Brenda Stephens > Quotes

“A narcissistic mother typically lives in a world that she creates in her mind. She is lost in a fantasy,”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“You will gain an understanding of the importance of validation and how daughters of narcissistic mothers spend so much of their time seeking this validation without finding a way to fill the emptiness.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“Instead of fulfilling her role as a nurturer, she is a destructive force in her daughter’s life.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“A narcissist’s daughter grows up in a home that lacks nurturing, validation, and unconditional love, and she often develops into an adult who does not know who she is. She grows up to be hesitant and lost. She does not have a strong sense of self, and because she has been conditioned to cater to her mother’s needs, she will often seek relationships in which she can continue to put others before herself.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“As you might suspect, anger is part of this process. When you get to the grief phase of your recovery journey, you have accepted your reality and can feel really angry about the way you have been treated. This feeling is totally valid, because you were truly injured.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“Daughters of narcissistic mothers are wounded to the core. Their own emotional development is stunted. These daughters are forced to either exist in a hypervigilant state waiting for the next round of chaos, or to make themselves invisible to avoid being the target of their mother’s abuse.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“The narcissist will disregard others, even her own daughter, if it gains her access to the person she is idolizing who can bring her own sense of value higher.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“When a caregiver is emotionally unavailable, the child is left to learn how to interact with the world around them by themselves. They aren’t able to develop skills to connect with others and are left desperate for love, affection, and validation.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“Letting go of guilt and maintaining boundaries will change your life and help you figure out who you are and what matters to you the most. This is how you will rebuild your identity. You will learn that it is okay to stand up for what is right for you and expect kindness, consideration, and respect from others. You do not have to tolerate abusive behavior from your mother. Most of all, setting up your boundaries and learning to maintain them will validate for you that it is okay to say no to anything that does not feel right to you.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“Whether children bond with their parent at birth or later, they need this relationship. Without it, children have a much harder time developing a sense of who they are. Neglect and apathy from parents can lead to an increase in mental illness for the child and a lack of motivation to reach developmental milestones and independence.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“The daughter may have been criticized to the point of developing panic attacks, eating disorders, and migraines. When we don’t learn to identify our emotions and have them validated by caregivers, our emotional development is hindered.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“Because the stunted narcissist has little emotional intelligence and little tolerance for frustration, she will start to confide in her daughter about her fears. She tells her daughter things she should be telling her romantic partner or another adult. Through this process, she becomes enmeshed with her daughter and does not tolerate any boundaries that her daughter may try to create.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“A narcissistic mother will not have the empathy to feel for her child when she uses her child for her own needs. This often manifests in a narcissistic mother’s relationship with her daughter as an enmeshed relationship. The mother has no boundaries with her daughter and burdens her with the emotional turmoil and low self-worth the mother feels (but would never admit).”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“This can be a hard construct for the daughter to come to terms with, as she so strongly wants to believe that her mother is a kind, loving woman. A difficult part of the journey for the daughter is realizing that her mother is not who she thought she was.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“I strongly encourage those reading this book to seek out therapy, psychiatric care, support groups, or other resources to help navigate your recovery process.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“As you move forward, remember: → The abuse and neglect you received from your mother was never about you. → You can repair how you attach to people. → It takes a lot of work and time to recover from narcissistic abuse, but it’s possible. → You can learn to love yourself. → Always trust your intuition. Always.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“The lack of boundaries leads to an enmeshed relationship between mother and daughter where their roles are often blurred.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“My hope is that by understanding how NPD develops, you will also understand that the way your mother treated you had nothing to do with your own value or worth. When she called you names and insulted you, she was projecting what she hated most about herself. She gave you a window to the pain she hides behind the narcissistic mask she wears.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“You grieve for the little girl inside you who was neglected. You grieve the fact that you never had a mother who showed you how to develop properly or understand yourself. You grieve for the little girl who often had to be the adult and was deprived of a real childhood of her own. Grief is one of the hardest things to overcome, but you cannot move forward without grieving.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“When someone drains your energy, it’s time to look at why. When they make you feel like your brain is in a fog or like you’re “going crazy,” pay attention. Your intuition is telling you something that your brain is ignoring.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“The behavior that we’ve made excuses for is actually the heart of who the narcissist is. Our empathic and sensitive ways have made us ignore what later seems obvious.”
― Brenda Stephens, The Narcissism Recovery Workbook: Skills for Healing from Emotional Abuse

“You can see how insidious and subtle this disorder is and how important it is to trust your intuition. When you get that tightness in your stomach at something she says, pay attention and do what you can to protect yourself.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“The true foundation of our recovery is radical acceptance of the situation as it is,”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“Finally, you have learned that grief works with you, not against you. The grief process allows for the fresh start you need to move forward.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“When you look back, you see how much of your time was wasted trying to appease your abuser or trying to understand yourself. These are trials that children with loving and nurturing parents do not have to endure.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“This is your time to go back and nurture that inner child and allow her the right to be a little self-centered in figuring out what is best for her. Change is incredibly difficult, and it takes a lot of work. But if you do the work, you will start to see that you are worthy of your own care, and you are worthy of respectful treatment from others.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“You are learning to love and accept yourself unconditionally. And you are courageous enough to move away from toxic relationships and learn how to stay away from them in the future.”
― Brenda Stephens, The Narcissism Recovery Workbook: Skills for Healing from Emotional Abuse

“Because a narcissist has no developed ego (sense of self), their sense of self is derived from what is reflected back to them from others.”
― Brenda Stephens, The Narcissism Recovery Workbook: Skills for Healing from Emotional Abuse

“You now have the knowledge and power to be kind to yourself and understand who you are and why you respond to certain events in certain ways.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide

“Some relationships with a narcissistic mother are beyond repair. This is incredibly tough, and choosing to separate from your mother is going to be one of the hardest decisions of your life. Unfortunately, this sometimes needs to happen in order for a daughter of a narcissistic mother to be able to heal. Severing ties might be terrifying to contemplate, or it might be a relief. Either way, it is a decision worth a lot of consideration so that you trust your choices and you stay on track to heal.”
― Brenda Stephens, Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughter's Guide