Last January, my mother finally admitted that I was the real problem in her life. She made this statement passionately as she extended her arm and pointed dramatically at me. She told me that I had turned her family and even her doctors against her by telling her things that were not true. She went on to say that she had never been able to make him love her.

I decided that this was the last time I would accept her attempt to blame and punish me for the problems she had created in her life. I also decided that I would stop trying to win the love I had always wanted from her, the love of a mother for a daughter.

For a long time he had felt that she was a narcissist, but her behavior did not quite fit the normal description of a narcissist. She had some of her characteristics, such as needing extreme amounts of attention, only being able to see a situation as it affected her, and believing that she was always right. But much of what she did was more behind the scenes than is normally seen in the common description of a narcissist.

So, I started reading and watching videos about narcissistic parents. From blogs, books and videos I have learned that there are two types of narcissists. The grand, or open, is the one most people are familiar with. But then there is the covert, or, as some say, the vulnerable narcissist. As I began to learn about covert narcissists, it was as if my world had always been slightly tilted and was suddenly upright.

From everything I read and heard, I learned that writing helped with recovery. That seemed like the perfect recipe to me because I’m a writer. Therapists and coaches advised that victims of narcissistic abuse should tell the narcissist, in writing or verbally, about the abuse and how it had affected them. However, the advice was not to send the letter or confront the abuser. The suggested method was to tell an empty chair or keep a diary or write and then burn a letter. Another suggestion from some of the therapists and coaches was to describe what the abuse victim would have liked to receive from one of her parents. So, I started writing a fictional story. As a writer, this was natural to me and provided the best way to express pain, frustration, and longing. I used some of my experiences and some that I had observed. I soon realized that what I was writing might help other victims of narcissistic parental abuse to acknowledge their torture. And so, what began as therapeutic writing became a book:Torture or parenting, a story of growth. It’s a comparison of the torture of having a narcissistic mother and an enabling father and the validation and support that comes from loving parents.

You can certainly buy my book, and of course I’d like you to, but to recover, you’ll have to do your own work. I strongly recommend that you write. It doesn’t matter what you write: a letter, a story, a stream of consciousness, a prayer, whatever works for you. You see that there is a unique connection between your brain and your hand. If you write about your experiences, it helps you acknowledge the torture you have experienced. The hand-brain connection forces monsters out of the dark and into the light, where they can be dealt with. I’m not a therapist or a coach, I’m a storyteller. I am not a therapist or life coach, so I do not advise or coach anyone, except to encourage the use of writing as part of recovery.