In 2021, a few months after my mom died, I uncovered my sister’s personality disorder. I was reading all I could about it. I devoured it. There was not one article that said it was a good idea to confront your narcissistic abuser or reveal to them, or anyone else, that you “know”. Well, do I have to say it? Are you gonna make me say it? “I didn’t listen”. For some reason, I thought I’d be safe. I thought I’d be different. I thought that if I came forward and didn’t keep the secret, I would be protected and safe and that my friends and family and maybe even some enemies would rally around me and stand by my side. Must I say this, too? They didn’t. Not even my own children have my back. It went exactly the way every single article and expert on the matter said it would. As I was warned, things only got worse.

I would do it differently if I had the chance to do it again. I certainly don’t agree that it should be that way, but that’s the way it is. There will come a time when it (narcissistic abuse) will be talked about in the open, be understood and no longer hidden and victims won’t be blamed. The things that are so blatant and obvious to survivors of narcissistic abuse will also be obvious to everyone else.

It’s frustrating and terrifying when things that are so obviously wrong are not obviously wrong to the rest of the world. We should never take that for granted–that something so obviously wrong isn’t so obviously wrong to everyone. G-d learned this the hard way after he created Adam and Eve (and family). He basically created them but didn’t think He needed any rules. He erroneously figured that things that were wrong would be so obviously wrong that people wouldn’t do them. Moving on to Cain and Abel, the first children on earth, the first pair of siblings on earth–again, no rules. Evil nature of man, even siblings, was taken for granted, and Cain, jealous of his very own brother, killed him.

We learn a tough lesson in this story, that things so obviously wrong, like killing your own brother in a fit of jealousy, isn’t actually so obviously wrong. People did it. People do it. So then G-d gave the world 7 rules, one is “Do Not Murder”, because it, unfortunately, isn’t so obviously wrong.