Danu Morrigan - You’re Not Crazy - It’s Your Mother: Understanding and Healing for Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers

Youre Not Crazy Its Your Mother

Understanding and Healing for

Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers

Danu Morrigan 2012

First published in 2012 by

Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd

1 Spencer Court

140 142 Wandsworth High Street

London SW18 4JJ

2012 Danu Morrigan

The right of Danu Morrigan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.

ISBN: 978-0-232-52929-6

Phototypeset ..

Printed and bound ..

You are not broken and in need of fixing.
You are wounded and in need of healing.

Please note that the stories of women shared here are either reprinted by permission, or are composite sample stories rather than direct quotes.

Contents

Introduction

Part One: All About Narcissistic Personality Disorder

1. What is Narcissistic Personality Disorder?
2. How Narcissism Manifests Itself in Your Mother
3. The Effects on Us of Being Raised as the Daughter of a Narcissistic Mother
4. The Emotional Roller-Coaster
5. Your Future Relationship with Her
6. Are You Narcissistic?
7. Your Programmed Beliefs

Part Two: How to Heal

1. Claim Your Truth
2. What About Forgiving Her?
3. Therapy
4. EFT Emotional Freedom Technique
5. EFT Scripts

Appendix I: The DSM IV Definition of NPD

Appendix II: Other Personality Disorders

This book is dedicated to David, my son, who helped me heal as I discovered, through parenting him, what a healthy parent-child relationship could be. And who is just all-round awesome.

To all the DONMs I have met and corresponded with over the years. I applaud your courage and your resilience.

And above all, to all the DONMs who did not survive being raised by a narcissist. I think of you all often.

Introduction

If you were drawn to the title of this book, then I suspect that the information here is exactly what you need.

The fact is that its more than possible that you are not as crazy as you always felt, but rather that its your mother causing all the upset and angst and confusion and doubt that you live with throughout your life.

And its possible that she is doing that because she has something called Narcissistic Personality Disorder, or NPD.

In a nutshell, people with NPD have an overblown opinion of themselves. They consider that they are perfect, and (crucially) have an absolute need to continue thinking of themselves as perfect. They also have an insatiable need for attention from others. They have no empathy for anyone else as a real person, only as a source of the attention they crave.

Being raised by a narcissist is a special kind of crazy. It is a pure and laser-sharp form of psychological and emotional abuse. But even more devastatingly, it is an invisible abuse. Neither the perpetrator nor the victim even knows its happening. The perpetrator, the narcissist, doesnt think shes abusing anyone because, by definition, shes perfect, remember, and perfect people dont do imperfect things like abuse people. And the abuse victim, the daughter this would be you doesnt realise shes abused because she believes her mothers lies and thinks that everything is her fault, that she is the one who is broken.

And so, there are two layers of abuse and dysfunction going on. Theres the first layer, which is the original bad treatment, about which we will talk a lot more. And theres the second layer, which is the denial that the bad treatment ever happened! And thats the bit that leads to you thinking that its you thats crazy, and hence the title of this book. (Actually, theres a third layer too, which we explore later.)

So, who am I and why am I writing this book?

My name is Danu Morrigan and I believe I am the daughter of a narcissistic mother. I dont know, of course. She was never professionally diagnosed, and it is only my totally unprofessional best guess to explain the crazy that I experienced. But it fits together like a jigsaw puzzle.

I always had a difficult relationship with my mother. There were good times for sure, but I could never relax even then, because I was only ever one wrong word or expressed opinion away from her disapproval, her snapped, Thats enough, Danu!, and me being put back in my box.

I used to think of it as her pulling rank that she always held the power in the relationship and we could be friends all right, but only ever on her terms and as long as I remembered my place, which was subordinate to her. It was like walking through a beautiful flower-strewn meadow, but the path was on a cliff-top and one wrong step would send me plummeting. The eternal vigilance meant I could never relax.

I just accepted this, though. You do, dont you? Its your mother after all. I just endured as best as I could. My husband was used to me ranting in upset and hurt after every visit, but neither of us questioned why I was putting me (and him, and my son) through this agony. I did often wish I could just cut off contact with her and my father (more about fathers later), realising that if they were friends rather than family I would have done that years ago. But again, you cant, can you, not when its your family? (Hint yes, you can! I realise that now and am going to share this information with you. I wish I had known this decades ago.)

This was the situation until September of 2008. I was usually pretty adroit at keeping my friends, and anyone else I respected, well away from my parents, but on this occasion my dear friend Maggie came to lunch with them.

It was fairly standard stuff: my mother talked non-stop at us; no-one else got a look in. She and my father had just come back from holiday and she talked non-stop about that. We were at the restaurant for 2 hours and 25 minutes exactly, and apart from ordering food and such essential conversation, she spoke on and on. And on. No detail was too obscure to include.

It was funny nearly. I took pity on my then-12-year-old son, who was just languishing totally ignored, and whispered that he could go out to the car and read his book. He disappeared with an enthusiasm that would have been funny if it wasnt so sad. Neither my mother nor father acknowledged, nor even seemed to register, his disappearance.

Then Maggie had had enough, and excused herself and left, ostensibly for a cigarette but really (I guessed and she later confirmed) because she could not bear it any more. My mother did acknowledge her disappearance with a sneering comment about smokers, but that was it.

All these lunch guests disappearing, like a murder mystery, and it didnt faze my mother at all; she just kept talking, going on and on like the Duracell Bunny.

Afterwards Maggie was full of a combination of shock and apologies. Shock at how bad it had been, and apologies that she hadnt realised before. She acknowledged that I had told her that my parents were difficult, but she had had no idea how bad it was.

She pointed out elements about the encounter that I hadnt really noticed, accustomed as I was to this treatment. Such as the fact that neither of my parents even spoke to my son. Not once, after the initial hellos. They totally ignored him. And this was effectively their only grandchild. (They were already estranged from my two siblings who are the parents of the other grandchildren and to my knowledge have never met them.) They ignored my sister who was there, too. And neither of them had had the manners to speak to Maggie at all. She didnt mind for her own sake, she said, but it just was so rude.

It was a revelation for me. An epiphany. You mean this was objectively bad? I knew I didnt enjoy it, but it was bad by any standard?

In that moment I just knew I didnt want to see either of my parents ever again. I knew I wasnt going to. Maggies perspective somehow gave me the permission I thought I needed, and that I had been craving for years.