Lemon Moms: A Guide to Understand and Survive Maternal Narcissism

Why you can’t please her, why she withholds love and affection, and why nothing you do is good enough. Why you can’t win. A Lemon Mom parents by shaming, blaming, humiliating, manipulating, guilting, and belittling. She has narcissistic traits or have full-blown N arcissistic P ersonality D isorder. She lacks the capacity to bond with or unconditionally love, nurture or accept her children. They grow up feeling “not good enough,” confused, unloved, misunderstood, unimportant, or invisible, and believe that they don’t really matter. They treat themselves accordingly as adults, disliking, ignoring, or neglecting themselves, taking unnecessary risks, being attracted to people who aren’t good for them, minimizing themselves so others can feel good, staying in hurtful relationships, putting themselves last, if at all. Did you grow up in an unpredictable home? Were you preoccupied with your mother? Confused and trying to figure out why she said or did certain things? Did you take her “emotional temperature” and adjust your behavior accordingly? Inconsistency, lack of supervision, no boundaries, and little parental involvement were the norm? Me too For as long as I can remember, there was something “different” about my mother. She wasn’t like other mothers. My mom didn’t hug or kiss, smile at, spend time with, or play with me. She never seemed happy to see me. She didn’t ask about my school day and wasn’t interested in knowing my friends. She seemed to have no interest in me or anything that I did. No boundaries, name-calling, invalidation, neglect My mom called me hurtful names and obscenities, and at times, she ignored me, not speaking to me for days, weeks, or even months. I was expected to care for my younger siblings and was blamed or punished for their misbehavior. I was not allowed to express feelings, ask questions, or show initiative or curiosity. My feelings were discounted, minimized, or invalidated. She re-wrote my memories, and I was expected to believe her version. I was to obey, stay quiet, not question. There’s an unspoken rule in this type of family: don’t talk, don’t trust, don’t feel. If this sounds familiar, you are not alone. If there’s manipulation, power struggles, or cruelty in your relationship, this book can help. If you second-guess your memory, doubt your judgment or sanity, or continually seek your mother’s withheld affection, attention, or approval, this book can explain why. Her behavior isn’t caused by any shortcomings within yourself. There is nothing— and there never was —anything wrong with you. You are lovable, and you matter. You can’t change your mother, but you can change your thoughts, behavior, and, most importantly, how you interact with her . When you apply this understanding along with the tools in this book, your relationship can change. This book helps you reconcile past relational trauma and move you forward even while your mother feels no accountability or responsibility for her hurtful actions. As you update your historical view of yourself, changes begin. Until now, you had two choices: live on her terms (focusing on her, chasing after her withheld acceptance) or go “no contact.” I suggest you have a third option: decode the hurtful behavior, take back your power, and move on: identify gaslighting understand the differences between PTSD and C-PTSD remove drama set enforceable boundaries identify and shut down manipulation strategize conversations to flow the way you want gain clarity by taking the end-of-chapter Action Steps, or use the Lemon Moms Companion Workbook. What’s stopping you? Scroll up and get this book now!