![\"Rear](\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/mother-daughter-holding-hands-300x200.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Wired for connection, baby daughter looks into her mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eyes needing to see delight reflected back to her. What if, instead, baby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gaze is met with emotional emptiness? Lights out. Nobody home.<\/p>\nWired for connection, baby daughter looks into her mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eyes needing to see delight reflected back to her. What if, instead, baby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gaze is met with emotional emptiness? Lights out. Nobody home.<\/p>\n
And what if this blank stare isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the manifestation of a temporary hormonal condition but instead indicative of something more troublesome? What if mom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s emotional tank is perpetually low and she has little or nothing to give her daughter?<\/p>\n
If mom didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get the love<\/a> and affirmation she needed when she was young, then her daughter, in the role of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153good daughter,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d learns quickly that mom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s needs\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand not her own\u00e2\u20ac\u201dare at the center of the relationship.<\/p>\n The emptiness<\/a> mom feels inside can threaten to swallow both mother and daughter. There simply aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t enough good feelings to go around. And like a bucket with a slow leak, the narcissistically defended mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good feelings about herself are in constant need of a refill. In response, the daughter learns to put her own needs on the back burner as she works to fill mom up.<\/p>\n [fat_widget_right]<\/p>\n Many a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153good daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u009d learns making mom happy is necessary for their own emotional survival. To this end, the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153good daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u009d manages to subvert\/suppress\/deny her own needs to take care of mom.<\/p>\n The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153good daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u009d learns to:<\/p>\n In the normal course of development, the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153good daughter,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d attuned to her mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s needs, may bury her own needs for the mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sake. Understandably, these needs and feelings do not disappear. When these repressed<\/a> needs surface, the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153good daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u009d may feel like a fake.<\/p>\n Sadly, when the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153good daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of the narcissistically defended mother needs support from mom regarding loss, disappointment, or struggle, she may find that mom has little to give.<\/p>\n Mom isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t evil, although her actions are frequently destructive. Simply put, a mother who is narcissistically injured is consumed with preserving and replenishing her impoverished sense of self<\/a>. Her emotional tank is empty. The narcissistic defense means mom is forever in a relentless pursuit of the emotional supplies she did not get during pivotal times in her own development. Additionally, mom may feel the need to disguise her neediness<\/a>, which may result in denial<\/a>, defensiveness<\/a>, and manipulation<\/a> of her daughter.<\/p>\n When mom experiences deep insecurities<\/a>, her parenting<\/a> may be slightly or profoundly impaired.<\/p>\n Healthy functioning is restored when both mother and daughter are free to be themselves and no one needs to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153be good\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for<\/em> anyone else.<\/span><\/p>\n Because the daughter has subverted her own needs, she runs the danger of becoming disassociated from those needs. She becomes \u00e2\u20ac\u0153good\u00e2\u20ac\u009d at the expense of being real. This can result in the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153good daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u009d feeling like an impostor, a fake, just waiting to be found out.<\/p>\n Because she is disconnected from her authentic self, the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153good daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u009d worries underneath it all that she isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t good enough.<\/p>\n Since her sense of self is rooted in making another person happy, she is at risk for codependency<\/a> in her relationships. And because she is used to making another person\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happiness the basis for her feelings of self-worth, she may base her sense of self-worth on her own daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s successes.<\/p>\n This is how being \u00e2\u20ac\u0153good\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for mom isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily good for daughter. Or daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s daughter, for that matter.<\/p>\n Healing is possible, however. The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153good daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u009d must get in touch with her authentic self and start to mend the places within that she has long denied. In doing so, she enables herself to parent from a place of wholeness and confidence, and to empathize and accept both her own needs and her daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. By becoming aware of and reclaiming forgotten parts of herself, the daughter of a mother with narcissism<\/a> can end the cycle of maternal narcissism.<\/p>\n Healthy functioning is restored when both mother and daughter are free to be themselves and no one needs to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153be good\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for<\/em> anyone else.<\/p>\n Note:<\/strong> The generalizations above may not apply to all dynamics in a family affected by parental narcissism. Also, although this article refers specifically to a mother and daughter for the purpose of narrative cohesion, any gender combination of parent and child can be similarly touched by narcissism.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The daughter of a narcissistically defended mother, like her mother before her, may get stuck in the role of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153good daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dalways putting mom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s needs first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3024,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[542],"tags":[31,393,93,25],"class_list":["post-32465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-articles","tag-psychotherapy-practice","tag-family-problems","tag-narcissism","tag-psychotherapy-issues"],"acf":{"author_show":false,"author_name":"","author_role":"","author_avatar":null,"author_profile_url":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3024"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
The Cost of Being the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcGood Daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/h2>\n