If you grew up with a narcissistic mother, chances are you have heard many times that you need to forgive her. People tell you that she is your mother, that she did the best she could, and that holding on to anger will only hurt you.
You may also want to move on, so you tell yourself that you have forgiven her. You try to forget what happened and stop feeling angry. Then your mother says something hurtful, ignores a boundary, or gives you the silent treatment, and suddenly you feel all those old emotions again.
Now you feel bad for another reason. You thought you had forgiven her, so why are you still angry?
The problem is that you are confusing dysfunctional forgiveness with healthy forgiveness.
As I explain in my book Narcissistic Mothers, what looks like forgiveness can actually be another behavior you learned to survive your childhood.
What Is Dysfunctional Forgiveness?
Dysfunctional forgiveness happens when you forgive because you have learned that this is what you are supposed to do, even though nothing has really changed.
Your mother hurts you. You become angry. She refuses to take responsibility, minimizes what happened, blames you, or simply waits until enough time has passed. Eventually, you feel guilty for being angry and decide to forget about it.
Everything goes back to normal, then she hurts you again, and you forgive again.
This can continue for years because you believe forgiveness makes you a good person, while staying angry makes you a bad one.
In my book Narcissistic Mothers, I show you that this dysfunctional pattern is closer to denial than to forgiveness. 
Forgiving is not condoning
Adult children of narcissistic mothers often struggle with guilt, obligation, shame, and the feeling that they are somehow responsible for their mother's emotional state.
For this reason, you need to pay attention to what motivates you toward forgiveness.
You may have spent your entire childhood ignoring yourself in order to preserve your relationship with your mother. If you continue doing the same thing as an adult and call it forgiveness, nothing has really changed.
You are still abandoning yourself.
This is one of the consequences of growing up with a narcissistic mother. As I explain in my book, “As children of narcissists, we were taught that putting the focus on ourselves is selfish and wrong, so we overcompensated by completely abandoning ourselves.” 
You Have to Recognize What Happened Before You Can Let It Go
Healthy forgiveness doesn't require you to hate your mother. It requires you to see the relationship for what it is.
When you have spent years minimizing what happened, the first part of healing is understanding and accepting your experience. You need enough emotional distance to look at your mother through your own eyes instead of continuing to see yourself through hers.
Your mother tells you that you are selfish, and you feel guilty. She tells you that you are ungrateful, and you immediately question yourself. She criticizes your decisions, and you start explaining yourself. She becomes disappointed because you don't want to spend every weekend with her, and you feel like a horrible daughter or son.
These reactions don't come from nowhere. You have been conditioned to react this way.
This is why emotional distance is crucial. “The more we are emotionally entangled with someone, the more they can make us feel and think in certain ways.” 
When someone can automatically make you feel guilty, worthless, or unworthy, you need to create emotional distance and start recognizing what is yours and what the relationship has conditioned you to believe.
At first, your mother's opinion may feel like the truth. Later, it becomes just her opinion. That makes all the difference!

Healthy Forgiveness Comes After Emotional Distance
You can say the words and tell everyone that you've moved on. You can stop talking about what happened, but you cannot force the emotional process.
Healthy forgiveness happens when your mother's behavior no longer has the same power over you. She may still criticize you, but you no longer automatically believe her. She will always try to make you feel guilty, but you will no longer feel guilty.
As you develop emotional distance, you begin to see your mother more realistically. You stop seeing her through the eyes of the child who desperately needed her love and approval and start seeing her through the eyes of the adult you are today.
One day, you will stop expecting her to suddenly become the mother you have always wanted. This can be painful, but it also gives you freedom.
You are no longer waiting for her to change before you can live your own life.
Healthy Forgiveness Doesn't Mean That What Happened Was OK
One of the biggest misunderstandings about forgiveness is the belief that forgiving someone means condoning their behavior.
Your mother may have had a difficult childhood herself. She may have grown up in a dysfunctional family and repeated patterns that were already present for generations. Understanding this can help you make sense of her behavior, but it doesn't excuse it.
“Being abused is never an excuse to abuse someone else.” (Narcissistic Mothers by Caroline Foster)
When you see her at an emotional distance, you can recognize that she is an immature, pathetic, delusional, and sick person. That’s when healthy compassion can begin.
Forgiveness Doesn't Mean Reconciliation
Another common mistake is believing that forgiveness means you have to keep your mother in your life.
“You don’t have to keep that person in your life. You can forgive your narcissistic mother without ever having a dialogue with her.” (Narcissistic Mothers by Caroline Foster).
You can forgive while maintaining limited contact, or after going no contact. You can even forgive after your mother has died.
Forgiveness happens inside you. It doesn't require your mother to participate.
If every conversation about your marriage ends with criticism, you don't need to discuss your marriage with her. If every phone call becomes an opportunity for her to insult you, you can end the call. If spending several days with her leaves you emotionally exhausted, you can reduce the amount of time you spend together.
“You’re very careful about what you’re sharing, what you’re allowing her in on, and what you’re not; you know where the boundaries are set.” (Narcissistic Mothers by Caroline Foster)
Forgiveness doesn't require you to forget what experience has taught you.
Validating Your Anger Is Part of Healthy Forgiveness
Anger can be particularly difficult for children of narcissistic parents.
When your mother was angry, you had to pay attention. But when you were angry with her, she accused you of being disrespectful, selfish, difficult, or ungrateful.
So you learned to distrust your anger, and chances are you still do today.
Someone hurts you, and you immediately ask yourself whether you're overreacting, then you try to get rid of your anger as quickly as possible.
Anger can appear when you finally recognize your mother is a narcissist and understand what happened to you. 
“When you become aware of that, you might start to feel angry, and that’s normal because you were robbed of your childhood.” (Narcissistic Mothers by Caroline Foster)
You don't have to stay angry forever, but you don't have to silence it either. Again, emotional detachment is the right way to overcome anger. After that, healthy forgiveness can come.
Healthy Forgiveness is About Setting Yourself Free
Chances are you have imagined what it would be like if your mother finally understood what she did to you.
You explain your experience, and this time she listens. She doesn't interrupt, deny, blame you, or tell you that you're too sensitive. She finally understands and apologizes.
If your mother is a pathological narcissist, you will never have that conversation.
Your mother will insist she was a wonderful mother and that you are the problem. You cannot make her see what she cannot see.
For a long time, you tried to explain yourself, to give her examples and tell her how much she hurt you. You hope that if you can find the right words, she will finally understand.
But your mother doesn't have to agree with your experience for you to recognize what happened. You know what happened even when she denies it.
This is the real difference: dysfunctional forgiveness keeps the old pattern alive. You forgive your mother because you feel guilty or obligated; nothing changes, and she hurts you again.
Healthy forgiveness comes from a completely different place. You understand what happened and recognize how it affected you. You develop emotional distance and create boundaries.
Finally, you stop expecting your mother to become someone she isn't.
In the end, as your emotional detachment grows, you will release the resentment, bitterness, anger, and regret that kept you trapped in the traumatic bond with your mother. That’s healthy forgiveness. 
“Forgiveness is about you, not her.” (Narcissistic Mothers by Caroline Foster)
Your mother will remain exactly the same. She will continue criticizing you, believing that she did nothing wrong. She will keep trying to make you feel guilty.
But her words won’t have the same effect on you. You will see her for who she is instead of continuing to see yourself through her eyes.
That's when healthy forgiveness becomes possible, and it’s the outcome of a healing process.
So, should you forgive your narcissistic mother?
If forgiving means denying what happened, ignoring your feelings, removing your boundaries, and allowing your mother to hurt you again, the answer is NO.
If forgiveness comes after you have recognized what happened, worked on your wounds, built emotional distance, and stopped letting your mother control how you feel about yourself, then forgiveness means something completely different. It means releasing yourself from your narcissistic mother’s influence without saying that what she did was acceptable.
“Your forgiveness is to set yourself free, to release those heavy feelings.” (NARCISSISTIC MOTHER by Caroline Foster)
If you recognize yourself in these patterns, Narcissistic Mothers can help you understand the emotional conditioning created by a narcissistic mother, develop the emotional distance you need, and begin taking back control of your life.