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December 27, 2023 - January 8, 2024
I am no longer the girl I once was . . . the girl who had a mother.
Whether a woman loses her mother to death, as I did, or to abandonment in its many forms, the experience will be one that a woman will reckon with for her entire life.
In spite of diverse stories, what I’ve found is that each woman with Mother Hunger yearns for the same thing: a certain quality of love—a nurturing, safe, inspiring love—the kind of love we think of as maternal love. It is the love that we need for a firm start in life. It is an unconditional love that no romantic relationship, friendship, or birthday cake can replace.
Mother Hunger names the longing that you live with; the yearning for a certain quality of love.
This book is about learning what you missed during your development so that you can reclaim the tender parts of yourself that were sacrificed to earn your mother’s love or survive her absence.
Wow okay. Called out
If we didn’t have enough mothering, yearning for love stays with us.
Mother Hunger feels like an emptiness in the soul that is hard to describe because it may set in during infancy or before language forms and become part of how you always feel. The term Mother Hunger captures a compelling, insatiable yearning for love—the sort of love we dream about but can’t find.
Daughters of compromised mothers cling to hope—hope that the mother they have will become the mother they need.
Please stop calling me out
the child in us, the small female who grew up in a male-controlled world, still feels, at moments, wildly unmothered.
Every mother is carrying the resources, beliefs, and traumas of her maternal ancestors.
Mother Hunger comes from unacknowledged damage to nurturance, protection, or guidance.
Adapting to loneliness too early in life leaves a deep hole where love and connection should have been. We’re without an internal compass for love and life, muddling along with brains adapted to loneliness and unprepared for healthy relationships.
Whether you felt the burden of caring for her emotional well-being or couldn’t get enough of her attention, this fractured connection with the most important person in your life leaves you feeling wrong or bad—and vulnerable to addictive cravings, mood swings, isolation, and shame.
Without attunement, a baby can’t tolerate her mother’s proximity. It is not enough that her mother is physically there; the baby needs her to be emotionally there too.
Nature doesn’t require perfection. Children don’t either.
Secure attachment is like having a safe place to live, an emotional place to call home.
Ah....
Mother Hunger is the term that describes what insecure attachment feels like—a hunger for belonging, for affection, and for security that doesn’t go away despite all kinds of psychological gymnastics.
Third-Degree Mother Hunger (which we will discuss in Chapter 8) shares symptoms with bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder.
@ my mom
Insecurely attached women, on the other hand, can’t relate to warm mother–daughter relationships. They learned very young not to go toward their mothers when they were frightened or sad—and sometimes even when they were happy, because they knew that joy might threaten their emotionally fragile mother.
Without healthy maternal nurturance, little girls may grow up with an implicit, embodied sense that I’m alone, and it’s my fault. Thoughts like these create shame, a self-loathing that gets in the way of self-care, healthy relationships, and genuine moments of joy. Shame feels like a locked cage.
I expected to be called out but this is just cruel lmao...
As adults, anxiously attached women lack the inner structure to be comfortable with themselves and others. They crave closeness with friends and partners but are easily jealous and quick to anger. Adapted to deprivation, they have learned there’s a limited love supply.
....
Even if your mother very much wanted to be able to nurture, protect, and guide you, her unhealed anxieties or dashed hopes may have left an imprint on your soul. You could be carrying sadness or anger that began with your mother or your grandmother. “When your grandmother was five months pregnant with your mother, the precursor cell of the egg you developed from was already present in your mother’s ovaries. This means before your mother was even born, your mother, your grandmother, and the earliest traces of you were all in the same body.”14
What the fuck...
Since your biological mother was your first environment, if she was stressed, ambivalent, overwhelmed, or carrying her own unhealed trauma, you may have inherited feelings of anxiety and dread before life experience taught you to feel this way.16
Sabotaged from the get go LMAO
Additionally, postpartum distress can escalate when a new mother is estranged from her own mother or has a mother who is unsupportive or no longer living.
Well add this to the reasons why i cant have kids list lmao
When a sensitive and reliable alternate caregiver is available, such as a partner, a full-time nanny, or a grandparent, infants and toddlers can benefit from relational security even when their mothers aren’t available.
ty memere <3
I’ve learned how common it is for women to keep their first baby blanket or stuffed animal—if they are able to.
Little girls without maternal affection are especially vulnerable to those who might take advantage of them. They don’t recognize inappropriate touch, because it’s better than no touch. In this way, early sexual abuse may go decades without discovery.
Fuck
Pleasing and appeasing is similar to a trauma response—it’s an automatic, unconscious reaction that can become an engrained personality trait.
Unprotected children grow up guarding themselves and fighting for attention. As a result, when siblings most need an ally, they frequently end up with an enemy—or, at the very least, a difficult relationship laced with competition and resentment.
yeah :(
Generations of women have sacrificed the well-being of their children while tending to male partners.
!!!!!!!!!!!
Easily distressed, a vulnerable mother can’t tolerate it when her daughter has big emotions, particularly if they are negative emotions. Afraid that she has no solution, a vulnerable mother may push her daughter away to avoid feeling helpless.
Well this explains what prompted my move to AZ after my honesty regarding my depression lmao
When daughters who are still little girls are put in a position to care for their siblings, they find themselves face-to-face with adult responsibilities they aren’t ready for and didn’t choose.
:\
Healing the pain of maternal neglect helped her reclaim her lost youth and make a more conscious decision about motherhood.
Protecting yourself for so many years takes a toll. Living with fear and anxiety wears down your immune system, leaving you vulnerable to physical symptoms like migraines, joint pain, bowel disorders, painful PMS, or autoimmune problems.
...oh lmao
Compliant daughters are at risk for becoming vulnerable women without healthy boundaries or self-awareness because they learned to appease their mothers.
Welp lmao
Mothers who use their daughters for friendship not only misuse their power—they avoid growing up. They take a shortcut to adulthood. Rather than face their own insecurities and risk bonding with adult women (who might judge or reject them), these mothers bask in the easy proximity, vulnerability, and admiration of their daughters.
Enmeshment is what happens when a parent manipulates a child to meet his or her own needs.
Daughters rarely identify parental enmeshment as harmful, because it feels good to be singled out. Being chosen as the favorite seems like a privilege. But the cost is high. When a mother’s care is too intense, an enmeshed daughter caters to her mother’s moods, needs, and desires while losing the chance to know her own.
My childhood explained.....thaaaaanks
As you recognize the legacy of enmeshment, you can move away from the duty of being your mother’s source and reclaim your own authority.
Crying
If your mother put you in the role of her friend, you may have an unconscious belief that it is your job to make her happy or affirm her mothering, or that it’s up to you to give her life meaning. You may struggle with ambivalence, feeling guilty for wanting your own space.
I hate that this is true for me
Unfortunately, misguided parents sometimes compete for their daughter’s love and devotion. They miss the important truth: each parent is necessary and has a unique purpose. They can’t both be the “favorite” all the time.
If your parents put you in a position to choose sides, it’s very likely that you are living with a haunting sadness from being put in the middle of their insecurities. Part of your healing is letting go of this emotional burden that was never yours to carry.
I don't know why, but I wasn't expecting this to come up lmao
Without the ability to trust a mother’s love, daughters have no idea how to love themselves.
Their mothers didn’t help them or, in some cases, refused to believe them—particularly when the offending person was someone the mother loved.
When a mother can’t acknowledge, apologize for, and amend her harm, fear changes a child’s brain functions, leaving her with a blurred sense of identity and vague feelings about reality.
In spite of decades of evidence that a mother can’t or won’t change harmful behaviors, daughters cling to hope. I call this pathological hope.
Thank you for calling me out once again
Daughters of abusive mothers have been fighting to be noticed, fighting to be protected, fighting to be nurtured, and fighting for an apology most of their lives.
...
Afterward, the voice that says I am disgusting and useless and no one should ever talk to me again starts talking. And it usually sounds like your mother. But remember: Your personality developed to survive your mother’s lack of care. It’s not your true self.
if you haven’t done so already, it’s time to stop reaching for your mother, rest your weary soul, and grieve what is lost.
<\3
Your pain emerged from relational trauma, and it will only heal with healthy relational experiences.
The truth of this tho...
