The first mistake when you wake up to Cluster B

the first of several linked essays

“Our mother isn’t going into dementia, Josh. I think she’s a narcissist. I think she has a personality disorder.”

That was the magic sentence my sister spoke to me in late 2015.

It wasn’t me who figured out that it was a Cluster B personality disorder that drove our mother to act like a down-market version of Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest. It was my si…