I grew up thinking divorce was part of my story— not narcissism. My parents divorced when I was six. They remarried when I was eight. Like so many kids, I adapted. I learned the silent rules. The unspoken expectations. How to keep the peace. Then, in 1998, after giving birth to my son, something inside me cracked open. Holding him in my arms, I felt a kind of love I had never experienced before—pure, unconditional, steady. The kind of love that doesn’t make you earn it. And that’s when I started noticing something unsettling. My bond with my mother didn’t feel like this. It felt like control. Like obligation. Like something I had to manage instead of something I could trust. And for the first time, I couldn’t push it away. So I went to a psychiatrist, hoping for answers. And she asked me one question that changed everything: “Bridgette, have you ever heard the word narcissism?” I hadn’t. But in that moment, everything clicked. The guilt. The constant walking on eggshells. The way I had spent my life making sure I didn’t upset 'them'—whoever 'them' was in my world. It was both devastating and a relief to finally have a name for what I had lived through. But here’s what I know now: Naming it isn’t enough. You can name it and still be stuck in it. You can see it and still not know how to break free. You can think you’ve healed—until it shows up again in your own relationships. That day, I made a promise: I would break this cycle. I would learn how to deal with narcissistic people without losing myself. I would raise a child who felt seen, heard, and safe. I would not let narcissism define my future—or his. And I never looked back.