Thank you so much for your post, Museum Ghost. Again, you have demonstrated precisely why this community is so helpful to people. We can find others here, who have gone through and experienced what we've experienced making this place a true community in every sense of the word.

Your stories about what you were forced to endure at the hands of your sister (the scented soaps that she gave to you to twist the knife in your back metaphorically, to remind you of the pain from a former love who also bought you those scented soaps is EXACTLY the same type of behavior I've experienced from my sister too; wearing the same color clothes as me, the Jekyll and Hyde act in public and private. Reading your post even reminded me of MORE events in the past that I had forgotten about, that are precise examples of narcissistic abuse.

And your examples that you provided (I am very sorry that you also experienced narcissistic abuse by your sister and step mother) are great illustrations of narcissistic abuse.

I also believe like you do, that my sister is an undiagnosed narcissist. When my family did therapy after my father's death, the family therapist hinted at such a diagnosis with my sister in front of her. Yet, my family quit the therapy 6 weeks, when their true selves had started to become exposed through the discussions with the family therapist. She finally saw what I had described and started to try to hold my family accountable. Well, they didn't like that so the three of them quit and conveniently blamed me the family scapegoat. A bunch of rotten apples that I was too emotionally codependent and enmeshed with to have the foresight and strength to leave behind. And believe me, I had opportunities to do that, when they and I each moved out of our state away from each other at different times. I remember when my sister and mother moved out of state together. I felt temporarily free. And this was before social media. It was never permanent for many reasons.

Thank you for sharing your own life experience with me here. I feel better hearing from everyone who has shared with me about their narcissistic experiences here. And thank you for those links. I've been trying to tackle it in too large of chunks. I need to find a therapist who has a background in narcissism, who can help me develop boundary strategies to use with my sister like the boundary examples that you pointed out with your own situation. And, I need to learn to recognize the ways my sister emotionally abuses me in real time, instead of after-the-fact.

Again, thank you for your post.