The Serenity Prayer
God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.
to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.
Source: “Serenity Prayer,” Wikipedia, last modified December 8, 2018, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer.
foreword
The following texts are excerpts from various readings on the subject of alcoholism, abuse and recovery. Each person will follow his or her own path of recovery. Don't be afraid to chart out your own course. Take what works for you, and leave the rest. Seek out the support you need, and dedicate yourself to becoming the best, healthiest person you can be -- it is a part of your life's purpose. The past is behind you. The future is ahead of you. All you have now is the present. Be present. Breathe. Be aware. Slow down -- stop if you have to -- and let the bloom of the present moment unfold for you. Good luck on your journey.
- the editor
14 May 2019
14 May 2019
Breaking the Cycle
Powerlessness, unmanageability, surrender and letting go. Step One requires that we admit our family is dysfunctional and the dysfunction affects our thinking and behavior as adults. We must admit that we are powerless over the effects of growing up in a dysfunctional home. Our lives are unmanageable regardless of appearances of self-sufficiency. Social standing or compulsive self-reliance does not equal recovery. We must realize that will power or self-determination is no match for the effects of growing up in a sick family. We cannot figure it out on our own. We need help. We must shatter the illusion that we can reason out a painless solution. …
Separating from our families means setting healthy boundaries and removing ourselves from abusive situations and family crises, which are common in dysfunctional homes. …. We cannot grow and find our true inner selves as long as we engage in family dysfunction that is draining and unhealthy.
Separating from our dysfunctional family is a healthy act of defiance. By doing so, we are challenging the authority of the family lie. We are making a statement that we will no longer be loyal to denial and dysfunctional family roles. This can seem frightening, but we have the support of our ACA group.
Many adult children separate from their families with love not abandonment. They need time away to focus on themselves and disconnect from the gravitational pull of a dysfunctional home. At an appropriate time, we review the relationship we want to have with our families. We will choose to avoid some family members because they are draining or abusive. Other relatives will accept us and encourage us on our new path even though they may not understand or be willing to walk this way with us. ACA can improve our relationship with our families with the knowledge that we do not have to participate in their dysfunction. We are free to live our own lives.
… Surrender means we become willing to do whatever it takes to recover and find peace and serenity in our lives. We admit complete defeat and give up notions that we can “fix” or control someone else. We become willing to attend meetings, work the Twelve Steps, and break through the denial of family dysfunction. Amazingly, an estimated 50 percent of adult children of alcoholics deny or cannot recognize alcoholism among their families. By growing up in a dysfunctional home we become desensitized to the effects of alcoholism, abusive behavior, and lack of trust.
Recovery from the effects of an alcoholic and dysfunctional upbringing is a process, not an event. We need to be patient with ourselves. We need to be honest about our own behavior and the thinking we developed while growing up in our family of origin. If you find yourself in an ACA meeting, it probably means you are here for a reason. You probably are not the only person in your family experiencing difficulties in relationships, on the job, or in other areas of your life. Your family is not the only family that struggles with denial and silently broken hearts. We have found that family dysfunction is a disease that affects every member of the family. In the individual, it affects the body, mind, and spirit. The disease of family dysfunction is pervasive and resilient. The disease is progressive. Our relationships become more violent, controlling, or isolating, depending on which path we take. Our “addictiveness” to work, sex, spending, eating, not eating, drugs, and gambling progresses as well, depending on our path.
Moreover, the disease is generational, which means the traits and thoughts you have at this moment have been passed down from generations hence.
… Do not go it alone. Our experience shows that you cannot recover in isolation.
Separating from our families means setting healthy boundaries and removing ourselves from abusive situations and family crises, which are common in dysfunctional homes. …. We cannot grow and find our true inner selves as long as we engage in family dysfunction that is draining and unhealthy.
Separating from our dysfunctional family is a healthy act of defiance. By doing so, we are challenging the authority of the family lie. We are making a statement that we will no longer be loyal to denial and dysfunctional family roles. This can seem frightening, but we have the support of our ACA group.
Many adult children separate from their families with love not abandonment. They need time away to focus on themselves and disconnect from the gravitational pull of a dysfunctional home. At an appropriate time, we review the relationship we want to have with our families. We will choose to avoid some family members because they are draining or abusive. Other relatives will accept us and encourage us on our new path even though they may not understand or be willing to walk this way with us. ACA can improve our relationship with our families with the knowledge that we do not have to participate in their dysfunction. We are free to live our own lives.
… Surrender means we become willing to do whatever it takes to recover and find peace and serenity in our lives. We admit complete defeat and give up notions that we can “fix” or control someone else. We become willing to attend meetings, work the Twelve Steps, and break through the denial of family dysfunction. Amazingly, an estimated 50 percent of adult children of alcoholics deny or cannot recognize alcoholism among their families. By growing up in a dysfunctional home we become desensitized to the effects of alcoholism, abusive behavior, and lack of trust.
Recovery from the effects of an alcoholic and dysfunctional upbringing is a process, not an event. We need to be patient with ourselves. We need to be honest about our own behavior and the thinking we developed while growing up in our family of origin. If you find yourself in an ACA meeting, it probably means you are here for a reason. You probably are not the only person in your family experiencing difficulties in relationships, on the job, or in other areas of your life. Your family is not the only family that struggles with denial and silently broken hearts. We have found that family dysfunction is a disease that affects every member of the family. In the individual, it affects the body, mind, and spirit. The disease of family dysfunction is pervasive and resilient. The disease is progressive. Our relationships become more violent, controlling, or isolating, depending on which path we take. Our “addictiveness” to work, sex, spending, eating, not eating, drugs, and gambling progresses as well, depending on our path.
Moreover, the disease is generational, which means the traits and thoughts you have at this moment have been passed down from generations hence.
… Do not go it alone. Our experience shows that you cannot recover in isolation.
Source: Adult Children of Alcoholics (USA: Adult Children of Alcoholics / Dysfunctional Families World Service Organization, 2006), 122-125.
Verbal & Emotional Abuse
Verbal abuse is a kind of battering which doesn’t leave evidence comparable to the bruises of physical battering. It can be just as painful, and recovery can take much longer. The victim of abuse lives in a gradually more confusing realm. … Subtle diminishing or angry outbursts, cool indifference or one-upmanship, witty sarcasm or silent withholding, manipulative coercion or unreasonable demands are common occurrences. They are, however, cloaked in a “what’s wrong with you, making a big thing of nothing” attitude, and many, many other forms of denial. Often for the verbally abused ... there is no other witness to [the victim’s] reality, and no one who can understand [the victim’s] experience. Friends and family may see the abuser as a really nice [person] and certainly he or she sees [himself / herself] as one. …
If you have been verbally abused, you have been told in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that your perception of reality is wrong and that your feelings are wrong. …
Significant facts which add perspective ...
1. Generally, in a verbally abusive relationship the abuser denies the abuse.
2. Verbal abuse most often takes place behind closed doors.
3. Physical abuse is always preceded by verbal abuse.
If you have been verbally abused, you have been told in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that your perception of reality is wrong and that your feelings are wrong. …
Significant facts which add perspective ...
1. Generally, in a verbally abusive relationship the abuser denies the abuse.
2. Verbal abuse most often takes place behind closed doors.
3. Physical abuse is always preceded by verbal abuse.
Source: Patricia Evans, The Verbally Abusive Relationship (Avon, MA: Adams Media, 1996), 17 - 19.
There are two kinds of power. One kills the spirit. The other nourishes the spirit. The first is Power Over. The other is Personal Power.
Power Over shows up as control and dominance. Personal Power shows up as mutuality and co-creation. Mutuality is a way of being with another person which promotes the growth and well-being of one’s self and the other person by means of clear communication and empathetic understanding. Co-creation is a consciously shared participation in life which helps one reach one’s goals. …
Someone who believes in Power Over expect to get what he or she wants through the use of Power Over another. …
[I]n the context of a [verbally abusive] relationship … we often find two people living and perceiving through the two different models; one is living by Power Over, the other in Personal Power. … The verbal abuser and the partner seemed to be living in two different realities. The abuser’s orientation was toward control and dominance. The partner’s orientation was toward mutuality and co-creation.
Source: Patricia Evans, The Verbally Abusive Relationship (Avon, MA: Adams Media, 1996), 29-31.
When the partners [and victims] of verbal abusers recognize the abuse and take the necessary steps to ensure that they are no longer subject to it, they are already in the process of recovery. Recovery is a process of healing and reorientation that does not follow a fixed schedule and takes different amounts of time for different people.
Source: Patricia Evans, The Verbally Abusive Relationship (Avon, MA: Adams Media, 1996), 153.
What is Co-Dependency? / Co-Dependency Defined
Alcoholism in the family helped create codependency, but many other circumstances seemed to produce it also. One fairly common denominator was having a relationship, personally or professionally, with troubled, needy, or dependent people. But a second, more common denominator seemed to be the unwritten, silent rules that usually develop in the immediate family and set the pace for relationships. These rules prohibit discussion about problems; open expression of feelings; direct, honest communication; realistic expectations, such as being human, vulnerable or imperfect; selfishness; trust in other people and one’s self; playing and having fun; and rocking the delicately balanced family canoe through growth or change--however healthy and beneficial that movement might be. These rules are common to alcoholic family systems but can emerge in other families too.
Source: Melody Beattie, Codependent No More (Center City, MN: Hazelden Publishing, 1992), 33.
Abused Daughters
All alcoholic families are abusive because alcoholism is in and of itself an abuse of other people. In addition to the abuse inherent in alcoholism, however, many adult daughters experienced other forms of child abuse, such as physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect and emotional abuse. Those daughters who witnessed spousal abuse were also abused, because to hurt someone a child loves is to hurt the child.
A comparison of adult daughters of alcoholics to women who were raised in nonalcoholic families shows that adult daughters were three times more likely to have been victims of physical abuse, four times more likely to have been sexually abused, twice as likely to have experienced emotional abuse, four times more likely to have been neglected and six times more likely to have witnessed spouse abuse. Although many forms of abuse can occur in an alcoholic family, the discussion here focuses on the various forms of child abuse that affected many adult daughters.
Does alcoholism cause child abuse? Statistics vary greatly depending on the source. However, alcoholism and child abuse occur together disproportionately. Additionally, the alcoholic is not necessarily the family member who commits the abuse. Sometimes the nonalcoholic spouse abuses a child out of frustration and tension. Either way, a lot of adult daughters were raised in and face overcoming the double jeopardy of alcoholism and child abuse. According to the Children of Alcoholics Foundation (1995), children who are at double jeopardy of both alcoholism and abuse were more likely to have intensified problems such as:
• Emotional and psychiatric problems -- anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and feelings of insecurity and dependence.
• Physical problems -- obvious physical injuries as well assorted health problems resulting from neglect
• Behavioral problems -- running away, teen pregnancy, school problems and aggression
For many daughters victimized by abuse, although the abuse might have ended in childhood, the emotional trauma continues into adulthood. Abused daughters shared that they felt as if they were still at risk for many unwanted emotions and behaviors because of the abuse.
A comparison of adult daughters of alcoholics to women who were raised in nonalcoholic families shows that adult daughters were three times more likely to have been victims of physical abuse, four times more likely to have been sexually abused, twice as likely to have experienced emotional abuse, four times more likely to have been neglected and six times more likely to have witnessed spouse abuse. Although many forms of abuse can occur in an alcoholic family, the discussion here focuses on the various forms of child abuse that affected many adult daughters.
Does alcoholism cause child abuse? Statistics vary greatly depending on the source. However, alcoholism and child abuse occur together disproportionately. Additionally, the alcoholic is not necessarily the family member who commits the abuse. Sometimes the nonalcoholic spouse abuses a child out of frustration and tension. Either way, a lot of adult daughters were raised in and face overcoming the double jeopardy of alcoholism and child abuse. According to the Children of Alcoholics Foundation (1995), children who are at double jeopardy of both alcoholism and abuse were more likely to have intensified problems such as:
• Emotional and psychiatric problems -- anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and feelings of insecurity and dependence.
• Physical problems -- obvious physical injuries as well assorted health problems resulting from neglect
• Behavioral problems -- running away, teen pregnancy, school problems and aggression
For many daughters victimized by abuse, although the abuse might have ended in childhood, the emotional trauma continues into adulthood. Abused daughters shared that they felt as if they were still at risk for many unwanted emotions and behaviors because of the abuse.
Source: Robert J. Ackerman, Ph.D., Perfect Daughters: Adult Daughters of Alcoholics (Revised Edition) (Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, 2002), 142-145.
Abused Daughters - Relationships
Are you in a relationship with a "therapy project" or did you marry one? Are you fighting for control of your relationship, or are you fighting to emerge from under someone else's control of you? Do you feel that something is missing in your relationship, but you are not sure what? On the other hand, are you in a relatively healthy relationship, but you keep waiting for it to fail or to be abandoned? Do you believe that you deserve a healthy relationship, or do you feel that you are in the relationship that you deserve? If you question your relationships and feel uncertain about them, you are like many adult daughters who stated that one of the major problems today was their relationship. In fact, relationship problems were the most frequently cited concerns for adult daughters.
… No matter what your expectations, one certainty is that no relationship can make up for a lost childhood. No relationship can undo the past. We cannot put those expectations on our current relationships. If you do, you will burden your relationship with unrealistic expectations. Many adult children talk about wanting to take care of the "inner child," which is that part of us that we often deny or that were not able to experience joyfully as we were growing up. However, we must remember that this inner child is our inner child. Your relationship person is not responsible for treating your inner child. You are the best person to take care of your inner needs about your childhood and development. If you find someone who takes care of your inner child, you may find it initially comforting, but as you begin to grow, you will find such treatment confining and not how you want to be treated. Wanting someone to take care of the child part of you will make it very difficult for that same person to treat you as an adult.
...What is your definition of a healthy relationship? How close are your actual relationships to your definition? Do your expectations match your definition? Again, great differences can occur. You may have a good idea about a healthy relationship, but that idea does not guarantee that you will find one. More appropriately, recognizing a healthy relationship and being able to be healthy in a relationship can be two different things.
If you were writing a list of characteristics that define a healthy relationship, what would you include? Would your list include any of the following healthy relationship characteristics?
• You feel that you are respected as a person.
• Your physical and emotional needs are met.
• You like the other person, and you feel liked by them.
• You are appreciated and not taken for granted.
• You are not afraid to be yourself.
• You can communicate effectively with your partner.
• You can affirm and support one another.
• Trust, trust, trust is everywhere.
• There is a sense of humor and play.
• Responsibilities are shared.
• Your privacy is respected.
• You are not constantly fighting for control.
• You or your partner admit and seek help for your problems.
• You want to spend time together.
• Love is a verb, not a noun.
• You are growing, and the relationship is growing.
• You feel good about yourself.
... Believing that you desperately need a relationship also puts you at a high risk for relationship problems. You will usually settle for less and be attracted to people who will use you, and your fear of abandonment will not only be obvious, but will leave you open for manipulation. When we are desperate for a relationship, our self-esteem is low and we want guarantees in our lives. Ironically, at these times we are most likely to enter into relationships with the least healthy people. Eventually in these types of relationships, your intense needs will betray you. They can become overwhelming to you and at the same time overwhelm the person in your relationship. Typically, the response is for the other person to pull back. Your response is to try harder and harder. Desperately wanting a relationship and having intense needs put you at a disadvantage going into your relationship, thus increasing the probability of being used and leaving you vulnerable to problems.
… No matter what your expectations, one certainty is that no relationship can make up for a lost childhood. No relationship can undo the past. We cannot put those expectations on our current relationships. If you do, you will burden your relationship with unrealistic expectations. Many adult children talk about wanting to take care of the "inner child," which is that part of us that we often deny or that were not able to experience joyfully as we were growing up. However, we must remember that this inner child is our inner child. Your relationship person is not responsible for treating your inner child. You are the best person to take care of your inner needs about your childhood and development. If you find someone who takes care of your inner child, you may find it initially comforting, but as you begin to grow, you will find such treatment confining and not how you want to be treated. Wanting someone to take care of the child part of you will make it very difficult for that same person to treat you as an adult.
...What is your definition of a healthy relationship? How close are your actual relationships to your definition? Do your expectations match your definition? Again, great differences can occur. You may have a good idea about a healthy relationship, but that idea does not guarantee that you will find one. More appropriately, recognizing a healthy relationship and being able to be healthy in a relationship can be two different things.
If you were writing a list of characteristics that define a healthy relationship, what would you include? Would your list include any of the following healthy relationship characteristics?
• You feel that you are respected as a person.
• Your physical and emotional needs are met.
• You like the other person, and you feel liked by them.
• You are appreciated and not taken for granted.
• You are not afraid to be yourself.
• You can communicate effectively with your partner.
• You can affirm and support one another.
• Trust, trust, trust is everywhere.
• There is a sense of humor and play.
• Responsibilities are shared.
• Your privacy is respected.
• You are not constantly fighting for control.
• You or your partner admit and seek help for your problems.
• You want to spend time together.
• Love is a verb, not a noun.
• You are growing, and the relationship is growing.
• You feel good about yourself.
... Believing that you desperately need a relationship also puts you at a high risk for relationship problems. You will usually settle for less and be attracted to people who will use you, and your fear of abandonment will not only be obvious, but will leave you open for manipulation. When we are desperate for a relationship, our self-esteem is low and we want guarantees in our lives. Ironically, at these times we are most likely to enter into relationships with the least healthy people. Eventually in these types of relationships, your intense needs will betray you. They can become overwhelming to you and at the same time overwhelm the person in your relationship. Typically, the response is for the other person to pull back. Your response is to try harder and harder. Desperately wanting a relationship and having intense needs put you at a disadvantage going into your relationship, thus increasing the probability of being used and leaving you vulnerable to problems.
Source: Robert J. Ackerman, Ph.D., Perfect Daughters: Adult Daughters of Alcoholics (Revised Edition) (Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, 2002), 218-225.
Abusive Relationships
It’s not always easy to tell at the beginning of a relationship if it will become abusive. ... Possessive and controlling behaviors don’t always appear overnight, but rather emerge and intensify as the relationship grows.
Source: The National Domestic Violence Hotline, “Abuse Defined,” accessed January 6, 2019, https://www.thehotline.org/is-this-abuse/abuse-defined/.
Narcissistic Parenting
The Faces of Maternal Narcissism
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 tie 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 mother 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.
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 tie 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 mother 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.
Source: Karyl McBride Ph.D. Will I Ever Be Good Enough? : Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers, (PLACE: Publisher, year), 37-38.
Where Is Daddy? The Rest of the Narcissistic Nest
"Daddy, why didn't you protect me? Where were you when I needed you? Why did you always have to stick up for Mom? What about me?"
These exclamations came from Marcy when we were doing an "empty chair" exercise in therapy. She imagined her father in the empty chair, and talked to him about the family and how it hurt her to be so alone and unloved. Her questions are among those commonly put to fathers by daughters of narcissistic mothers: Where were you?
From my research and experience, the answer is clear: Father is revolving around Mother like a planet around the sun. The narcissist needs to be married to a spouse who will allow her to be at the center of all the action. That is how it has to be if the marriage is to survive. In the family drama, the narcissist is the star, and her spouse takes a supporting role.
A man gets himself into this situation for many reasons, but for our discussion the most pertinent point is that he is the kind of person who accepts this behavior from his spouse and, most of the time, enables her. Perhaps he doesn't always want to, but he does, because he has learned over time that this is what works with her. Because the father focuses on his wife, his pact with the mother can make him look narcissistic too. He is unable to attend to the needs of his daughter. …
This unspoken agreement between parents who share a narcissistic nest is strong and impenetrable to anyone, but especially a daughter, who is seen as competition by the mother. Obviously, Carmen had gained insight from her significant recovery work, but even so, the pain of this memory still brought her to tears. Tragically, parental denial is what keeps the family together for better or worse, and many families do choose not to confront their problems even though they hurt their children. Someday Carmen will be able to tell this story and not feel the pain that was so present that day. Though she is unlikely to be able to change her parents' relationship, she can lessen its effect on her and her life.
Modeling a healthy love relationship is one of the most important things that parents do. Children who grow up with an unhealthy model are more likely to have some difficulty with love relationships as adults. Children learn far more from what they see parents do than from anything parents preach to them. In part 2, we look at the love relationships of daughters of narcissistic mothers and discuss the many effects of unhealthy parental relationships.
The emotional health of daughters of narcissistic mothers is in effect sacrificed so that their father can keep the peace with his wife. A daughter's first steps in recovery involve voicing the devastating feelings of vulnerability and helplessness this generates. ...
Most daughters report that if they did have good relationships with their fathers, their mothers were intensely jealous of them. Candace tells a heartrending story about the period when her father was dying of Parkinson's disease. "Daddy was lying on the bed in the hosital and I was lying next to him. It was truly the last hours of his life. Mom got mad that I was that close to him and asked me to move, and she then took my place next to Dad. It was sad to me because it felt like he was the only person who really loved me. Years later, we were chatting about family dynamics, and Mom informed me that she had to adjust the financial inheritance from Dad. She told me she gave me less than the other kids because I got so much from Dad when he was alive.” …
A quick overview of what we have learned so far exhibits the extremes that daughters of narcissistic mothers have learned to live with:
• Narcissism itself causes a person to swing from grandiose feelings to deep depression, almost like bipolar disorder.
• As a spectrum disorder, narcissism can range from a few traits to a full-blown narcissistic personality disorder.
• Maternal narcissism takes the extreme of engulfing or ignonng.
• Daughters of narcissistic mothers seem to favor opposite ends of a continuum of life patterns, either success-oriented and high-achieving or self-sabotaging.
• Daughters' relationships with men tend to be either codependent or dependent.
These exclamations came from Marcy when we were doing an "empty chair" exercise in therapy. She imagined her father in the empty chair, and talked to him about the family and how it hurt her to be so alone and unloved. Her questions are among those commonly put to fathers by daughters of narcissistic mothers: Where were you?
From my research and experience, the answer is clear: Father is revolving around Mother like a planet around the sun. The narcissist needs to be married to a spouse who will allow her to be at the center of all the action. That is how it has to be if the marriage is to survive. In the family drama, the narcissist is the star, and her spouse takes a supporting role.
A man gets himself into this situation for many reasons, but for our discussion the most pertinent point is that he is the kind of person who accepts this behavior from his spouse and, most of the time, enables her. Perhaps he doesn't always want to, but he does, because he has learned over time that this is what works with her. Because the father focuses on his wife, his pact with the mother can make him look narcissistic too. He is unable to attend to the needs of his daughter. …
This unspoken agreement between parents who share a narcissistic nest is strong and impenetrable to anyone, but especially a daughter, who is seen as competition by the mother. Obviously, Carmen had gained insight from her significant recovery work, but even so, the pain of this memory still brought her to tears. Tragically, parental denial is what keeps the family together for better or worse, and many families do choose not to confront their problems even though they hurt their children. Someday Carmen will be able to tell this story and not feel the pain that was so present that day. Though she is unlikely to be able to change her parents' relationship, she can lessen its effect on her and her life.
Modeling a healthy love relationship is one of the most important things that parents do. Children who grow up with an unhealthy model are more likely to have some difficulty with love relationships as adults. Children learn far more from what they see parents do than from anything parents preach to them. In part 2, we look at the love relationships of daughters of narcissistic mothers and discuss the many effects of unhealthy parental relationships.
The emotional health of daughters of narcissistic mothers is in effect sacrificed so that their father can keep the peace with his wife. A daughter's first steps in recovery involve voicing the devastating feelings of vulnerability and helplessness this generates. ...
Most daughters report that if they did have good relationships with their fathers, their mothers were intensely jealous of them. Candace tells a heartrending story about the period when her father was dying of Parkinson's disease. "Daddy was lying on the bed in the hosital and I was lying next to him. It was truly the last hours of his life. Mom got mad that I was that close to him and asked me to move, and she then took my place next to Dad. It was sad to me because it felt like he was the only person who really loved me. Years later, we were chatting about family dynamics, and Mom informed me that she had to adjust the financial inheritance from Dad. She told me she gave me less than the other kids because I got so much from Dad when he was alive.” …
A quick overview of what we have learned so far exhibits the extremes that daughters of narcissistic mothers have learned to live with:
• Narcissism itself causes a person to swing from grandiose feelings to deep depression, almost like bipolar disorder.
• As a spectrum disorder, narcissism can range from a few traits to a full-blown narcissistic personality disorder.
• Maternal narcissism takes the extreme of engulfing or ignonng.
• Daughters of narcissistic mothers seem to favor opposite ends of a continuum of life patterns, either success-oriented and high-achieving or self-sabotaging.
• Daughters' relationships with men tend to be either codependent or dependent.
The Shiny Red Apple with the Worm Inside
Narcissistic families are disconnected emotionally. They may appear solid on the exterior, but authentic communication and connections between the members rarely take place because the parents in this family are focused on themselves. They expect the children to react to their needs, instead of the other way around, as in a healthy family. In this dysfunctional system, adults do not deal with real feelings, and therefore do not meet the emotional needs of the children.
In a healthy family, the parents are emotionally connected, happy with each other, in control of the family, and at the top of a hierarchy. Their job is to take care of the children, who look up to them for support and protection. The parents shine love down on the children and strive to meet their needs physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. A diagram of the healthy family, adapted from a structural family therapy model, looks like this:
In a healthy family, the parents are emotionally connected, happy with each other, in control of the family, and at the top of a hierarchy. Their job is to take care of the children, who look up to them for support and protection. The parents shine love down on the children and strive to meet their needs physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. A diagram of the healthy family, adapted from a structural family therapy model, looks like this:
In unhealthy families, this hierarchy becomes skewed, and the children end up taking care of the parents. In a family with a narcissistic mother, everybody attends to the mother, and other family members' needs are not met. In the narcissistic family the mother is at the center of the system with the rest of the family revolving around her, like the planets revolving around the sun, as in this diagram, below:
The diagram displays Mother's self-absorption and Father's pact to take care of her. The unspoken rule in these families is that they do not discuss this dynamic and it becomes a family secret. In order to maintain the peace, the children have to keep quiet and not rock the boat. They fear abandonment, which causes them to mask their real feelings and pretend that everything is okay--a survival mechanism. In doing so, they do not learn to express or even be in touch with their feelings, and they are thus set up for many interpersonal difficulties later on in life. When children can't rely on their parents to meet their needs, they cannot develop a sense of safety, trust, or confidence. Trust is a colossal development issue. Without the learning of trust in our early years, we are set up to have a major handicap with believing in ourselves and feeling safe in intimate connections. Daughters who grew up in narcissistic families uniformly report a lack of confidence in their own decision making as well as difficulty with assuredness in their love relationships. In the recovery section of this book, we will examine what can be done about this void in development. It is important to understand, however, that resolving trust complications will be a lifelong recovery task.
Oftentimes when Mother is narcissistic, she may be able to do some of the earlier nurturing because she has control of the infant and small child and can mold the child to her wishes. But as the child grows older and develops a mind of her own, the mother loses control and no longer has the same kind of power. This causes the mother to begin her demeaning, critical behavior with the child, in hopes of regaining that control, which is crazy-making for the daughter. Even if she learned a modicum of trust as an infant, she begins to unlearn it as she grows older. As she makes natural, reasonable demands on her mother, who is unable to meet them, the mother becomes resentful and threatened, and projects her inadequacies onto the daughter. She begins to focus on the daughter's failings, rather than on her own limited ability to parent effectively.
You may remember that the characteristics of the narcissistic mother in chapter 1 included a sense of entitlement. This means the narcissist thinks she deserves the best, the most important treatment, being the first in line, being treated with extraordinary efforts, and so on. It also means that her daughter will not be able to have a sense of entitlement, because there is never room for both. Adult feelings of entitlement are unhealthy and dysfunctional, yet as small, helpless, dependent children we are entitled to be cared for. Every child deserves to have someone in her life who is irrationally crazy about her. We gradually grow out of this entitlement and dependency and learn to take care of and rely on ourselves emotionally, which is a sign of stable mental health.
In order to take good care of ourselves as we move through life, girls need to develop sound boundaries between themselves and others. They also need to be able to state what they need in relationships. The daughter of a narcissistic mother does not get to do this, particularly if those needs interfere with what Mother wants. This then causes the daughter to repress her feelings and needs, deny herself, and learn to be fake. Without healthy boundaries, all relationships become skewed in some way.
Setting healthy boundaries requires direct statements and clear communication. Narcissistic families commonly have a skewed, ineffective communication style called "triangulation." Instead of the mother talking to the daughter, the mother may express her thoughts and feelings--usually negative and criticizing--to another family member in the hope that he or she will tell the daughter. Then the mother can deny that she said it, although the message somehow got out there anyway. This triangulation in communication is passive-aggressive and is an expression of the sentiment "I will get you back, but not directly to your face." Many families, unfortunately, communicate in this dysfunctional manner, but narcissistic families are the poster example.
In recovery you will learn to say it like it is. No more pretense, no more facade, no more inauthentic representations of ourselves.
Like a shiny red apple with a worm inside, the narcissistic family hides profound pain.
Source: Karyl McBride Ph.D. Will I Ever Be Good Enough? : Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers, (New York: Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2009), 59-73.
The Generational Effects of Alcoholism and Recovery
When alcoholism starts in a family, it moves through the generations. The person who becomes the alcoholic marries the person who becomes the co-alcoholic. Together they have children who often themselves become alcoholic or marry an alcoholic. These adult children will also get married, often to an alcoholic or co-alcoholic. They will have children, and so the cycle repeats.
When recovery occurs, it too is carried through the generations. Everyone has the potential to move through the stages of recovery. … You can start a new generation of recovery in your family’s history. Know it. Believe it. And you can make it happen!
When recovery occurs, it too is carried through the generations. Everyone has the potential to move through the stages of recovery. … You can start a new generation of recovery in your family’s history. Know it. Believe it. And you can make it happen!
Source: Herbert L. Gravitz and Julie D. Bowen, Recovery: A Guide for Adult Children of Alcoholics (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1985), 109.
Works Referenced
Ackerman, Robert J. Ph.D., Perfect Daughters: Adult Daughters of Alcoholics (Revised Edition). Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, 2002.
Adult Children of Alcoholics. USA: Adult Children of Alcoholics / Dysfunctional Families World Service Organization, 2006.
Beattie, Melody. Codependent No More. Center City, MN: Hazelden Publishing, 1992.
Evans, Patricia. The Verbally Abusive Relationship. Avon, MA: Adams Media, 1996.
Gravitz, Herbert L. and Julie D. Bowen. Recovery: A Guide for Adult Children of Alcoholics. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1985.
McBride, Karyl Ph.D. Will I Ever Be Good Enough? : Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers. New York: Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2009.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline, “Abuse Defined,” accessed January 6, 2019. https://www.thehotline.org/is-this-abuse/abuse-defined/.
“Serenity Prayer,” Wikipedia, last modified December 8, 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer.
Adult Children of Alcoholics. USA: Adult Children of Alcoholics / Dysfunctional Families World Service Organization, 2006.
Beattie, Melody. Codependent No More. Center City, MN: Hazelden Publishing, 1992.
Evans, Patricia. The Verbally Abusive Relationship. Avon, MA: Adams Media, 1996.
Gravitz, Herbert L. and Julie D. Bowen. Recovery: A Guide for Adult Children of Alcoholics. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1985.
McBride, Karyl Ph.D. Will I Ever Be Good Enough? : Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers. New York: Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2009.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline, “Abuse Defined,” accessed January 6, 2019. https://www.thehotline.org/is-this-abuse/abuse-defined/.
“Serenity Prayer,” Wikipedia, last modified December 8, 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer.
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