Daughters Rising

Being Good For Mom Can Be Bad For Her Grown Daughter

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When is “good for mom” bad for you?

Do you work hard to be good for mom, make mom look good or make sure mom is good with you?

Do you seek her approval yet secretly wonder if this is in your best interest? You may feel inadequate, struggle with self-doubt, and not know exactly why?

Could it be that your mother relates to you in a toxic way that undermines your confidence and self-esteem you are so used to it – you can’t see it?

It may seem normal to you that you second guess your every decision and apologize constantly. You aren’t quite sure where you end, and your mother begins. You may be so used to living this way you aren’t even aware that life could feel any different.

What drives a toxic mother/daughter relationship? Underneath many a demanding or controlling mother’s facade is an insecure person who worries she will be found out.  Or the flip side of the same coin,  mom may be a meek and mild wounded mother who isn’t outwardly critical but drags her daughter down in more subtle ways.

Narcissism/Borderline/Histrionic personality disorders or traits of these disorders can be overt or covert. At the root of all of the personality disorders and traits is a desperate insecurity that drives mom to act in destructive ways. 

Good for mom/bad for you works like this-

Deep down, a mother who has little self-worth needs her attuned daughter to boost her sense of self. The daughter, in the role of the “good daughter,” picks this up at the unconscious level. She experiences herself as an extension of mom and without being fully conscious of why she works at being “good” for mom. Many times the “good daughter” knows, or suspects, her difficult mother is narcissistic, borderline, histrionic, depressed, or codependent. What she does knows for sure, however, is that she is very attuned to the effect she has on her mother.

Many a difficult mother plays on the Good Daughter’s eagerness to please. The daughter’s childlike self-has a very hard time telling mom things she knows mom doesn’t want to hear. Even adult daughters have an almost 6th sense of how mom is feeling about herself and may sacrifice themselves for their mother’s well-being by letting mom run roughshod over her boundaries or put mom’s needs first.

Here are–3 signs you are being good for mom at your own expense. 

1) You know the phrase all too well, ” If momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” You will do just about anything to keep mom happy. Even if it means making you, your husband, partner or children unhappy.  As much as you hate to admit it, making mom happy comes first.

2) You try extra hard to be “good” for mom. You are hyper-aware of how your actions make your mother look to others. You let this dictate much of what you do and say.

3) You run all of your major life decisions by mom first. If she doesn’t think you should take the job, marry the man, change your hairstyle, you second-guess yourself. Mom’s opinions matter way more than they should.

 

What’s wrong with this?

When a daughter, in the role of the “good daughter,” feels she owes mom her happiness, neither party is served. This cycle can be insidious and fueled by guilt such that many a daughter is unaware that her life has been hijacked by mom’s problems, her insecurities. The Good Daughter buys into the unconscious fantasy that says if she is good enough mom will be O.K. The problem is…she may spend a lifetime, waste a lifetime, trying to be good enough for mom.

And her own daughter will suffer.

Because she is so tied to being good for mom, the adult daughter of the difficult mother has a hard time being an effective mom to her own daughter. She doesn’t know where to set limits with her daughter or how to model valuing herself. Her daughter may see her as a doormat or experience her as chronically stressed and unhappy.

Also trying to make mom happy doesn’t work on an ongoing basis. It can’t work because change, like happiness, is an inside job. You cannot GIVE your mother self-worth.

What can you do?

You can learn how to get out of the good daughter traps set for you. You can learn how to set healthy boundaries, tap into your feminine power, rewire your brain, and parent your own daughter from a place of confidence. There are patterns that are not serving you, once realized, can be healed. By clearing up this toxicity in your relationship with your own mother you supercharge your ability to parent your own daughter.  One impacts the other in powerful ways.

When will you say enough? “I want to clear away the blocks that keep me from being the best mother I can be. The cycle of shame, guilt, and self-doubt stops here.”

Find out if you are trapped in the Good Daughter Syndrome -go here.

Find Your Voice. Raise Awareness. Tweet It Out.

It may seem normal to you that you second guess your every decision and apologize constantly. You aren't quite sure where you end, and your mother begins. Click To Tweet Click To Tweet You cannot GIVE your mother self-worth. Click To Tweet By clearing up this toxicity in your relationship with your own mother you supercharge your ability to parent your own daughter. One impacts the other in powerful ways. Click To Tweet

 

 

 

 

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DO YOU EXPERIENCE THE "GOOD DAUGHTER" SYNDROME?

Do you have a Narcissistic or Difficult Mother?
Are you the "Good Daughter"? The Rebel? or The Lucky One?
Take the quiz and find out!

Take the quiz!

Difficult Mom? The Secret To Letting Go & Moving On

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Can your mother empathize with you? Can she get past her defensiveness and put herself in your place? What if the answer is no? What if she doesn’t get you and never will. How do you let go of the hope that she will and move on with your life? What if you need to get past this, claim your life for yourself and parent your daughter.

First of all -this can be hard, very hard. Those of us who have traveled this road can tell you, there are are some things that don’t get better just because you continue to try.  Trying to get a mother understanding when it isn’t in the cards is one of those. There comes a time when you need to be your own witness.

As hard as this is, it may be the only way to freedom. Trapped in the role of the “good daughter” of your difficult mother, you bear the mark of your mother’s pain in this way- You have put your mother’s needs ahead of your own. In the relationship dynamic, you had no choice. To end this cycle, you might need to face the fact that justice is only going to come from you, and that will have to be enough.

The little girl in you wants for mom to understand and approve of you. You have worked so hard to be good for mom. But what if you need for her to understand that she is hurting you and she just can’t give you that one? Because of her limitations, she can’t put herself in your shoes and see things from your perspective. Some mothers just can’t.  And you have your own little girl looking at you…needing you. She needs you to be there for her. It is decision time.

At some point, the only relevant question becomes whether or not you are going to spend a lifetime trying to be heard and seen by someone who just can’t see you or hear you. If you’ve talked yourself blue in the face and find yourself always on the defensive, chances are there isn’t anyone home- psychologically speaking. At least not enough of reflective self to take in what you have to say. Whether she is narcissistic, borderline, histrionic, depressed, addicted, a toxic combo or you have simply hit a hot-button issue, she might be incapable of taking in what you have to say.

How do I know? I’ve heard many a daughter, trapped in the role of the Good Daughter on my therapy couch describe this same scenario over and over. Unconsciously, you blame yourself and stay tied to a mother who can’t truly empathize with you falsely thinking if you could only get it right then mom will understand and accept you.

If mom can’t empathize with you, you cannot experience the understanding you hungry for. So, one more explanation that falls on deaf ears is one too many. Let me save you some time, trouble and possible therapy dollars. As difficult as it is, at some point, you are better off cutting your losses, grieving and moving on. Calmly, peacefully and thoughtfully, but definitively.

To continue in the exhausting exercise of explaining yourself reaches a point of diminishing returns.No one can tell you where this point of diminishing return is. You have to sort it through for yourself. No contact, low contact or reconfigured contact. But somewhere, sometime, you will need to let go of explaining yourself to get free.

Whether you are giving up being understood on a certain hot-button issue or need more of a relationship overhaul, that is up to you. Either way, giving up and letting it drop is hard. Mom may have limitations she cannot get past. Staying angry with her doesn’t necessarily get you anywhere. It only keeps you stuck and feeling guilty. The positive grown-up thing to do is to accept the loss and give up wishing she was different. You can use that same energy to decide to be different yourself.

To find out if you suffer from the Good Daughter Syndrome – go here.

Raise Awareness. Tweet It Out.

There are are some things that don't get better just because you continue to try. Trying to get a mother's understanding when it isn't in the cards is one of those. Click To Tweet But what if you need your mother to understand that she is hurting you and she just can't give you that one? Click To Tweet Unconsciously, you blame yourself and stay tied to a mother who can't truly empathize with you falsely thinking if you could only get it right then mom will understand and accept you. Click To Tweet You were marked with your mother's pain. You don't have to pass that mark on to your daughter. Click To Tweet

 

 

 

Audio

DO YOU EXPERIENCE THE "GOOD DAUGHTER" SYNDROME?

Do you have a Narcissistic or Difficult Mother?
Are you the "Good Daughter"? The Rebel? or The Lucky One?
Take the quiz and find out!

Take the quiz!

 

DO YOU WANT TO FEEL CLOSER TO YOUR DAUGHTER AND RAISE HER SELF ESTEEM – 3 HOW TO STEPS

Do You Want To Feel Closer To Your Daughter And Raise Her Self-Esteem?
3 Easy “How-To” Steps...
That Work Like Magic!

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This is how we rise.

Are You A Chronic People Pleaser? This Could Be Why – ( Hiding behind a False Self)

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How the people pleasing false self develops.  

Was saying “No” to mom simply not an option?

“No mom, I don’t want that.”

“No mom, I’d rather not do that.”

“No mom, I can’t help you with that.”

If it wasn’t acceptable to be your real self with mom you needed to develop a faux or false self. A mask you wear to mom and now to the rest of the world. Because the relationship with mom is so foundational you don’t trust anyone can accept you for who you really are.

Particularly vulnerable are daughters of Narcissistic/Difficult mothers. They often develop in childhood what Alice Miller calls a “false self”. This false self-develops to cope with the demands of being raised by a mother who needs her daughter to be better than she is.

Instead of feeling unconditional acceptance from her mother, the daughter’s false self-knows exactly what is expected of her and strives to please mom at the expense of her authentic self.

The false self is approval seeking, people pleasing and dangerously detached from the essential/authentic self. To break free, she must first know what purpose the false self-serves.

Learn more here-  ( remember to click on CC to read with the sound off)

Transcription

How people can develop a false self early in childhood and become detached from their authentic feelings. One concept that comes up a lot when I’m talking to women is Alice Miller’s concept of the “false self.” This is formed in childhood when your authentic needs and impulses are responded to by a lot of upset from a parent. Then a parent, because of their own unmet needs, a need for reassurance and validation, inadvertently many times uses the child to be the reassuring or the performing or reassure the parent that they’re a good parent. They need the child to be a hyper-adult, to be finished and more advanced than they can be developmentally. Alice Miller calls this a “false self.” The child develops a people-pleasing false self that looks good on the outside but is really disconnected from the internal developmental needs. A lot of daughters with this false self will be people-pleasers. They will make everybody else happy but not themselves but have a sense of emptiness, of chronic emptiness and disconnection from their real selves. They’ll be taking care of everybody and wonder along the line, “What about me? I’m doing this for my mother or somebody else, and I know it’s what they want from me, but when’s it gonna be my turn?” Many things can happen with this chronic feeling of emptiness. They can drink too much, eat too much, do too much. to fill the emptiness they feel.  There are all kinds of offshoots from this disconnect, which is formed in childhood and Alice Miller’s concept of the “false self.” One thing that therapy can certainly do is help get you back in touch with your authentic, real self. You can act from this self more and more and have more satisfying relationships and leave this false self behind. I’m Katherine Fabrizio. Be good to yourself.

 

Find out if you are trapped in the role of the Good Daughter- go here.

Become Aware. Tweet It Out-

Click To Tweet If it wasn't acceptable to be your real self with mom you needed to develop a faux or false self. Click To Tweet This false self-develops to cope with the demands of being raised by a mother who needs her daughter to be better than she is. Click To Tweet The false self is approval seeking, people pleasing and dangerously detached from the essential/authentic self. Click To Tweet Daughters with a false self many times have a chronic emptiness and disconnection from their real selves. Click To Tweet

 

 

DO YOU EXPERIENCE THE "GOOD DAUGHTER" SYNDROME?

Do you have a Narcissistic or Difficult Mother?
Are you the "Good Daughter"? The Rebel? or The Lucky One?
Take the quiz and find out!

Take the quiz!

 

 

 

 

How To Spot Hidden Ways Mothers Can Create Self-Doubt in Daughters

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You look great, but wonder if that dress comes in a larger size?

I’m glad you got the job, but are you sure you want to put the kids in daycare… all day?

The apartment is nice but can you really afford something so fancy with your job?

Does Mom offer up a question that’s not really a question but rather a judgment disguised as a question? Do you need to pay attention to what is not said, but implied to decipher the real message? Do you look to tone &  facial expression for the truth? Does mom have trouble being upfront, transparent, or real? Do her “questions” leave you second guessing yourself?

Why is this a problem?

The problem is, when criticism isn’t direct, it is difficult to process and recognize the insult hidden inside. It makes you feel uncomfortable but your mind argues against it. When a question isn’t a question but an indictment of a choice you have already made- the “question” is designed to produce self-doubt.

I am here to say this is amongst the most destructive ways mothers relate to daughters.

Consider this-When someone in your life tells you up front they don’t agree with you, that’s one thing. You have the opportunity to address it. You might not like it. It might even hurt, but ultimately you realize we all need to be challenged in order to make better decisions and grow. Conversely, mixed messages plant seeds of self-doubt.

It works like this- The toxicity in mom’s mixed messaged, double-speak, the subtext is ingested, taken in – like the shiny apple offered to Snow White in the Grimm’s Brothers fairy tale. Because her advice is offered as a gift and may look pretty/helpful on the outside, eager to please mom -you take a bite and swallow it whole. Before you know it, you feel something is not quite right.

Taking in a message that contains poison, you feel sick. This poison erodes your confidence and you begin to doubt yourself.

This is how the spell of self-doubt is cast. You don’t feel that you can refuse moms “caring”. You are not fully conscious of the hurt- so it is hard to refuse the offering. You feel that you have to play nice and take what is offered. That is the way you stay under the spell of the mixed message

As a psychotherapist, for over 30 years I have seen women struggling from the spell of the mixed message they were put under by their mothers. This is ugly and far more common than you would guess.

Some daughters in the role of “Good” Daughter have seriously impaired mothers who cause serious damage. Their care is laced with a huge dose of toxicity. Other daughters are hurt by mothers who are merely passing down what they themselves have suffered. They swallowed the toxicity from their own mothers and can’t help but poison their own daughters -if they follow ( patriarchal)  cultural expectations.

Either way, it is very hard to face the fact that the person who is lifting you up is also hurting you and undermining your self-esteem. Hurtful, even if mom is unaware of the hurt she is causing. What’s worse, you take this toxicity inside of yourself and it becomes part of your self-talk.It is very hard to face the fact that the person who is lifting you up is also hurting you and undermining your self-esteem. Hurtful, even if mom is unaware of the hurt she is causing.

What will it cost you if you don’t break the spell? If you can’t consciously face that your mother is serving up arsenic-laced apples, you will never be able to tell which relationships and life situations are good for you, you will need to repeat those destructive relational patterns in your close intimate relationships. You will take one shiny apple after another, ingest the poison therein and all the while tell yourself this is what you deserve.

At the unconscious level, you will need to keep yourself in shady situations and tell yourself that you are in sunshine. You will convince yourself that the problem is yours. The apple tastes good, not bitter and that the shadows are only in your imagination. You are too sensitive, that’s all.

It can be so very hard to face the truth of your relationship with your mother if this is the case. Yet if you don’t, you will be compelled to treat your own daughter the same way and put her under the same spell.

What you don’t pass back, you pass on. That is why it is both hard to face, and so important to face this for yourself.  But you must face this consciously, in order to break the spell. This is grown up work with grown-up rewards.

You must break this spell in order to get free of its grip on your life. Step out of the shadows, call a spade a spade and an insult an insult. Hand back the poison-laced apples along with the backhanded compliments. Only then can you claim what is most beautiful about you. Heal this one and you will heal so very much in your life.

Find out if you are trapped in the Good Daughter role- go here.

Raise Awareness. Tweet It Out-

As a psychotherapist, for over 30 years I have seen women struggling from the spell of the mixed message they were put under by their mothers. Click To Tweet

Breaking the spell of the mixed message is at the heart of healing the difficulties between mothers and daughters. Click To Tweet

It is very hard to face the fact that the person who is lifting you up is also hurting you and undermining your self-esteem. Hurtful, even if mom is unaware of the hurt she is causing. Click To Tweet Does Mom offer up a question that's not really a question but rather a judgment disguised as a question? Click To Tweet If you can't consciously face that your mother is serving up arsenic-laced apples, you will never be able to tell which relationships and life situations are good for you. Click To Tweet Click To Tweet

Audio-

DO YOU EXPERIENCE THE "GOOD DAUGHTER" SYNDROME?

Do you have a Narcissistic or Difficult Mother?
Are you the "Good Daughter"? The Rebel? or The Lucky One?
Take the quiz and find out!

Take the quiz!

 

 

How The Lies of Patriarchy Are Passed Down From Mother To Daughter

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Women’s empowerment and the mother/daughter connection 

Let’s get real for a moment sisters. Women have been burned, owned and controlled, for a very long time. And, lied to. We know, as women, this oppression figures prominently in our collective history.

How does this affect us as daughters?

Let me explain- While we might not fully realize how the mistreatment of women has taken a psychological toll on our mothers. This unfair oppression of women has generated a narcissistic defense in many women and thus in many mothers.

That is, when mothers don’t get their needs met overtly, they are psychologically driven to use indirect means which usually manifests in manipulation. 

While not all mothers have full-blown NPD, many have Narcissistic defensive traits. As such they have lower self-worth and are driven to protect a fragile sense of self at any cost. Given how women have been treated by the patriarchal culture over the years, this is understandable, albeit destructive.

How does this show itself in daughters today? Taking recent national events into consideration … We are confronted with the reality that daughters today may not realize is how misogyny is still very much alive. Many young women today say they don’t need women’s lib. Yet, many of those same grown daughters exhaust themselves as they take on the lion’s share of the household chores and hold themselves responsible for childcare arrangements while taking their place beside men at work.

Ironically, they remain unaware they are living out their mother’s feelings of unworthiness by over functioning. If the sins of the father are visited upon the son, it is surely the lies of the mother that are visited upon the daughter.

Let me spell this out-

Despite advances in women’s lives, your mother was lied to in two different ways.

  1. The first lie was that women are not worthy. Your mother learned from living in a patriarchal culture that she was not good enough, worthy or as valuable as a man.
  2. Mom was taught she was a second-class citizen. From the first lie follows the second; the only real power is male power.

Power over, control and domination have been considered most valuable in our Western culture.

 

Feminine powers of receptivity, nurturing and alliance have been considered traits of weakness, not strength.

So what was mom to do? To level the playing field and get along in a man’s world, she learned to act like a man. She adopted the male version of power. Because it was and is mimicry, women have felt something missing. They have carried a sense of not quite getting it right.

Understandably she carried a sense of not getting it right. Like Ginger Rogers, doing everything Fred Astaire did but in high heels and backward, some women were crushed under the weight of it all. 

Most wounded is the Narcissistic, Borderline and Histrionic Mother. Her wounds are so deep she is the most likely to take her pain out on her most vulnerable of charges, her daughter. I would add, most of this intergenerational wounding is handed down at the unconscious level.

If you are the daughter of the Narcissistic Borderline or Histrionic Mother, you carry this pain into your life. Even if your mother has traits of these disorders, you can’t help but be affected.

As a counselor to women for 30 years, I see you in my psychotherapy practice.

Let me tell you what I have noticed-

You don’t value yourself. You are a servant to your beautiful children, you don’t know that your goddess-given powers of nurturing are enough.

You can’t ever let yourself rest.

You are always outrunning a sense of “not good enough” when in fact, you are more than enough.

Are you living out the same lie your mother lived????? If so, it is time to stop the madness, claim your worth and break the destructive cycle that passes the lie of not good enough from one generation of women to the next.  Time to rein in the micromanaging and helicoptering that give are fueled by the same lie.

 Your mother’s way is not good enough for you and it won’t be good enough for your daughters. Together, we have important work to do to bring back the value of the feminine.

We are women. We can do this.

This is how we Rise!

DO YOU EXPERIENCE THE "GOOD DAUGHTER" SYNDROME?

Do you have a Narcissistic or Difficult Mother?
Are you the "Good Daughter"? The Rebel? or The Lucky One?
Take the quiz and find out!

Take the quiz!

 

A Poem From The Adult Daughter To The Difficult Mother : Not Your Fault, Not Mine, Just Is

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I never forget, empathetic daughters of narcissistic/difficult mothers hurt. They must walk away from the (emotional) table hungry again and again.

Underneath the anger and resentment they feel is a deep longing for a mother who can truly see them and accept them for who they are. They don’t have that. They will never have that. They live with that.

They’d rather not blame or criticize their mother but to save themselves they need to understand. In the end, they are destined to navigate this life without a mother’s love that feels good.

I hope this poem speaks to your soul and offers you the balm of understanding. You are not alone.  Healing begins with understanding.

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Transcript: Poem From the Adult Daughter to the Narcissistic/Difficult Mother

Not Your Fault, Not Mine, Just Is

I stand before you but you can’t see me.

My life. My heart. Myself. You can’t see or feel it.

My actions, my motives, are never ever good enough.

Good enough for you to see me. Truly see me.

As separate from you, my own person, not your do-over.

The mirror that you hold up to me, the good daughter, and to yourself only reflects back our imagined shameful flaws or our made up bigger than life glories.

The cruelty, the tragedy is.. neither are true.

What goes missing is the tender middle ground, the humanity behind the mask.

Instead that fun house…. mirror is all too present….

Trapping us both

Obscuring, distorting, exaggerating.

It might have been fun but it is anything but.

Not your fault, not mine, just is.

I explain, defend myself ….. perform… umm …never mind.

It never really changes anything. … just a voice crying….. into the wilderness of your emptiness.

Onto the theater of your play pretend.

Twirling twirling … look, mom, I’m dancing as fast as I can giving it my all.

Never let them see you sweat.

Now ….. alone on the stage ready to take my bow

Only to find. No one home. Effort played to an empty house.

A single hand claps or does it?

A hollowness reverberates, no ears to hear.

Not your fault, not mine, just is.

For myself, there is no witness, no understanding, no solid place to land when I am spent.

Yet hope springs eternal, infernal, maternal.

Look at me! Look at me, mom! Am I good enough, this time?

Did I get it right this time? Did I? But you can’t.

Can’t see past your own insecurities, the leak in your boat of a self too large.

Frantically trying to bail water, you are, so that you don’t sink yourself.

Not your fault, not mine, just is.

Like an etch-a-sketch pad, I think you get it, get me and in an instant, it all becomes undone, invisible…. never was…. I guess.

Not your fault, not mine, just is.

You and I can’t get past it. It isn’t our fault.

It isn’t that you won’t. I think if you could, you would. You can’t.

What happened, mom? Who dropped the ball of your self-esteem that you so desperately need me to pick up?

Need me, yet rendered you blind to the real me. So we go through the motions, the game of life without touching.

It is time for me to leave home, yet again, as I have so many times before.

To walk away from the table still hungry.

Empty handed, unseen, unheard.

Not your fault, not mine, just is.

To find out if you are trapped in the Good Daughter role  -go here.

DO YOU EXPERIENCE THE "GOOD DAUGHTER" SYNDROME?

Do you have a Narcissistic or Difficult Mother?
Are you the "Good Daughter"? The Rebel? or The Lucky One?
Take the quiz and find out!

Take the quiz!

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