I read the first sentence, 'I only met my paternal grandfather twice.' and thought, 'Oh no! That's awful.' And then I read the rest of the post, and thought (forgive me) that you had a lucky escape. Two exposures to that were two too many, IMHO. And then your paternal grandfather's toxicity damaged his son and so on, down the line. It's sad. I've seen it in my own family as well.

Fascinating. Thank you for sharing.