Terri Apter > Quotes

“Yet being in the spotlight is also dangerous because a child's success may be construed by a narcissistic mother as competition. In self-defense, a son or daughter may insist that any achievement is a fluke, and any award is undeserved or is really a tribute to their mother. They suppress their own healthy narcissism to please a mother . . they believe any success is a mistake and at any moment they will be "found out" and identified as a fake or a fraud. The mind-set is, "I am succeeding because I can fake excellence, but inside I am not really worthy or not really able." Such self-effacement is common in people who are pressured to excel and also primed to assure others . . . that they are subservient and inferior.”
― Terri Apter, Difficult Mothers: Understanding and Overcoming Their Power

“One of the main tasks of adolescence is to achieve an identity—not necessarily a knowledge of who we are, but a clarification of the range of what we might become, a set of self-references by which we can make sense of our responses, and justify our decisions and goals.”
― Terri Apter, Altered Loves

“Trying to make sense of other people's responses to us is a basic human activity. Accepting a mother's [or anyone's] anger by concluding that i is justified is a way of making sense of a difficult relationship. But this acceptance comes at a great cost, for it means that we see their cruelty as our shame.”
― Terri Apter, Difficult Mothers: Understanding and Overcoming Their Power

“a single outburst does not produce a difficult relational environment. It is only when a parent [or anyone] repeatedly and regularly uses anger to close conversations, in the broadest sense of 'conversation,' that a dilemma is framed. When a parent [or partner] uses anger or the threat of anger to dominate the emotional atmosphere, then even potentially good conversations with them lose spontaneity, openness and honesty.”
― Terri Apter, Difficult Mothers: Understanding and Overcoming Their Power

“As Freud noted: "A thing which has not been understood inevitably reappears; like an unlaid ghost, it cannot rest until the mystery has been resolved and the spell broken." . . . in ambivalent attachment, a mother vacillates inexplicably from being loving and tender to angry and threatening.. Faced with this unpredictable inconsistency, a child tries to appease the mother, anxious to control and monitor her shifting moods.”
― Terri Apter, Difficult Mothers: Understanding and Overcoming Their Power

“... you may seek out a partner who psychologically resembles your mother and found that you have walked right back into a difficult relationship. Perhapse you chose to be close to someone who turns out to be as volatile as your mother and who inflicts discomfort all too familiar to you. Or perhaps gradually, over time, your partner or close friend becomes like your mother; that may be because you unconsciously behave in ways that encourage others to treat you as your mother did.”
― Terri Apter, Difficult Mothers: Understanding and Overcoming Their Power

“Some children [and adults] conclude that a parent's [or partner's] anger is justified. It can be more painful to believe that a parent is uncontrolled, unreasonable, and spiteful than to see yourself at fault. It can be more painful to look on confusion and chaos that to make sense of a parents behavior by concluding that you deserve her punishment.”
― Terri Apter

“Robert reflects:
I go weak at the knees when she turns against me. I forget what it's like to feel courage. I try to remind myself that the worst of it will pass, that she won't be like that forever. She's mad now, but there will come a time when she's not mad. When I was growing up, I tried all sorts of things to get me through these times. I used to think "It won't be so bad if she doesn't hit me." And then I got to noticing that whether or not she hit me didn't matter. What I was afraid of was that she was going to explode and disappear.”
― Terri Apter, Difficult Mothers: Understanding and Overcoming Their Power

“You may find that yes, your partner tends to shout easily, but the shouting contains no malice and passes quickly. Perhaps your partner's short fuse does not prevent them from being loving and supportive. In that case, you may have found a gem whom others have avoided because they cannot get past the bursts of temper. But if you find that time after time, a partner or close friend disappoints you by being just like a difficult parent, then you would do well to consider whether you are selecting someone who helps you reproduce that difficult relationship.”
― Terri Apter, Difficult Mothers: Understanding and Overcoming Their Power

“Empathy, attention, and calm provide a scaffold that steadies the teen's volatile emotions.”
― Terri Apter, The Teen Interpreter: A Guide to the Challenges and Joys of Raising Adolescents