I’d like to describe to you my childhood, my mother, and my life as my mother’s daughter.

I learned the meaning of the word “narcissist” when I was in high school, in the context of some English literature story we were studying. A narcissist, my English teacher explained, is someone who is consumed with self-love and self-interest.

At that time, I didn’t realize that I was living with a narcissist. I didn’t realize until I myself was a mother that my own mother suffered from Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Before you roll your eyes and think, “Oh, now here’s another one of these newly invented disorders for the 21^st century,” I’d like to describe to you my childhood, my mother, and my life as my mother’s daughter.

My mother is an aristocratic woman, very smart and talented, with a charming personality. Unfortunately, we children were not pretty or thin enough for her taste, and she made that abundantly clear to us.

She reserved the bulk of these comments for my sister Shira, commenting all the time about how short she was and how her ears stuck out. “You can’t possibly be my real child,” she often told her. “They must have switched you in the hospital with the baby of the lady in the bed next to me. She had elephant ears, too.”

Many times, my mother would go out with me and my brother Meir, leaving Shira behind. “I’m embarrassed to be seen with you in public,” she’d tell Shira. Meir and I would bask in this implied expression of approval on my mother’s part, feeling very special as we walked proudly down the street with her.

It was nice to be out in public with my mother, because when other people were in earshot, she’d beam at us and praise us for being such wonderful children. At home, however, we never heard any compliments or positive words from her. The only expressions of love we heard were from my father, who was a genuinely warm and caring father — that is, when he wasn’t busy catering to my mother and placating her.

My father owned a successful store, and he would often bring home money from the cash register for safekeeping. When my mother would spot the money, she would instantly demand that he give her a large chunk of it, which she then went out and spent on clothing, beauty treatments, and gourmet food — for herself only.

Many times, she wouldn’t make supper because she was out shopping, and we would take care of ourselves by eating sandwiches or leftovers from the fridge. But then, when she came home, she would shout, “Who ate that last piece of chicken? I was saving it for myself!” The chicken might have been a week old and moldy, but that didn’t stop her from berating the culprit: “I didn’t eat the whole day, and I was waiting to eat that piece of chicken! You just can’t stop eating! Why can’t you control yourself? No wonder you’re so fat!”

Eventually, we learned not to eat anything from the fridge.