Tragic Mother-Daughter Relationships Part 2

Part 2: The Framework for Healing

Healing begins by understanding what we absorbed from our mothers and what we rejected.

Most of us carry both. We absorb certain traits and beliefs - those that seeped in unconsciously - and we reject others, often overcompensating in the opposite direction.

For instance:

• A daughter may absorb her mother’s distrust of women, learning that female relationships are dangerous.

• She may absorb poor boundaries or oversharing if that was normalized.

• On the other hand, she may reject secrecy and cowardice, but then overdo it becoming an intense truth-teller who demands authenticity from everyone.

• Or she may reject her mother’s coldness, becoming overly giving, overly loving, unable to stop caring - even when it hurts to keep doing it.

Both absorption and rejection are survival strategies. They are ways a child tries to find safety in an unsafe emotional world.

Even the author of this framework admits to having absorbed reactivity from her own mother - learning to lash out when disappointed because that’s what was modeled. When she finally recognized it, the shame was immense. Awareness became the first door out of the program.

The Twist of Rejection

At first glance, rejecting a parent’s behavior seems healthy. But rejection is rarely balanced; it’s often black and white. The little girl inside us isn’t yet capable of nuanced discernment.

Imagine a child watching her mother manipulate others. That child decides, I will never be like that. But she doesn’t know what healthy reciprocity looks like. She’s never seen love that isn’t manipulative.

So instead of developing balanced interdependence, she chooses something extreme - like never having needs, never asking for help, or always giving to prove she’s different.

It’s an immature but ingenious survival mechanism. And it works. Until it doesn’t.

How Absorption and Rejection Show Up in Becca and Alison

Becca absorbed her mother’s intensity, aggression, and distrust. She inherited the belief that the world is unsafe and people are dishonest. Though she’s nothing like her mother consciously, she ends up locked in similar dynamics - at odds with others, pushing for transparency, suspicious of motives.

She also rejected her mother’s avoidance and hypocrisy, becoming brave and brutally honest. But she overdoes it… sometimes tipping from courage into confrontation. She rocks the boat, then accidentally capsizes it.

Alison absorbed her mother’s emotional caretaking and learned to fix others to feel secure. She rejected her mother’s chaos by becoming hyper-organized and overly responsible. But in doing so, she lost her spontaneity and self-trust.

Both women are still unconsciously finishing business with their mothers - only now it is through the people around them.

The Deeper Truth

Every daughter of a toxic mother carries her own unique mix of what she absorbed and what she rejected. The goal isn’t to judge those adaptations but to understand them.

Healing requires compassion for the little girl who had no good options - who absorbed what she had to and rejected what she couldn’t bear.

Only by naming both do we begin to see where survival ends and selfhood begins.

Finding the Healthy Middle - Healing the Absorption and Rejection Patterns

Becca’s story reveals another side of what happens when we grow up under the influence of a toxic mother. She absorbed disconnection. Her mother’s substance abuse modeled detachment - from herself, from her children, from life. Even in moments of apparent closeness or enmeshment, there was no real connection.

Becca also absorbed pretending things were fine when they clearly weren’t. She learned from a mother who neglected not only her kids, but her own self-care including her sobriety, relationships, sanity.

Ask:

• Can you relate to the idea of your parent not being home to themselves? Being emotionally absent or unaware?

• Did you learn to pretend things were “okay” when they weren’t?

Becca, like many of us, carried this forward. She rejected being messy. She got her life together, avoided chaos, showed up for everyone else, stayed in control . And she loathed the idea of losing it. Crying felt dangerous. Messy emotions felt shameful.

At first glance, that might sound admirable to be strong, dependable, and composed. But underneath it lies heartbreak. It’s the child’s survival strategy in disguise. It’s the same old wound wrapped in adult functionality.

Becca’s inner voice might sound like this:

“I can’t be emotional. I can’t be needy. I have to help others - that’s my purpose. It is how I am valued." Or, "who cares about me? I don’t matter.”

Self-inquiry:

• Have you ever felt safer giving care than receiving it?

• Does emotional control feel like protection to you?

You Are Not Your Mother

Before we go deeper take a breath. This work can stir up fear and shame.

Is there a little voice that whispers, “What if I’m just like her?”

You are not. You’re here, reading this, searching for healing and awareness which is something your mother may have never done. Would she have ever watched a video, read a guide, or asked these kinds of questions? Probably not.

So, let’s anchor this truth:

I am not my mother.

Say it out loud or write it down.
Let it be your declaration of freedom.

The Healthy Middle Ground

So, what is the healthy middle between absorption and rejection?
How do we move from inherited patterns into authentic balance?

The truth is, as little girls, we did the best we could. With no healthy adult to show us how to relate, trust, or love, we came up with survival strategies that worked then. Yes, it consisted of hyper-independence. Overhelping.

Emotional shutdown.

But what worked in childhood doesn’t serve us in intimacy, creativity, or peace as adults.

Self-inquiry:

• What strategy did you come up with as a child to stay safe?

• How does that same strategy play out in your adult relationships today?

For many, the task now is to discover the middle way:

• Between control and collapse

• Between distrust and blind trust

• Between overgiving and isolation

Ask yourself:

• What would healthy trust of other women look like for me?

• How can I talk about real problems without it feeling like gossip or shame?

• What would it mean to accept others’ imperfections without losing myself?

• How might I let people have their own process without trying to fix them?

Reclaiming the Real Self

Well if I’m not my mother… who am I?

This is where healing becomes transformation. When we stop living in reaction to her (not copying, not rebelling) we begin to remember who we actually are beneath the conditioning.

This work is about becoming someone new, not by force, but through gentle reclamation.
We discover how to love, relate, rest, and express ourselves without fear.

Healing Goals

Let’s look again at Alison and Becca, only this time through the lens of what healing might look like.

For Alison

Absorption Goals:
Alison absorbed her mother’s aggression and distrust. Her healing begins with challenging her own values about intimacy - recognizing that her intensity can suffocate connection. She’s learned to look for deceit and danger in others, but now she can learn to spot safety and sincerity instead.

Ask yourself (if you relate to Alison):

• Can I recognize when someone is trustworthy?

• What happens inside me when I let myself relax around others?

Rejection Goals:
Alison rejected dishonesty but overcorrected by demanding radical truth from others, often crossing emotional boundaries. Her healing involves learning boundaries instead of control, and honesty without intrusion. She can practice allowing others to have their own timing and readiness for change.

• Am I trying to heal others to avoid healing my parent through them?

• What would it look like to let someone be where they are without needing to fix them?

For Becca

Absorption Goals:
Becca absorbed disconnection and self-neglect. Her healing path includes learning real intimacy which means allowing herself to be the focus instead of the caretaker.

She needs spaces where she can be safely seen. Some of which could be in therapy, support groups, or other circles of trust. Her work is to rediscover that it’s safe to not be okay and that messiness is part of being human.

• When was the last time I let myself cry without apologizing?

• Do I feel guilty when I rest or take care of myself?

Rejection Goals:
Becca rejected chaos and messiness but became hyper-controlled and emotionally guarded. Her healing involves reclaiming being messy, feeling emotions in real time, and surrendering control.

• How might my inner child feel if I stopped managing everything?

• Can I celebrate small moments of not having control?

Becca’s deeper work is learning to choose her inner child over helping others, even just for a season tending to her own needs first.

The Path Forward

You did not choose your childhood.
You did not choose to carry these wounds.
But you can choose how you live now! How you love, how you relate, and how you heal.

This journey asks you to hold compassion for the little girl who created these strategies.
To thank her. And to gently let her know: “You don’t have to do this anymore. I’m here now.”

Ask:

• What are the traits you absorbed from your mother?

• Which ones did you reject and perhaps overcompensate for?

• What would balance look like between the two?

• What kind of adult do you want to be - free from her shadow?

Reclaiming the Middle Ground

Becca grew up absorbing disconnection. Her mother’s substance abuse modeled a version of love that wasn’t about connection at all, it was just survival and pretending. Her mother wasn’t even home to herself.

Have you ever felt this way? That your own parent wasn’t really there?

Becca learned to pretend things were fine when they weren’t. She learned to neglect her own needs because her mother neglected hers. That legacy runs deep.

But Becca rejected being messy. She vowed to stay composed, stable, strong. She shows up for others. She doesn’t use people. She’s reliable and solid. But her deepest fear? Being seen crying. Losing control. It sounds admirable, but it’s really heartbreak wearing armor.

She carries a child’s strategy: “If I’m strong, I’ll be safe.”
If I don’t need help, I won’t be disappointed.
If I don’t cry, I won’t fall apart.
If I help everyone else, maybe I’ll finally matter.

Pause here:

• Do you relate to needing to “have it together” all the time?

• Do you feel unsafe showing emotion or needing help?

• Do you confuse helping others with being lovable?

You’re not your mother.
You’re here now, looking at this, learning, awakening.
Would your mother have ever done that?
Take the pressure off. You’re already breaking the cycle. Good job!

Finding the Healthy Middle

What’s the healthy space between absorption and rejection?

When we grow up without safe models, we develop brilliant survival strategies. They may be hyper-independence, emotional control, caretaking, or perfectionism, which keeps our heads above water until those same patterns start to cost us intimacy, joy, and freedom.

The work isn’t to throw away what once kept you safe. It’s to evolve it. To find the healthy middle.

Ask yourself:

• What would healthy trust look like for you?

• What would it feel like to share honestly without guilt or shame?

• How could you allow others to have their process without trying to fix or rescue them?

• What would it look like to be okay with not being okay?

For Alison

Alison’s work is about softening intensity. Her vigilance kills connection. It turns people off. The irritation is she is always looking for the conspiracy, the hidden motive, the dishonesty.
She needs to learn new ways of relating that don’t begin in distrust.

Healing directions for Alison:

• Practice trust: notice where people are trustworthy.

• Let go of superiority. It only hides loneliness.

• Choose honesty, not control.

• Allow others to awaken on their own timeline.

• Notice when “truth-telling” becomes a way to avoid vulnerability.

• Practice boundaries that come from self-awareness, not from judgment.

For Becca

Becca’s healing begins with reclaiming messiness, rest, and emotional permission.
She has to learn that she can cry and still be safe.

Healing directions for Becca:

• Join a space where she can receive attention (like a therapy group).

• Begin valuing not being okay - it’s part of being human.

• Practice resting without guilt.

• Reclaim time for self-care that isn’t about productivity.

• Allow tears, release, and not knowing.

• Celebrate moments of not being in control.

"The Work Ahead" is initiated in a worksheet for those who feel called to delve deeper into their own subconscious. Simply email me with "The Work Ahead" in the subject line.

And as always, I love you.