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[EFerrari]

29. If we are talkng about parents, one thing that worked for me to a degree

was learning how to be my own mother. Literally, doing things for myself that you'd normally go to a mother for. That seemed to cut down the resentment and tension somewhat, which in turn made everything else about the relationship less tense.

My mom isn't NPD but she's definitely NPDish at times and as she ages, those times are more frequent. Like just now, she called me from downtown and wanted me meet and deal with the gas delivery and set up with no notice whatsoever, the idea is to drop everything and attend to the demand of the moment. When younger and working on something that seemed important to me, I used to joke about it, "Michelangelo, come down from that ceiling. Your brother needs a baloney sandwich".

It's always seemed sad to me that my mom has so much noise going on all the time, that she'll never really know me. But realizing that also makes the rare times when she is able to focus on someone outside her sort of more precious, and I've learned to appreciate them.