"Her need for perfection made it impossible to live up to her ideals. My becoming a standout was very important to my mom, who paid positive attention to me only when I achieved."
"She would have been a killer lawyer. Mom is relentless and refuses to take "no" for an answer, wearing you down until you concede."
"I was horrified when she informed me that she had signed me up for the Miss United Teenager pageant without my permission. I won first runner-up, Miss Congeniality, and the talent show."
"It's a lifetime process learning how to cope with a parent whose rules and expectations are so suffocating that there's no room for maintaining a separate identity."
An only child of an only child experiences a tumultuous relationship with her obsessive mother, culminating in high pressure for academic and personal achievement. The mother's overbearing perfectionism caused stress, as seen in her relentless pursuit of academic validation. A pivotal moment occurred when she forced a grade change and, later, signed her daughter up for a beauty pageant without consent. After moving away for college, the daughter pursued psychology to understand their relationship and cope with emotional challenges while developing humor as a coping mechanism.
Read at Psychology Today
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