Early memories I [Trigger warning: self harm, emotional abuse]

I am so glad I found this sub, I'm still deeply entangled with my NMom, but have a 5 year plan for going NC, it seems like a long way off but it's the light at the end of the tunnel for me. It's what keeps me going. I just made this account and want to write about my life experiences, I'm the Adult Daughter of a Narcissistic Mother. I've known she' a Narcissist for a few years and that alone has helped me learn how to deal with her, and here's to hoping I get better at it and can get into affordable therapy soon!

Anyways, my earliest childhood memories are of screaming, yelling, and fighting. Particularly between NMom and SGbro. My older brother has several mental health/ learning problems and has had them from an early age, that as well as being a very large dude (6'8" and 250- 300lbs big). He had extremely violent temper tantrums; breaking things, throwing things, trying to hit whoever got in the way, for a while my NMom kept me out of the way, but by the time I was 6 I knew I just stayed in my room after I got home from school.

I was a very emotionally sensitive child and didn't have any way of coping with the stress of this type of environment. If I cried, I got yelled at and made fun of, if I hit my pillow out of frustration I was "no better than your brother". And I deeply wanted her approval. So much did I want her to tell me I was a good child, I learned. I stopped crying altogether, I stopped yelling and behaving physically in response to my emotions, but I needed something.

I'll never forget it, the first time I hurt myself, I was in 2nd grade, I was 7. There was so much yelling, I just wanted to disappear, I wanted to not be there, so I grabbed a pencil and took the eraser to my forearm. I didn't vanish, but I did burn myself, and it distracted me. The hot friction burn distracted me enough and reduced my anxiety for a moment. So I kept going, the pain taking me away from there in a way I didn't know was possible.

Then the unthinkable happened, my mom walked passed my room and saw what I was doing. Her reaction? She made fun of me, she said, "What in the Hell are you doing!? You're that desperate for attention!?!? OOooOOoohhh, look at me, I'm ADoNM and I like to hurt myself! Boo fucking hoo, see if I care!" and walked away.

The humiliation I felt in that moment, the shame of not being good enough for her, was a feeling I grew very used to over time, but never one I was able to "handle" because it was the one feeling I strove to never feel again. And failed every time.

17 years later I still have a small faint scar from that time, it's covered by even more scars, but it's still there. I had found my escape, and I learned damned well how to hide it.