Daughters of Madness | Adolescence, Young Adulthood, Adulthood

Continuing from my discussion about Daughters of Madness: Infants, Early Childhood, Middle Childhood, the last sections of Susan Nathiel's book covers adolescence, young adulthood, and adulthood. 

Adolescence: The adolescence section covers how very controlling mothers search through daughters' possessions in a violent and intrusive way (p 85). Specifically, personality-disordered mothers undermine privacy and do so in a demeaning way -- and my mother was no exception. And after the violation of trust, she would make the situation out to be my fault. Equally confusing, which this section also covers, is the silent treatment. My mother used the silent treatment often which led to her leaving crazy notes around the house. Once she was over her anger and rage, the incident would never be spoken of again. As one of the women cited in the book stated, "I could never figure out what I could have done wrong. I was a straight A student. I tried my best at everything. I never knew what she was thinking was so bad about me" (p 86).

Further, the adolescence section covers how the personality-disordered mother makes dating difficult, seemingly on purpose (p 86). My mother was very inappropriate around boys who arrived to take me on a date. She would flirt, strut, and wear revealing clothes. She batted her eye lashes and engage in inappropriate conversation. All of this was an attempt to be "cool." Nathiel further explores the mother in public, which experiences can be embarrassing and shameful. My mother attracted attention by being inappropriate. One episode particularly stands out: we were  dining at a very fine dining restaurant with a large group of people. I didn't know any of the people, and my mother only knew one. During dinner, which was very formal and filled with dining etiquette, my mother spoke loudly and fully about her hysterectomy. I remember feeling very embarrassed and wanting to crawl under the table and hide. Horrified dinner guests stared back at my mother as she continued to tell the gruesome and gross tale.

An evaluation of the Borderline in regard to Emotional Intelligence: The Borderline and Emotional Intelligence

Young Adulthood: Predominately through my adolescence, I set my sights to get through high-school so I could leave for college on my own-- to break free. Nathiel (p 114) tells of Pat who also "got out of there as soon as I could." I kept telling myself that if I could survive those high-school years, I would be out on my own and taking care of myself-- no more confusion, manipulations, fear, anxiety, and craziness.

Although I made it out of the mess, I felt terrible leaving my brother behind. I stayed in touch (coming home for weekends) but an estrangement instigated by my mother shortly ensued. With my brother still in high-school, I managed to stay close and in-touch with him during the weekends. On p 123, one of the interviewed stated that she felt really guilty about leaving her younger sister alone with her parents. Although we were free, we still didn't find that happiness and peace knowing that our sister / brother was left in the midst of the craziness. And my brother ended up homeless shortly after as my mother kicked him out.

Nathiel also discusses resilience through this period, which I definately found solace in my running, writing, and music. Many of the people Nathiel interviewed also had similar tactics to survive these years (p 114 - 118). Young adulthood features going out into the world-- and the need to create boundaries. Nathiel talks about the establishment of appropriate boundaries, and with my mother, once we repaired our relationship after a 5 year estrangement, my mother began to press those boundaries. 

Regardless, I didn't let anything stop me. I was a business woman, single and on-my-own, and enjoying all facets of life. My mother would say how she would have loved to experience how I was living but she had to raise two kids at my age. She would attempt to make me feel badly when I planned a trip away with friends-- always stressing the fact that she had to raise kids. A reminder from my childhood: my mother told my brother and me that if she had a chance to do life again, she wouldn't have kids. So, these words continue to resonate, even into young adulthood.

Another point that Nathiel makes is that the young adult goes as far and as fast as they can, without looking back (p 124). I completely understand this statement as I lived this. I went out into the world, full gusto, and became the independent person. I didn't rely on anyone but myself, and I didn't look back. I actually didn't start to analyze my childhood / adolescence / young adulthood until my 30's when I was in the midst of another estrangement brought on by my mother. I was completely confused at this point, debating where I could claim responsibility and where my mother was responsible. I would discuss and analyze with my dear friends until the wee-hours of the morning. No matter how I assessed the situation, being rejected by my mother was not an easy situation to rationalize. 

Adulthood: Into adulthood, I had a relationship with my mother but a very superficial and not authentic. Nathiel expresses that by this point, "someone with so many layers of nonverbal and verbal memory, and so much early instability and deficit, can come to integrate all of this into some coherent whole sense of self without having a good therapist at some point" (p 139). My saving grace, my huge fortune in life, was my friends who opened their ears and hearts to me. I spent countless hours discussing with my friends about my relationship (or lack thereof) with my mother. I also bought book after book after book, reading to try to understand my mother and to figure out what I could do to have a healthy and happy relationship with her. 

We had been in and out of estrangements from my childhood up to this point of adulthood. Nathiel talks about cutting off contact. She states that no-contact is powerful and establishes a feeling of adult equality. If the parent is powerful enough to reject and wound the child, the child grown up may need to retaliate, powerfully, when she is strong enough (p 143). Interestingly, the estrangements with my mother have been started by her. Her fear of abandonment and rejection result in a self-fulfilling prophecy with her cutting ties with me then claiming to be the victim (primary characteristic of BPD). Nathiel has some poignant observations about no-contact in this same section, mainly regarding boundaries and stopping chaotic situations that the parent has pulled the adult child into. 

Some powerful passages are contained in this section regarding elderly mothers and mothers as grandmothers. The one that really struck me was when one of the interviewed was by her mother's deathbed. She couldn't hug her but was able to say that she was happy her mother isn't suffering anymore. The strength that this daughter exhibited is amazing. Another powerful passage is where one of the interviewed talked about having a child and with that child she realized all the things her own mentally ill mother had missed. I can totally relate. She continues by saying, "I never felt sorry for myself, and I never saw how much I missed. But I saw how much she missed as a mother-- she never made that kind of connection to me at all. It was overwhelming" (p 161). These are very profound statements that I have felt reverberate through my experiences being a mother. 

After-thoughts & More: The book closes with some after-thoughts, what do we need to learn, and an appendix of the interviewed biographies. The after-thoughts wrap the book up nicely, noting that many of the mothers are unwilling to change-- which I feel is the case with my mother. She not only doesn't want to change but she doesn't want to talk about any of it and doesn't want to claim responsibility.  She would rather continue the facade of being the victim. Additionally powerful is the discussion of violations of trust. The crux of my issues with my mother at this point are trust. I cannot trust her-- she has attacked and rejected me repeatedly through my entire life. She is a known danger that I cannot trust around my daughter. And I also don't want my husband or myself further hurt by her. As many of the interviewed stated, the worst part of being a "daughter of madness" is not having a mother. I can say that is true for me too. And in regard to the best part of being a "daughter of madness" is having resilience. 

Overall, this book was very insightful, rich with interviews of daughters of madness. The sections were effectively woven together and synthesized into a powerful narrative that speaks for daughters of mentally ill mothers. I learned a great deal of how emotional abuse and experiences while we are infants effects us into adulthood. I also appreciate how our experiences with our mentally ill mothers mirror each other-- just as if our mothers had a physical ailment that manifested itself with the same symptoms, our mother's mental illness manifest themselves with similar symptoms. Daughters of madness have this common bond. 

Daughters of Madness | Infants, Early Childhood, Middle Childhood

I have just completed the book "Daughters of Madness. Growing Up and Older with Mentally Ill Mother" by Susan Nathiel. Susan is a psychotherapist and discusses the daughters of mentally ill mothers, including Borderline Personalty Disordered (BPD) mothers. Supporting her analysis and topics about daughters of mentally ill mothers from birth to adulthood, she intersperses personal accounts from daughters. Many of these accounts I could completely relate with-- and her introduction has such a touching and powerful statement that rings so true, "That memory of a pretty mommy is still alive despite what came later for these women. What transpired was invariably ugly, shaming, and often terrifying, not at all what the little girl would have wanted from her pretty mommy." My mother was very beautiful but through all of the nasty treatment or disregard I received, her beauty wilted into a sight I didn't want to see. 

Mother's Role in Our "Self" Development: Nathiel's beginning of the book is very captivating. A chapter is devoted to the mentally ill mother's role in the development of her child, which is centered around birth and infancy. She describes why some wounds heal, while others don't and discusses the after-shocks of early maternal failure. She relates that at about six months of age, we develop a  'template' of our earliest experiences of ourselves relative to the world. Research confirms what common sense already tells us: that all those thousands of times someone comforted us when we cried (or didn't), all those times were held (or not) and sung to (or not) and washed and changed and put down to sleep (or not), are all important. We do remember them, but we remember them more by the body / mind sense of what it was like to be there, not because we have memories of specific events. pp3 -4 Nathiel  

I have always had a terrible time saying goodbye. I have had such a hard time that I have always wondered to what that deep sadness is rooted. I do know that I had to say 'goodbye' to my birth father / paternal grandparents around six months old. I do know that I had to say 'goodbye' to my maternal grandparents (who were my primary care-takers when I was a year and under) when my mother decided to remarry her high-school sweetheart and move across the country. Did these goodbyes have a lasting and profound effect on me? Interesting to contemplate given what the research states.

Research also shows that young children of mothers with psychotic disorders are more likely to have insecure attachments by the time they're two, and that in adulthood, more than half of the children of a mentally ill parent have either a mood disorder or substance abuse problem. p 10 Nathiel My brother falls directly into this category. After he was born, my mother became very dysfunctional. She was so ill that my Dad didn't know how to handle her and manage the family. Ultimately, he moved us close to my maternal grandparents so they could assist with my brother and me. Despite the move, my mother was emotionally incapable of handling us kids, and without anyone intervening for a period of time, my infant brother was greatly effected. As an adult, my brother has been diagnosed bipolar, has anti-social personality disorder, and substance abuse problems.

With a mother who can barely function in the world and who is emotionally dysfunctional, my brother and I were left with very splintered relationships with my mother. She had children when she was very young (she got pregnant with me at 19 years old) and mentally unstable (she had attempted suicide just little over a year earlier). Her unstable life led to an unstable entry into the world for my brother and me. I had 2 fathers within the first year of my life-- and I moved across country before a year old, leaving my primary care-takers (grandparents). 

The rich growth of medium of the mother-child interaction is where we can see how children take in the world, make sense of it, and respond to it according to that understanding. This happens from the day of birth, if not before. p 12 Nathiel  So, what were my brother and I learning from our mother-child interactions as babies and infants? Certainly not a very positive or stable point of view. If mother is dysregulated in a major way herself and has trouble modulating her own emotions, this certainly spells trouble for the developing infant-- and all before there is any objective memory of language to capture what the trouble is. Again, keep in mind this is all visceral, whole-body experience, without the ability to filter anything out. p 13 Nathiel 

Regular memories are explicit memories which we don't start building until 2 1/2 to 3 y/o. Implicit memories are templates of 'how the world is.' These templates are formed, laid down neurologically, then become the lived-in foundation of everything else build upon them. The templates are like a pair of glasses, but permanently affixed to the child's vision of the world. p 20 Nathiel My first real memories are around 2 years old with the landing of the men on the moon. I have also other snap-shot memories from around that time. But I certainly have a lot of 'feelings' surrounding that time. I can be taken back to that period with deep concentration, and I can **feel** what it was like-- but not with actual 'memories'. I don't have any warm and fuzzy memories of my mother. In fact, I have always felt there was something 'wrong'. I have always felt that my mother was unbalanced and could snap at any second. And as young as I can remember, I have always felt like I was walking on egg-shells.

Early Childhood: Nathiel then covers early childhood in the next section of "Daughters of Madness." She covers more about the moods that an impaired mother may have, which is definately an aspect of which I was acutely aware. Rather humorous but none-the-less sad, my brother and I could predict the mother that would emerge depending on if she had her curlers in (too tight curlers with Dippity Doo meant a 'mean mommy') or a certain outfit (the red, blue and black hip-hugger outfit  always meant a 'mean mommy' too). Some days she never got dressed and those days, the ones without make-up, were the more waif, sad, and depressed mommy.

My mother always saw me as connected with her-- a part of her-- not separate from her. My brother, on the other hand, was the all-bad child who couldn't do much right. She seemed to pick on him for one thing or another. An impaired mother may be having trouble with her moods-- she may be depressed, or her moods may fluctuate from one extreme to the other. Her connection to reality may be frayed, or, in extreme, non-existent, or she may be unable to see her child as a separate person. A self-centered mother may have trouble recognizing that a child has needs that are unique to him, but a psychotic mother may be unable to see the child as psychically or physically separate. p 19 Nathiel

Interestingly, my mother is absent from any of my 'fun time' memories. I have many memories of having fun times with my Dad and maternal grandparents but in the time period of my early childhood, I don't have a hand full surrounding fun with my mother. I only remember trying to assess the mother we had for the day (the mean mom? the sad mom? the easier to be around mom?). She was either smoking cigarettes while on the phone or doing house-work or locked in a dark room. 

Middle Childhood: Nathiel then proceeds into middle childhood where she discusses when kids from dysfunctional families are old enough to start seeing the inside of other people's families. She describes the experience as something they don't forget. This may be the first time they've ever seen a more 'normal family in action, and it may be the first realization that what goes on in their family is not the way it is for everyone. p 38 Nathiel I remember feeling this during early childhood. I was able to see a stark difference between how we lived versus others. I experienced this at neighbor's homes as well as with my aunt's home (she has two children who are 2 and 4 years older than me). What I observed was happy and warm homes with genuinely loving mothers. The homes smelled like something yummy cooking in the oven, and the children were free to play without the constant criticism and negative comments. These kids were allowed to get dirty and play like kids. 

Our house was very sterile. Even the linens in the closet were folded impeccably. I remember hearing random comments from folks who would stop by for a moment or two about how the house was perfect like a magazine. With personality disordered mothers, they are often charming and pleasant and often create the impression that their families are Disney productions, and children in these families are repeatedly told how lucky they are to have such a wonderful / kind / loving / cool mother. Needless to say, this makes it much harder for a child or adolescent to confide in others about what's going on behind closed doors. Children of personality-diordered mothers have a much harder time believing that their own perceptions are valid, as their mother routinely deny this validity, and the fact that the destructive behavior is visible only to them makes it that much harder. p 64 - 65 Nathiel 

My mother was often on the phone, doodling and smoking. She didn't cook so planning meals, shopping, anc cooking were not part of her repertoire. However, another bulk of her time was focused on her grooming projects: major project of shaving legs, of shaving pits, of washing and setting her hair. These grooming tasks could literally take all day. Even cleaning projects were taken to the 'nth' degree by not just Windexing a mirror but actually taking it down, wiping behind the mirror, then wiping the mirror itself, then replacing. If us kids tried to help clean, the cleaning was never good enough and she had to repeat. 

We were not allowed to have friends over to the house. We never had a birthday party. We were controlled: to bed hours before other kids and up later than other kids, our clothes were laid out, our food selected (no eating outside meal times). And one huge element surrounding my mother was that my brother and I must be grateful. I was given a latch hook kit as a gift from my mother. Completing the rug was not fun and I told my mother of  not enjoying it. The next holiday, I received another one and was expected to be very grateful. The same held true with the Healthtex shirts that had decals that irritated my skin. Even though I expressed my discomfort, she continue to buy these shirts and made me wear them.  

My Dad seemed to do the best he could with managing my mother's illness. Given the fact that he's narcissistic (and progressive gotten worse over the years), he managed by moving us back closer to my maternal grandparents, allowing her to stay locked in her room, and taking us kids away whenever possible. My mother and Dad had knock-down, drag-out fights that would wreck the house. My brother and I caught them in the midst of a hum-dinger, where my Dad was on top of her, restraining her. 

Nathiel covers fathers and siblings in this part. As much as I love this book, the section on fathers is lacking. She discusses how the father is in a a relationship with a sick woman and how the father may stay in the family for loyalty, sense of duty, marriage vows, didn't consider leaving, religious reasons, 'the love of his life', not quitters, and more. She doesn't cover the fact that many of these men who stay are also personality-disordered, alcoholics, or drug-addicts. Many of these men are in the relationship with a personality disordered woman because it's mutually beneficial (abet sick). Many of these fathers have a need fed by either taking care of these women (rescuers), being co-dependent, have a narcissistic need met, or are stuck in the abusive relationship with these women.

So, with my brother experiencing the same childhood as I did, why did he turn out completely opposite of me? I am the well adjusted, healthy, happy, positive, successful, educated while he is not. Nathiel offers an explanation in regard to psychological resilience. Psychological resilience has been associated with having at least one person who's a positive force-- even if the person is peripheral-- being intelligent, being creative, and having a sense of humor. p 35 Nathiel Perhaps the intervention of my grandparents made the difference in my life? My grandfather took the role of my father during the transition from my birth father to adoptive father. He remained an influential and very loving figure in my life until he passed away when I was 11 years old. He would tell everyone that he loved me more than anyone in the world. My grandmother was also very supportive, loving, and receptive to me. I also loved my friends at school, school teachers, and more outside figures. Possibly my brother didn't get as much positive feedback from them to overcome all the negatives in the house. Perhaps, my mother's darkness effected him far greater before my maternal grandparents could intervene?

Resilient kids have inborn qualities or certain factors in the environment that they make strong connections with people and / or find a meaningful focus for their positive energies. School. church, sports, jobs can be places of refuge where kids can thrive and do well. Their good experiences remain uncontaminated by their toxic home environment. It's a powerful coping ability, and part of what we see in the most resilient kids. Having at least one positive adult (enlightened witness) is also extremely important and cited as a primary protective factor in kids surveying abusive and neglectful childhoods. These kids sought and clung to positive responses they got from people and built on good experiences. p 78 -79 Whatever the reason for my resilience from my childhood experienced, I am very VERY grateful for having the perspective, frame of mind, and fortitude to survive. I am very grateful for knowing that the dysfunction was her and not me. 

This blog / review covers the first half of Susan Nathiel's book. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading it and highly recommend the book to any daughter of a mentally ill mother OR an undiagnosed mother who abused her daughter. I appreciate Nathiel's explanation of science, mixed with narratives, combined with her experience with patients. The information has been very validating and reinforcing. More reviews to come regarding the sections on adolescence, young adulthood, and adulthood.