Karen C.L. Anderson - The Difficult Mother-Daughter Relationship Journal: A Guide For Revealing & Healing Toxic Generational Patterns

Copyright 2020 Karen C.L. Anderson
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The Difficult Mother-Daughter Relationship Journal: A Guide For Revealing & Healing Toxic Generational Patterns

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication number: 2019948632
ISBN: (print) 9781642501308, (ebook) 978-1-64250-131-5
BISAC category code: FAM033000FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Parenting / Parent & Adult Child

Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to women in all their glorious forms and to painful generational patterns that want to b e healed.

It is dedicated to all the women who have come before us, who sacrificed their spirits and their dreams because the world didnt value them as they were and as they wis hed to be.

It is dedicated to the fierce, wild, liberated women who will come after us.

All the eggs a woman will ever carry form in her ovaries while she is a four-month-old fetus in the womb of her mother. This means our cellular life as an egg begins in the womb of our grandmother. Each of us spent five months in our grandmothers womb, and she in turn formed in the womb of her grandmother. We vibrate to the rhythm of our mothers blood before she herself is born, and this pulse is the thread of blood that runs all the way back through the grandmothers to the first mother.

Layne Redmond, When the Drummers Were Women

Table of Contents

Christmas Day, 2018

On a day that would normally be filled with busyness and family, my husband was in bed with what we thought was the flu (it wasntand hes fine) and I was zoning out on Facebook.

A message request came through from a woman who wrote, Have you ever thought of writing a book called Great Mothers, Difficult Adult Daughters ? I feel there is just far too much mother blaming and mother shaming in this wor ld today.

(She was reacting to the title of my previous book, Difficult Mothers, Adult Daughters: A Guide For Separation, Liberation & Ins piration .)

She had a few other choice words and an accusation: You are preying on vulnerable adult daughters who arent taking responsibility for their appalling behavior to their mothers who love them unconditionally, who gave their all for their beloved d aughters.

I noticed feelings arise in me. Defensiveness, angerfear, even. A weight on my solar plexus. I also rolle d my eyes.

I took a deep breath and responded. Kindly but honestly. I expressed that my work isnt about blame or fault for mothers or daughters. Its about taking responsibility fo r oneself.

She had more ac cusations.

I responded with a recommendation: Dr. Joshua Coleman is an expert on family estrangement and is the author of When Par ents Hurt .

Hes okay. Not that good, sh e replied.

(Which I suspect is because, like me, he asks his readers to consider looking inward and to take responsibility for themselves, and many mothers and daughters are not ready to hear or do thatI know because I used to be that daughter.)

She continued, You have to realize that I am both a mother and a daughter.

Yes, I do real ize that.

She went on to say that going no-contact (estrangement) is always wrong. I disagreed.

She told me that her father had been a complete nightmare yet she stuck with him.

I shared that it was only when I took time and space away from my mother in order to better know and understand myself, that I was able to reinitiate contact from a health ier place.

She told me it was wrong of me. No matter what. I disagreed.

I asked her to tell me about her family. She asked me a bout mine.

She told me about her daughter who is choosing not to be in contact with her family. I told her a little bit about my relationship with my mother and the strained relationship she had with h er mother.

And just like that, we became two women on two different continents sharing Christmas Day in an unl ikely way.

Which isnt to say we ended our correspondence on a happy note. She was scared, hurt, and angry. Her fear, hurt, and anger werent mine to address.

But I could hold space for po ssibility.

It was then that I knew I wanted to create guided journal for both mothers and adult daughtersfor all women and anyone who identifies a s a woman.

D

How many times have you said a version of one of the following phrases to yourself? It stops with me! I wont treat my daughter the way my mother treated me, My mother died, but shes still controlling me from the grave, My daughter has changed. I no longer know who she is, I am so tired of living in reaction to my mother, She doesnt respect me or my bo undaries!

Youre not alone. Studies suggest that nearly 30 percent of women have been estranged from their mothers at some point, which suggests that the number of women who struggle in their relationship with their mother or daughter (but arent estranged) is eve n higher.

It has been considered shameful and taboo to discuss the pain of dysfunctional mother-daughter issues outside of lofty clinical pathologies and personality disorders, unless its in a private support group where, often, the support keeps women stuck in painful stories, reactions, and patterns of behavior. In that paradigm, affected women are stuck conveying lesser versions of themselves, which, ironically, is often what happens between mothers and daughters who have a failing or dysfunctional rel ationship.

What was considered normal and okay in past generations (using fear, shame, authoritarianism, punishment, should-ing, control, binary ways of thinking, and physical violence as parenting tools, not to mention the disallowance of being able to feel and express emotion) is now known to be abusive and traumatic.

The toxic generational patterns I mention in the title of this book? Their roots run in patriarchy, misogyny, and white supremacy. This is the trauma that runs deep in our DNA. It is what was unconsciously passed down through our maternal lineages, and we now hold it in ou r bodies.