It’s Okay To Say: Mother Is The Problem (The Nerve with Maureen Callahan)

Summary

Sam and Maureen Callahan discussed the challenges faced by individuals with borderline or dysfunctional mothers, highlighting two main issues: negative messaging that instills feelings of unworthiness and the mother's tendency to set the child up for failure. Children dealing with such mothers often internalize the blame, believing they are the problem to avoid the terrifying truth that their mother is dysfunctional, which could threaten their survival. This deep-seated belief makes it difficult for individuals to achieve self-awareness and accept that the dysfunction lies with the mother, not themselves, as the inner child remains fearful of this reality.

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Tip: click a paragraph to jump to the exact moment in the video. Maureen Callahan

  1. 00:00 There are two other issues I think with u with a with a borderline mother. The first I’ve mentioned which is the the the bed object the messaging that you are not good enough you’re unworthy you’re a failure you’re disappointing you’re this you’re that and the second I
  2. 00:20 think uh problem is that the mother sets you up for failure. You see, when you as a child, you’re confronted with a bad mother. Bad mother, a dysfunctional mother, dysfunctional. Yeah. Yes. When you’re confronted with such a mother, as a child, you have two
  3. 00:36 options. You can say, “My mother is dysfunctional.” But that’s terrifying. Because if your mother is dysfunctional, she won’t feed you. She won’t shelter you. You may die. So, no child adopts this position. No child says, “Yeah, my mother is a problem.”
  4. 00:52 The other option is to say I am the problem. Mhm. It’s all happening because of me. I’m doing something wrong or I am wrong. So you adopt this stance that you are the raification of wrongness. You are wrongness embodied and personified and you spend the rest of
  5. 01:13 your life believing that you are wrong. Now because of that is very difficult for people to reach a level of self-awareness because it requires them to admit finally that nothing’s wrong with them that it’s mother and they still have the inner child that is
  6. 01:32 terrifying of admitting this because you see if you’re 6 months old and you reach a conclusion that mother sucks and you know is not unlikely to feed you or shelter you or protect group. That’s a life. That’s life-threatening. No child would do this. And we only kid
  7. 01:53 ourselves when we when we distinguish these phases in life. Now we are adults. We are not children. That’s not true. We’re always children. Especially especially when it comes to mother. Absolutely.
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Summary

Sam and Maureen Callahan discussed the challenges faced by individuals with borderline or dysfunctional mothers, highlighting two main issues: negative messaging that instills feelings of unworthiness and the mother's tendency to set the child up for failure. Children dealing with such mothers often internalize the blame, believing they are the problem to avoid the terrifying truth that their mother is dysfunctional, which could threaten their survival. This deep-seated belief makes it difficult for individuals to achieve self-awareness and accept that the dysfunction lies with the mother, not themselves, as the inner child remains fearful of this reality.

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