Kimberly Sprintz, Founder and Leader
Apr 11, 20214 min
Are you a daughter of a Mother that used Narcissistic Patterns of Behavior that caused pain in your life, even to this day? You are NOT alone...
I wanted to preface the meeting with the understanding that ALL OF US have used a narcissistic trait now and then. This meeting was held to honor our experience as daughters who may have had a true diagnosable NPD mother, or one that overly depended on those traits to control you and to manage her own stress and unhappiness. If you are a codependent it is likely that many of the ways you learned to survive in childhood was to try to appease her and to circumvent her wrath with kindness by trying to live up to her expectations. ALSO, this is NOT meant to blame your mother for you current life situation, that is enabling a VICTIM mentality and that is NOT HEALTHY. We know that in order to heal we must see things as they WERE and ARE, not through the lens of a child, but through our adult lens. We know we can’t CHANGE ANYONE, and that includes our mothers who may very well be totally oblivious of their abusive behaviors. Were we hurt by them YES, was it absolutely wrong and abusive YES, can we forgive them....that is up to you. I learned that I can love and distain someone at the same time. Their behavior is intolerable and I have the right to distance myself from them for my own mental wellbeing. This is normally met with resistance and that is the right of the person receiving my boundary. I can love someone from a distance and can also communicate with them in a way that is healthy for me and respectful to them.
I will give you an example. I had to cut ties with a mother figure in my family. She had been a huge part of my life but I randomly saw her as a child due to her residing in another state. The few times a year I did spend with her I idolized her as the perfect loving mom...(childhood fairytale thinking). It wasn’t until my mother died that I saw her true colors when she showed she was never really emotionally connected to me or my well being, in fact she had been using me to get my moms valuables and manipulate me in the process. I tried to talk to her about it and she made it clear I must be CRAZY and it was then thanks to CoDA and Therapy, that I recognized she was a toxic person and I had to cut off communication with her and move on. Do I miss her? I miss the idea of what she represented but she wasn’t who I made her out to be, nor was she authentic. Therefore I never really knew her. She is family and I wish her the best but it isn’t healthy to have her in my life. She has successfully shamed me to the point my entire mothers side of the family is on her side and I have simply let them all go. I made a choice to live in a way that I have healthy friends and family around me and that is how I stay healthy. As far as my mother who was very abusive, a untreated bipolar and very skilled with narcissistic methods of childrearing, I learned to set limits and minimize my contact with her. She and I became close after she suffered her first cancer battle. We mended fences so to speak and I really was happy about that. Once she recovered it was hit or miss for awhile but I held my ground. Even before CoDA, because I was so angry I didn’t want to deal with it. She attempted to manipulate and my defiance prevented me from taking the bait. Fast forward 10 years and she was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer and it actually took the realization she was not going to make it for us to truly let the healing of our relationship solidify. I expressed last night how angry I was with my higher power for taking her from me when we finally made amends and she was able to be vulnerable. I can thank her now, for the last few days in hospice that she was able to communicate was when she told me not to waste life being unhappily married, That I deserved better and my kids deserved better. That I could do anything I put my mind to and always had been capable of it. She gave me the gift of taking the expectations she once held over my head so I would feel obligated to stay married for the kids and that my ex was a good provider and that should be enough. She then told me I married a carbon copy of my father and she was sorry she hid so much from me so I would have seen him for who he was. That was some discussion. Why am I sharing it? Because I want to try and show you that setting firm boundaries with your mom or caregiver doesn’t always mean that you wont ever have a relationship with them. Things aren’t always all or nothing.
We are PROOF that people can CHANGE if THEY do the work. Maybe sharing my story helped you, maybe it shined light on something and resonated with you. I hold this as my truth, you can only fully heal when we look at our wounds and history, when we shine light in the dark places we have used to shame and harm ourselves secretly, it is then when the darkness looses it grip on us and we can start to heal.
Sending Love and Light,
Kimberly Nicole Sprintz
Here is the link to the article below as well as the top 20 manipulative tactics mothers use (that mean we likely do too and we can address that and stop doing it...)