You're Not Crazy - It's Your Mother (16 page)

I'm sure you can make your own list of similar statements that you were told.

In addition, narcissists are masters of projection as we mentioned above in the section on narcissistic mothers’ traits.  So the lies which come into this category would include things which are actually true for her rather than us, like:

‘You're over-sensitive.’

‘Nothing pleases you.’

‘You're so hard to get along with.’

There is a lifetime of all these little lies about who you are, which means that you end up with all these beliefs which make up your own mental map about who you are.

Thing is:

THEY'RE NOT TRUE!

Or if one or two of them are a bit true, such as in fleas, it's not because your narcissistic mother perceptively spotted it. She doesn’t see you well enough to see your real faults.  It’s because it’s coincidentally true. Even a stopped clock is right, by accident, twice a day, after all.

So, the take-away from this issue is this:

Don't believe one word out of your mother's mouth. Probably not about anything, but especially about who you are.

SHE DOESN'T KNOW WHO YOU ARE!

She doesn't observe you as you. She doesn't care. You're not a real person to her. (Nothing personal; no one is.)

And so, her opinion of who you are is -
has to be!
- totally flawed.

So you don’t have to don't believe a word of it.

Sure, own your flaws, and your fleas, and seek to improve upon them. But get feedback about them from people other than your mother – partners and friends, once they're trustworthy and genuinely have your best interests at heart.

Don't believe one word about yourself out of your mother's mouth. This is essential.

The false image and beliefs she gave you both manifest as a little voice – the negative self-talk we mentioned already.

The first thing is to become
aware
of the voice. Try to listen to yourself consciously, and hear what messages you are getting. This is probably the hardest step, and you'll fail again and again – the voice will slip out of your conscious awareness.

But that's okay. Remember that it’s okay not to be perfect. Everyone is bad at a new skill when they start learning it. Have you ever seen a baby learn to walk? She falls again and again and again and again. But she doesn't get upset, she just gets up again and tries again. And over time she manages a step more before she falls, and in such steps (literally!) she becomes a proficient walker. The same applies to every skill, and this is a new skill.

The second, and hugely important thing, is to know that this voice is actually part of
you
. Yes, it speaks your mother's words, and probably even in her tone or her voice, but it's part of
you
.

And even more bizarrely, it's a part of you that is trying to help you. All parts of you, even the sabotaging ones, are always doing their best to help. It's trying to help you, but it's doing it wrongly, because that's all it knows. That's the message it received. How can it know any better?

But because it's part of you, and your friend, and is trying to help you, then don't get upset with it. Don't get frustrated. Be gentle.

This voice just has wrong information, that's all. Wrong information about who you are. It's not your enemy, it's your friend with wrong information.

And so, when you hear this wrong message with this wrong voice, I suggest you observe the voice. Observe the message. Be aware of it, and consciously notice it.

Say to yourself, ‘Oh, I'm now thinking that I'll never amount to anything. That's the thought that is now going on.’

By observing it objectively like that, you remove yourself from it a bit. You're not swimming in that thought, believing it, living it. You're stepping to one side and noticing it.

And in noticing it, you can judge it, assess it, discern its objective truth.

And what you do then is to say to the voice, kindly but firmly (like to a recalcitrant puppy): ‘Voice, I know you're trying to help me, and I appreciate that. But you're actually wrong about what you're saying. That is wrong information. It is not true that I'll never amount to anything. The true belief is that I might amount to something. That we don't know yet. That it's worth trying. That there is value and growth and learning in the trying regardless of the outcome.  I know you want to help me, and the way to help me is to give me your help and support in this.’

Do you see how you speak to it, to change its 'truths' - which are really only its beliefs? And how you give it a new, better, truer truth. Not an unreasonable one. Don't get it to believe that you will definitely amount to lots - because that's a step too far. So create a truth that is really true and which supports the effort, such as my example above.

This process does work, but can be slow. The Voice will be slow to change its 'truths'. They are very entrenched after all.

The quick way to deal with these beliefs is to use EFT on them. It will literally erase them quicker than you can imagine now, and replace them with true, empowering beliefs.

One important element of what I’m sharing here is the revolutionary thought that:

It’s good to be wrong!

What would you like to be wrong about?

• I'm wrong about the fact that I'm unlovable.
  

• I'm wrong about being over-sensitive.
  

• I'm wrong about being crazy.
  

• I'm wrong about owing her anything.
  

• I'm wrong about not being good enough.
  

• I'm wrong about the power she has over me.
  

And so on and so on. In fact, as a DONM, you (and I) are wrong about so many things. This is not surprising, as all our lives we were taught pure lies. (Added to the normal human tendency to misjudge things and be wrong about stuff.)

And every single time you learn you're wrong, you have the opportunity for growth. It means that you are more than you ever were before. Stronger, wiser, all sorts of good things. Which, of course, will never happen for your narcissistic mother - as she's never wrong, she can never, and will never, grow as a person.

And in truth, in order to achieve anything in life we need to allow ourselves to make mistakes, to be wrong as it were. Creation is messy; it's a process of elimination and trial and error. And that's okay! The more we can be comfortable with that, the more powerful we are.

But ...

Being wrong can feel so threatening, can't it?

I think it's because the narcissistic mother's Big Lie that we had to be perfect for her to love us.

Of course, being uncomfortable being wrong is another thing you're wrong about! And once you can be comfortable being wrong, you can let that feeling go too. Except that it's not that easy, is it? It's like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps!

Well again, EFT is the solution. I have done a lot of work on this issue with EFT, and I cannot tell you the difference it makes. I now have very little ego attachment to being right. I prefer to be right, of course! I try and make it my business to make right decisions and come to right conclusions and have right information and so on - because doing all those things makes life much better and easier. This does not make me careless in any way.

But I'm always open to the possibility that I'm wrong about stuff, and it doesn't hurt me when I learn that I am. I don't feel
less-than
because I was wrong. I am able to take off the wrong opinion/belief with as little trauma as removing an old worn-out pair of shoes, and putting on the new shiny shoes that I can admire and enjoy. Being wrong is something I
do,
not something I
am.
And therefore it does not reflect badly on me to be wrong (just as it doesn’t reflect well on me to be right), so it’s easy for me to own when I am wrong.

And I so would like you to have that same experience, because, in all honesty, it makes everything else possible. All our hang-ups and sabotaging behaviour and fears and limitations are down to our beliefs, and the easier we can let go of wrong beliefs, the easier we can access new, better behaviours - and the easier we can improve our quality of life.

And that's what it's about, isn't it? Improving our quality of life.

Now that you realise the truth about what was done to you, it’s time to consider your healing. What happened to you, i.e., the damage that was done to you by your narcissistic mother (or parents) is not your fault. What is your responsibility is the healing part (if you choose you want that, of course), fixing the damage that you didn't cause. It's so unfair that we have to do it, that it takes us so much time and energy to get to a place most people begin from. But it’s the reality of the toxic legacy.

The information I have given you so far will hopefully help you to understand your past, and the legacy that being raised by a narcissist has given you. But I truly believe that this knowledge does not have to be just theoretical, that we can heal. We are lucky that we live at a time when there are techniques which can help us heal more quickly than previous generations could have hoped for.

What I have come to learn is that there are two distinct elements that are essential for DONMs. The first is to speak your truth. That is something we were totally denied in the toxic relationship with our mothers. We had access only to her version of truth-lite, so to speak. I think it’s essential to speak your truth, to say in essence, ‘Yes, this did happen. This is what really happened no matter how she lied, gaslighted and spun it to be different.’ There is more about speaking your truth below.

The second essential element is, once you have spoken your truth, to move on. Now, how long you stay in the first stage is up to you. You may need to speak your truth a number of times. The trouble is, the danger is, that you fall into a victim status and stay there. And that does not empower you or improve your life at all.

So what I hope to share here is both the advisability of moving on and healing, and the tools to allow you to do so.

You truly do deserve the best life possible, the life she tried to rob you of.

And it’s so true what they say, the best revenge is living well.

So that said, here are my thoughts on how to live well.

I recommend that you write out your story.

It is better to hand-write it rather than type or dictate it. There is something very powerful and kinaesthetic about the physical act of hand-writing. It gets you in touch with your subconscious very well. If you physically cannot hand-write then typing is of course a possibility, but it is a poor second-best. At this stage I do not suggest physically speaking your truth as it is not physical or kinaesthetic enough.

So, get yourself a notebook. You’re best getting the cheapest and most ordinary one you can. Not a fancy one with a fancy cover that would demand that you live up to it with perfect prose and poetic words. This is about getting down and dirty, and telling it like it is, and you need to feel comfortable doing that.

But what if you don’t know what to write? What if you sit in front of this notebook and no words come? Well then, I recommend a process called freewriting. What you do is set a timer for 15 minutes, and you sit down at the notebook and you start writing words, and – this is essential – you do not stop for the 15 minutes! But, equally essential,
it does not matter what you write
. You get out of judgement about that, and just write away. If you end up spending 15 minutes writing over and over, ‘I don’t know what to write, I don’t know what to write’, then that’s okay.

That most likely won’t apply, though. What’ll happen is that you start hooking into your subconscious and words will come to you. So you might end up writing something like the following (and note the lack of punctuation in this, as it just flowed), ‘I don’t know what to write I don’t know what to write I’m supposed to be writing about my mother but I don’t know what to say about her I suppose I could say what a bitch she is and how much I hate her, but I can’t say that but why not, it’s true, look at all she did to me as a child, there was that time she did x  ...’.

Do you see how the discussion between various parts of your brain started coming in? In this example I started to acknowledge she was a bitch and I hated her, but then I censored myself, but then I started giving myself permission to write that.

Now I stress that this is only an example! There is no right or wrong way to do this. I know that as DONMs we are prone to be very critical of ourselves and to try to live up to some impossible standard. So to have an exercise that there is no wrong way to do it, is possibly scary and intimidating. But truly, the only way to do it wrong is to stop writing. Once you keep that pen moving and write whatever comes, you are doing it right. This is a dialogue between you and you – how can it be wrong?