A Young Girl's View Of Her Mother

What is a Mother?  If you watch Hallmark commercials she is someone very special.  Someone who is suppose to love her children unconditionally.  A mother is there to nurture, protect and teach her children.  A mother's love is suppose to know no bounds. A mother is the one person you can bear your soul to and know that she will love you and have your back no matter what.  A mother's love is ferocious like a tiger and she will go to the ends of the earth to protect her children and keep them from harm.  A mother is someone who is kind and gentle.  She puts her children's  needs before her own.  A mother is wise, patient and takes the time to teach everyday life lessons.  When no one else will listen, mother will lend an ear and listen to you. A mother is there when you are hurt.  She will kiss a boo boo or lend you a shoulder to cry on.  A mother will care about who you are with and what you are doing.  She will take a sincere interest to be there for everyday occasions as well as special ones.  If it is important to you, then it is important to mother.  Her children are her life, or at least a very BIG part of who she is.  

What happens when you realize your mother is none of those things?  You grow up knowing that something isn't right.  You remember being four years old and knowing her eyes were mean and you could not trust them.   You don't know why you feel that way.  You don't understand and grow up thinking that there must be something wrong with you.  When you are seven years old you keep having nightmares where your Mom is chasing you and trying to kill you.  Where do these dreams and feelings come from?  Do my sisters feel the same way?  I learn quickly that if I am perfect then she seems to like me and all is good.  Everything has to be perfect.  The house has to be immaculate.  Hair and clothes must always be neat.  The golden rule that you are reminded of over and over again is to be seen and not heard.  All her friends remark how well behaved you are, but you know that your behavior is driven by fear.  You learn your thoughts, opinions and feelings don't count.  If I am perfect and do exactly what she expects then I am "the apple of her eye".  How can I be the "apple of her eye?"  What about my sisters?  Does she not like them?  Why does she like one child better than the others?   I grow more confused and distrustful.

You get older and realize you are not one big HAPPY family.  You feel like you don't belong.  Your mother covers up your baby picture hanging on the wall with a picture of a friends child.  Wow!  You cry in private because your feelings are hurt.  A child that is not even hers hangs on the wall and you are buried beneath it.  Your feelings are buried just like your picture.  Your mother laughs at you and tells you to not be silly.  Your feelings are dismissed.  There you have it.  There is something wrong with me.  I don't even know what I am suppose to feel.  What I do know is that I am more confused.  I don't feel loved.  I don't feel protected, nurtured or valued for the individual I am.  I want to feel special.  I want to feel LOVED!  Instead, my heart feels broken and more confused.  I feel alone. Really alone.  The only person I can really trust or count on is myself.  I guess this is the way it is suppose to be, or is it???

I want a Mom who LOVES me.  I dream of the kind of Mom I want.  I see Aunt Jemima on the syrup bottle and think how wonderful it would be to have her for a Mom.  She seems really happy and has a big smile on her face.  She would love me, hug me and let me hug her back.  She would talk to me and listen to me.  She would spend time with me and teach me how to cook.   She would go swimming with me and not worry about getting her hair wet.  She would love me even though I did not look italian.  She would make me important and more importantly is that I would be able to feel how important I am.  I would be able to trust Aunt Jemima if she were my Mom.  Aunt Jemima wouldn't care that I was white.  I mean glow in the dark white, with red hair and freckles.  She would love me just the way I am.  How wonderful it would be if Aunt Jemima were my mother, but then I realize I am being silly.  I have a Mom.  I am suppose to love my mother.  What is wrong with me?

I keep all of these feelings inside of me.  I am not suppose to feel these things.  I am suppose to love MY mother.  If I don't love MY mother then that just proves there is something wrong with me. Maybe that is why my mother doesn't seem to like me?  I know deep inside that I am only important for what I can do for her or if I make her look good.  She doesn't have time for me.  She wants to work.  You see the thing she values most is money.  Money is more important than me.  I want to love MY mother, but something is in the way.  I want to TRUST my mother, but I can't.  Everyone thinks that my mother is wonderful.  Again, I realize that there is something wrong with me.  How can she be so wonderful and I don't feel that way about her?

I grow more and more confused.  I feel sad, hurt and betrayed.  I don't want to hate my mother.  I want more than anything to LOVE her, but it becomes more and more obvious that she does not want me or my LOVE.  Again, I keep these feelings inside and carry them with me.  I can't help but wonder what it would be like to have Aunt Jemima for my Mom.  A Mom who was jolly, happy and could show me love.  A Mom I could Trust and who could make me feel SAFE......  A Mom I could LOVE and who would LOVE me back just the way I am.......

Parental Narcissism Creates Toxic Families

I am learning about narcissistic families.  In learning about the cycle of narcissistic abuse, I have come to realize just how toxic my own family dynamics are.  I was raised in a home with a narcissistic mother and my father was physically and emotionally abusive to my mother.  I have come to realize just how much trauma there is in my own childhood.   My father is now dead and I have had no contact with my mother for three years.  Being no contact with my mother means I am also no contact with the rest of my family.  I am sure that to outsiders we looked like the all American family, but we were far from what I would call a loving normal family.  I saw the following post on Facebook and felt I wanted to include this in my blog:

Posted by Freedom From Parental Narcissistic Abuse

One thing I hear over and over again when people learn that their parent/s or someone they were close to has NPD is, "I feel like such a fool." I understand that feeling completely. I can look back on my family relationships and how I unknowingly fed their ego, or coward to their rages, and can feel the heat of embarrassment rising within me to the point I want to kick myself. More than a hundred times, I've thought 'what an idiot I am for not knowing this... for not figuring it out sooner.


As human beings with a heart and soul, and who are capable of empathizing, and who are not able to completely comprehend that the people who are supposed to love us most actually do not have a conscience to speak of, how in the world were we to know? How were we expected to figure this out on our own? How we were raised was our "normal" and we were conditioned to believe exactly this. We were literally brainwashed to keep our mouths shut, accept all projections, and believe any lie we were fed despite the fact that it goes against logic. THAT was our NORMAL. And how do you argue with that? How do you undo years of brainwashing through gaslighting on your own?




Narcissists are cunning and anyone can fall victim to them. But when you're born into such a family, you are prepped from birth to see a world that isn't really there at all. We didn't stand a chance.

I am NOT a fool. YOU are NOT a fool. We are survivors who have finally stumbled across the truth because we finally began to question everything we were taught and because we realized that we deserve much more than we were ever given by our narcissistic family.

As I am dealing with a hurt by my family earlier this week, I am reminding myself that I deserve much more that I have been given by my narcissistic family.  No I am not perfect, but I am doing what I can so that I can be healthier for  myself and my children.   I remain no contact with my family as my family dynamics are just too toxic for me to be around.  The best way I know right now to protect myself and give myself the time I need to heal is to remain no contact.  I pray that God guides me and helps me grow the way I need to grow....

A Reoccurring Nightmare

I am seven years old and in 2nd grade.  I keep having a reoccurring nightmare.  In the nightmare, my father is picking me up from school.  We are driving home when an enormous yellow and black bumble bee starts following our car.  I notice the bee and then my dad looks in the rear view mirror and sees the bee.  It is not friendly, it is large and chasing us and wants to hurt us.  My dad is trying to go as fast as he can go.  I am scared and so is my dad.  Why is this bee chasing us?  Why does it want to hurt us?  Why is no one helping us?  Everyone else acts like nothing is wrong.  The bee is getting closer as we race down the street in our car trying our best to get away.  As the bee is about to reach the car, I realize the bee is my mother.  It is my mother chasing us and she wants to kill us.  What kind of mother disguises herself as a large bee to kill her daughter?  I always wake up at this point in the dream but I continue to keep having the same nightmare night and after night.  What I take from the dream at such a young age is that I can't trust my mother.

What I remember most about this dream is the fear I felt from my mother and that I could not trust her.   As a seven year old child, I remember the feeling of fear in my gut.  I would wake up and pray for God to protect me from my mother.  I would fear that she would win and I would be killed by her. I did not want to be afraid of my mom, but I was.  I don't even remember feeling safe in her company. I did not know why but even at a young age, I felt something was wrong.  My gut was saying don't trust.

I did not share my dream with anyone when I was a child.  If I had I would have been told I was

being silly.  I knew I was not being silly.  I knew I was afraid of my mother and I knew that most of my friends were not afraid of their mothers.  Was there something wrong with me?  Why did my dad not protect me?  How could I be safe?

I don't really have the answers to the questions.  I have come to feel that maybe this dream was a warning that I needed to pay attention to.  Maybe it was God trying to let me know that I had a mom who could hurt me instead of loving me and protecting me.  Maybe I just needed to be grateful that this warning came in a dream.....