I used to call this "life". I used to call this "normal". I had nothing to compare it to, since the outside looked so perfect and so much energy went into maintaining it. I see now that a number of key people in my family of origin had narcissistic personality disorder. They were not arrogant power-brokers but sad, powerless people who desperately needed a facade of control, and had to suck the vitality out of the most vulnerable (youngest) members of the family in order to feel whole/alive. You don't get revenge against such people because they have more evasive/responsibility-escaping twists and turns than an octopus. But sometimes, if you just hold up a mirror, the narcissist will start to blink and primp in it as usual, but then the death rays coming out of their eyes will bounce right back at them. And that will be that.
