Not in the evil sense, but yet evil at the same time.

I got my first baby when I was 18.  I got his little sister a month after I got him.  He was already around 6-7 months old when I got him.  And she was around 2 months.   I was living an apartment at the time, and after a while, I had to move back home.  And I took my kitties with me.  Then I got married a few years later and moved out with them into our family's apartment.  After my son was born, the girl kitty would try to "play" with the baby with her claws.  So she was moved back with my mom.  While I might have been being an over reactive new mother, I am glad she ended up living there at the time, as she supported by my father and my step-father through both their cancers and stayed with both of them as they died.  She also supported my grandmother through Alzheimer's and stayed with her as she died, as well.  She was like a "hospice cat".  She was deaf and tiny and loved everyone around her.  My stepfather even used to take her for car rides and feed her her own dishes of whatever he made for dinner.  She never gained a pound and we found out later she had hypothyroidism.

But my boy, he stayed with me.  When we had to move, four years later, I had to leave my big boy with my mom, too, due to the fact it was a new apartment on a busy road, and he was an indoor/outdoor cat.  But at that point, I was staying with my mother during the week, and going home on the weekends, so I still pretty much still lived with him. (I say my "big" boy, because at his biggest, he was 26 pounds, the total opposite of his sister.)  And shortly after moving into that apartment, I left my husband at the time and moved back home and was once again, living with my two little furbabies.

When I got remarried, they stayed with my mom because our apartment didn't allow pets.

Buster and Kelly both lived to the ripe old age of 17.  And they were always considered my cats, though Kelly was a little bit of everyone's.  But my Buster was mine.  I would even supply cat food for them when I could and clean their cat litters when I was over, doing what I could to help out.  My mom had lots of cats of her own, but she still called Buster and Kelly mine.

My mom moved out of that house after my father died, into my meemaw's and peepaw's apartment (the one I moved into when I was first married and pregnant with my oldest).  Then they lost the building (my uncle had dementia and wasn't paying the mortgage) and she moved again.  My babies always went with her.  But even 17 years later, she still called them my cats.

Then one day, she decided to kill them.

Well, not with her bare hands or anything, but she had them put down without telling me.  She went alone and didn't tell me until after it happened.  She knew they were mine and not hers to make that decision alone.  I went with her for two of her other cats who she had to put down due to cancer.  But she took my babies and had them put down without even asking me to come with.  Yes, they were old.  And I do know they were probably sick and both probably did need to be put down, BUT she never even told me she was considering doing it.  I don't work, and I live a block away from her.  So it wasn't like I couldn't be there or that I was too busy.  She just plain didn't ask me on purpose, so she could choose to end the lives of my beautiful babies without me even knowing.  I could have held them as they died.  I got them both as kittens, and Kelly was only four weeks old.  I used to clean her eyes for her when she had an infection in them when I first got her.  I would seek her out in the middle of the night as she cried like a banshee because she was lost and didn't know how to get back to my bed.  And Buster I got when he was abandoned by his previous owners, alone in an apartment.  I got him surgery when another cat embedded his claw in his face.  I was there through their entire lives and yet I didn't get to be there as they took their last breaths.  I didn't get to scratch their necks as they moved on from this earthly realm.  I miss them every single day.  And always will.

Instead they were dropped off and left there alone, to die with strangers.  She didn't even stay with them!

And I will never forgive myself or her for that.  I should have been there.  I should have been allowed to be there.  But the woman I trusted to take care of my furry babies stole that from me.  And from them.

Because that's what a narcissist does.  They take away your power so they can hurt you and everyone else around you.  They are jealous of others' love for you (my big boy always loved me best) and will attack you both just so they can feel better.  Just so they can feel powerful.

Take away a narcissist's power and what do they have left?

Nothing.  Because that's all life is to them: a game of power.

Remember that.  And never give your power to them.  Never give them a chance to take yours away.  And never put them in charge of something that can be used to take your power away.

And never give them your cats.