Crossing the “Terror Barrier” of the Mother Wound: From Subservience to Sovereignty (Part 2 of 2)

Welcome to Part 2 of this exploration of Crossing the “Terror Barrier” of the Mother Wound! (See the part 1 article here)  In this article I will cover how the Terror Barrier can manifest emotionally and somatically, why wounded mothers discourage emotional differentiation in their daughters, my own personal experiences of the Terror Barrier on my own journey, 7 Main Ways that we can support ourselves in crossing the Terror Barrier, as well as new expressions of sovereignty that we begin to embody as the Terror Barrier increasingly dissolves.

Let’s dive in!

The Terror Barrier arises when healthy, empowering, self-advocating choices in any given moment are felt to be in direct conflict with what your mother strongly reinforced as bad, wrong, shameful, or somehow threatening to her when you were a child.

In other words, you’re about to do something that would enhance your life in positive ways but that would, at the same time, according to early childhood conditioning, stimulate your mother to admonish, punish, abandon you, or worse, see you as an enemy or threat.

Crossing the Terror Barrier, is about going from childlike subservience into greater sovereignty in our adult lives.  Healing involves stepping out of the fear-based patterns formed through emotional enmeshment with our mothers and stepping into Emotional Differentiation which can happen whether our mothers are alive or dead. This is a healing process that happens within ourselves. Keep reading to learn more about how we can do that!

Why do wounded mothers discourage the natural process of their daughter’s growing into greater emotional differentiation from them? 

To a wounded or emotionally immature mother, a daughter’s emotional differentiation is experienced as abandonment, attack, betrayal, or a threat to her own power.

This is because the wounded mother has NOT done the following:

• Has not sufficiently reflected on or healed from her own childhood trauma and is avoidance or denial of her own pain, which naturally gets projected onto her daughter.
• Has not critically examined her own patriarchal views and internal misogyny and how they may be getting projected onto her daughter.
• Has not reflected on how emotional codependency or emotional neglect made it NOT an option for her to be emotionally differentiated from her own mother when she was a child and how that created an emotional deprivation that is now getting projected onto her daughter in the form of codependency and power struggles.
• Has not realized that this power struggle, neglect and/or enmeshment with her own daughter can only be resolved from within herself, by becoming conscious of and taking responsibility for the pain from her own childhood and healing her own mother wound, reclaiming her own inner child, etc. No action from the daughter can heal her pain.
• IF the wounded mother doesn’t do this important inner work, her adult daughter will have no choice but to create some measure of distance from her or go no contact altogether in order to preserve and protect her own wellbeing, and that will be the best-case scenario for her daughter.

Whatever inner work a wounded mother refuses to do will drive her adult daughter away from her or will create enormous damage to her daughter’s life which can manifest as chronic health problems, mental illness and destructive relationships. (This might seem obvious, when we expose ourselves to harm we experience negative impacts, but this is still a very taboo topic in our society).

The price for codependency with Mom is being sent into perpetual war with yourself, including being at war with one’s own healthy needs, limits and sense of self-worth

A codependent mother positions her daughter into servitude to HER as mother,  and at the same time, positions the daughter into a war against her own developing sense of a separate SELF, which is against the natural progression of her own development, which inherently necessitates increasing emotional differentiation, autonomy and independence as she grows up.

In this way, the wounded mother has “colonized” the daughter’s sense of self with her own needs, wants and desires while feeling entitled to that undue influence.

This is a form of robbery of the daughter’s childhood because she misses the chance to develop according to her own natural pace and experience life without the burden of her mother’s wounds. Sadly, many mothers of older generations see this colonization or robbery as simply the natural way it is. They never questioned how they were wounded by their own mothers, so they’re not in touch with the damage they’re passing on. Unfortunately, the larger patriarchal cultural atmosphere supports this codependency between mothers and daughters through the generations.

A wounded mother unconsciously positions the daughter’s emerging sense of self as an enemy to be terminated at every turn, if she is to maintain her own emotional cohesiveness as mother.

Thus, an enmeshed female child will come to the false conclusion that her own natural urges and drives for emotional independence are inherently shameful, an inner stain or scourge that she must disavow, flagellate and fight against at all costs, and represents something rogue that she must wrestle into submission. “If it’s a threat to mom, it’s a threat to me, because I need mom in order to survive.” She learns to misconstrue enmeshment as love and connection. This lives on in our psyches long after childhood is over if it was reinforced strongly enough in our upbringing.

Adult Sovereignty and Freedom are on the other side: Dissolving the Terror Barrier

As we heal we gradually realize that the responses from the Terror Barrier are simply physical and emotional residues from childhood trauma. Like a computer pumping out an outdated program from old software, it’s just running the program of early conditioning; it’s NOT reflecting anything real or true in the present moment. In this way, the Terror Barrier is something to reframe into its proper context and let it run its course. Over time it becomes less and less intense and you cross it on a regular basis. This starts to feel exhilarating! You get to do something you couldn’t as a child and as a young woman: Embody your own true self authentically and self-advocate without the high cost of abandonment or punishment from emotionally immature adults whom you were dependent upon as a child.

Examples of chronic, subtle, mild expressions of the terror barrier:

• If you were withdrawn from, mocked or dismissed as a child when you excelled or displayed self-confidence, as an adult woman you may experience hesitation, reluctance or self-doubt in the face of wonderful opportunities or moments of success and achievement.
• If you conditioned as a child to believe that taking time to rest is frivolous and lazy in your family, as an adult woman you may experience guilt and self-recrimination for resting even when you are very sick.
• If you were conditioned as a child to believe that being happy makes you weak or stupid then, as an adult woman, you may feel shame after a period of feeling proud of yourself, content or carefree, and start to berate yourself as a result.
• If you were conditioned as a child to believe that you’re ugly when you were angry, then as an adult woman you may have trouble accessing your anger or downplaying it when you feel it, making excuses for the person who wronged you in an effort to dissolve the anger you feel.

Dysfunctional families can closely resemble cults and the brainwashing that happens in cults.

Healing the Mother Wound from a codependent mother, can be likened to de-programming or detoxing from deleterious beliefs, patterns and ways of being that made one’s urge for individuality suspect.

The Terror Barrier is a psychological border between psychological captivity and inner freedom. It’s possible to move through it and beyond it! Support is crucial.

Severe Symptoms of the terror barrier may include:

• A sudden crushing fatigue like all blood has left your body. It can also show up as ailments of all kinds.
• A crippling shame and a sense of wanting to die or hide.
• A panicked, lurching sense that you missed something important or did something wrong and you must rectify it immediately, but not knowing exactly what it is.
• An intense adrenaline spike accompanied by a sense of helplessness, that you just did something wrong and have to fix it asap.
• Days or weeks of painful rumination and self-recrimination when it feels tough to get out of bed or complete daily tasks.
• Life or death intensity; a disproportionate high-stakes “charge” to whatever is happening
• Feelings of despair, helplessness or powerlessness saturating the situation.
• A strong yet vague sense of ‘no going back’ if I do this.

When women approach the Terror Barrier they often come to the false conclusions:

• These intense responses means that I’m doing something horribly wrong or bad (guilt)
• There must be something wrong with me for feeling this intense response (shame)
• This strong emotion is telling me the truth and trying to protect me (fear-based)
• I’m outside my bounds and need to stop moving forward (mislabeling self-attenuation as a form of ethics, integrity or being a good person)

If our mothers discouraged the natural development of emotional differentiation and enforced enmeshment and codependency with her instead, we must create this sovereignty as adult women through healing the Mother Wound.  

We must cross the Terror Barrier, (a byproduct of neglect or enmeshment) from subservience to sovereignty. It’s key to get support!

My personal experiences of the Terror Barrier:

Rejecting the template of Mother-love as reward for self-atrophy….

In my 20’s I struggled with people-pleasing and a chronic hesitancy to take decisive action or direction in my life. I made poor choices that were in alignment with hers (low expectations of myself and people in my life). I was unconsciously waiting for some kind of “blessing” or permission from my mother to be truly happy that would never come. Extreme examples showed up later in somatic symptoms including persistent nausea when doing empowering things like launching my website and online course ten years ago.

For many years my mother would stalk me online and post comments like “You’re a fraud!” In her mind, I was a fraud because she believed 100% that as her daughter, I would always be her pet, best friend and would never dream of questioning her or thinking for myself. I had functioned in many ways, like a surrogate spouse to her.

I realized that I was betraying her by breaking an unspoken contract to never disagree or question her, because that was the unspoken contract she made with her own mother. In that inherited template of mother-daughter relationships in my maternal lineage, self-attenuation and self-atrophy to protect mother’s insecurities was the definition of love. That was a definition of love and connection that I could never accept and to me, that defiance was a part of my growing sense of integrity and self-respect, which I had been painstakingly cultivating in many years in therapy up to that point.

With my mother’s spoken and unspoken ultimatum of “It’s you or me” I chose myself. And thankfully I had quality support to cross the Terror Barrier and into greater sovereignty over the course of many years. External support from my therapist and solid internal commitment to my own healing were keys that formed the bridge through the Terror Barrier for me.

fIn his book. The MindBody Code, Dr. Mario Martinez, writes that each generation must betray the generation before them if there is to be any kind of meaningful change and evolution across time. Acknowledging that a betrayal is necessary as we cross into adult sovereignty as a rite of passage, without shame, supports the healing process for the younger generations who are enacting their own process of emotional differentiation and self-actualization which uplift and benefit the culture as a whole.

The reality is that it can take a long time to do the full de-programming and embody a new default of sovereignty. There are no shortcuts. Yet it’s so worth it!

The practice of Inner Mothering helps you to cross the barrier into more joy, peace and fulfillment. The inner child needs support in trusting you, more than your mother. 

For many women, understandably, due to early experiences, the inner child believes the only ticket to happiness is compliance with mom’s mandates to stay small and non-threatening to her. The inner child needs help from the adult self /inner mother to make this transition into feeling permission, safety and support to cross into a new default where you thriving is not seen as something to avoid to preserve the bond with mom.

Without support of all kinds, we’ll stay behind that “invisible fence” of the Mother Wound indefinitely and it will get passed along to others. 

The truth is that the thing that originally causes that terror already happened. It’s over. But the residues of those past events remains and will take time to dissolve as you heal. Be patient and gentle with yourself.

New defaults of Sovereignty that we cross over into as we develop emotional differentiation: (that our wounded mothers would see as betrayal)

• Loyalty is to yourself above all, not your mother, not your spouse, etc. This is NOT narcissism or self-absorption, it’s part of having healthy self-esteem and solid sense of self-worth (which an enmeshed mother would not allow).
• You get to honor your own needs, limits, preferences without guilt or shame. This means seeing them as inherently valid and legitimate, not something you need to constantly doubt or question.
• You get to be on your own side, more than mom’s. You get to be self-advocating. That’s healthy. This is not the same as being selfish or mean.
• You must have MORE compassion for yourself than you do for your mother: This is the healthy orientation but to enmeshed adult daughters it feels blasphemous to feel or even think this. Wounded mothers always make it about them first and promote shame for expressions of healthy self-advocacy.
• Your mother is a separate adult woman, NOT your child who needs your rescuing. She has her own path, choices and lessons that have nothing to do with you.
• It’s not possible to save or rescue your mother, that’s an illusion. No matter how hard you try, how much you sacrifice, it will never be enough for her.
• Your inner child needs you more than your mother needs you. “I am the safest person for me. My mother needs to find her own sources of safety and emotional support. That’s her responsibility, not mine.”
• Your primary source of validation comes from within yourself more than from your mom. Your source of validation shifts from her to yourself.
• Being honest and transparent about your needs, limits and desires is a form of love and respect to other people, not selfishness or being ungrateful. Hiding them creates resentment and pushes healthy people away.
• People-pleasing is not love or care for others. It’s using other people to get approval or artificially cultivate safety that isn’t sufficiently coming from within yourself.
• Other adults are not children who need us to rescue or us to save them. Other adults are responsible for themselves. They have their own choices, mistakes and path to walk. Respect them enough to manage their own choices. This is liberating!

Things you need in place to support you in crossing the Terror Barrier:

1. Get a strong foundation through regular support from a therapist, counselor or coach while also cultivating a consistent inner mother practice that builds a bond of trust and support.
2. Notice the ways that the terror barrier shows up in your daily life, both the mild and the more intense expressions of it. Quickly recognize them and put in them into context.(Not you doing something wrong or something shameful. It’s just conditioning. Soothe, reassure the inner child while moving forward.) Use what’s called Pendulation, to stay regulated during those intense moments.
3. Allow the natural grief and healthy anger to arise about what was lost from your childhood due to emotional neglect and codependency with your mother. Acknowledge the cost it has had on you and your wellbeing. Processing the original pain is what helps us to move forward in big ways.
4. Work with the inner child to put those strong reactions of the Terror Barrier into the correct context, that it’s not a sign of true danger but simply an old response from the past running its course. (It takes a long time to first earn the trust of the inner child for her to believe this is true.)
5. Keep facing the Terror Barrier as it emerges pivoting into empowering choices in the face of it as best you can. Eventually it stops losing its hold over you. This can take shorter or longer depending on many factors including how much inner work you’ve done prior to this and how intense your mother wound is.
6. From an adult place, make new definitions for yourself that reflect what is true for you. What does Love and loyalty mean to YOU? What does success or healthy connection mean for YOU? Practice pivoting away from old definitions based on emotional neglect or codependency with your mother. Remember that stepping into your own emotional differentiation and self-actualization is part of healthy human development and not a personal affront to your mother, even if she believes that. 
7. Make sure to take good physical and emotional care of yourself ongoingly as best you can because it takes energy to do this inner work consistently. New brain pathways are developed over time. If we’re depleted we typically default back to the original default patterns and beliefs. Be gentle yet consistent! Get the support you need.

Would you like support in crossing the Terror Barrier and moving from Subservience to Sovereignty?

Join my compressive online course Healing the Mother Wound today and get my potent mini-course “From Subservient to Sovereign” for free! Or you can buy the mini-course separately for $77 ($20 off of $97). This offer only lasts until October 25th, 2024.

Questions for Reflection:

1. What choices or actions that align with being true to myself would my mother see as an attack or betrayal of her?

2. How has the Terror Barrier been showing up for me?

3. When the Terror Barrier arises: “What unspoken contract am I breaking right now according to her?” What is a new belief that will help me to pivot and make that choice with a sense of empowerment?

Affirmation of Differentiation: (spoken internally)

“Mom, in order to take responsibility for my own life and thrive, I have to betray you and specific patterns you laid down for me, that say X, Y, Z (what the beliefs are). This betrayal is necessary for me to break the cycle of pain and live a healthy, happy life, according to my own values and definitions of what is true for me. This is my birthright and I claim it for myself without guilt, without shame. I give myself permission to be happy, healthy and true to myself, and know that this is a gift to other people in my life as well.”