Self-healing

[Victoria Maus]

It was only through starting my peaceful parenting journey that I realised that my mother is a narcissist. I’ve commented on this on the thread called The Mother Wound in the past.

I feel like even though I’ve been aware of this for a while, and saying I needed to find out more, I haven’t really had the strength to. Like all narcissists I guess, my mom is very good at gaslighting me and sucking me back into her world. So even though I’d identified that we have a toxic relationship, I didn’t feel able to do anything about it. I suppose I also thought that maybe I was overreacting to her behaviour towards me too.

Last week things really came to a head with her and I’ve finally found the strength to tell her that I won’t be treated like that any more. For context, I moved from UK to NZ two months ago and my Dad passed away a month ago. Her behaviour has been increasingly erratic towards me and I assume it’s because she’s losing control over me. Last week I had an incredible amount of abuse from her via Messenger because I’d (stupidly) asked for her help with something.

Since standing up to her, I haven’t heard from her at all. I really do feel like a weight has been lifted, although I’ve also felt guilt for feeling like that! A turning point for me was the realisation that I’m modelling to my daughters that it’s ok for someone to emotionally abuse you, as long as they say sorry. What kind of message is that?! I’m now ready to start healing and I’m about to start reading Adult Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers by Stephanie M. Kriesberg.

If there is anyone else out these who has struggled with their relationship with their Mom in a similar way, let me reassure you that you are not the problem!

I’d love to know if anyone else has suggestions for further reading too 🙂

[Victoria Maus]

Hey, I know that there are a few of us with narcissistic mothers (and I totally get why not everyone wants to post about it) so I thought I’d drop back in and say that I finished Adult Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers by Stephanie M. Kriesberg.

It was a really useful book, but definitely one that I had to read slowly and keep coming back to. There are lots of journal prompts throughout the book, it definitely gave me a lot to think about but I also think that just having lost my Dad I wasn’t in the strongest place emotionally to be looking back over my childhood. I’m not sure that all of the scenarios really resonated with me either, but generally speaking I found it to be a helpful book.

I’m glad that I’m starting to come to terms with who my mother is, but at the same time it feels hopeless too. I think it’s a journey I’ll be on for much of my life, while she’s oblivious!

[Ingrid]

Hi Victoria,
Good on you for reading the book and doing this challenging life work, I am in a similar boat with my mother, after going no contact with her for a couple of years I’m now on a very limited contact with her (emails only and I see her once a year for half a day, always on my terms). I know your post was a couple years ago so I wondered how you are doing on this journey now? I found it can be a lonely one, as there is such a taboo regarding any negative feelings towards ones own mother, it’s like mainstream society cannot handle this, even though statistically, not all mothers can be great mothers!
The book I’ve been reading about daughters of narcissistic mothers is ‘Will I Ever Be Good Enough’ by Dr Karyl McBride, I’m about 2/3 into it and I recommend it if you are looking for further reading. These types of books are not easy to read by any means but I found they can be validating. The first time I started reading the book was about 3 years ago so I’ve been working through it really slowly, at the beginning of my journey it bought up so much anger, I had to stop for a while. Then I started again at the beginning. Finding your post I think I will pick it up again now and try to finish it.
Now that more time has passed and I am physically away from her I feel more detached like I can look at things objectively, I see the patterns and how they repeat, and it doesn’t hurt so much as it once did. But there will always be a big hole where a loving mother figure would have been in my life.

[Genevieve Simperingham]

Hi @ingrid good on you for doing this work of looking at and working through the parent child dynamics. It’s not easy to face such harsh realities, yet there’s a lot of truth in that saying that the truth can set us free. It’s so true what you said about how mainstream society struggles with facing the very sad reality about the negative impacts of the lack of a loving mother figure. We’re biologically programmed to seek and need that security of attachment, and the lack of it has far reaching impacts.

Unfortunately I don’t think Victoria will receive this message as I got an email notification to say that messages from this site to her email are bouncing, the email address is associated with her website which contains her name which appears to be offline. And she hasn’t given us her updated email. I believe she lives in Wellington, having moved over from the UK.

I have no doubt that others will read this thread from time to time and will no doubt value reading your experience. Just as you said about reading the book being validating, reading other people’s shared experiences can be so validating.

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