There is/was a dissociated part in me, and I believe there was something similar in my mother and grandmother. I never mentioned the word "sadistic" to a therapist -- afraid of the potential rejection if I did? Or maybe that part was just realistically aware of other people's reactions to it. I eventually got a diagnosis of DDNOS (now OSDD) and PDNOS, never NPD or ASPD.

I had no real control of the "sadistic" part, though when it was very "active" I could direct it back against myself (or, other parts of myself?) for the most part. I think it was passed down mostly through interpersonal dynamics, though genetics may have played a role. My grandmother's grandfather owned slaves in Alabama and moved after the Civil War to Brazil, where slaves were still legal until about the 1880's I think. He never set foot on the soil in the U.S. after he left, as I understood it, although my grandmother's mother came back as a young woman, got married and had her family in Alabama. From what little I can tell I believe she was narcissistic, my grandmother wasn't, exactly, but the descriptions I have read of the "narcissistic family" seem to fit mine, somewhat. It was a family of mostly "good people", people who tried to "do good" -- maybe for appearance sake, but whatever else was there?