Will I Ever Be Good Enough?

by Karyl McBride

  This is tricky business. Parenting is tough, and of course none of us do it perfectly, but these stories show how easy it is to pass along a dysfunction when we think we are doing exactly the opposite of how we were reared.

  Modeling the Not-Good-Enough Message

  Sometimes we are able to find that middle ground and what we do with our children reflects that. If you succeeded in this, give yourself credit; you deserve lots of it. One pitfall to finding the middle ground, however, is the internal belief that we ourselves are not good enough. If you carry this unhealthy message within yourself, you are most likely modeling it for your children. You will show them inadvertently, through your behavior, that you feel unworthy, and they will grow to feel the same way about themselves. This can happen even if you don’t really believe it or ever say it to them. Remember, children learn more through what they see in us than through what we tell them. If you model in yourself a woman who does not take good care of herself or who stays in unhealthy relationships, feeling you don’t deserve better, or you do not pursue your own passions, don’t be surprised if you see the same in your children. Similarly, if you set boundaries and stand up for yourself, your children most likely will too. This is the best reason there is to embrace recovery.

  How Do You Spell “Empathy”?

  Many daughters who didn’t get empathy from their mothers do not know how to give it to their children. The ability to empathize is the most important parenting skill there is. Nothing makes you feel more real, heard, and understood than someone who empathizes with you in a time of need.

  If this skill was neither modeled nor taught well in your family of origin, you will need to work to develop it. Shay, a pensive, insightful, and highly educated woman who was raised by an ignoring narcissistic mother, has four children now and a loving husband. They were all in my office for family therapy to learn about healthy communication following a suicide in their extended family that had frightened them all. Every single family member present that day was committed, but Shay was particularly worried. Aware of her unmet childhood needs with her own mother, she didn’t have a clue how to empathize with her own children, who told her, in session, that she “sucked” at this. Shay spent many months working on developing the skill of expressing empathy.

  Kami, 45, came to therapy to increase her empathy for her seventeen-year-old daughter, who was pregnant. She realized she was having trouble being there for her child. An insightful, intelligent woman raised by an image-oriented narcissistic mother, Kami found herself overly concerned about what her friends and family would think. She was not narcissistic, was aware of her childhood issues, but still couldn’t shake some of her ingrained messages. She seemed to talk to me from two sides of her being. One side was angry, humiliated, and shamed by her daughter’s actions, and the other side was humane and loving and wanted to do right by her. She clearly did the right thing in seeking assistance in how to let her own issues rest and tune in to her daughter’s needs at the time. Today Kami is a proud grandmother, and her daughter speaks highly of her mother’s nurturing ability.

  My Kid the Honor Student

  How many of these bumper stickers have we seen? Where are the bumper stickers that say “My kid has a big heart,” “My kid is honest,” “My kid is kind”? A significant problem I see in my practice today is too many parents unable or unwilling to tune in to who their child is as a person. As a daughter of a narcissistic mother, you should beware of this major pitfall. Your child’s accomplishments are not who your child is.

  Abbie, 47, came to a therapy session worried about her son who was the quarterback on the high school football team, first chair in an honors band, an honor student, and a great-looking kid to boot. Eventually she reported that this great kid had just been arrested and was in juvenile detention for pointing a gun at another student at a lakeside party over the weekend. When she went to visit him in jail, he was crying and told her that he felt too much pressure to succeed in everything and always felt he had to be the best. He wanted to prove that he was just a normal guy who got in trouble sometimes. While this kind of getting in trouble was over the edge, Abbie learned to see past the accomplishments and into her son’s anxieties and fears.

  Dori was worried about her daughter because the fourteen-year-old had just been picked up for shoplifting: “How can this kid, who is a total star in her musical abilities, be doing such a stupid thing as shoplifting? She has a recital on Friday. How could she?”

  Obviously Dori should have been thinking more along the lines of “What is going on in my young daughter’s feelings? What does she feel she is missing? Does she not feel worthy? There has to be a reason that she is sabotaging her talent and I want to find out why.” At the time, Dori had a way to go in learning empathy.

  Those Messy Things Called Feelings

  It’s easy to understand the need for authenticity until your own child shows authentic feelings and you don’t like what she is saying or feeling. This is particularly difficult if she expresses negative feelings about you. Allowing authenticity in children will be discussed more in part 3, but here are some examples of how not allowing your child to be authentic can get you in trouble as a parent.

  Alexis, who had been taught as a child not to deal with authentic feelings, has two daughters, both of whom are now involved in drugs. She came to therapy asking for help without having ever talked to her daughters about this issue. I asked her if she had confronted the drug abuse, and she told me, “Oh, no, what would I say to them? Do I really want to know?”

  Fiona’s thirteen-year-old daughter recently informed her that she had been sexually abused. The girl had been afraid to tell her mother the real story because the perpetrator was a family member. Fiona came to therapy wanting not to believe her daughter and to shove the whole issue under the rug. I worked with Fiona so that she could listen to her little girl and get to the bottom of what had happened to her. Lack of authenticity can truly be dangerous.

  My Daughter, My Friend

  You may be thinking, “I want to have my daughter as a friend. I crave this closeness. I didn’t have this with my mother. Please don’t tell me this is wrong. What is the right way?” Even when your daughter becomes an adult, you must still be the mother. You will continue to have parenting duties and need to provide guidance, empathy, and understanding. It is not your daughter’s job to give that to you.

  Jan, a mother of three girls, brought her oldest two to therapy because they were displaying signs of anger that she didn’t understand. I asked Jan to leave the room so I could sit with the girls and chat. As soon as Jan left my office, the girls both made a disgusting gesture toward her. I knew then we were in for some kind of mother-daughter train wreck. I had expected that the girls were probably not getting the cell phones, cars, clothes or freedom they wanted, but the issue was very different. They both told me that Jan expected them to help her get over her depression, and they were totally exasperated and feeling helpless. They reported that each day when they came home from school, they sat with their mother and listened to her sadness, crying, and desperation and they were sick of it. Jan had grown up with a psychosomatic narcissistic mother, so she knew better, but she was falling into a similar pattern with her children in expecting them to take care of her emotionally. Luckily, the situation was easily turned around and Jan went back into psychotherapy. However, one can see that, even with education and awareness, adult daughters of narcissistic mothers can unwittingly fall into the legacy of narcissistic behaviors.

  Take Care of Yourself but Stay Connected to Others

  Although healthy self-care is central to the recovery of daughters of narcissistic mothers, self-care does not mean becoming self-absorbed. Taking care of yourself does not mean tuning out others’ feelings. I have seen daughters make the mistake of misinterpreting self-care to mean they should focus on themselves in unhealthy ways, even after they saw how harmful their mother’s belief was that everything was “all about Mom.”


  Marni had three children at home, but decided that instead of giving those children the time and attention they needed, her recovery mission was to take care of herself with luxurious clothing, fancy trips, and expensive jewelry. When her kids were brought to therapy for acting out and getting in trouble with the law, she was on the beach somewhere getting a nice suntan. The kids were angry and also surprised because this was not typical behavior. Again, Marni knew better and had done some of her own recovery work but had not understood this part very well. Family therapy was very effective, because as soon as she heard how her children were feeling, she set about to truly understand what she needed to do for herself and them.

  Healthy self-care means finding fulfillment so that you have energy, love, and empathy for others. Finding the middle ground means realizing that it is not an either-or situation—you are neither full of self nor drained of self.

  Part 3 will teach you how to do this. Having established an understanding of how maternal narcissism creates certain negative dynamics in the mother-daughter relationship that affect daughters’ lives as adults, we are now ready to step onto the path to recovery.

  PART THREE

  * * *

  ENDING THE LEGACY

  Specific Recovery Steps for Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers

  Now that you have an understanding of how the behavior of your mother affected you, you can begin to heal by taking the following steps to recover from the pain:

  • Accept your mother’s limitations and grieve that you did not have the mother you wanted

  • Separate psychologically from your mother, and reframe the negative messages that you absorbed from her into positive ones

  • Develop and accept your own identity, feelings, and desires

  • Deal with your mother in a different, healthy manner

  • Work to recognize your own narcissistic traits and refuse to pass them on to your children.

  The next chapters will guide you through the steps of recovering from a narcissistic mother. In part 1, you began to understand and identify the problems that a child learns to deal with when she has a narcissistic mother. Part 2 helped you see how these problems follow you into adulthood. Now, in part 3, you will see how to accept your past, allow yourself to feel grief about it, reprogram negative messages that you’ve internalized, reframe your beliefs and views, and change your life.

  CHAPTER TEN

  * * *

  FIRST STEPS

  HOW IT FEELS, NOT HOW IT LOOKS

  I wish there were a mental health diagnosis for serial grief. I am not mentally ill. Mostly just sad and grieving the vision of the mother I so desperately wanted.

  —Sonny, 39

  As a child growing up, you were likely very good at denying, numbing, or compensating for your own feelings rather than allowing yourself to feel them. You probably do this now as an adult too. Your recovery begins in this chapter. Here I will guide you to reclaim your emotions and enhance your sense of self.

  Now that you have a solid understanding of the psychological dynamics you were subject to as a daughter of a narcissistic mother and how they have adversely affected your life, it is time for you to come to terms with the past, release your unrealistic expectations of your mother, and take charge of your life to heal. Now it’s your time to make your life more peaceful and comfortable.

  You will follow the blueprint for healing in this chapter that I used for my own recovery and continue to use for my clients. It works if you follow the steps sequentially. You will feel worlds better than you ever have. However, it is important to note that you cannot completely “cure” the scars of a childhood trauma. You work with them, process them, and learn how to deal with them differently so that you feel better.

  I liken our lives to a tree. Each of us, like a tree, has roots (our upbringing); long, sturdy trunks (our development); and branches that flower and grow in our adult lives. Your trunk or development phase bears the scars, which don’t really go away; they are part of who we are. But recovery work helps us to treat any gashes, to fill them in, supply balm and seal them gently, and takes away the old and recurring pain, changing the original trauma, allowing you to grow around it and up and away from it. Please keep this in mind, so that you do not become discouraged and misled. Really, it is a relief to know that you don’t have to totally remove those scars. The things that happened to us are important to acknowledge; they play into who we are today. Yet they do not define who we are today, and by working in recovery, you refuse to allow your past to tell you who you are. You accept and face your past as part of you, and you move on.

  Our Growth and Development

  Our Roots Family of Origin and Generational Legacy

  I believe that you begin to heal when you accept the fact that your mother was narcissistic and that she hurt you. Then you grieve for the life and love you do not have. I will teach you how to allow yourself the gift of acceptance and how to use the precious time for grieving. Read on for assistance in how to do this.

  Three-Step Recovery Model

  Step 1

  • Gather Background Information

  • Identify Problem

  • Diagnose Problem

  • Understand Problem on Cognitive Level

  Step 2

  • Process the Feelings Related to Step One

  • Grieve

  • Feel

  • Reprogram Negative Messages

  Step 3

  • Reframe

  • View Differently

  • Make Decision to Change

  • Change

  The Three Steps of Recovery

  Recovery entails three steps. The first step is to understand the problem, to diagnose it, and to get the background information that defines it. This is true for any emotional or psychological issue you may deal with in your life. This is what a therapist works on with you in the beginning of a therapeutic relationship. You’ve just completed Step One—you’ve read about the problem and how it plays out in symptoms and life patterns. This is the cognitive or intellectual understanding that you will need to go on to the next steps.

  In Step Two, you process the feelings related to the identified problem. That is what this chapter is about. As a daughter of a narcissistic mother you had feelings that were not often validated or acknowledged. The earlier sections of the book helped you to identify them, and now it is time to work with those feelings.

  I am going to tell you something very important that I have learned in 28 years of being a therapist: Most people like to skip Step Two—this step. Daughters tend to like Step One and love Step Three of recovery. But, most understandably, we want to skip the most important step that makes the biggest difference, because it is painful to wade through the marshes of past trauma. It is difficult to push through the denial and let yourself feel the pain. Who wants to feel pain, right?

  • Lauren, 31, said to me in therapy, “Why does reliving all of this make me so angry? I really got the short end of the stick. Why did this happen to me? When I described the ideal mom to you, it made my heart sink. Reading my diary to you, it hurt so bad and made me so mad. Why don’t I get an apology? I don’t want to go through the recovery process. I just want to get over it!”

  • Elyse, 54, states, “As an adult, I am just learning to be in touch with my feelings. I certainly didn’t learn this from Mom. I can still picture her and how controlled she was with feelings. She would put on her sunglasses and get this stone-cold face. If I got emotional, she would say, ‘Stop it or I’ll slap you!’ ”

  Nonetheless, the second step is where you get to learn how to deal with those difficult things called feelings. It’s not fun, but it’s worth it. When Lauren, Elyse, other clients, and I allowed this grief process, we began to see how we could finally let go.

  Processing feelings is very different from just talking about them. To process means to talk about the trauma, and simultaneously feel the pain in a cacophonous, blasting, rock concert. You can tell
something in a story form without feeling it, but that is not processing. This is the only way to release trauma from your body. For example, I can tell you about going to my grandmother’s funeral and fill you in on details about her death, the service, the people, the family, the minister, the flowers, and the travel, etc., but this is talking about the funeral and her death. It is describing the events. If I were processing it, I would be telling you the same story but feeling the loss and the grief at the same time. In this very different scenario, you would see my tears and feel my pain, and so would I, as I described the situation and how it affected me. This chapter will help you, too, engage in this kind of grieving.

  When people skip Step Two of recovery, Step Three does not work. I believe that this is why many therapeutic programs are unsuccessful, because folks skip the middle, the difficult part. We have to clean out trauma before we can learn to look at our situation in a healthy and different way.

  Step Three, briefly, is about “reframing,” a therapeutic word that means looking at the problem through another set of lenses, or in a new way. This is the fun part of recovery, when you begin to see things differently and become free of the symptoms and the effects of the trauma of having had a narcissistic mother. You make decisions for yourself that are very different from when you were feeling like a victim of wrongdoing. You begin to get in touch with your real feelings, values, and belief system. You find the authentic you and allow it to function in your own way. This is freedom, and I wish this for each reader who is with me here.