When I was a kid I thought I had the prettiest and the nicest mother of all and the smartest and the cruelest father of all. This was never an explicit understanding or a belief but it was engrained in me due to the way my mother kept reiterating the events the way she saw it. To this day she does that and it is quite amusing when she reinterprets what I also have witnessed. She is a borderline, and at times malignantly narcissistic. My mom was a home maker and had a lot of access to us. My dad never told his side of the stories, he was the bread winner working long hours.
My mother constantly pointed out to how she was the nicest. When my friends stopped by they quickly realized what a lovely mother I had, she always smiled, she always gave them something to eat. But, after they left she steadily pointed out to how poorly they were dressed, how their own mothers failed to take care of them, how great a mother mine was but not theirs. As you read these, please note that as a child I had no clear awareness of this, I was not aware of any of this, I just saw an angel of a mother (what she presented) and myself as a guilty child was never good enough for this mother (at this age she still tries to make me feel guilty but I don't let her anymore. Slowly she is learning to not even try.)
My mother was constantly comparing all her children. One was smart (S), the other pretty (P), and the other good (G). Just today she repeated how S is just like her brainiac/smart grandchild and she does not ever remember P or G being that way. I heard her say "I don't get it. S never studied as hard as G, yet always got the best grade in the class."
She makes her comparisons in a very caring tone, not in a scolding one. So, the message that was laid out may appear to be by an angel. She ignores the hours S used to put in to studying while the rest of the family busy in their own world.
The impact of this type of separation of the siblings by mere comparison made by the mother was huge. S, positioned as the superior one, always felt guilty toward P and G, and both P and G were competitive and hostile towards S at every weak moment. For example, when S appeared hurt and introspective, G would say 'So, you are not as cheery as your usual self, huh?' The tone was not just unpleasant, but more of showing G's happiness that S was not at the top as usual self.
My siblings and I were categorized by mom and dad as one smart evil S and two good/pretty stupids. Mom appreciated only one of these groups and dad the other. These two so-called adults then played their children to their won liking, using them to fuel their own power-hungry games.
Narcissitic parents favor a group of children over another. My mom and dad created an amazingly disjoint class of people at home. One group had the looks, the other the brains. One had no emotions the other full of compassion. One was idiots and the other ruled the world. One was full of fears and the other fearless. The group dynamics, kept changing but divisions did exist.
P seemed to have good looks and the street smarts but excessive fears. P witnessed dad's rages against mother at a young age, when unable to reason the causes of the rages. With her passive aggressive ways mother can be blamed for the lion's share of the responsibility of the abuses she was falling victim to. She would start a fight based on a minor jealousy, which was to her a big offense. My mother was a purely somatic and quite an evil little narcissist. So, if dad helped his cousin to put on her coat that would lead to an argument at home for the attention was on another female not at my mom at every moment. Could well be an extension of the fact that her own father had had a relationship with a friend of her mother.
My parents would fight with words and then go into separate rooms. But, ten minutes later one would get back to where the other is with new ammunition and start stabbing with words. This would go on till mom finally figured out a way to push dad into rage and to lose it all together and start hitting her. After a few of these episodes it was clear that my mom could not be stopped talking and my dad started going into rage faster with her. And, P witnessed these later episodes when the rage came down very quickly, appearing to have no reason whatsoever. I used to hide out in my room, shivering and feeling further guilty for I thought mother should learn to fight fair or to prevent fighting instead of getting physically hurt. To her, getting beaten was the proof that dad was evil and mom an angel; so these beatings made great stories to tell everyone: her parents, cab drivers, her neighbors, her children, his relatives; his professional friends, you name it--except the police.
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