Hello Carie Anne,
It's funny you should post this question - I've been thinking about this very thing over the last few weeks.
I come from a line of at least 5 generations of pure narcissism, mostly female. There's my generation (the great grandchildren), my mother and her sisters generation (all three women seriously damaged by their abusive, neglectful, histrionic mother; my grandmother). But the root of those three generations of chaotic dysfunction, as far as any of us can trace it back, would be to my Great grandmother, who is still alive. She and my Great grandfather had their first child in the 30's. He was in the war, she was the "good chrisitian" housewife/mother.
My Great grandmother is of rigid German heritage, and her father was an abusive drunk.
My Great grandmother's narcissism is so obvious, everyone in the family sees and recognizes the dysfunction. The two of them (my Great grandparents) are EXTREMELY pathological in their religiosity. The way the church owns them, it's disturbing to watch. Nearly everything that comes out of either one of their mouths, for all of us three generations after her, was riddled with bible babble. There's nothing like being told by your Great grandother that "if you let the Lord into your heart he will heal you of your chronic, incurable disease" - trying to express to me that my disease is the work of the devil - and that loving jesus will cure me when medical science can't. And it's funny cos - jesus hasn't healed my Great grandfather of HIS bowel condition that he's has since he was in his 20's.
They are a strange couple - he talks in tongues at night - and claims that on somenights he becomes posessed by demons. I've heard him ranting in the wee hours of the morning - babbling, fighting, screaming at the "demons" - I suppose this is some form of dementia - maybe schitzophrenia.
Their religiosity caused 4 generations of massive dysfunction in all branches of my family.
