Narcissistic Families and Child Sexual Abuse, I’m Tylee Ryan

What’s left when you don’t die and you don’t get justice

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Content warning: discussion of child sexual abuse.

I woke up early, my nervous system already shredded. It felt like someone dragged the center of me over broken glass.

Last night, I listened to several episodes of a podcast on the psychological profile of Lori Vallow Daybell, the woman recently convicted of murdering her two children and conspiring to murder Tammy Daybell, the wife of her lover, Chad Daybell. She’ll serve three consecutive life sentences, and now she faces charges in the murder of her ex-husband, Charles Vallow.

I stayed away from the case when news of it broke; by all accounts, the murders of her children were so gruesome it made grown men cry. Jurors wept openly. I won’t recount the state of their remains. You can’t unknow it and knowing it is a kind of trauma. I won’t do that to you. J.J. was nine and Tylee 16. Thinking about it now makes me physically ill. I thought I could handle it because of what I’ve been through. Turns out, human beings can always surprise you with their sadism.

A criminal psychologist evaluated Vallow Daybell in prison and diagnosed her with Delusional Disorder. The DSM V characterizes Delusional…