🙃 A Mother’s Day dichotomy

Mixed feelings + stepkid rejection + childhood dysfunction

My relationship with my narc-spectrum mother has been complicated my entire life, especially since I seem to be the only one of my siblings who could see through her bullshit growing up. She never did like that much. 🤣

I’m lucky though. My mom is on the mild end of things. So mild I didn’t even realize my childhood was dysfunctional till I was in my mid-30s and couldn’t figure out why becoming a stepparent felt like I’d wandered into landmine field or something. Turns out a lot of aspects of stepparenting triggered my childhood crap — especially around feeling unseen, unheard, and gaslit. (Me: “Dan, your ex is taking advantage of you.” Dan: “No no no no no honey it’s not like that. You’re projecting!”)