" I often ask myself is how on earth is it that we empaths can survive under the domination of a narcissist? How is it that we do not become bitter and cruel as adults, with the role models
we survived under? How is it that being an empath stays with us and cannot be beaten down? We always get up again and keep on going, being an empath still. I also wonder, if I had not been so tightly wrapped up in my mother’s web and she had let me fly instead, what kind of person would I have been, then? "

― Donna G. Bourgeois , Life with Ollie