It’s been a while since she’s sent me a text message a mile long, but she sent me one today. I knew it was coming. My survival (and as I grew, my perceived survival) depended on my ability to become attuned to her signals. After over 30 years of practice, I am an expert at it. She’s been casting her fishing line my way lately, letting me know she has a need she expects me to fill, but I haven’t been biting this time. Read on.

My mom has strong tendencies that match those of a narcissist. I didn’t say she is a narcissist, but she looks like one and quacks like one. And, I am her only daughter. This has been bad for me. My mom tangled me in a web of enmeshment and trained me to dedicate my life to serving her self-esteem. I had to keep her happy by making her look good on the outside, but she needed me to be broken, controllable, and sadder than she was for her to “feel good” on the inside. I lost sight of who I am and obscured my self-love under layers of self-deprecating protection. I lived my life making sure she knew I was still in her control, and I constantly self-edited to avoid rejection and to feel safe.

But now…something powerful is happening. The tides are changing. The winds are swirling. The hibernation is wearing off. The woman in me is waking up.

Well into my 30’s, I still felt like I needed things from my mom. I still needed a primal feeling of safety—upsetting Mom felt like what walking alone in a dark alley feels like. I still needed validation—she was the one who always decided if I could feel proud of myself, or if it was OK for me to like something. I still needed to feel like a good daughter and like I wasn’t “causing trouble” or upsetting the family by holding boundaries or putting myself first. I still needed her as a lens through which to see myself, to find clues about whether or not other people would like me. I still needed her in order to feel safe (even though she was the one hurting me).

What changed? Well, for the first time in my life, I experienced what it felt like to truly love myself. Self-love/self-care is something everyone talks about, but my experience with it is not at all what the IG posts look like, so it took me by surprise when I felt it. My very first experience of loving myself was not accepting my imperfect body or taking a long bath, it was an act of self-protection.

My mom and I spent many months trying to pretend like our relationship was healthy after coming back together from a nasty split. But the cracks in her new act started to show. First, I saw her looking around for her metaphorical fishing rod, wondering where it was. A few weeks later, I saw that she’d taken it out of the closet. Shortly after that, a container of worms appeared. It was clear to me she was gearing up to test the waters of her old ways.

Thankfully, I had recently discovered two books and a renewal of self-trust that made things different this time. I learned that this torture may have started because of my mom, but perpetuated because of me. According to the book, I supposedly had everything I needed to untangle the enmeshment, to take control of myself and my life, and to even properly define and assert my boundaries. This is when tides I mentioned started changing. The winds started swirling. The hibernation started wearing off. I was waking up.

When the time came for my mom to cast the line, I watched it in slow motion dramatically fly right toward me. I braced myself for a tidal wave, only for the line to plop into the water next to me with so much as a tiny splash. I paused. This felt different. Instead of taking the bait, I did nothing. So she lit a fire to send a smoke signal next. Instead of putting out the fire, I stepped aside so she had to take care of it herself. She started pushing my buttons next. Instead of reacting, I cut the wires. I protected myself, something I had never done before. And I felt an overwhelming sense of love and safety, something I had never felt before.

Now that there is a beautiful and powerful protector awake inside of me, there is nothing to be needed from my mom anymore. I don’t need her to “love” me or “like” me. I don’t need to double check myself through her lens. I don’t even need her to keep her promise of treating me kindly for me to feel safe around her. I have my own protector now. I have a voice that I am not afraid to use now (from a distance of course, as it is still getting stronger). I feel safer now. I feel freer now.

When my mom noticed that I was giving her less, she asked me if I was upset with her. I said no, because I am not, but that I only have so much energy these days – which I am now preserving for myself. The next day, she asked me what I needed from her so that she could help me out and that she loved me. I replied, “Thank you, I have everything I need.” And then I smiled.

I have everything I need.