Will I Ever Be Good Enough?

by Karyl McBride

  10. You have no boundaries or privacy with your mother.

  Separating emotionally from your mother as you grow older is crucial to psychological growth, but a narcissistic mother does not allow her daughter to be a distinct individual. Rather, the daughter is there for her mother’s needs and wishes. This creates a significant problem for the daughter. There are no boundaries, no privacy in her family life. Her mother can talk to her about anything, no matter how inappropriate—and tell other people anything about her daughter, no matter how embarrassing. The narcissistic mother usually has no clue how wrong this is, and how unhealthy it is for her daughter. To the mother, her child is simply an extension of herself.

  • Cheryl’s mother crossed the line when Cheryl was reconnecting with a high school friend. “I was so excited to find my friend and see what she had been up to in her adult life. We had been very close in junior high and high school and then lost touch. She had lost my number but found my parents in the directory. My mother answered her call and talked to my friend for a long time, making sure to brag to her that I was a practicing physician. But Mom was also quick to report the sordid details of my failed romances. When I finally talked to my friend, she inquired first about my relationships. I felt instant shame and embarrassment—and so violated by Mom. Why didn’t she let me tell my friend about my life and the problems I’ve had so I could explain what really happened and why?”

  • Marion’s mother violates her actual physical space by using a key to her house and slipping in every once in a while to check up on Marion’s housekeeping. She then leaves nasty notes. The last one said, “Did I really raise you to be such a slob? There could be bugs in that refrigerator! Should we use that mold to make some penicillin?”

  • Ruth’s mother has no boundaries when it comes to Ruth’s boyfriends. “Mother hugs, kisses, and even sleeps with them if I break up with them. Once she was at my birthday party and started making out with my ex-boyfriend in front of all my friends. And she was still married! When I confronted her, she said, ‘Well, he asked me to go home with him and I said no.’ I told her, ‘Thanks, Mom, for that consideration!’ ”

  • In Nicole Stansbury’s compelling novel, Places to Look for a Mother, she describes the lack of privacy when the mother, oblivious to the daughter’s needs, feels she can walk into the bathroom even while the daughter is using it. The daughter says, “You always walk in the bathroom. We can never have locks. You never knock.” The mother replies with, “No wonder I’m on pins and needles all day, no wonder my nerves are shot. I can’t do anything, can’t make a single move without being accused. I don’t know what you are afraid of my seeing, what the big secret is. You don’t even have pubic hair yet.”5 Not only does this mother fail to respect her daughter’s boundaries and privacy, she blames her disrespectful behavior on her daughter.

  In order to become a healthy, mature, independent woman, a daughter needs to feel she has a separate sense of self, apart from her mother. Narcissistic mothers don’t comprehend this. Their own immaturity and unmet needs obstruct their daughters’ healthy individuation, which stunts emotional development.

  Where Am I in the Mirror?

  Sadly, due to the detrimental effects of these ten stingers, when the daughter of a narcissistic mother looks for her own image in the mirror, she has trouble seeing herself. Instead, her sense of self is merely a reflection of how her mother sees her, which is too often cast in a negative light.

  Through each stage of development, daughters can’t help internalizing the negative messages and feelings their narcissistic mothers have conveyed over the years. You may have forgotten exact events or emotional traumas, but you have likely memorized the self-defeating messages. We daughters carry these into our adult lives: They create unconscious emotional and behavioral patterns that cause us problems, and can be very difficult to overcome. You can silence these messages once you understand their origin and influence and work to formulate your own healthy beliefs about yourself. You can learn to supplant these negative voices and change your self-image by learning more about how your mother developed her narcissistic behavior. As we’ll discover in the next chapter, a self-absorbed mother has a vulnerable self-esteem, which causes her to project her own self-hatred onto her daughter. Maternal narcissism takes numerous forms, and we’ll explore these different types of narcissistic mothers in chapter 3.

  CHAPTER THREE

  * * *

  THE FACES OF MATERNAL NARCISSISM

  All of life, all history happens in the body. I am learning about the woman who carried me inside of hers.

  —Sidda Walker, in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood1

  Self-trust, self-love, and self-knowledge can be taught to a daughter only by a mother who possesses those qualities herself. Furthermore, to pass them on successfully, a mother needs to have created an engaged and balanced relationship with her daughter. One of the problems with narcissism is that it does not allow for balance. Daughters of narcissistic mothers live in family environments that are extreme. True to their legacy of distorted love, which has been carried over from generation to generation, most narcissistic mothers either severely over-parent (the engulfing mother) or severely under-parent (the ignoring mother). Although these two parenting styles are seemingly opposite, to a child raised with either narcissistic style, the impact of the opposite is the same. Your self-image becomes distorted and feelings of insecurity seem impossible to shake.

  The engulfing mother smothers, seemingly unaware of her daughter’s unique needs or desires. Perhaps you were raised like this. If so, it is likely that the natural talents you had, the dreams you wanted to pursue, and maybe even the relationships most important to you were rarely nurtured. Your mother constantly sent messages to you about who she needed you to be, instead of validating who you really were. Desperate to merit her love and approval, you conformed, and in the process, lost yourself.

  If you were raised by an ignoring mother, the message she gave you over and over was that you were invisible. She simply did not have enough room in her heart for you. As a result, you were dismissed and discounted. Children with severe ignoring mothers do not receive even the most basic requirements of food, shelter, clothing or protection, let alone guidance and emotional support. Lack of a consistent home environment may have made you feel insecure, unhealthy, or unsuccessful at school. Emotional and physical neglect sends you the message that you don’t matter.

  Having a narcissistic mother, whether she is engulfing or ignoring, makes individuation—a separate sense of self—difficult for a daughter to accomplish. Daughters with unmet emotional needs keep going back to their mothers, hoping to gain their love and respect at a later date. Daughters who have a full emotional “tank” have the confidence to separate in a healthy fashion, and move on into adulthood. Later, in the recovery chapter, we will address this in greater depth. For now, let’s look at the different faces of engulfing and ignoring mothers and their effects on daughters.

  The Engulfing Mother

  The engulfing mother tries to dominate and control every aspect of her daughter’s life. She makes all the decisions and pressures the daughter on what to wear, how to act, what to say, what to think, and how to feel. Her daughter has little room to grow and blossom individually or to find her own voice, becoming in many ways an extension of her mother.

  Engulfing mothers often appear to be great moms. Because they’re very involved in their daughters’ lives and may always be doing things for them and with them, others outside the family often view them as active, engaged parents. Yet, the weakened self-image and the sense of unworthiness their daughters take away from this behavior are tragic. Narcissistic mothers are unaware of the damaging, often devastating consequences of their behavior, which of course does not diminish its lasting effects.

  • Miriam was 28 years old, engaged to be married, and locked in a fierce struggle with her mother over control of her life. Miriam’s mother did not approve of her fiancé,
and was doing everything conceivable to interfere, including speaking negatively about him to several people at his place of employment. “My mother hoped the word would get back to me that my fiancé was a loser or better still, that he would give up and leave town.”

  • “Let me tell you a thing or two about love relationships,” Toby’s mother would say to her all too often. Toby, 48, describes her mother as someone who “loves men and knows how to manipulate them.” When Toby was old enough to date, her mother would coach her on how to keep a man’s interest, admonishing her daughter if she was not flirtatious enough. “She would undo the top buttons on my blouse, and show me how to act sexy.” Toby remembers her mother’s sage advice: “If you don’t sleep with them, you lose them.”

  • Sandy’s mother always wanted her daughter to be just like her. She took pride in telling people that she was trying to clone herself. When Sandy went into recovery, she felt she had to fight her entire family’s perceptions that she was a younger version of her mother. “We were connected, my mother and I, but I had to ask all my relatives to please quit putting the burdens of her sins on me.”

  Showbiz moms are a classic example of engulfing mothers, the ones who shepherd their daughters through child beauty pageants or TV shows like Showbiz Moms & Dads. The ad for this show in a popular magazine contains the line “Some parents want fame so badly” next to a picture of a mother pushing her little princess onto the stage. It makes you worry about how these experiences affect the minds of these young, manipulated children, and what kind of young women they will become.

  The musical Gypsy features the quintessential engulfing mom.2 “Sing out, Louise,” the mother says as her daughter is entertaining onstage. In the original movie version, Rosalind Russell plays Mama Rose, a flamboyant, extroverted, narcissistic mother with two daughters, Louise and June, whom she is pushing into show business. When the younger daughter, June, who Mama Rose thinks is more talented, marries and leaves home, Mama Rose, looking for another way to realize her own aspirations, focuses on the older daughter, Louise (Natalie Wood). The daughters’ responses in this production are interesting. June eventually tires of being the “cute one” and runs away, and Louise rebels by becoming the famous stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. Both daughters leave their mother with her dreams unrealized.

  Each one of us is imbued with a deep yearning to live our own life, not our mother’s. Yet the narcissistic mother puts pressure on her child to act and react to the world as she would. A child raised in this way makes decisions according to what she believes will win her mother’s love and approval. Accustomed to her mother thinking for her, the girl has difficulty later on creating an authentic, healthy adult life for herself.

  The Ignoring Mother

  Mothers who ignore or under-parent their daughters do not provide guidance, emotional support, or empathy. They consistently discount and deny your emotions. Even if, as my mother instilled in me, “I had a roof over my head, clothes to wear, food to eat, so what is the problem?” I was still in a lot of inner pain—as are other daughters with mothers who ignore them.

  • The comedy/drama Mermaids portrays an irresponsible, self-absorbed mother (Cher). In this movie, everything is about Mom and her relationships, while her daughters’ emotional worlds are empty. Some of the daughters’ lines in this movie say it all. For example, “This is our mother. Pray for us.” “Mom is many things; normal is not one of them.” And, “Mom, I’m not invisible.”3

  If a girl is fortunate, she may find another adult who can help her, recognize and validate her feelings and provide some measure of guidance. This person can be an emotional lifesaver. For instance, as Marie grew up, her mother refused to teach her about some pretty essential matters. “When I started my period at age thirteen, I couldn’t go to Mom. Whenever any sexual allusion came up, even on TV, she’d say, ‘Don’t talk to me about sex; I don’t want to discuss it.’ When I needed personal items, I had to call my sister or my teacher. My teacher was the one who explained menstruation to me.”

  In my psychotherapy practice, I’ve seen case after case of mothers and daughters whose relationship looks good on the outside, but inside the child is feeling deep pain, confusion, and distress. I always tell children that I am a “feelings” doctor, because I want to get the message to them right away that my office is a place to talk about feelings, which are so often ignored, devalued, or denied by their mothers. The children often learn more quickly than their parents how to discuss their feelings and to begin to heal.

  Ignoring behavior creates deep emotional gaps in a child’s life that can go undetected for years, but physical abuse or neglect is more blatantly visible. When narcissistic parents are unable or unwilling to meet a daughter’s most basic requirements—to keep her physically safe, healthy, and in school—it shows.

  My practice is full of abused and neglected kids. Working with these children has evolved as a specialty in my career, a way for me to give back and make a difference to suffering children. A piece of my heart needs to try to help little girls, especially those waiting to be adopted or who are living in foster homes, longing for mothers they don’t have.

  I’ve had many children ask me to take them home, such as one darling eight-year-old who said, “Dr. Karyl, do you know how to cook? How many bedrooms do you have at your house? Do you have any toys?” Then she quietly added, “If I can come home with you, I will do the dishes every day and even wash all your windows!” If my profession did not have certain ethical rules that preclude this, I would have opened an orphanage in my home by now. One of my respected colleagues, Linda Vaughan, who also worked with abused and neglected children, wrote this poem after working intensely with a foster child who had been removed from her narcissistic mother’s home:

  Dear Mommy

  I’m doing really good,

  I get all A’s in school

  And I don’t cry at bedtime anymore,

  Though my new mom said I could.

  I remember how much you hate tears,

  You slapped them out of me

  To make me strong,

  I think it worked.

  I learned to use a microscope

  And my hair grew two inches.

  It’s pretty, just like yours.

  I’m not allowed to clean the house,

  Only my own room,

  Isn’t that a funny rule?

  You say kids are so much trouble

  Getting born, they better pay it back.

  I’m not supposed to take care

  Of the other kids, only me, I sort of like it.

  I still get the hole in my stomach

  When I do something wrong,

  I have a saying on my mirror

  “Kids make mistakes, It’s OK,”

  I read it every day,

  Sometimes I even believe it.

  I wonder if you ever think of me

  Or if you’re glad the troublemaker’s gone,

  I never want to see you again.

  I love you, Mommy.4

  Sometimes these children have little to eat, live in filthy, unsanitary homes, have no medical care, or have been physically, sexually, or emotionally abused. Tragically, this sort of abuse and neglect is widespread, and although social service agencies are bad-mouthed on a daily basis, thank God they are there for these needy children.

  • Madeline, an adorable ten-year-old, largely takes care of herself at home. Although she lives in a less than ideal situation, she carries a great deal of hope in her heart. “My mom never cooks meals for us. We’ve never had one of those family meals you see on TV where the whole family is sitting around a table and eating together. I get my own meals and I am pretty good at cans of soup and mac and cheese.” One day Madeline decided to cook for her mother. She made “some pretty good” pasta and fruit cups for both of them. When little Madeline announced that dinner was ready, her mother told her that she was dieting and wasn’t hungry. “So, since I had set the table with two plates,” Madeline rela
tes with a confident tilt to her head, “first I filled my plate and ate all of that, and then I switched to her plate and filled it up and ate that too. I pretended she was there. I played both people. I even had a pretend conversation with her, saying, ‘Well, how was your day? What did you do today?’ ”

  • Marion, 70, tells a horrendous story about what happened to her sister. “My older sister disappeared when she was 16. One night my brother went to pick her up from church and she wasn’t there. For a year and a half we looked for her. Then one day, this semi-truck drove up and this big guy got out, followed by my sister and a baby. Then we learned my mom had run into him, he thought my sister was beautiful, he wanted her and asked how to get her. Mom said, ‘Give me $300 and you can take her off my hands.’ He bought her! Now my sister asks, ‘Why did Mama sell me?’ The guy was horrible to her, locked her in a closet while he was at work so she couldn’t run away. He abused her. When my dad found out, he wanted to kill the guy, and I thought he was going to kill my mom too.”

  I see an astounding number of ignoring parents in divorce cases. Since the court system operates on the basis of adversarial relationships, spouses usually end up squaring off on one side or the other. Professionals advising families during divorce proceedings generally work for either the mother or the father. In many parenting-time proceedings, the discussion focuses not on what is in the best interest of the child as the law dictates, but on what is best for the parent. It is a sad commentary on our culture that many parenting-time evaluators and judges listen more intently to what the parents want than what is truly best for the children. In Denver, there is even talk about which evaluator is “for the father” and which is “for the mother.” What about being a “child advocate”?