The answers lie in your programming, the messages from your mother that parachuted into your being like a thousand dandelion seeds, planting in you false beliefs about yourself and your relationship with her. In a sound mother-daughter relationship, the messages you received would have been full of nurturing, building your confidence and supporting your growth and your moves toward independence.
But for the most part, that didn’t happen. Your mother was focused on her own needs far more than on yours, and she was often consumed with her attempts to deal with her own distress. We’ve seen how common it is for an unloving mother to rationalize and deny her wounding behavior and deflect the blame onto you. We’ve also seen how common it is for daughters to accept that blame and to fall into self-defeating patterns that have taken hold in their relationships with their mothers in their adult lives. That’s what happened to you. You were programmed with a flawed set of messages that predisposed you to work against your own best interests and put your mother’s priorities first.
Those messages have been delivered not just in words, but also in your mother’s behavior toward you and even in her body language: sighs, eyes rolling in disapproval, smiles when you comply, angry silences when you don’t. This constant instruction and feedback from her, so much of it devoted to keeping the balance of power in your relationship tipped in her favor, has warped and limited your basic sense of your identity, your worth, your goodness, and your place in the world. Even if you are distant from your mother today, much of your life has been shaped by the early programming you got from her. Before you can shift it, change your relationship with her, and reclaim a full and true sense of who you are and what’s possible for you, you’ll need to uncover the untruths embedded in the messages she sent you, then, step by step, begin to take that self-defeating programming apart.
That’s what we’ll begin to do in this chapter.
This work is powerful, and it’s demanding. We’ll move slowly, focusing first on how the programming process works, and then looking closely at the factor that is the easiest to access—your beliefs.
Programming 101: “You Are” Becomes “I Am”
A mother sees her toddler struggling to walk, smiles, offers a hand for support and says, “You’re amazing! Look at you, you’re walking. You’re a little gymnast already.” In that moment and thousands more like it, messages fly toward the child, who takes in everything: “Mom notices and cares about what I do. She loves me. I’m amazing. I’m walking.”
The smiles and good opinion of her all-powerful mother mean everything to the dependent daughter, who strives to do what she can to prompt more. Harshness and criticism, by contrast, can be terrifying: “If I displease Mom, I may not survive—she may leave me to fend for myself,” the child believes. But whether the messages are positive or negative, the child absorbs them and builds a core understanding of herself around them. The mother’s “you are” becomes the daughter’s “I am.”
These internalized messages help form some of our oldest and deepest beliefs: Because they’ve been part of the air we breathe for so long, we regard them as true and often behave as though they are true without ever questioning them. That’s a wonderful thing when we’ve been praised and encouraged since childhood; it allows us to emerge with beliefs that tell us “I’m strong and capable,” “I’m a good person,” “I’m resilient,” “I’m lovable.” But unloving mothers have loaded their daughters up with beliefs—deeply ingrained concepts, attitudes, expectations, and perceptions about ourselves, the people in our lives, and what’s right and wrong—that are false and highly destructive.
Many of your mother’s “you are” statements have reflected her disapproval, criticism, or helplessness: “You are so selfish.” “You are the only one who can take care of everything.” “You are upsetting me and making me feel ill.” When these messages become internalized as beliefs, they don’t just sit inert inside you. They trigger painful feelings. You fight the false beliefs that tell you what a bad, thoughtless, selfish, or incompetent person you are. You argue with them, wondering if they’re true and what it would mean if they were. You try to prove them wrong. Mostly, though, you suffer. You feel sad, angry, guilty, embarrassed, burdened, ashamed, bitter, defiant, bad, resigned—the emotional possibilities are many, and all of them hurt.
What happens to the painful feelings? They drive self-defeating behavior. If your narcissistic or controlling mother has programmed you with the false belief that you’ll never measure up to her (or anyone’s) standards, you may feel insecure, inferior, inadequate, lacking in confidence. And because of those feelings, you may well hold yourself back from success in relationships by aiming low, or shrink away from the career you want by telling yourself that since you didn’t get the first good job you applied for, you’ll stop trying. Why set yourself up for more shame or disappointment? After all, a voice in your head tells you, “I’ll never be good enough. I couldn’t possibly compete.”
Whose voice is it? Your mother’s. Whose interests does it serve? Hers. The narcissistic mother doesn’t have to tell you “Push yourself down so I’ll look better,” and the controlling mother needn’t say, “Prove me right by failing.” The programming she’s instilled does the work even when she’s not there.
When you find yourself locked in behavior that seems self-defeating, you can be sure that this cycle is at work: A false belief is creating a painful feeling, and you are choosing unhealthy behavior without realizing it to avoid or ease the pain.
Let me give you a more detailed example of how the cycle works.
1. AS A CHILD, YOU TAKE IN YOUR MOTHER’S MESSAGES.
From the time you’re little, your depressed mother tells you, “I can’t make it without you. You’re the one who’s holding the family together. You’re my little angel for doing all this.” Her only smiles come when you’ve cooked dinner for the family (at age eight) or called her boss to say she can’t come in because she’s sick when she’s holed up in her room watching TV.
2. YOU TRANSLATE THOSE EARLY MESSAGES INTO AN ARRAY OF FALSE BELIEFS.
“I’m the only one who can make my mother happy. I have to earn her love with ‘good deeds’ that make her feel better, even if that means lying for her. If she’s not happy it’s my fault. I have no right to do what I want to do, and no right to complain. My job is to take care of her.”
These beliefs, which have to do with your rights, responsibilities, and identity, as well as your mother’s, set you up for the impossible. The truth is, you aren’t responsible for your mother’s happiness, and you can’t fix her; only she can do that. You will always fail. Real love isn’t something a child has to “buy” with good deeds. You’re entitled to a childhood, and a life of your own, and it’s unreasonable to think that you can give them up, much less do it without complaint. Your real job as a person is to individuate and build a life of your own, and your mother’s role is to help you. But if your beliefs echo your mother’s messages, not any sort of rational truth, throughout your life they color your feelings and behavior.
3. YOUR FALSE BELIEFS LEAD TO PAINFUL FEELINGS.
Confronted with your inevitable failure to fix your mother, you may feel inadequate, guilty, flawed, bad, and ashamed, both in childhood and as an adult. You were supposed to be able to do it, according to your programming. You may also feel burdened, resentful, ashamed of your resentment, and terribly sad about what you’ve missed while trying to hold things together for your family.
4. TO EASE THOSE PAINFUL FEELINGS, YOU TURN TO SELF-DEFEATING BEHAVIOR.
Trying to assuage that array of painful feelings can take you in many directions. As a child, it’s likely that you felt driven to devote huge amounts of your time trying again and again to repair the many places that felt broken in your mother’s life. That would prove you were a good daughter, worthy of your mother’s love. You may also have mastered the art of pretending things are fine when you’re struggling, and not asking for help when you need it because y
ou believe it would reveal your supposed weaknesses, flaws, or inadequacies.
It’s highly likely that as an adult, you will still be hyperaware of your mother’s needs and jump to meet them, even if you don’t want to—even when you know intellectually that it’s not necessary or even helpful for you to try. Because the fastest, most familiar way to prove to yourself, your mother, and the world that you’re competent, good, and not deeply flawed is to cater to her needs.
Human behavior is complex, and I don’t want to suggest that every daughter of a depressed mother experiences this precise chain of false beliefs, painful feelings, and behavior that’s not in her interests. Every mother is different, and so is every daughter. But I can say with certainty that if you trace your self-defeating behavior back to its origins, you’ll find layers of programming in the form of negative beliefs and the feeings they create.
The Power of Beliefs and Feelings We Can’t See
Once you understand the connection between beliefs, feelings, and behavior, it would seem fairly simple to interrupt the cycle. But even though challenging false beliefs is, indeed, a pivotal step toward making significant changes in the way you respond to your mother’s needs and expectations, the actual doing is made difficult by a couple of factors. First, the nature of beliefs is that we assume they are true: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and my job as a daughter is to make my mother happy, regardless of my preferences. Many of our false beliefs have been our “truths” for so long that we don’t think to question them. They become our reality, and we don’t see them as filters that color our perceptions.
Quite often, we can’t even identify the beliefs that give us the most trouble, nor the full range of painful feelings that are propelling our behavior. They’re well hidden in our unconscious, the mind’s vast storehouse of urges, emotions, thoughts, drives, fears, memories, and experiences that exist, and influence us, without our awareness. Generally, the material in the unconscious is so uncomfortable for us that it has been pushed out of sight to protect us from our deepest shames, insecurities, and fears about ourselves.
As we pull back some of the curtains that hide so much of our inner world, we begin to see just how much power our unconscious mind has. Even when a daughter consciously tries to set her own agendas and navigate the present, her unconscious is often working frantically to salve the wounds of the past. Again and again, it tries to devise ways to “make Mother love me,” not only by playing out her programming but also by seeking situations in which it can set right childhood failures by replaying similar scenarios in search of a better ending.
In that way, unconscious programming often picks out our husbands, determines how much success we’re allowed to have, and shapes the quality of our relationships and emotional well-being.
• You may sabotage yourself in love:
CONSCIOUS BELIEF: I’d love to have a wonderful partner.
UNCONSCIOUS BELIEFS AND FEELINGS: I’m not entitled to love or attention. I can’t compete. Who would want me? I can’t bring home a smart, successful, loving guy—Mom will flirt with him, or rip him to shreds. I can’t be happier than she is. I don’t deserve that.
SELF-DEFEATING ACTIONS: You mistrust overtures from interested people, choose incompatible or inappropriate partners. You become a rescuer and a caretaker for people who won’t take responsibility for themselves. You rule out the best candidates, reasoning, “I’m a realist. I’m not going to set myself up for disappointment.”
• You may sabotage yourself at work:
CONSCIOUS BELIEF: I really want to be successful.
UNCONSCIOUS BELIEFS AND FEELINGS: I’m not allowed to outshine my mother. I’ll never amount to anything. I will find ways to sabotage myself so I can fulfill my mother’s negative expectations of me. She knows who I really am. I’ll never really measure up. I’m inadequate.
SELF-DEFEATING ACTIONS: You show up late, leave part of your work undone, pick fights with your coworkers, procrastinate, miss important deadlines, don’t follow through on leads and ideas.
• You may sabotage your deepest desires:
CONSCIOUS BELIEF: I love making other people happy. I put them first because I love the feeling of being a giving, caring person. We all have to look out for one another.
UNCONSCIOUS BELIEFS AND FEELINGS: If I give up what I want, and do things for other people, I’ll win their love and approval. If I can get enough love, approval, and admiration, it will make up for how bad I feel about myself.
SELF-DEFEATING ACTIONS: You paste on a smile and stuff your resentment at being taken for granted. You say “I don’t know” or “I don’t care” when asked your preferences. You avoid conflict at all costs. You forget you have dreams of your own.
Clearly, if the status quo is going to change, it’s vital to bring your unconscious programming to light.
What Do You Really Believe?
To uncover the messages you heard from your mother, which you unknowingly adopted as your truths, we’ll have to work backward from what we can see. So let’s take a look at some of the more typical messages you may have heard from your mother or intuited from her behavior toward you. Remember that your mother may not have put all these messages into words. She may simply have behaved in a way that let you know when she was upset with you, and she may continue that behavior today. For instance, she may pout or shoot you an angry look anytime you displease her. Such nonverbal messages have all the power of verbal ones, so as you go through the lists below, think about your mother’s manner as well, and the way it reinforces her words.
Put a check next to the items that resonate for you, and feel free to add any that aren’t listed. If you replay in your mind the expressions, criticisms, demands, and scenarios that commonly unfold as your mother gets her way, you should be able to fill in any gaps.
False messages that demean you:
• You are so selfish.
• You are so ungrateful.
• There’s something wrong with you.
• You can’t do anything right.
• You don’t know how to be loving.
• You only think about yourself.
• You are such a disappointment to me.
• You’ll never amount to anything.
• You’re the reason I have so many problems.
• You’ll never find a man.
• You’ll never be as attractive, smart, accomplished, or desirable as I am.
• You have terrible judgment.
• No one cares what you think.
• You’re nothing but a burden.
• You’re more trouble than you’re worth.
• You’re the cause of all the trouble/abuse/shame in the family.
• If you were a better person, the abuse/trouble/shame never would have happened.
These are the sorts of words that often come from narcissistic, competitive, controlling, or abusive mothers. Statements like this tear you down, making your mother feel all-powerful while absolving her of any responsibility for her life and her discontents. If a pang of familiarity hits you in the stomach or you hear your mother’s voice in your head when you read a particular item, it’s likely that it’s circulating inside you like an indictment. Recognizing these messages is an important first step toward taking their power away.
False messages that unfairly burden you:
• You are my whole life.
• You are the best part of me.
• I don’t need anybody except you.
• You’re the only one who cares about me.
• You’re the only one who can keep the family together.
• We’re so close we have to share everything; no secrets.
• You’re my best friend.
• You’ll always be my little girl.
• You’re the only one I can count on.
• I need you so much—I couldn’t make it without you.
• I love you so much more than I care about your father.
• You have to help me figure out what to do with the rest of my life.
This second group of messages is different but no less destructive. These are the messages that place the burden for your mother’s and the rest of the family’s well-being squarely on your shoulders.
They can seem seductive on the surface, but they have a desperation and a smothering quality that’s palpable. They often emanate from overly enmeshed mothers and mothers who, through their inadequacies, put you into a role reversal with them.
False messages from your mother about your role and what you owe her:
• It’s your responsibility to make me happy.
• My feelings are more important than yours.
• It’s your job to earn my love.
• It’s your job to take care of me.
• It’s your job to obey me.
• It’s your job to respect me, and that means doing things my way.
• Honor thy mother means you should never get upset with me.
• You have no right to challenge me or say anything bad about me—after all, I gave you life.
• You have no right to disagree.
• It’s your job to stay silent if I betray you.
• It’s your job to keep peace in the family by not rocking the boat or resisting what I want.
• It’s your job to protect the family secrets.
As well as teaching you who you are as a person, your mother also taught you about your role as a daughter, letting you know what she expected and defining who you were supposed to be in terms of her needs. It wasn’t in your mother’s interests to teach you that as you matured, you were supposed to take charge of your own life. Her programming emphasized your duty to her and usually gave scant recognition to your duty to yourself.
The templates for large portions of our lives come from the beliefs instilled by the messages on these lists. They shape what is permissible, how much you are allowed to have, and which choices you’ll punish yourself for making. As you look through the items you’ve checked and added, you’re seeing reflected back to you a picture of what you believe about yourself.
Mothers Who Can't Love: A Healing Guide for Daughters Page 13