Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers  can often have what’s called a self-care deficit, which is pretty self-explanatory. Basically, we don’t look after ourselves or our needs (never mind our wants!) properly.

There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that, because we were not minded or cared for properly when we were growing up, we internalised the message that we weren’t worth caring for, and many of us are still living by that.

Another reason we might have this self-care deficit is because our narcissistic mothers parentified us, i.e. got us to mind her and look after her needs and wants. And thus we learned to look after everybody else rather than ourselves.

This self-care deficit manifests in different ways.

I know I used to have to force myself to have a daily shower – it just seemed not worth the trouble. I struggled with a proper tooth-cleaning regime – it’s much easier just to roughly scrub with the ordinary toothbrush than do the three minutes with the electric toothbrush and the flossing thing.

It used to take such huge discipline to force myself to the right thing, and I didn’t always succeed. (I share how I solved issue, below.)

Then there were issues around eating right and  exercising. I used to be on a constant roller-coaster of doing it right, and then sabotaging myself. This is further complicated by the issues around body size anyway, another legacy from my narcissistic mother.

This is all basic stuff to struggle with. But there’s even more to the self-care deficit – how often do you take time for yourself for supposedly non-essential things? How often do you claim time to pray or meditate? To draw or paint? To follow your hobby?

This is all an essential part of self-care too.

We daughters of narcissistic mothers need to get over our programming and to claim this right to be cared for as our birthright! Which indeed it is – this is no trick or lie. We just need to know that.

The solution is to re-programme the brain to know that we ARE worth this self-care. And you can do that a number of ways. The quickest and most efficient way I know is EFT/Tapping, and I have created a video to help you erase this issue: more information here