I am a studious and intellectual person. I’m very cerebral. I truly always have been, for as long as I can remember. From a very young age, I was usually happiest with solitary activities, or otherwise occasionally spending time with just one or two friends, rather than socializing in a large group. During summer vacations from school, my mother would usually find me contentedly reading by myself rather than going outside to play. I had no interest in getting more acquainted with the real world out there; I already knew the real world was shitty, even if I couldn’t articulate it yet. As a teenager, I was very dedicated to my schoolwork and never went out to parties – never, not once. It held no interest for me. I can count on one hand the number of times I joined a larger group of my peers for one social thing or another, and I’m pretty sure those instances all occurred during my senior year (I had finally started to come out of my shell a little bit by then, better late than never).

For my whole life, anytime the subject of my preference for solitude and books and learning came up, no matter who she was talking to, my mother would frequently make the joke that I was, “not her daughter!” Indeed, my nature was and still is extremely dissimilar to hers. She was never a good student in school, never one to pick up a book to read for pleasure, and often one to get into trouble, or so she’s told me. Instead, she is an outgoing, social, gregarious personality; those words could never have been used to describe me when I was a child or young adult. I had friends, but wasn’t what one would call a social butterfly by any means.

One might say I was introverted; in hindsight though, it turns out I am just not outgoing around people who will manipulate me. Over the last few years I’ve enjoyed a very fulfilling social life and have more friends now than I ever did. It’s remarkable how much energy I have for connecting with other people in healthy ways when I’m not weighed down by the huge barnacle of toxic narcissism.

“Not my daughter,” she would say, to great effect. The laughs are still ringing in my ears. Sure, it sounds harmless, just a little joke about how different we are. However, it’s a perfect example of how much power words hold. It’s a perfect example of how, regardless of intent, the impact of words can stay with you like a stubborn stain that refuses to be scrubbed out. Little does she know much I would hide away in my room and wish I was indeed not her daughter – how I would pray for people to come to the house and reveal that they were my real family, and take me away from the nightmare I was living in. I always knew that was just an impossible dream; my brother and I both resembled our parents and each other too much for there to be any possibility that I wasn’t their kid. Still, I allowed my imagination this fantasy, figuring a fruitless illusion couldn’t really do me any harm. I could hardly hurt myself any further in pretending than I was getting hurt in actuality. Moral of the story: please pay attention to what you say about children, in front of said children. For better or worse, they are listening!

“Not her daughter.” I wonder if I’d have been saved any pain if I were a little bit more like her. That’s probably just a matter of perspective; pain probably would have just come in a different form, or several. The truth is that toxic people like narcissists spread pain like soft butter on crusty bread, and then, gluttons for validation at others’ expense, they devour it all. They’re constantly starved for it. Were I more like her, I would probably still be trussed up, marinated in her bullshit, destined to be slowly consumed with no means to escape, my only defense being to bite back.

I’m starting to think that being “not her daughter” may have saved me from getting eaten alive, in the end.