The effects of narcissistic abuse

Talking about an old childhood memory of my mother’s, and how it has affected her over the years.

The past few days have been spent discovering just how pervasive narcissistic abuse is — how even the smallest things can have a lasting impact.

Anyone who has been following my Mom’s YouTube channel knows just how protective she is towards animals. She even created a storyline in Ark: Survival Evolved about helping the weaker dinos who couldn’t defend themselves. The other day, her therapist said she might be like that because of the wildlife documentaries she watched with her father as a child.

I’ve heard the stories before — how my grandfather would make my Mom watch these nature shows which he used to explain how women were inferior to men (yes, he actually did that) and used wild animals as examples. But this was the first time she revealed that these shows were actually graphic in nature. And by graphic, I mean you actually saw the lion attack his prey, kill his prey, then eat his prey in all of its gruesome, bloody glory.

Oh, and did I mention my Mom was like four, five, maybe six years old at the time?

I think this was her first time admitting just how traumatizing that whole thing was for her, how triggering it was to watch those kind of documentaries when me and my brother were little (She says they don’t bother her anymore since these shows are censored now).

I asked her if watching The Lion King was triggering for her, since I remember I went through I huge TLK phase when I was younger. Surprisingly, she said she doesn’t even remember watching the movie. We’ve watched this movie three times, with the most recent being a couple of years ago, but Mom says she doesn’t remember any of them. She simply blocked the movie from her memory.

I wonder if we watched The Lion King again, would she remember seeing it this time?

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