad" or unacceptable in others' eyes, which currently includes being "narcissistic". Ugh.

I'm an old lady so I can say things like this: "It is insane. The current attittude, not you. You're OK, just trying to make it, like all of us." I don't know you well and I'm not a part of your life so I can't make much of a difference in it but for what it is worth, I care and wish you well.