This book is more suited to those with low-level narcissistic mothers, those passive-aggressive mothers. For those daughters whose mothers are more severe, this book is underwhelming.

If you want to help someone else to understand what it is like to be raised by a narcissistic parent, this book will help. It is well-written and helps to explain how the children of narcissistic moms feel. This book is a good place to start, although I did feel that it often reinforced the misconception that managing a narcissistic mother was the responsibility of the daughter in this mother-daughter relationship. It is not. You might develop people-pleasing tendencies from constantly striving to meet the needs of your mother with narcissistic traits as a child. I have always felt that she despised me. This has had a devastating effect on me and my life. I have hated myself for 50 years. I have two daughters of my own and have struggled to be a good parent. My adult relationships have been very difficult too. There are a lot of reflection and journal opportunities, a bit too many, depending what you’re looking to gain from this book. Some reflection while visiting my childhood home gave me a few 💡 moments of ‘innocuous’ PTSD of why I do and react certain ways-eggshell mothering and the narc’s over concern of appearances in many family situations, ‘what will people think!’Our childhood impacts our overall health, especially if we had adverse experiences that went unhealed.

Renowned spiritual teacher and Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron, has authored numerous self-help books. In this book, she presents a series of talks she gave between 1987 and 1994. These talks discuss how you can use your painful past experiences and difficult emotions to help cultivate wisdom, compassion, and courage. The only helpful things I found were the journalling aspect, and even so much of that asks the same questions with minute differences, and also that it validates your experience and reminds you that you are not alone. The most unfortunate thing is that more therapists don’t practice this type of healing, or even help you recognize the damage your narcissistic mother did to you. Discover how you have internalized verbal and nonverbal messages from your mother and how these have translated into overachievement or self-sabotage While maintaining a healthy relationship with a narcissistic mother is not easy, it is possible. Here are a few suggestions that may help to guide the relationship towards shared peace:It’s likely that you’ll try to beat your mother by joining her — ensuring that you’re the smartest person in the room so that she’ll never be able to make you feel worthless ever again,” says Maurya. Experiencing negative health effects Everyone handles trauma — and healing from it — differently. If you need support while processing these childhood wounds at any point in your journey, consider asking for help. Similar to the effects of conditional love, “when your parent only loves you under a certain set of paradigms and loves big, it’s easy to think that you have to obey certain rules, even if it sacrifices your own needs,” explains Lis. Which then brings me to - how do you move on, embody that better self you uncover from these exercises? Because there is no real way forward explained or even mentioned in this. What do we actually do about our mothers? Set boundaries (as there's a chapter on that) - but how? Don't you think we know this - that if we could do this, we'd already have done it?

Imagine a person who has an ailment and has gone to the doctor or multiple doctors for years to get help and can never get the right diagnosis or treatment. They continue to live with the ailment for years feeling like there is no hope, no resolution and at times they are either a bit crazy or selfish for wanting to feel better, yet never quite giving up on finding an answer. Then one day they go to a doctor who understands the problem, diagnoses the problem and tells that person there is a solution. There is an actual name for it and a reason for why they have felt this way. After all the years of dealing with it, they now realize that there truly is a cure for the ailment and there is hope, understanding and relief. That is how I would describe my experience with you, Dr. McBride.” When] I discovered Dr. McBride’s book, Will I Ever Be Good Enough? and began recommending it to my clients; the changes I saw in their recovery were amazing. It was as if a 100 watt shining light bulb had been lit in a very dark room. Beginning with Step One: “Acceptance and Grief” to Step Five: “Ending the Narcissistic Legacy,” I now had practical and insightful exercises to teach my clients how to set boundaries with a narcissistic mother, how to create healthy separation and individuation from mother, how to grieve and accept what they could not change, and how to reach inner peace through the forgiveness process. Because of the results I saw in my clients from reading Dr. McBride’s book, I decided to complete her training, Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers, which expanded my knowledge in this field as well as providing clients with resources in the form of homework assignments to implement throughout their recovery journey. It is soul-destroying to be the adult daughter of a mother who is narcissistic. No one understands why you avoid Mother’s Day; why you cry the day away on your birthday; why you find it unfathomable when you hear someone mention that their mother is their best friend. And if you ever get the courage to tell someone that you hate your mother, that you have zero feelings towards them, that they are your biological mother only, forget about their understanding. They think you are selfish and can’t understand how you could say such things. I think this book is great for someone initially discovering there’s a problem. It really gives great descriptions and lists of what you may be experiencing. It also gives some good coping/breathing strategies. Some I already knew of, but some that I’ve since tried and found helpful. There’s also true stories of other women and broke them apart to have better understanding.

Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers

No matter how you feel today as a result of your relationship with your mother, know that your experience is valid. And it’s possible to heal and recover from the long-term impacts of having a mother with narcissistic tendencies. Learn about narcissism The Covert Passive-Aggressive Narcissist: Recognizing the Traits and Finding Healing After Hidden Emotional and Psychological Abuse by Debbie Mirza The characteristics and effects of narcissistic parents are delved into in this book. If you grew up with a narcissistic mother, you will find a lot to relate to. You also better understand how to deal with narcissistic parents.