Mother Hunger: How Adult Daughters Can Understand and Heal from Lost Nurturance, Protection, and Guidance

by Kelly McDaniel

More subtle, nuanced forms of emotional abuse, like a dismissive glance or rejected hug, are challenging to identify, but also leave a scar, because it...

Being left alone to make sense of the negative feelings inte...

Emotionally abusive mothers rarely repair the hurt they cause, and the lack of acknowledgment is what causes a...

Emotional trauma is difficult to quantify for this exact reason. But emotional abuse is psychologically traumatic because it betrays a fundamental role of parenting: it violates trust. Without the ability to trust a mother’s love, daughters have no idea how to love themselves.

Missing an emotional safety net, the developing young brain focuses on finding safety elsewhere instead of playing, relaxing, or bonding with others.

For example, girls with abusive mothers have difficulty making friends. They struggle to trust.

Prolonged activation of the stress response system (from lack of trust) disrupts developing brain architecture, making it difficult to manage emotions, moods, and thoughts.

Sometimes cold and brittle, other times childlike and docile, women with Third-Degree Mother Hunger have frozen, fractured emotional development. This explains why daughters of abus...

Reacting to life with the mind of someone young and afraid is the legacy of abuse; not an indic...

A mother’s touch is as necessary as food. But when a mother’s touch is disrespectful or aggressive, it leaves a damaging impact that can last a lifetime.

While spanking might appear effective in the short term, there is no existing study to support the idea that spanking or physical pain leads to long-term positive outcomes. The research suggests that parents who spank their children are actually unable to regulate their own emotions.

Spanking is a shortcut, an emotional bypass from parental discomfort, anger, or helplessness.

Spanking leads to fear, aggression, humiliation, and with...

When spankings are frequent, a child may develop anticipatory distress as she predicts or awaits the abuse. She gets jittery, jumpy, or withdrawn.

Spanking creates toxic stress for a child and for the siblings who watch, eroding trust and safety in a family.

Children who were spanked suffer long-term symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, and emotional distress.

If you were spanked as a child, you may feel disgusted by your body. It may be difficult to care for yourself (including pursuing medical care, dental care, regular exercise, and healthy nu...

We know that childhood sexual abuse leads to many forms of addiction and self-destructive behavior. And more than the abuse itself, women mourn the fact that no one protected them.

But the long-term, enduring impact of sexual abuse isn’t just about physical pain. Not all sexual abuse physically hurts.

Violations of a sexual nature often lead to a full rejection of one’s sexuality, or risky sexual behavior.

According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, victims of domestic violence share symptoms that may include: Feeling isolated, anxious, depressed, or helpless Feeling embarrassed of judgment and stigmatization Feeling love for the person harming them and believing they will change Feeling emotionally withdrawn and lacking support from family and friends Denying that anything is wrong or excusing the person who is abusing them Having moral or religious reasons for staying in the relationship18

Since a mother is our first intimate partner and she has access to our body at all times, her cruelty is a form of domestic violence. If she handles us aggressively or directs her rage at us, we experience unimaginable terror.

We feel inherently bad. Almost unanimously, victims of partner violence believe domestic abuse is their fault. Daughters of abusive mothers do too.

Little girls with abusive mothers rarely talk about the abuse. In fact, they generally don’t identify abusive maternal behavior at all. It just feels normal.

Adaptations to intimate violence change the brain’s ability to make sense of what’s happening by prioritizing safety...

Symptoms of domestic violence include sleep problems; intrusive flashbacks and feelings of terror; avoiding topics or situations that are reminders; feelings of hopelessness, rage, and worthlessness; and panic attacks.

They idealize the abuser (their mother), believe they deserve the abuse, and suffer a humiliating loss of self-worth.

Accommodating and appeasing a frightening mother is an adaptation to inescapable fear. While tending to an abusive mother’s moods, a daughter loses access to her own sensations and agency.

Pathological accommodation is the biological freeze response in action, which may explain the physical ailments that accompany Third-Degree Mother Hunger.

Trauma bonds—strong emotional attachments between an abused person and her abuser—form when the human neuropathway for danger and attachment are activated simultaneously and damage the attachment system.

When a traumatic bond forms between a mother and her daughter, this toxic connection impacts all other relationships in the daughter’s life.

Disorganized attachment is the potent legacy of a harmful mother.

Judy Garland and Édith Piaf were both living with disorganized attachment. Their symptoms followed them into adulthood and grew more intense with time (and lack of therapeutic intervention) as both women raged at lovers, threw tantrums in restaurants, and struggled to hold on to successful careers.

Melting or collapsing is a freeze response. Raging is the fight-or-flight response. Certain bodily signals (such as smells, sounds, or touch) become reminders of early helplessness and quickly set off impulsivity and dissociation.

Deep in their bones, women with disorganized attachment believe no one is safe.

Most women with disorganized attachment work too much, spend too much, or eat too much. Some deprive themselves of basic needs.

Fleeting emotional highs mask the pain of not belonging anywhere or to anyone.

Dissociation, a parasympathetic process of downregulating the nervous system in response to impending danger, is a survival reaction. We literally and temporarily leave awareness as our breathing slows down and we become immobile. This is nature’s way of preparing for death. It’s not a conscious process. It’s automatic.

Dissociation happens when we feel there is no other option in the face of a threat.

As infants or children, the reality of a frightening mother presents us with an impossible dilemma: the person who co...

When maternal threats are constant, so is...

During our formative years, fear without repair creates lifelong changes in the brain. Herein lies the essence of complex trauma.

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.

Dissociating protected you when you needed it, but the habit makes past even...

Tucked away from conscious awareness, like it or not, the memoir of your life is in your body—silently informing physical and mental well-being—trying to get your attention through body aches, regular nightmares, and chronic anxiety.

At the mercy of a cold, aggressive, or abandoning mother, a daughter must believe that her mother will change. Dissociation permits this persistent hope, almost like a fantasy.

Fantasizing is a powerful way to endure intolerable feelings when there is no escape.

Nature’s merciful design, keeping you from having to reckon with overwhelming reality, hides data that could be useful, such as information about how to detect a dangerous person.

When we are helpless, dissociation buffers unbearable reality, but it also creates a division between the self that is going through life (attending school, learning to read, making friends, playing sports) and the self that is holding unexpressed fear, shame, and anger.