Category: Mother Issues

Daughters of Madness: Growing Up and Older with a Mentally Ill Mother (Women’s Psychology) Annotated Edition

By Susan L. Nathiel, Ph.D. (2007)

From Amazon.com: “June was 9 years old when she came home from school and her schizophrenic mother met her at the door, angrily demanding to know, Who the hell are you? What are you doing in my house? Tess’s mother would wait outside church, then scream at family friends as they emerged, accusing them of spying and plotting to kill her. Five-year-old Tess and her 7-year-old brother would cry and beg their mother to take them home as onlookers stared. These are just two of the stories among dozens gathered for this book. The children, now adults, grew up with mentally ill mothers at a time when mental illness was even more stigmatizing than it is today. They are what Nathiel calls the daughters of madness, and their young lives were lived on shaky ground. Telling someone that there’s mental illness in her family, and watching the reaction is not for the faint-hearted, the therapist says, quoting another’s research. Nathiel adds, Telling them it is your mother who’s mentally ill certainly ups the ante. A veteran therapist with 35 years experience, Nathiel takes us into this traumatic world―each of her chanpters covering a major developmental period for the daughter of a mentally ill mother―and then explains how these now-adult daughters faced and coped with their mothers’ illness.

While the stories of these daughters are central to the book, Nathiel also offers her professional insights into exactly how maternal impairment affects infants, children, and adolescents. Women, significantly more than men, are often diagnosed with serious mental illness after they become parents. So what effect does a mentally ill mother have on a growing child, teenager or adult daughter, who looks to her not only for the deepest and most abiding love, but also a sense of what the world is all about? Nathiel also makes accessible the latest research on interpersonal neurobiology, attachment, and the way a child’s brain and mind develop in the contest of that relationship.”

Mothers Who Fail to Protect Their Children from Sexual Abuse: Addressing the Problem of Denial

By Christine Adams

Christine Adams, Mothers Who Fail to Protect Their Children from Sexual Abuse: Addressing the Problem of Denial, 12Yale L. & Pol’y Rev.(1994).

https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1273&context=ylpr&fbclid=IwAR3TRjkuIKDpDcCo4ruQEB4QNKnxE_MIOCJTP6dUR2wm1p8YMpZ9mYZN690

Growing Up with a Schizophrenic Mother

Growing Up With a Schizophrenic Mother 

ISBN-13: 978-0786408207

By Margaret J. Brown, Psychotherapist & Doris Parker Roberts, LCSW. (2000).

From Amazon.com: “An estimated two to three million people in the United States today were raised by a schizophrenic parent. Brown and Roberts offer a unique book based on interviews with over forty adult children of mothers diagnosed as schizophrenic. Such topics as the isolation their family felt, their chaotic home environments, their present relationships with their mothers, and the lost potential of mother and child are covered. Their stories are fascinating and provide important information to both the mental health community and the lay public. The offspring have been described as having higher rates of “increased aggressivity” and “sibling conflict,” but often their circumstances strengthened these children and contributed to artistic and creative talents, resiliency, and high achievements. The authors provide an overview of schizophrenia, behaviors of the affected parent, and the marital relationship of the patient and her non-schizophrenic spouse. As adults, the respondents now share their grievances about the psychological community–what they needed and did not get. Brown and Roberts then present suggestions for treatment of affected children aimed at psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, counselors, and health care providers.”

ISBN-3: 978-0786408207

Maternal Deprivation: The Effects of the Fundamental Absence of Love

Maternal Deprivation: The Effects of the Fundamental Absence of Love

By Rev Sheri Heller, LCSW
~ 3 min read

https://pro.psychcentral.com/maternal-deprivation-the-effects-of-the-fundamental-absence-of-love/

Daughter Detox: Recovering From An Unloving Mother and Reclaiming Your Life

Daughter Detox: Recovering From An Unloving Mother and Reclaiming Your Life by [Streep, Peg]

Daughter Detox: Recovering From An Unloving Mother and Reclaiming Your Life

By Peg Streep. (2017)

From Amazon.com:  “A self-help book based in science, the result of more than a decade of research, Daughter Detox offers the daughters of unloving mothers vital information, guidance, and real strategies for healing from childhood experiences, and building genuine self-esteem. Writer Peg Streep lays out seven distinct but interconnected stages on the path to reclaim your life from the effects of a toxic childhood: DISCOVERY, DISCERNMENT, DISTNGUISH, DISARM, RECLAIM, REDIRECT, and RECOVER. Each step is clearly explained, and richly detailed with the stories of other women, approaches drawn from psychology and other disciplines, and unique exercises. The book will help the reader tackle her own self-doubt and become consciously aware of how her mother’s treatment continues to shape her behavior, even today.
The message of the book is direct: What you experienced in childhood need not continue to hold you back in life. What was learned can be unlearned with effort.
The book begins with DISCOVERY, opening up the reader’s understanding of how she has been wounded and influenced by her mother’s treatment. Recognizing the eight toxic maternal behaviors—dismissive, controlling, emotionally unavailable, unreliable, self-involved or narcissistic, combative, enmeshed, or role-reversed—lays the foundation for the daughter’s awareness of how her way of looking at the world, connecting to others, and ability to manage stress were affected. DISCERNMENT delves into the patterns of relationship in her family of origin and how they played a part in her development, and then shifts to looking closely at how the daughter adapted to her treatment, either silencing or losing her true self in the process. Next up is DISTINGUISH, seeing how the behavioral patterns we learned in childhood animate all of our relationships in the present with lovers and spouses, relatives, friends, neighbors, and colleagues. The act of distinguishing allows us to see why so many of us end up in unsatisfying relationships, chose the wrong partners, or are unable to develop close friendships.
Active recovery begins with DISARM as the daughter learns how to disconnect unconscious patterns of reaction and behavior and substitute actions that will foster the growth of self-esteem. Understanding the triggers that set us off, the cues that put us on the defensive, and the default positions of blaming ourselves and making excuses for other people’s toxic behavior are addressed, as are unhealthy behaviors such as rumination, rejection sensitivity, and more. RECLAIM is the stage at which the reader begins to actively make new choices, preparing herself so that she can live the life she desires by seeing herself as having agency and being empowered. Making new choices and figuring out how to manage her relationship to her unloving or toxic mother is the focus of REDIRECT. There are stories to inspire and challenge your thinking, exercises that show you how to swap out self-criticism for self-compassion, guidance on how to use journaling as a tool of self-discovery and growth, and advice on goal setting.
Finally, RECOVER challenges the reader to come up with a new definition of what it means to heal, suggests tools to overcome the obstacles she places in her own way, and strategies to become the best, most authentic version of herself.”