Why is my mom so mean to me quiz

Is your mother toxic? Take the test today

Is your mother someone who always seemed to make everything about herself, on one level or another? Did she make you feel not good enough? Did she pit you against your siblings, if you had any? Did she ever seem to try to live her own dreams out in your life? Did she ever seem oddly jealous of you, or did she ever act inappropriately around your friends? These are just a few of the many signs that your mother might be toxic.

In This Article

A toxic mother is one who is neglectful, controlling, abusive, or otherwise toxic to her children. This behavior is likely to continue into adulthood as long as the adult child allows it. If you have a toxic mother, chances are she often might make you feel bad about yourself or your life. She will also use you as a source of narcissistic supply and attempt to control and manipulate you to get what she wants, or to get you to surrender to her wishes. You’ll often feel like you’re walking on eggshells with her, especially when she feels upset or offended (or when you know she might, based on previous experiences with her).

An adult’s relationship with their toxic mother will also generally involve more negativity than positivity, and it doesn’t emotionally support the adult child emotionally. In many cases, the adult child of a narcissistic mother might feel responsible for their mother’s emotions. The relationship will often also involve resentment, contempt, communication problems, and varying forms of physical, emotional, and psychological abuse delivered in varying iterations over the course of the adult child’s life.

If any of these signs sound familiar to you, or you’ve just been wondering whether your own mother is toxic, take this quick self-assessment test to find out if your mother could be toxic. If the self-assessment finds your mother to be toxic, you’ll be directed to a list of resources for support, including a lot of free and helpful videos, articles, and information and a free support group for adult children of narcissists, among other resources.

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Author

Angela Atkinson
Angela Atkinson is a certified trauma counselor and the author of more than 20 books on narcissism, narcissistic abuse recovery, and related topics. A recognized expert on narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder who has studied and written extensively on narcissistic personality disorder and narcissistic abuse in toxic relationships since 2006, she has a popular narcissistic abuse recovery YouTube channel. Atkinson was inspired to begin her work as a result of having survived toxic relationships of her own. Atkinson offers trauma-informed narcissistic abuse recovery coaching and has certifications in trauma counseling, life coaching, level 2 therapeutic model, CBT coaching, integrative wellness coaching, and NLP. She is a certified trauma support coach and certified family trauma professional. She also has a professional PTSD counseling certification. Her mission is to help those who have experienced the emotional and mental devastation that comes with narcissistic abuse in these incredibly toxic relationships to (re)discover their true selves, stop the gaslighting and manipulation, and move forward into their genuine desires – into a life that is exactly what they choose for themselves. Along with her solution-focused life coaching experience, Atkinson’s previous career in journalism and research helps her to offer both accurate and understandable information for survivors of abuse in a simple-to-understand way that helps to increase awareness in the narcissistic abuse recovery community. Atkinson founded QueenBeeing.com Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Support, the SPANily Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Support Groups and the Life Makeover Academy. She offers individual and group coaching for victims and survivors of narcissistic abuse here at QueenBeeing.com and at NarcissisticAbuseRecovery.Online.
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How Good Is Your Mother-Daughter Relationship?

Quiz

1. My mother has the ability to quickly and frequently make me feel guilty.

2. I frequently feel that what I say or do may not be perceived as good enough by my mother.

3. I find myself acting like an adult -- except when I am around my mother.

4. I do not stop my mother from interfering in my marriage or private life.

5. Sometimes I either indulge myself with food or withhold it from myself to cope with the feelings I have toward my mother.

6. I live with the hope that one day my mom will change, suddenly appreciate me, and be receptive to what I have to say.

1. My mother has the ability to quickly and frequently make me feel guilty.
No

2. I frequently feel that what I say or do may not be perceived as good enough by my mother.
No

3. I find myself acting like an adult -- except when I am around my mother.
No

4. I do not stop my mother from interfering in my marriage or private life.
No

5. Sometimes I either indulge myself with food or withhold it from myself to cope with the feelings I have toward my mother.
No

6. I live with the hope that one day my mom will change, suddenly appreciate me, and be receptive to what I have to say.
No

A string of "Yes" answers demonstrates that you undoubtedly have the affliction. None of the above conditions is a happy, healthy, or satisfying way for a daughter to live. However, this is not the final, definitive test of your relationship.

If you have been a particularly compliant daughter, you may be surprised by this revelation. For others, the quiz may merely confirm your suspicion that it is Mom who is driving you crazy, and that your relationship needs some serious work!

If you answered mostly "No," your mother-daughter relationship appears to be on a healthy course with regards to communication, respect, appreciation, and mutual understanding.

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"Why doesn't my mother love me?" and 5 more questions about traumatic relationships with mother - Knife

Clarification: the book is addressed primarily to daughters, but we believe that the problems listed are familiar to all people who have unsuccessfully tried or are trying to woo their parents.

1. Why doesn't my mother love me?

This question is like a weed with long and tenacious roots. It is especially dangerous because you believe that if you manage to find an unambiguous answer, you will be able to change that which does not allow you to love, whatever it may be.

Chances are you, like me and every other little girl in the world, believed in the mother myth that all mothers love their children. Therefore, just asking this question, you experience fear and shame.

If only I could find the answer! Then, perhaps, everything will change, and the mother will turn into one of those mothers who, in a fit of tenderness, tousle their daughters' hair, always smile at them and look into their eyes. All abandoned, neglected girls dream of this.

The problem is that any answer you can find always contains only a grain of truth. To begin with, what you are most likely thinking: the whole point is that you are not at all like your older sister, whom your mother obviously loves, but no matter how hard you try to be the same as her, you remain itself and nothing changes.

At another moment, it dawns on you that everything will change your success and popularity, and now you are already studying for only A and playing the main role in a school theater production, but this does not help either. Or, on the contrary, you go into all serious trouble with the thought that any attention is better than ignoring and neglecting.

Finally, as an adult, you re-evaluate your mother's emotional history and conclude that it is best to treat her with empathy and compassion, but then you find yourself even more vulnerable because you lost your caution, and you understand that the pain of rejection and its constant attack on you is as excruciating as ever, and your empathy won't stop it from trying to trample you into the dirt.

As a child, I often asked my mother if she loved me. She gave an evasive and, as I already understood, deceitful answer: "Every mother loves her child." However, she never answered with the three simple words I had been waiting for. (To be precise, I was expecting four words because my mother always spoke to me in Dutch, but that's not the point.)

I always thought that the mother was avoiding this question in order to protect me and not destroy me with a sincere answer. It wasn’t until I wrote the book Bad Mothers that I realized that she was doing it to protect herself from shame after an honest answer.

It is a deep shame, perhaps the deepest, with the exception of the shame of killing a mother, father or child, to admit that you do not love the creature that you bore and gave birth to or, in the case of adoption, swore to love and protect as your own child. An additional source of shame is to admit that you don’t even like your child, and my mother didn’t like me.

By continuing to ask this question, you remain stuck in a carousel and force yourself to look for less and less realistic answers and reasons. It rules your relationship with your mother (and other family members), keeps you dancing in denial, reinforces the underlying conflict, feeds false hopes in you, and, most importantly, undermines all attempts to heal.

Oddly enough, when you stop asking yourself this question, at first you will feel sad. Why? Because, having closed it for yourself, you will give up the hope that one day a miracle will happen and, with the wave of a magic wand, all evil will disappear.

You hoped that this miracle would happen due to the correct answer, and giving up looking for it is excruciating, but this emotional pain must be endured. Seek professional help and support if you find it too difficult to bear on your own.

As long as you continue to ask yourself this question, you yourself remain the main obstacle to healing. Such is the cruel truth.

2. What should I change in myself to make her love me?

This question seems to be a part of the previous one, but in reality it is independent and has an answer: nothing.

You could not change anything in yourself to make your mother treat you differently, because her reaction to you does not depend on you in any way and is entirely and completely connected with her.

It is necessary to separate this situation from the albeit not simple, but still filled with care relationship between mother and child.

This situation persists even when the child grows up, because the relationship between mother and daughter never becomes a partner, and the daughter expects something from the mother, and not vice versa. Let's start with what the experts call "quality of fit," a concept that focuses on the personalities of the baby and mother.

Consider the case of a relatively introverted mother who greatly needs time for herself and appreciates silence. She has two children: one is calm, independent and rarely behaving reactively, the other is emotionally demanding, mobile and active. With which of the two will such a mother be easier?

The answer is obvious: with a child whose needs are closer to her own. And it is in this case that we will talk about a high "quality of compliance". However, the parent-child relationship is not one of equals, and it is the duty of the mother to recognize the difficulties involved in raising a child who is not like her and to find ways to cope with them.

The solution is not to blame, avoid, or ignore a child who expects his mother to meet his emotional needs so that he can grow and develop safely.

Maybe interesting

What is “painful intimacy” and how can children and parents stop being a burden to each other

Should we forgive our parents and should we love them

Obviously, this discovery also applies to you, explaining in many ways why you deny and are not quick to acknowledge abuse by a mother or another person. Even more valuable, however, are the scientists' findings about why children tend to attribute abuse to being "bad."

Self-blame, the researchers write, “blocks the thought that the adult caregiver cannot be trusted and gives the illusion of self-control.” Again, what could be scarier than realizing that it’s not safe for you to be around the very person who is entrusted with taking care of you? This explains why victims of abuse prefer to blame themselves for everything - it's less scary and there is hope that you can fix everything.

<…>

4. What could I be if I had a loving mother?

This question is a road to nowhere, and it usually arises when the daughter begins to realize the harm done to her and experiences great anger and resentment due to the fact that she was deprived of the most necessary things. Some of that anger may be self-directed, because it took her so long to see her mother in the true light, because she denied the harm and tried to appease her mother instead of acting, and the like.

This question also distracts from working on yourself, which helps you heal and become the best version of yourself - and not someone else. And the good news is that healing is possible. So get that question out of your head and go ahead light.

It's also good that refusing this question doesn't hurt. If you start thinking about it, tell yourself "no" and ask any of the many productive questions offered in this book.

5. If my own mother did not love me, then who will?

This is a secret fear that a little unloved girl hides deep inside. It is reinforced by self-accusations and accompanies her in adult life, now hiding in the shadows, now coming to the surface.

Behind the fear is a powerful cultural myth—that all mothers love their children with unconditional love—and the tremendous power a mother has over her children. This fear makes the daughter feel like an outcast who never feels comfortable with anyone and is always ready to be rejected.

Of course, such a question could not arise without the certainty that the sun, around which the unloved daughter revolves, is not only the only source of love, but also a storehouse of wisdom and insight. This is the question of a frightened and lonely child, and although he pursues his victim again and again, it must be abandoned.

If you pull this question into the light of adult understanding, its source is immediately visible, especially if you allow yourself to remember all those people who did not believe your mother's false accusations when you were little.

Experts call relationships with such people "islands of safety", and these relationships can become a source of acquired secure attachment. By abandoning the "cursed" question, you can switch your attention to all those people who have shown love and kindness to you, supported you in the past and present. And it's not just about deep and intimate relationships.

For example, I still remember the kind look and affectionate gestures of my teacher in the first grade and how well she made me feel good more than 60 years ago.

So, instead of asking, "If my own mother didn't love me, who will?" - ask yourself: "Who was and is for me a guiding beacon, the promised land, where I really feel good?"

Here, my friends, is a question worth asking.

6. Maybe I should have tried harder to fix things?

This question stems from a deep aspiration and hope — tormented, abused, bleeding, but still alive and fueled by the notion that all mothers are loving, which means that if something goes wrong, it’s only about mistakes or shortcomings daughters.

It is accompanied by a great sense of guilt, because no one thinks about the really important duties of a mother: she must not only love her child, but also achieve attunement to him, help him cope with his emotions and learn to restore peace of mind, raise him sufficiently confident in himself, so that he is ready for risk and possible failures, and also sees and perceives himself as a whole, with all the advantages and disadvantages.

This question is also fueled by an unwillingness to admit that you were unable to change the relationship because it was beyond your capacity. As an adult, it hurts to know that any power you seemed to have was just an illusion.

It is hard to comprehend the fact that you could do nothing—literally nothing—other than maintain the status quo and endure the pain and humiliation it entailed.

What about the feeling of guilt and the thought that you are indebted to your mother because she fed, clothed and supported you?

Put them in the right context first. In fact, parents are required by law to provide clothing, food, and shelter for their children, and may be punished if they do not. If this is what it means to be a parent, then the orphanage can be called a place where children receive parental care.

Be aware of how reflexive your guilt is and trace it back to its source. Ask yourself to what extent your feelings of guilt are formed by the unfounded opinions of other people who did not even bother to listen to you and understand your point of view. And how much it is reinforced by the cultural myth of the mother...

You may also have personal beliefs, including religious beliefs, that are important to you and that lead you to ask this question. In this case, seek professional help to learn how to achieve some kind of balance where your views do not interfere with recovery and personal growth. Discussing such issues can bring great relief.

Mom's smile illuminates my whole world. She is the best that I have | Mom's smile

Mother's smile

Mom. What a beautiful word. What is native and special for everyone. So sweet. And it belongs to the most wonderful woman of all.
This is a person who is constantly near, from our very birth. She is always with us throughout our lives. It is as if she is experiencing life anew, but already with us. She feels with us. Sad with us, rejoices, fears and worries. Mom always knows what to do.
Sometimes it seems to us that mother forbids us too much, restricts us in something, but she only tries to protect us from something, to help us. You think your mom is mean. No, it's not. She forbids not because she wants to, but because she knows what can happen. She has so much life experience, she always knows what is best. She wants to do what is best for you, so that you live wonderfully and calmly. After all, it is important for every mother that her child is happy.
Mom is always right. Agree, because she really knows what the result will be. For example, she warns in some way, but it just seems to us that she is too worried, everything will be in order, it’s not scary. But then what? You still realize how right your mother was. She is never wrong, because she was as young as you, got into the same situations, thought the same way. She has already gone through all this.
Even if you quarrel, never say anything to her in your hearts, in a fit of anger and anger, do not say anything offensive to her. It will seem to you that it won’t affect her, that she doesn’t care, you continue to swear in the same way, without thinking about anything, you say, but you can’t even imagine how it stung her. It hurts a lot, right in the heart. Like it was cut with a shard. She can hide it, hide it inside herself. With you, she will not cry, and when you sleep, she will cry into the pillow, and in the morning you will make peace, and everything will pass. Mom will always forgive everything, because she loves you. She can’t be offended by you for a long time, just like you can’t be offended by her.
Mom's eyes are the most beautiful. You can always see kindness and affection in them. They always shine with an unquenchable light, so attractive and bright. They reflect her soul. She is the kindest and most beautiful person in the world. Mom always shines, everyone has her beautiful, and everyone loves her in their own way. She is a ray of sunshine in our lives. The closest person on earth, there is no one closer to her. You can always rely on your mother, entrust her with the most secret and intimate. She will always understand, support and help. When you feel bad, feel terrible, mom is always there. She will talk to you, hug you, kiss you. Mom hugs are the best. Her hands are tender, so warm next to her, she hugs you tightly, you are no longer afraid, not bad, you feel good, you are safe next to her, no one will offend you.
Any mother protects her children. She defends her rights and the rights of the child, she will always do better only for you. No mother likes to have her child bullied. For a mother, a child is the most precious treasure, she keeps it and protects it.
For mothers, we are always small children, even when we grow up completely, become parents ourselves, we still remain their little suns.
Every mother loves her child in a special way. She is proud of us, always happy for us. And even if sometimes something doesn’t work out for her, don’t be angry with her, she can at least sometimes make a small mistake. Don't get mad at her if she spends little time with you. Perhaps she has a lot of work, she is constantly busy, but she really wants to be with you, to talk. Talk to her more often. After all, sometimes she also lacks heart-to-heart conversations, remembering funny moments, laughing. Mom misses you very much when you are not around for a long time, she is looking forward to meeting you as soon as possible, often calls you, asks how you are. And do not get angry when she constantly calls you if you are late, she is just very worried and worried. Mom is always there when needed.
Mom needs to be protected and protected in the same way as she protects us, love and hug, take care of her. Mothers are everything to us. They gave us life and raised us. Every child is proud of their mother, and mothers are very proud of their children. Mothers know what their children need, try to fulfill all their wishes, give them what they want. And even if you don’t always get what you want, for example, mom doesn’t buy you what you want, then this is simply because she takes care of you, doesn’t want to pamper you much, or maybe she just doesn’t have the opportunity to give you this.