The Emotionally Absent Mother-Chapter 8 Jasmin Lee Cori

[BeHea1thy]

Chapter 8 What's Wrong with Mother?
We'll start with some common reasons Mother is missing in action and move on to factors more often involved in abusive parenting.

She doesn't know better.
She is emotionally shut down.
She never grew up.

WHY MOTHER CAN'T GIVE
She may carry resentment, even if this resentment is unconscious.
Her own narcissistic needs feel threatened by someone else's need and she can't leave her own needs long enough to be generous.
She may have grown up severely underparented or desperately poor and now muzzles her grief by not giving her child what she didn't have.
A few mothers are so deeply insecure that they fear being rejected and so do not extend themselves in any meaningful way.

Does she have a mental illness?
Narcissism
Borderline Personality Disorder

Watch out for mother's anger!
Bipolar Disorder
PTSD and Complex PTSD

The Mean Mother
Envy, competition, Acting out Own Needs

Mothers who are "Crazy"
Psychotic, Severely Depressed, Schizophrenic, Low Functioning

Mother's Changing Face
Dissociative Disorder

Mothers who are relationally blind
Asperger's syndrome

What Mother can't let herself see (her child is abused by someone else)
Protection of primary relationship
Repression of her own past abuse
Child represents her own self-hate

End Note:
It's painful to look at how deeply Mother may have been disturbed, but seeing Mother clearly is a step in healing. You do not have to diagnose her with a psychiatric disorder, but you do need to see the ways she is broken so that you can stop interpreting her behavior so personally. This is an important step to healing... (end of part One) JLC

Reviewer Note:
Over time I have become disenchanted with this author due to the casual, shallow, narrow way she offers her Healing Mother Wounds (Part II). It may be that I've reached my saturation level presently with this topic, I've never stayed with it so long, since it's extremely distressing to me. So, for those who want to pursue purchase, may your experience be different that mine. Bless everyone who has read the Cori summaries; take what you want, (which may be nothing!)  feel free to leave the rest. BH