Regrettably I was home for the holidays with my nmom and edad, and so many buried childhood and teen memories came rushing back up as I had to deal with my nmom being certifiably insane. One thing in particular was the conditional love narcs tend to give. My sister and I were always switching off being the main target for her, but I was thinking about the concept of a Golden child, and neither of us fit it.

My best friend, though, bless her heart, also had emotionally abusive parents, and her mom was super strict in different ways that my mom would never be (her one virtue). I love my best friend to pieces, and so does my mom. She gets the unconditional love that my sister and I never got - once in high school I got kicked out for a week (during AP exams, of course) because I loaded the dishwasher wrong. Seriously. Meanwhile she tut tuts when I talk to her about my friend having unprotected sex in high school to try to get advice since my friend wasn't listening to me, and talks about how she must be rebelling against her abusive parents, the poor thing. It was infuriating to see that she is actually capable of caring for someone unconditionally, something she denies to us.

I don't really know where I'm going with this, I just needed to rant. I'm in the airport finally after ten days with my parents and could not be happier to be getting back - I just hope the awesome spike of depression and hollow emotional emptiness I always get after going home wears off soon...