This post is for my siblings. May they find peace. She did nothing when her children were being horribly abused by their father. The truth is that no child felt grief when he died. We knew what a horrible person he was. I, personally was stunned, that she claimed to love him until he died.
WHY!
The family was fake, and the truth was concealed.
We lived in a world of Childhood Emotional Neglect.
Parent and child relationships are arguably the most influential relationships we all experience. Those relationships lay the foundation for how we learn to interact with others. Furthermore, they’re often the groundwork for shaping who we become. Because of this, unloving mothers can often have a detrimental effect on their children. Daughters, in particular, are left with emotional wounds that they carry throughout their lives.
While we all thrive on love, most people don’t actually know how to describe it. Love is not just a feeling for someone but a complexity of emotions we feel for someone. This may include trust, gratitude, and security. We may feel attached, comforted, or a sense of warmth. It’s something we all need, but also something many people don’t know how to do healthily. Unsurprisingly, these painful wounds are common among women who grew up with unloving mothers.
Wounds Left Behind from Unloving Mothers
1. Difficulty Making Decisions
Growing up without proper guidance, a woman may become uncertain of her ability to decide. She may doubt her own instincts or feel like whatever choice she makes will have a negative outcome.
2. Hesitant to Trust Because of Unloving Mothers
Trust is one of the most precious gifts a person can offer to someone else, but it’s also fragile and easily destroyed. Women who grow up with unloving mothers often have a hard time learning to trust other women. Unfortunately, this impacts social skills and prevents women from developing deep friendships with other women. It also prevents women from trusting women in power, limiting professional success.
3. Fear of Vulnerability
Just about any circumstance in which “all eyes are on you” is hard for most people because each circumstance requires some level of vulnerability. When being vulnerable, people run the risk of being judged, reprimanded, or ridiculed. Therefore, women who grew up with unloving mothers often don’t trust themselves or others enough to put themselves out there. The fear of being vulnerable may ultimately impact romantic relationships, friendships, and relationships among peers or colleagues.
4. Needing Validation
Never getting recognition is something that many women face when growing up with unloving mothers. However, this causes a lack of feeling validated. When this occurs, women may seek constant reassurance from those around them, sometimes finding themselves in really unhealthy or abusive relationships.
5. Difficulty Setting Boundaries
Boundaries are another complexity of life because some are finite while others are permeable. However, growing up with an unloving mother can make women feel their boundaries shouldn’t exist at all.
6. Feelings of Hostility Toward Unloving Mothers
Harboring the pain of growing up with an unloving mother can lead to anger, sadness, or resentment.
7. Struggles with Emotional Awareness
Women who grew up with unloving mothers may have a harder time identifying their own emotions or the emotions of others.
8. Negative Self-Image
Be it hair, clothes, or weight, most women can think of an instance in which their mothers belittled them for their appearance. While, occasionally, it’s normal for parents to have differing opinions from their children, constantly being berated by an unloving mother can lead to body dysmorphia, low self-esteem, depression, feeling unworthy, or suicidal thoughts.
9. Inability to Self-Soothe
Growing up with an unloving mother may cause some confusion regarding healthy coping mechanisms. In many cases, women turn to substances such as alcohol to act as a “band-aid” for their emotional wounds.
10. Avoidance
When women are raised by unloving mothers, they’ll often avoid confrontation or any other form of uncomfortable interaction with others because they often learn early on that speaking up may result in being punished. Women may feel uncertain about tackling work projects or trying new things for fear of failing. Moreover, doubting their own creative and intellectual abilities.
Combatting Wounds from Unloving Mothers
- Therapy.
- A professional can usually give you clarity or a place to put unresolved emotions. From this, a new perspective may emerge to help accurately assess life with an unloving mother.
- Write.
- Taking time to reflect on and write about things you love about yourself or your life, feelings you want to address, or ways to improve relationships with others will create more uplifting avenues to help your brain and heart heal.
- Help Others.
- This can help to build up one’s self-image. Furthermore, there is a chance to learn to develop close personal relationships with others.
- Forgive.
- It’s ok to be hurt by the things that happened in childhood. However, working through that pain, rather than harboring it, will free up space in your brain and heart. Allowing you to learn to love yourself. You may even love so freely that you love your unloving mother in a way you never imagined.
- Become More Self-Aware.
- Learn to evaluate and name your feelings, needs, and wants. As a result, you’ll get to know more about yourself and gain a realistic understanding of what your body, mind, and soul may need.
- Be Understanding.
- It’s damaging to belittle or abuse a child. However, previous generations weren’t taught how to love openly, compassionately, or unapologetically. Therefore, their inability to love healthily most likely came from a place of hurt and isn’t a reflection of what you are worthy or deserving of.
Life is undeniably challenging, and we all learn to face those challenges differently. However, growing up with an unloving mother or parent can have a debilitating impact. Therefore, taking time to heal, go to therapy, and learn to love yourself and others with an unyielding sense of compassion is important.
