Will I love When You and Your Mother Can't Be Friends?

I’m a big believer in self-help books. This was recommended to me by a therapist who basically saved my life, navigating me through a very difficult time in my life in my twenties. The author, Victoria Secunda, breaks down all the different dysfunctional types of mothers, with chapters titled “The Avenger”, “The Doormat”, “The Critic”, in an easy-to-understand way. Reading this book helped me “diagnose” my mother, who never took responsibility for her mental illness, always blaming her behavior on her kids or others. This book helped me to understand her more fully, perhaps even feel compassion for her. I… show more.

This was one of the first books I read about the mother-daughter relationship and it helped me understand what was going on between my mother and I. Victoria Secunda outlines the types of behaviours or playbooks that mothers and daughters engage in and how these behaviours harm their relationships and provides helpful suggestions on how to improve their relationship.