In this episode, I’m taking a do-over.

Over the last few years on Mayhem, I’ve talked so much about trauma, nervous systems, hypervigilance, emotional regulation, and healing after narcissistic abuse and childhood trauma. But the more I’ve learned from daughters, from the Mayhem Daughters community, and from our first in-person retreat, the more I’ve realized I want to simplify how I think about healing and what actually helps people heal.

In this conversation, I’m sharing how my understanding of trauma healing has evolved and why I no longer believe healing happens entirely through insight or isolation.

We talk about:

Nervous systems and childhood trauma

People pleasing, hypervigilance, and self abandonment

Why “just calm down” doesn’t work for daughters

Connection, community, and relational healing

Secure attachment and why shows like Shrinking resonate so deeply

The mother wound and allowing safe people to love you well

Why healing happens inside of relationships, not outside of them

This episode is for daughters of narcissistic and emotionally limited mothers who are trying to understand themselves, feel safer in their bodies, and experience healing in a more connected, human way.

Join Mayhem Daughters

You know what you want to say. You can feel it in your body. It doesn’t feel good. Something is off. You want something different.

And then… you don’t say it.

Not because you don’t know how. Not because you haven’t read the books or listened to the podcasts. But because in that moment, it feels risky.

What if they get upset? What if they pull away? What if you lose them?

In this episode, we’re talking about what boundary setting actually looks like in real, everyday life… not the big, obvious, “cut them off” moments, but the small, quiet ones where it’s just you, your body, and that split-second decision.

We’ll walk through:

Why setting boundaries feels so hard (especially if you’ve been punished for it in the past)

How your nervous system confuses present moments with past experiences

What to do in the moment when you feel yourself freeze or fawn

Why you don’t have to get it right the first time (and how to take a “do-over”)

How to tell the difference between unsafe people and uncomfortable moments

What it actually means to stay connected to yourself when it would be easier to abandon yourself

This is not about perfect wording or getting it right on the spot.

It’s about learning to notice, trust, and act on what your body is already telling you… and staying with yourself, even when it’s uncomfortable.

Because that’s the work.

Connect + Continue the Work:

If you’re ready to practice this in real time, inside a space where you don’t have to do it alone, you can join us in Mayhem Daughters, our online community for daughters of narcissistic or emotionally limited mothers.

Or, if you’re looking for language to help you say hard things, you can check out my guide: Simple Scripts for Saying Hard Things

In this episode of Mother Mayhem, we meet a daughter navigating emotional chaos, triangulation, and repeated attachment loss caused by her mother’s unstable relationships.

We’ll explore attachment trauma, toxic family systems, emotional unpredictability, forgiveness vs access, and what it means to finally stop building your life inside chaos.

This episode is for daughters of narcissistic or emotionally immature mothers who are trying to break generational cycles, protect their children, and heal from unstable family dynamics.

Join Our Community: MayhemDaughters.com/community

This week, we meet a daughter who grew up in a home marked by fear, hypervigilance, emotional instability, and domestic violence.

Although her childhood looked “good” from the outside, her nervous system carried a very different reality underneath it.

We’re talking about:

Hypervigilance and nervous system survival responses

Why safe situations can still feel unsafeAnxiety, scanning, and emotional monitoring

This episode is for daughters who learned to stay alert in order to survive and are now trying to understand why their bodies still feel unsafe long after childhood ended.

What happens when your life finally becomes calmer… but your body still feels afraid?

In this episode, I talk to a daughter navigating the aftermath of going no contact with her emotionally harmful mother after years of chronic emotional trauma and hypervigilance.

Together, we explore:

Why daughters often still feel unsafe even after creating distance

How the nervous system organizes itself around survival

Why nightmares and fear can intensify after no contact

The connection between hypervigilance, attachment, and emotional safety

Why healing can initially feel worse before it feels better

What it actually looks like to move out of survival mode

And how daughters slowly begin teaching their bodies that peace is possible

This episode is for the daughters who are: exhausted from bracing, monitoring, anticipating, and surviving and are wondering if their nervous systems will ever truly rest.

Join us inside Mayhem Daughters, our healing community for daughters of narcissistic and emotionally limited mothers

Mayhemdaughters.com/community

Mother’s Day can bring up a lot when you have a complicated, painful, or confusing relationship with your mother.

If you’re a daughter of a narcissistic, emotionally immature, or unavailable mother, this time of year can feel especially heavy. The grief, the anger, the pressure, the loneliness… it all gets louder.

In this episode, I’m talking about why Mother’s Day still hurts, even when you’ve done healing work, and how to move through it in a way that feels more grounded, more self-trusting, and less overwhelming.

We’ll explore:

Why Mother’s Day can feel so triggering for daughters with a mother wound

The internal conflict between what you know and what your nervous system can actually handle

How to stop abandoning yourself and start seeing yourself more clearly

What it looks like to let others support you (without feeling misunderstood or exposed)

Gentle, realistic ways to take care of yourself on Mother’s Day

This isn’t about doing it perfectly.

It’s about meeting yourself where you are, honoring your capacity, and not having to go through it alone.

If Mother’s Day feels complicated for you, you’re not the only one.

If you don’t want to navigate this alone, you’re invited to join us inside Mayhem Daughters, my private community for daughters of narcissistic or emotionally immature mothers.

It’s a space for connection, support, and real conversations with women who understand what this experience actually feels like.

You can learn more or join us here: MayhemDaughters.com/community

***Note: This episode has been re-uploaded with the correct audio.

This week’s episode is different.

For the first time, we hear from a daughter who is still living at home with the mother who is hurting her.

She’s 16. She’s doing everything she can to hold it together. And she’s counting the days until she can leave.

In this episode, we talk about:

What it means to still be in it, not healing from the past but surviving the present

Anger, and why it’s not the problem

How to stay grounded in yourself when the environment around you isn’t safe

What it looks like to get through the next stretch without losing who you are
We also hear from her grandmother, her safe person, and explore the role that one steady, loving relationship can play in a daughter’s life.

I’ll be taking a short break from releasing new episodes to give myself some space around our upcoming retreat and to regroup behind the scenes.

Mayhem isn’t going anywhere. I’ll be back soon.

Interested in joining Mayhem Daughters? : Open 24/7/365

Food didn’t become comfort by accident.

For many daughters, food became the safest way to soothe themselves when feelings were too big, too inconvenient, or too unwelcome for the people around them.

Food didn’t roll its eyes. Food didn’t tell you that you were overreacting. Food didn’t walk away.

It helped you settle your nervous system the best way you knew how.This week, we’re talking honestly about the complicated relationship many daughters of narcissistic or emotionally limited mothers have with food.

This conversation explores:

Why emotional eating makes sense in the context of childhood trauma

The difference between comfort, control, and coping with food

How food often becomes protection when emotional needs aren’t met

Why shame never helps change these patterns

Practical ways to start responding to emotional eating with more awareness and compassion

Healing isn’t about shaming yourself out of emotional eating.

It’s about learning how to listen to the feelings underneath it so food doesn’t have to carry quite so much of the weight anymore.

Looking for more Mayhem? MayhemDaughter.com