It's time to tell my story

It’s time to tell my story, start to present, about the narcissists in my life.

The major one is my mother. Some of the things she has done is subtle and most won’t believe she could have possibly done it out of spite. That’s the way narcissists work. They weave this subtle web of deceit and if you call them on their behavior, they turn around and tell you that YOU are the one to blame, that YOU are the one going crazy.

Another narcissist is my half-brother. He has created this image of me and portrays me as a horrid person, yet he has spent MAYBE 120 hours in my presence. He doesn’t know who I am, what I stand for, what I believe in. Yet he tells everyone that I have never worked a hard honest day in my life and that I expect everyone to hand me whatever I want on a silver platter. What’s so sad about this is that, according to two of the three women who had been married to him, that’s how HE is. He is projecting his faults on to me. Another trait of the narcissist.

There have been others in my life as well, people who have used me and abused me, treated me like crap. Eventually I may get to those stories, too, but for now, I need to focus on my mother, the one who has hurt me the worst and for the longest time.

Bear with me:

I knew what she was doing was mean.
I didn’t know what it was called. That it was a mental illness. I didn’t have a name for it.
Now I do.
Narcissistic Behavior Disorder.
Even if I’d had a name for it back then, there’s nothing I could have done about it. When you’re 14 years old, you don’t have a whole lot of power. I might have stood up for myself a bit more. And maybe my father would have stood up to her more, too. I think he suspected something was going on with her. But we are both laid back kind of people. Don’t rock the boat. He was so easy going; she trampled over him quite a bit. So when she got tired of our cats, I doubt he stood up to her.
He and I had befriended a stray cat. We named her Shadow. This loving kitty blessed us with two kittens, Puss and Boots. Puss gave us two more kittens, Tiny and Toby. Shadow then gave birth to four kittens, Big Foot, Butterball, Noisy and Speedy.
So then there were nine.
Yes, that was a lot of cats. They were outdoor cats, so it wasn’t as if they were climbing all over the house leaving fur balls everywhere. But what they WERE doing was taking our attention away from her.
She hatched a plan.
She sent me off to my half-sister’s for a week during the summer, then proceeded with her diabolical doings.
Following are my journal entries from that time period:

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July 12, 1984 (at Maxine’s)
Mom said a lady came by and asked if she could have Shadow, Puss, Tiny, Noisy, Speedy and Toby. I don’t mind the kittens going, but I’ll miss Shadow and Puss.
Butter is sick and Mom said they might have to put him to sleep. I don’t think so though, when you just have ring-worm.
July 13, 1984 (at Maxine’s)
Mom has ring-worm terribly and I couldn’t go home today. I have to stay here until Wednesday.
July 14, 1984 (at Maxine’s)
Last night when Marta was asleep I cried and cried and cried. I want to go HOME! I want my Butterball! I’m so homesick.
July 16, 1984 (at Maxine’s)
I’m so homesick it’s pathetic. I WANT TO GO HOME!
July 18, 1984 (at home)
Hi. Today I found out that I will never ever again see my Butterball because he had to be put to sleep. Mom said she called Maxine and told her to tell me but she didn’t. I miss him so SO much. I’ll never ever see him again. He’s dead. I wish I could just hold him one more time. Shadow, Big Foot, Tiny and Noisy are dead too. Puss and her babies are living somewhere else. I’ll probably never see them again either. Just Boots is left. I didn’t get to take a picture of them. Just Boots. And I bet he’s awfully lonely. I sure am. My kitten. BUTTER’S GONE!
July 20, 1984 (at home)
I still miss my Butter but at least I still have Boots.
August 3, 1984 (1:00am) (at home)
Boots has ring-worm. I think. I hope not. ‘Cause if he does have ring-worm he’ll have to go too. And if he does have to go, mom said that we can wait til spring and then we’ll see if I can get another pet.
I miss all my cats so much.
(10:40am) (at home)
Well, it looks like Boots is gonna have to go too. He’s got it right above the right eye. Maybe before dad takes him away, we could take a picture of him. I wish we could have taken a picture of Shadow, Puss, Speedy and Toby. I wish I had someone to talk this over with.
(4:50pm) (at home)
Well, Boots had to go too. So now I don’t even have one pet anymore.
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This is not Shadow, but this cat is similar to what she looked like.

 My memory is that my mother told me that the cats had untreatable ring worm but the ring worm my mother caught from them WAS treatable.
Doesn’t make much sense, does it?

In the end, six cats were killed and three supposedly given away. Why did she get rid of the cats? Because my dad and I loved them and paid attention to them, attention that we weren’t giving HER. So she had to eliminate the “enemy”.

Why did she send me off to my half sister, Maxine’s? To get me out of the picture because she knew I would protest. I’d like to think that my dad protested, too, but he wasn’t strong enough against her by himself.

She also sent me away to show my Dad that she could take me away from him as well and to impose on Maxine whenever she wanted.

If you were to ask her about this whole situation, she would go on and on about how bad the ring worm was on her (which was on her left breast, UNDER her shirt) and then go on to say that she didn’t come get me because she was afraid *I* would get it, too! My half-sister’s place was 53 miles from home. At age 14 I couldn’t exactly drive myself home or hitchhike. So she left me there under the guise of being caring and thoughtful.

Characteristics of a narcissistic mother
http://www.daughtersofnarcissisticmothers.com/characteristics-of-narcissistic-mothers.html
1. Everything she does is deniable.
9. She has to be the center of attention all the time.
10. She manipulates your emotions in order to feed on your pain.
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Just an FYI- ring worm in cats IS treatable:
http://pets.webmd.com/cats/ringworm-in-cats