Will I Ever Be Good Enough?: Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers Author: Karyl McBride | Language: English | ISBN:
B001AO0GD6 | Format: PDF
Will I Ever Be Good Enough?: Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers Description
The first book specifically for daughters suffering from the emotional abuse of selfish, self-involved mothers,
Will I Ever Be Good Enough? provides the expert assistance you need in order to overcome this debilitating history and reclaim your life for yourself. Drawing on over two decades of experience as a therapist specializing in women's psychology and health, psychotherapist Dr. Karyl McBride helpsyou recognize the widespread effects of this maternal emotional abuse and guides you as you create an individualized program for self-protection, resolution, and complete recovery.
An estimated 1.5 million American women have narcissistic personality disorder, which makes them so insecure and overbearing, insensitive and domineering that they can psychologically damage their daughters for life. Daughters of narcissistic mothers learn that maternal love is not unconditional, and that it is given only when they behave in accordance with their mothers' often unreasonable expectations and whims. As adults, these daughters consequently have difficulty overcoming their insecurities and feelings of inadequacy, disappointment, sadness, and emotional emptiness. They may also have a terrible fear of abandonment that leads them to form unhealthy love relationships, as well as a tendency to perfectionism and unrelenting self-criticism, or to self-sabotage and frustration.
Herself the recovering daughter of a narcissistic mother, Dr. McBride includes her personal struggle, which adds a profound level of authority to her work, along with the perspectives of the hundreds of suffering daughters she's interviewed over the years. Their stories of how maternal abuse has manifested in their lives -- as well as how they have successfully overcome its effects -- show you that you're not alone and that you can take back your life and have the control
you want.
Dr. McBride's step-by-step program will enable you to:
(1) Recognize your own experience with maternal narcissism and its effects on all aspects of your life
(2) Discover how you have internalized verbal and nonverbal messages from your mother and how these have translated into a strong desire to overachieve or a tendency to self-sabotage
(3) Construct a step-by-step program to reclaim your life and enhance your sense of self, a process that includes creating a psychological separation from your mother and breaking the legacy of abuse. You will also learn how not to repeat your mother's mistakes with your own daughter.
Warm and sympathetic, filled with the examples of women who have established healthy boundaries with their hurtful mothers,
Will I Ever Be Good Enough? encourages and inspires you as it aids your recovery.
- File Size: 418 KB
- Print Length: 273 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1416551328
- Publisher: Atria Books; Reprint edition (September 23, 2008)
- Sold by: Simon and Schuster Digital Sales Inc
- Language: English
- ASIN: B001AO0GD6
- Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,309 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #15
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- #15
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Relationships > Mate Seeking - #17
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Self-Help > Self-Esteem - #24
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Relationships > Interpersonal Relations
Finally a book about narcissistic mothers that describes the subtle nature of emotional neglect and abuse and kills the myth that all mothers are benevolent! It's hard to heal the narcissitic wound when it is a result of emotional neglect and put downs and there is no physical bruise or easy explanation like "my mother is an alcoholic". I've been in therapy for approx. 18 years and still struggle with a lifetime of never being good enough and still being placed in competition with my mother by her (even though she is 80). I was glad to hear that it's okay to have little or no contact with a narcissitic mother, since I've struggled with the guilt about having a mother like her and feel that her distancing herself from me is my fault and I am responsible for the relationship and for fixing it.
One section in the book that I did not agree with was the author's comments that the daughter should not show any anger or frustration toward the narcissitic mother. One important aspect of my healing was to stand up to my mother and demonstrate my separateness and that I too am accomplished. (I had never rebelled as a teenager, since it was essentially forbidden with the unspoken threat love would be withheld.) Even though this turned out to be a threat to her it was important for me to see that I have my own sense of power apart from her. I've also tried to reach out in ways trying to build bridges that would put as on equal footing. This was to no avail but these steps have been important in my trying to build the communication with her and determine I'd done everything in my power to try and make a relationship work.
My sister is a psychologist and recommended this book to me. Despite its title, believe me, this book is for any child raised by a narcissistic mother. I have read other books about narcissistic personality disorder and because of my sister am very familiar with the DSM and in particular Axis II, cluster B personality disorders - but the beauty of this book is that it really centers on the legacy effect of the disorder rather than being just another descriptive analysis of the disorder. It explains and demonstrates through actual patient testimonials the negative effects of being raised by a narcissistic mother, then goes on to a recovery process.
If you're reading this you probably know a little bit about this disorder. People with the disorder are extremely self-centered and lack what is perhaps the most important quality of a parent - the ability to be empathic. As a child of a mother who has Narcissistic Personality Disorder you are constantly being given the message that your value is what you do, not who you are. Your only value is your accomplishments that reflect well on the narcissistic parent. Ultimately this message becomes hard-wired in your formative years; a message that you will never be good enough. The book identifies the two most common responses of children - either they become tireless over-achievers who frequently forget to take care of themselves mentally or they give up completely in a "what's the point" fashion. In either route the child caries with them deep dysfunctional scars (narcissistic injury) into adulthood that impair them in many ways.
For many it will reveal the whys behind so many familiar feelings and behaviors. When I read books of this type I underline as I go.
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