Mothers Who Can't Love: A Healing Guide for Daughters

People who have cut ties with their toxic parents usually face more criticism when their toxic parents get old or sick, and this is always a loaded topic. I have struggled in this difficult situation for 18 years. My mother is poor and always needs money ( she refuses to work since the age of 37 ), divorced, and I am her only child. I wanted to make her happy and be a good daughter. I worked hard to support her financially for 18 years, be her substitute spouse and parents ( she refuses to start a new life ). But 18 years later, I found that the more you sacrifice your own needs to satisfy her unjustified demand, the more she felt entitled for. You owe her because you are her only child. If you don’t do whatever she wants you to do, or don’t give her the amount of money she asked, she feels that she is entitled to make your life miserable, just because she is old, poor, and alone, as well as the fact that I’m her only child. Some people say toxic people can’t change. I’d like to say toxic people can’t change for better, but they can easily change for worse. They use being old, poor, or alone as a golden opportunity to manipulate, control and use you to an unlimited level. She knows those are your hot buttons and she know when she press those hot buttons and say jump, you will immediately respond “how high?” If you turn your back to her, she can easily turn you into a bad person in the eyes of outsiders who never have had such an experience, but are certain that you should do more for your mother. There is no too low in a toxic mother’s mind to get what she wants and use you. She just wants to move you like a chess piece on a chessboard so she can win. Some outsiders even told me she is your mother, you are her only child, just give her money and do whatever she wants to make her happy. It is your fate. This is simply not right. It is manipulation and control through emotional blackmail in order to satisfy her unjustified demands. They forgot one fundamental element to keep any family relationship alive and that is love. Love makes people feel good, relaxed, peace, safe, and respected, but not off balance. People have limits. After 18 years of struggle, I’ve had to cut ties with my mother. I love the words put together by Dr. Susan Forward in her book “Mothers Who Can’t Love” as she speaks for my experience and feeling: “You may be surrounded by friends or family members who are certain they know what’s right for you and your mother. But you are the only one who knows what you can handle, and what you need to do to preserve your own health and sanity. Your mother’s illness or widowhood isn’t an excuse for her to behave badly. It doesn’t obligate you to tolerate having your life turned upside down, despite great pressure on you simply to go along with her requests and demands. You need to stand up for yourself, difficult as that can be… If you’re faced with a mother in crisis and have trouble putting yourself in the picture according to expectations set by others, fall back on your assertiveness, your non defensive communication, your boundary-setting… if you still feel torn or guilty, remember how much of your life you spend as the one for whom promises were rarely kept, the one whose needs rarely mattered. The neglected side of yourself is still there inside you, healing now because at last it sees you honoring it and all you can be - remember that when you think your needs count for less than someone else’s. Your well-being depends on it.”

Thus book is full of such wisdom and healing. I have struggled with myself esteem my whole life because my mom was critical,insulting unloving. My grandma and my aunt showed me how to sew, knit and crochet and treated me kindly .I was a craft kid and loved drawing

I was SO tired of hearing girls and women say that their mothers were 'difficult' or that their relationship was 'strained.' The woman who raised me is toxic poison. If that sounds like your type of situation, I highly recommend this book.This book really helped me. I always thought that I was the only one with a mother who said and did this kind of crap. The book is written by a therapist and contains personal stories from women that she's helped. The therapist and author splits mothers into five categories:1. The severely narcissistic mother (But what about me?)2. The overly enmeshed mother (You are my whole life.) **I call this the smother.3. The control freak (Because I said so.)4. Mothers who need mothering (I depend on you to take care of everything.)5. Mothers who neglect, betray, and batter (You're always causing trouble.)I can't say what a relief it was to read this book and find out that my mother falls into most of the aforementioned categories, with one or two really pinning it down. I finally felt like someone got it. Some of the stories of these women were almost exactly like my own, it was scary at times. Just reading through those women's stories helped me so much.At the end of the book, the author gives some exercises and examples on how to move on and get though the abuse. She recommends therapy, but honestly, that's why I bought the book in the first place. I'm that kind of person, though...therapy doesn't really work for me. This book did, though. I highly recommend it.

So for the most part, I think this was a great book. I am all about having exercises, scripts, mantras, and practices to work with, and I feel like this book was a great balance of mental changes with active changes.For the most part, I also really agreed with the content - it did not victim blame as many resources on the subject tend to do, and it left room for the survivor to make their own choice on how to proceed while preparing them with resources and likely outcomes. Very empowering!What I would have liked better was for the book to be more careful in how it discusses mental illness. I think it’s got a good start with differentiating a mother’s choice to behave poorly from mental illness as a condition. However, it was unsettling to me that the book only talked about mental illness as a way to explain some of a mother’s behavior - which I think strengthens a cultural misperception we have, where we think bad behavior is caused by mental illness or that mental illness makes you a hurtful person. What about the daughters who may have developed mental illnesses themselves from their mothers’ poor parenting, but are working to be good and healthy people? The book could have been more careful and more representative here.Second, a lot of the book’s examples of how to have a better relationship with your mom focused on the overly attached mom. I would have liked more examples of how to work with angry, controlling moms, and how those situations can play out.

The book was written in a way that was easy to read and understand. I was thankful for the many examples that were written by the author!