Kelly McDaniel - Mother Hunger

A brave, sensitive, and clinically intuitive book filled with wisdom and healing.

Erica Komisar, LCSW, psychoanalyst, parent guidance expert and author of Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters

I read Mother Hunger as if it was a sacred texteach word revealing and illuminating the deepest inner essence of me I knew was there but couldnt name. Kelly McDaniel has translated the most palpable, potent, and impactful imprint of mother to daughter that has the power to heal us in real time while also providing healing to those whove come before us and arrive after. I honestly cannot remember a time I have resonated with anything as much as I do Mother Hunger. If youre drawn to this book trust it!

Nancy Levin, author of Setting Boundaries Will Set You Free

Mother Hunger is a deeply compassionate, scholarly, and thoughtful journey of understanding into the tender wounds of our unmet needs. With graceful clarity, Kelly McDaniel guides the reader through awareness of the impact that nurturing, protection, and guidance play in our development and creates compassion for the substitutes we seek when those needs are not met. Kelly skillfully outlines steps to healing and invites the reader into growth and hope. This book is a powerful resource!

Jenna Riemersma, LPC, best-selling author of Altogether You: Experiencing personal and spiritual transformation with Internal Family Systems therapy and founder and clinical director of The Atlanta Center for Relational Healing

With over thirty years of feminist study under her belt, coupled with decades of treating women with attachment wounds, McDaniel is uniquely qualified to write this book. Comprehensive, clear, and deeply compassionate, Mother Hunger is a love letter to women looking to find their way home.

Alexandra Katehakis, Ph.D., author of Sex Addiction as Affect Dysregulation: A Neurobiologically Informed Holistic Treatment

Women often feel broken or irreparably wounded when they dont find the safety, bonding, or unconditional love they need from their mothers. Kelly McDaniel is an expert at explaining how these unmet needs result in women experiencing Mother Hunger. She explains the typical trauma re-enactment that produces low self-esteem, addiction including love and sex, and the ongoing wounding that occurs because of this primary attachment issue. Mother Hunger is the road map that will help you repair your sense of self and learn how to heal the most basic need to feel love for oneself. Kelly takes you through the step-by-step process of what you need to do to give yourself the love you didnt know that you deserved

Carol Juergensen Sheets, LCSW, CSAT, CCPS-C, co-author of Transformations: A Womens Journey of Self Discovery, Help Her Heal: An Empathy Workbook for Sex Addicts to Help their Partners Heal, and Unleashing Your Power: Moving Through the Trauma of Partner Betrayal

Kelly McDaniels Mother Hunger is going to create a worldwide sigh of relief as daughters everywhere finally have words to describe the aching loss that haunts their lives and relationships. With compassionate understanding for the incredible challenges that all mothers face when trying to mother well, Mother Hunger provides a much-needed key to the hidden impacts that being under-mothered can create and points the way toward healing and wholeness.

Michelle Mays LPC, CSAT-S, founder of PartnerHope and the Center for Relational Recovery

This book is a must-read. Kelly McDaniel skillfully guides the reader through the delicate and often precarious terrain of attachment trauma. Without any hint of parental blame or shame, McDaniel compassionately provides much-needed information for this often overlooked topic.

Britt Frank, MSW, LSCSW, SEP, licensed psychotherapist and trauma specialist

READY TO HEAL:
Breaking Free of Addictive Relationships

Copyright 2021 by Kelly McDaniel

Published in the United States by: Hay House, Inc.: www.hayhouse.com Published in Australia by: Hay House Australia Pty. Ltd.: www.hayhouse.com.au Published in the United Kingdom by: Hay House UK, Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.uk Published in India by: Hay House Publishers India: www.hayhouse.co.in

Cover design: Kathleen Lynch

Interior design: Julie Davison

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private useother than for fair use as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviewswithout prior written permission of the publisher.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Names and identifying details of certain individuals have been changed to protect their privacy.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress

Tradepaper ISBN: 978-1-4019-6085-8

E-book ISBN: 978-1-4019-6086-5

Audiobook ISBN: 978-1-4019-6662-1

Chapter 1:
Naming Mother Hunger

Chapter 2:
Attachment Theory and Mother Hunger

Chapter 3:
Nurturance

Chapter 4:
Surrogate Comfort

Chapter 5:
Toxic Waters

Chapter 6:
Protection

Chapter 7:
Guidance

Chapter 8:
Third-Degree Mother Hunger

Chapter 9:
Healing Mother Hunger

Chapter 10:
Mothering with Mother Hunger

My mother died when I was 18 years old, while I was a freshman at a small liberal arts college in Vermont. Ten years later, I wrote her a letter, as I did every year on the anniversary of her death. Dear Mom, I wrote. You have been dead for ten years. I am already crying, tears streaming down my cheeks, warm and lucid.

This letter will be different from the others, I wrote. Things arent the same anymore. It has taken these 10 years for me to finally start to care about myself. I never realized how much I hated myself. How afraid of myself I was. This last year has been terribly hard and wonderfully healing. Im alone now. All alone. No more alcohol, no more boys, no more self-destruction, no more hiding from all the pain. Just me, here and alone. And I still miss you so much. Ten years feels like a lifetime. I am no longer the girl I once was... the girl who had a mother.

But I dont want to do this anymore. Obsess over your death. I dont want my whole life to be about you. I am grateful, so incredibly grateful, for who I have become because of this loss, but I dont want my life to revolve around it anymore.

And I dont want to be terrible to myself anymore. I dont want to hide. I dont want to feel desperate or lonely or hateful anymore. I want to stride forward. I want to shirk the heavy weight of all this loss. I want to throw it off like a coat worn on a summer day. I am tired of it all. I want to just be me. And to do that, I have to let you go.