Read Online You're Not Crazy - It's Your Mother by Danu Morrigan - Free Book Online
Authors: Danu Morrigan
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for this elusive perfection, that at some future time we’ll succeed. And therefore, we take over where she left off, beating ourselves up for not being perfect. For being human. For making normal human mistakes.
An interesting, albeit challenging, exercise is to make a point of listening to your self-talk. That internal chatter that goes on all the time, but that we’re not aware of unless you listen. Try to make a point of tuning in. You may be horrified at how abusive you are to yourself. If you make a little mistake, ‘Oh that is so stupid ! You’re always doing that. Can’t you do anything right?’
The trick then is to try to speak kindly to yourself when you hear that chatter. Like you would to your own child. We had a phrase we used with our son whenever he did anything stupid: ‘That wasn’t your best idea’. It was a way of acknowledging the error without shaming him or identifying his Self with the event. It was so good to hear him, as he got older, identify things the same way: ‘Whoops, that wasn’t my best idea.’ Isn’t that a gentler and kinder way than the dialogue above?
So maybe speak to yourself like that. ‘That wasn’t my best idea. A better idea would be to do it this way.’
Try to come to a place where you accept your own imperfections. Where it’s okay to be less than perfect. Because you are less than perfect; it’s the human condition. And that’s okay! That really is okay, no matter that she lied to you and told you differently. You might as well beat yourself up for not being able to fly.
But of course this means you’ll never win her love, seeing as you’re not perfect.
But you know, that wasn’t going to happen anyway. You know that, deep down, even if you understandably struggle to accept it. So you do not have to continue on the toxic hamster wheel, running, running, trying to win her approval but getting nowhere.
You can step off that wheel. You can step off whenever you like.
The price of stepping off is to let go the hope that the relationship can ever be fixed.
The reward is freedom. And energy to do things for you . And peace.
Learning to accept your imperfections can take time, of course. And so it could still happen that as you read through the rest of this list about the impact on DONMs of having a narcissistic mother, that you’ll feel shame and disapproval of yourself for having these issues.
Don’t!
Seriously, don’t. The thoughts might come, but again, just park them for now. You can’t help thinking them, but you can help believing them.
We might be like a bird behind a window.
You know that famous phrase about the definition of madness: It's to keep on doing the same things but expecting a different result.
And we DONMs do that with our mothers. We keep going back to her hoping that this time it'll be different. This time she'll be the mother we need her to be. This time she'll support us in our grief, applaud us in our success, be good company with no agenda. This time she'll accept us as we really are, and love us for it.
And she never does.
When I think of this dynamic (which I, too, did for far too many years) I think of a bird flying fruitlessly into a window, again and again.
It breaks my heart. It breaks my heart for me, and for all of us.
I do understand this pattern, and I do forgive myself for doing it, as I hope you can forgive yourself.
We feel we’re powerless against her.
DONMs can often be in a state of learned helplessness with regard to our narcissistic mothers. It makes sense since, when we were children, we were helpless to protect ourselves. But that no longer applies.
You have more power than you realise. There is nothing they can really do. Their Narcissistic Rage is only toddlers’ tantrums, and can be seen as such. Their Narcissistic Huff is just a sulk.
So they have no power really.
Now having said that, narcissists can try tricks. Narcissistic mothers have been known to report their daughters to Social
An interesting, albeit challenging, exercise is to make a point of listening to your self-talk. That internal chatter that goes on all the time, but that we’re not aware of unless you listen. Try to make a point of tuning in. You may be horrified at how abusive you are to yourself. If you make a little mistake, ‘Oh that is so stupid ! You’re always doing that. Can’t you do anything right?’
The trick then is to try to speak kindly to yourself when you hear that chatter. Like you would to your own child. We had a phrase we used with our son whenever he did anything stupid: ‘That wasn’t your best idea’. It was a way of acknowledging the error without shaming him or identifying his Self with the event. It was so good to hear him, as he got older, identify things the same way: ‘Whoops, that wasn’t my best idea.’ Isn’t that a gentler and kinder way than the dialogue above?
So maybe speak to yourself like that. ‘That wasn’t my best idea. A better idea would be to do it this way.’
Try to come to a place where you accept your own imperfections. Where it’s okay to be less than perfect. Because you are less than perfect; it’s the human condition. And that’s okay! That really is okay, no matter that she lied to you and told you differently. You might as well beat yourself up for not being able to fly.
But of course this means you’ll never win her love, seeing as you’re not perfect.
But you know, that wasn’t going to happen anyway. You know that, deep down, even if you understandably struggle to accept it. So you do not have to continue on the toxic hamster wheel, running, running, trying to win her approval but getting nowhere.
You can step off that wheel. You can step off whenever you like.
The price of stepping off is to let go the hope that the relationship can ever be fixed.
The reward is freedom. And energy to do things for you . And peace.
Learning to accept your imperfections can take time, of course. And so it could still happen that as you read through the rest of this list about the impact on DONMs of having a narcissistic mother, that you’ll feel shame and disapproval of yourself for having these issues.
Don’t!
Seriously, don’t. The thoughts might come, but again, just park them for now. You can’t help thinking them, but you can help believing them.
We might be like a bird behind a window.
You know that famous phrase about the definition of madness: It's to keep on doing the same things but expecting a different result.
And we DONMs do that with our mothers. We keep going back to her hoping that this time it'll be different. This time she'll be the mother we need her to be. This time she'll support us in our grief, applaud us in our success, be good company with no agenda. This time she'll accept us as we really are, and love us for it.
And she never does.
When I think of this dynamic (which I, too, did for far too many years) I think of a bird flying fruitlessly into a window, again and again.
It breaks my heart. It breaks my heart for me, and for all of us.
I do understand this pattern, and I do forgive myself for doing it, as I hope you can forgive yourself.
We feel we’re powerless against her.
DONMs can often be in a state of learned helplessness with regard to our narcissistic mothers. It makes sense since, when we were children, we were helpless to protect ourselves. But that no longer applies.
You have more power than you realise. There is nothing they can really do. Their Narcissistic Rage is only toddlers’ tantrums, and can be seen as such. Their Narcissistic Huff is just a sulk.
So they have no power really.
Now having said that, narcissists can try tricks. Narcissistic mothers have been known to report their daughters to Social
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