Mason

“One sister may internalize the message and say, “Okay, I will show you what I can do and how worthy I am” and become an overachiever and a perfectionist. The other sister may internalize this message of inferiority and give up, feeling that she can’t make the grade anyway; she becomes an underachiever or engages in some kind of lifelong self-sabotage.”
― Karyl McBride, Will I Ever Be Good Enough? Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers

“The borderline’s children are preoccupied with what researchers call “risk assessment”—with determining the nature of their mother’s state of mind from one moment to the next. It is an unconscious and involuntary process, like breathing. They do not realize they are doing it.”
― Christine Ann Lawson, Understanding the Borderline Mother

“What’s magical, sometimes, has deeper roots
than reason. I hope everyone knows that.”
― Mary Oliver, Blue Horses: Poems

“The voices of children are easily silenced by the fear of not being believed. If 3-year-old Michael Smith had somehow miraculously survived, would he have told anyone that his mother tried to drown him? Would anyone have believed him? No one wants to believe that a mother would sacrifice her own child, especially the child.”
― Christine Ann Lawson, Understanding the Borderline Mother