About The Book

"But enough about me. Let's talk about you. What do YOU think of me?" - Bette Midler as CC Bloom in Beaches.

When I was a little girl, I had a talking doll named "Chatty Cathy". Whenever I pulled her string, she spoke the same phrases: "Tell me a story" or "Please brush my hair." It may seem strange, but when I think about how to describe a "narcissistic mother," I have visions of that talking doll. A narcissistic mother's interactions with her daughter are as predictably self-centered as the Chatty Cathy doll. No matter how many times the daughter "pulls the string"- hoping that her mother will focus on her and her needs, the mother's involvement with her is always about Mom. As small children we don't understand these dynamics between ourselves and our mothers. Mom may look like the perfect mother, just like Chatty Cathy looked like the perfect friend, yet the child is constantly struggling with feelings of disappointment, sadness, emptiness and frustration. She is longing for the emotional support and nurturing that she never receives from her mother.

Will I Ever Be Good Enough? is for the daughters of narcissistic mothers who have spent much of their adult lives dealing with the fallout of never having received maternal support and love.
Being the adult daughter of a narcissistic mother means that you were raised by someone who cared more for herself than she did for you. She approved of you only when your behavior reflected well upon her or your family. Since her love for you was conditional, you inherited a distorted sense of love and lacked the experience of genuine maternal nurturing. As a result, you have likely developed particular coping mechanisms: you hide or deny your pain, you become involved in intimate relationships that tend to be unhealthy or unsatisfying, you are an overachiever or a self-sabotager. There is the feeling, which directly relates to never having been able to please your mother, of never being quite good enough in relationship, career and life in general. Daughters of narcissistic mothers seem to flounder in life, struggling with chronic feelings of inadequacy and emptiness, knowing there is something wrong but not understanding what that something might be. For them, life thus becomes an agony of self-doubt.

Will I Ever Be Good Enough? gives a voice to the feelings these daughters have buried, offers them insight into the origins of their pain, and provides a blueprint for healing that can be personally tailored to each reader. Will I Ever Be Good Enough? explains the narcissistic mother dynamics to adult daughters and provides them with strategies so that they can begin to overcome their legacy of distorted love and enjoy their lives more fully.

Will I Ever Be Good Enough? Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers, is a self-help book written for adult daughters of narcissistic mothers. In this book, Dr. Karyl McBride is sharing her years of clinical and personal research to help daughters heal.

Learn more here about the topic of maternal narcissism and sign the registry to be notified of the publication release of the upcoming title: Will I Ever Be Good Enough?.
We also invite you to join our message board and share your thoughts and stories as well as gain support from other daughters of narcissistic mothers. Dr. McBride will be joining the discussion board on an intermittent basis as she is completing this important book.