In the 1980s, my mother “divorced” her mother with a letter in the mail. In 2010 I did the same via email. I thought it was just my dysfunctional family, but come to find out, mother-adult daughter estrangement is not unusual and difficult mother-daughter relationships don’t happen in a vacuum, they happen in the context of patriarchy, white supremacy, internalized misogyny, and other oppressive systems. Through therapy and, later, when I trained to be a life coach, allllll my “mother stuff” came up. The tools and practices I learned and developed were so helpful to me, I couldn’t keep them to myself.
I wrote...
You Are Not Your Mother: Releasing Generational Trauma and Shame
We learn so much from our mothers, but not all of those lessons are ones we want to live by. In fact, some of them take a lot of work and time (and love) to unlearn. If your relationship with your mother has shaped your perception of yourself and clothed your life with shame, this book is for you. As an expert on recovering from growing up in families where shame went unchecked, Karen C.L. Anderson walks you through her shame story, her relationship with her mother, and the skills and practices she uses to release the guilt and shame handed to her through her maternal lineage. Pick up this book and learn how to identify, dismantle, and repair emotional trauma and shame so you don’t unwittingly pass it on.
This book is written specifically for clinicians, therapists, life coaches, and other mental and community health professionals who work with adult daughters estranged from their mothers.
It is an excellent resource for anyone who knows, cares about, or loves an adult daughter who is estranged from her mother. While it’s almost a cliche for therapists to ask a client to talk about their relationship with their mother, there were few clinical guidelines or practical resources for these helping professionals.
The book thoroughly explores the aptly named Estrangement Energy Cycle through the experiences of several of the author's clients and offers therapeutic tools and practices that are easy for anyone to use.
Depending on your client, the goal of therapy may be to repair an estranged relationship with their mother or to finalize parental estrangement and redefine themself. How can clinicians feel prepared to address the possible treatment focus of ruptured maternal relationships in the therapeutic space? This book focuses on identifying the estrangement cycle for clinical application with adult women clients by mental health professionals. This resource provides clinical tool to address the challenges of estrangement and adjustment needs of these clients within the spheres of personal identity, relationships, and grief and loss in order to promote personal growth and healing…
Despite a title that may indicate an angry revenge read, this memoir navigates the question of what, if anything, an adult daughter owes her abusive mother.
It also explores two paradoxes: loving and fearing a mother, and missing a mother who has died and being relieved she is no longer alive. McCurdy does a masterful and sensitive job of describing the childhood abuse she experienced at the hands of her mother and her journey to healing and wholeness.
A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor-including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother-and how she retook control of her life.
Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother's dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called "calorie restriction," eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while…
Wells’ novel takes readers to the heart of the pain that an adult daughter experiences at the hands of a troubled mother.
It explores how the pain and trauma of being a woman in a culture that doesn’t value women equally are passed down through generations and how each generation picks it up and carries it, in similar but different ways.
This “wound” shows up in the relationships of mothers who grew up in the 1950s and 60s and their daughters who grew up in the 1970s and 80s. The mothers want so much for their daughters to have more freedom than they themselves did, but instead find themselves experiencing fear, bitterness, and unexpected jealousy.
Film tie-in edition of the international bestseller. When Siddalee Walker, eldest daughter of Vivi Abbott Walker (Ya-Ya extraordinaire - part Scarlett, part Katharine Hepburn, part Tallulah) is interviewed about a hit play she has directed, her mother is described as a 'tap-dancing child abuser'.
Enraged, Vivi disowns Sidda - devastating her daughter who postpones her wedding and puts her life on hold until she is granted forgiveness. Trying to repair the relationship, the Ya-Yas, Vivi's intrepid tribe of Louisiana girlfriends, sashay in and insist Sidda is sent 'The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood', a scrapbook of their lives together…
Laura Davis hits it out of the park with this epically honest and human memoir.
In it, she tells the story of how, after decades of estrangement due to family abuse and incest, which her mother denied, she decides to care for her elderly mother. I believe any woman will find value, wisdom, and relief in The Burning Light of Two Stars, but it is especially poignant for mothers and adult daughters who have struggled, are estranged, and/or are navigating reconciliation.
It is in revealing and speaking the truth, that healing, even when it's messy and emotional, can take place.
"Caregiving an elderly parent, especially against the backdrop of a difficult shared past, can be a bruising spiritual ordeal. We who must travel this territory don't need any more sentimental narratives about it. What we do need is the healing medicine of truth-telling, and Laura Davis brilliantly and generously gives it to us. I literally could not put this book down."
—Katy Butler, bestselling author of Knocking on Heaven's Door and The Art of Dying Well
This riveting memoir by Laura Davis, the author of The Courage to Heal, examines the endurance of mother-daughter love, how memory protects and betrays…
This is one of the first books I read on the subject and it provided so much relief and finally gave me an explanation, not only about why my mother might be the way she is, but why I might be the way I am.
It might be rather simplistic and pathologizing, but in her book McBride discusses how daughters of narcissistic mothers often fall into one of two categories: overachievers and underachievers. As someone who used to identify as an underachiever, it would have never dawned on me that being an overachiever was just as fraught with pain, self-doubt, and shame.
From experienced family therapist Dr. Karyl McBride, Will I Ever Be Good Enough? is an essential guide to recovery for women with selfish, emotionally abusive, and toxic mothers—designed to help daughters reclaim their lives.
The first book for daughters who have suffered the abuse of narcissistic, self-involved mothers, Will I Ever Be Good Enough? provides the expert assistance you need in order to overcome this debilitating history and reclaim your life. Drawing on more than two decades of experience as a therapist specializing in women’s health and hundreds of interviews with suffering daughters, Dr. Karyl McBride helps you recognize the…
Neuroscience PhD student Frankie Conner has finally gotten her life together—she’s determined to discover the cause of her depression and find a cure for herself and everyone like her. But the first day of her program, she meets a group of talking animals who have an urgent message they refuse to share. And while the animals may not have Frankie’s exalted human brain, they know things she doesn’t, like what happened before she was adopted.
To prove she’s sane, Frankie investigates her forgotten past and conducts clandestine experiments. But just when she uncovers the truth, she has to make an impossible choice: betray the animals she’s fallen in love with—or give up her last chance at success and everything she thought she knew.
Frankie Conner, first-year graduate student at UC Berkeley, is finally getting her life together. After multiple failures and several false starts, she's found her calling: become a neuroscientist, discover the cause of her depression and anxiety, and hopefully find a cure for herself and everyone like her.
But her first day of the program, Frankie meets a mysterious group of talking animals who claim to have an urgent message for her. The problem is, they're not willing to share it. Not yet. Not until she's ready.
While Frankie's new friends may not have her highly evolved, state-of-the-art, exalted human brain,…
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