Introduction

It's very likely that 2019 will go on my record as the absolute worst and best year of my adult life.

I took a job that turned my world right-side-up.

I realized that my mother is a full-blown narcissist.

Where I once had only acquaintances, I now have friends.

My entire family disowned me.

I grew in my faith and brought my husband back to his.

All my plans for the future have to be rewritten.

I am now free to make the plans I want, not the ones I must.

In the span of just 12 months, my once relatively mundane life became a hellish roller coaster of exhilarating highs, soul-crushing lows, and vomit-inducing corkscrews, mostly at the behest of my mother. As I have immersed myself in my faith, I've learned that this isn't a feeling or relationship I'm meant to be stuck in. I have the choice to get off the roller coaster, and while my earthly family has chosen to shun me for it, I know that I'm surrounded by the arms of my Heavenly Father.

When my father and my mother forsake me,
then the LORD will take me up.
Psalm 27:10, KJV

I have now stepped into the new world of No Contact. It's liberating, frightening, infuriating, joyous, and heartbreaking all at the same time. This week, the last of my belongings were moved out of my mother's house. I walked out of my childhood home with the intention of never seeing it or her ever again. The woman who birthed me and raised me, whom I always believed would be there for me until her dying breath, has neither the capacity nor the will to love me. And in light of what I've learned about her, I'm given cause to wonder if she ever truly has.

I used to think I was crazy. That I was the problem. That I was the only one with a weird mom who only seemed interested in herself. While I'm thankful that I'm wrong and that there are people in the world whose similar experiences I can relate to, I'm deeply saddened that my troubles are, in fact, widely shared by so many. Narcissism is a plague on society, and its victims aren't even the sufferers.

In this new era of my life, one without my family of origin, my hope for journaling my experiences is that I am able to gain some clarity, and perhaps even some closure. I want to be at peace with my decision to sever all ties. I never, ever want to forget what I've been through. In moments of doubt, I want to be able to return to this journal and say, no, I'm not overreacting, no, I'm not crazy. This happened to me, and it was wrong.