
"The 2025 Netflix documentary, UnKnown Number: The High School Catfish, depicts the true story of a mother in Michigan who shockingly barrages her teenage daughter with vicious text messages for nearly two years. The texts, sometimes up to 50 per day, included death threats, sexually explicit messages, and even a directive to the daughter to kill herself. Why would a mother do such a thing?"
"The mother ultimately was caught and pleaded guilty to two counts of stalking a minor and was sentenced to 19 months to 5 years in prison, although she is now released on parole. It appears that the mother is still not allowed to see the daughter, even though the daughter says in the documentary, "I love her more than anything." Of course, the daughter still loves her mother."
"Motherhood is still idealized in our culture, making it difficult for someone watching the documentary, the police, and even the FBI to begin to suspect a mother as an offender. A mother in our culture is commonly envisioned as giving herself fully to her children, and our culture still expects mothers to tend to their families unconditionally and lovingly, and to maintain enduring emotional presence in their lives-available and reliable no matter what."
"When researching maternal narcissism for my books, Will I Ever Be Good Enough?: Healing the Daughter's of Narcissistic Mothers and Will the Drama Ever End?: Untangling and Healing from the Harmful Effects of Parental Narcissism, I found a disturbing dynamic in parental narcissism around jealousy of the child, which I also see in this documentary. While I cannot diagnose the mother in this episode, in my professional opinion, I do believe mother/daughter jealousy is a major factor in this mother's highly disturbing behavior."
A Michigan mother sent up to 50 vicious text messages per day to her teenage daughter for nearly two years, including death threats, sexually explicit messages, and directives to kill herself. The mother pleaded guilty to two counts of stalking a minor and received a 19-month to 5-year sentence; she is now on parole and appears barred from seeing the daughter. The daughter continues to express love for her mother despite the abuse. Cultural idealization of motherhood makes it harder for authorities and the public to suspect mothers as offenders. Research into maternal narcissism identifies jealousy of the child as a disturbing dynamic that can drive extreme emotional and psychological abuse.
Read at Psychology Today
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