My relationship with my parents has been so systematically, intrinsically, and subtly emotionally abusive, I'm not sure what I ever felt was love. There was only an unfulfilled needing inside that evolved quite early into a solid self-loathing. After all, if the two people who are programmed by evolution and nature to love you automatically and unconditionally don't, then the child logically concludes there must be something wrong with it, that it must be unlovable. Children have nothing else to go on in their powerless little world and limited comprehension.

The more I'm aware of all the machinations of ongoing abuse, the less my desire for my parents in any way, shape, or form. You can only try to pet the dog that bites you so long. I'm not sure if they realize that once our one last standing connection to each other is gone, there will be absolutely no incentive whatsoever for me to communicate with them. They probably don't realize it; narcissists are typically unaware of or unwilling to face reality.

I'm hopeful for myself, though, because for the first time in my life, I blew up at my mother (a quite recent reaction of mine) and was traumatized very little in the aftermath. Instead of fear and guilt during the mental autopsy of our conversation, I felt only numbness and then later frustration and anger at her inability to grow as I have. I take it as a sign that I'm finally beginning to instinctively operate as a person with self-esteem and, therefor, boundaries. The Catch-22 is that I can't go to my parents for praise about my personal victories in this area because all the victories have been over them!

I've been able to spot narcissistic people around me much, much faster, too, and have been unloading them from my life with dispatch. The hardest part is changing the behaviors that attract them to me in the first place--being an emotional cheerleader for others, almost automatic agreeability, focusing on the other person in conversation out of courtesy--and accepting that I will be disliked by some for this change, since disappointment and then emotional abandonment were my parent's weapon of choice. It's a constant trigger. The trick is apparently to be so full of self-esteem that no one's opinion of you--no one's--matters. Tough to do in isolation, very tough.