Episode 17: When your mom didn't actually like you

Have you ever felt like your mother loved you. but didn’t actually like you? Like your presence annoyed her. Like you were a bother just by being in the room. In this episode we talk about what it does to a person to grow up feeling like an inconvenience to the one person who was supposed to want you most. The survival strategies you developed without realizing it — apologizing for existing, over explaining, anticipating everyone’s needs but your own. That’s what we will be talking about on today’s episode.

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Transcript

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Have you ever felt like your mother loved you but didn't actually like you? Welcome back to Breaking the Cycle, the podcast about unpacking your roots and rewriting your story. There's a particular kind of loneliness that comes from never being emotionally chosen, not necessarily abandoned, but not feeling comfortable to fully be yourself and welcomed. And I want to talk about this today because this is one of the most common experiences that women who came from emotionally unavailable mothers carry, and one that is the least validated. So there's a big difference from a mom who tolerates you and then a mom who finds genuine joy in having you around. Joy is a mom whose face lights up when she sees you. She thinks you're interesting and she just loves having you around. She asks about your life and genuinely cares about your inner world and maybe is even fascinated by your inner world. Tolerance is a mom who kept you alive but never made you feel wanted. There are times where she might have outright rejected you, and other times where you just felt like you were a burden to her. That feeling of being present but not fully welcomed is its own particular wound. It shapes you in ways that follow you long after you left your childhood house. When you were raised by a mother who treats your knees like a burden, you learn very quickly not to ask for things. Because asking for things meant it was going to inconvenience her. And asking meant being too much. And being too much meant you were going to lose any connection that you had with her. So you just didn't ask. You learn not to take up too much space. You learn not to be too loud, too emotional, or too demanding. You learn to make yourself smaller, more agreeable, to edit yourself before you even spoke, to sense what your mother needed and adjust yourself to fit that very moment. And without even realizing it, this is how you began moving through your entire world. Not just with her, with everyone. You apologize before you have done anything wrong. Because somewhere deep inside of your nervous system, you believe that simply being yourself is already too much. I'm getting shivers of saying that. That your existence requires an apology. You over-explain everything, every decision, every feeling, every choice. Because you're constantly trying to convince people that you are worth choosing, that you are worth staying for, that you are not too much. And you tell yourself and everyone that you're just strong and independent, that you prefer it this way, that relying on yourself is simply who you are. But the truth is that you learned a long time ago that depending on other people didn't feel safe. And so you stopped. Not as a choice, as a survival strategy. These strategies kept you connected to your mom. They got you through. They are also in your adult life disconnecting you from yourself and preventing you from experiencing the kind of relationship you actually deserve. Relationships that are secure, that are safe, where you're simply chosen for all of who you are and you don't have to hide parts of yourself. I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to check in with your body when I ask you this. What did it feel like growing up in a house where you always felt like you were an inconvenience or a burden to your mom? I want you to imagine yourself as a little girl. Just being around your mom. There are maybe not even words being exchanged. She could be busy doing something, maybe a household task, and you're just right there. Do you feel like you're bothering her by just being there? Like you're an inconvenience? Does she seem annoyed by your presence? Again, there's no words here. This is just energy. And then in turn, how are you feeling right now, just thinking about this? Are you noticing that your heart is closing, that you feel some anxiety come up? Do you feel really angry? Do you sense some sadness? Do you feel numbness? I'm curious what's happening for you in this very moment when I'm asking you this question. This is where all of the emotions are in your body. This is where you feel things. You can talk about how horrible your mom is all freaking day and night for years, but nothing will change. I've worked with people who have gone to therapy for decades. Traditional talk therapy that just has you talking the same thing over and over, but they feel stuck because the real change happens from experiencing the emotions, and the emotions are in the body. So maybe you grow up in a household where mom or dad said that you shouldn't cry, or you look ugly if you cry, or or say something like, I'm gonna give you something to cry about. So I want you to pause and just recognize that and send that part of you some compassion because this has been your functioning, the way you move through your emotions for your whole life. So if you feel emotions come up and you swallow them down or you try to numb them out in some other way, that is okay. This is just the beginning of you getting in touch with how you're feeling when I'm asking you that question. Because this wound is real and it's shaped the way that you move through the world today, in the way you move through relationships, in the way you show up to yourself, and in the way you speak to yourself when nobody is listening. And it's possible with the right support, with the right community, with the willingness to do this work, to unlearn what that environment taught you, to rebuild the relationship you have with yourself, to finally experience what it feels like to be in relationships where you are not just loved, but genuinely liked. If any of this episode landed with you today, I want you to know something. You are not too much. You never were. You just grew up with a mother who couldn't handle her own inner world, let alone yours. If you're ready to unlearn these survival strategies that got you through childhood and finally build healthier relationships with yourself and the people around you, my membership, breaking the cycle, opens in less than two weeks. This is a small, intimate space for women healing from the wound of an emotionally unavailable mother, and who are finally ready to come home to themselves. I'll leave the link in the description notes. Thank you so much for being here, and I'll see you on the next episode.