What Do "Mother Issues" Really Mean?

#12 in the series: What I Wish I had Known Before Beginning Therapy

Photo by Magnet.me on Unsplash

Hanging up the phone from my initial conversation with the therapist who would eventually help me make sense of myself, I sat down at my desk, put my head in my hands, and whispered, “I clearly have mother issues.” That would prove to be both a misinterpretation and understatement, but in that moment the familiar sensation of shame washed over me.

Why did “having mother issues” feel so shameful?

I recently discussed the religious/cultural answers to this question in a series (see below) but that was only part of the picture. The real culprit is what I felt that day: Shame. If I never felt loved or valued by my own mother, there must be something horribly wrong with me. That is shame speaking.

Shame always tells us that we are the problem.

Being the problem could not have been further from the truth but for many survivors like myself, this feeling has been part of us for so long that it certainly does feel true. If our earliest experiences were impacted by a mother who for one reason or another could not attach to us, this longing to be seen and valued simply feels like who we are. Our feelings of unworthiness feel like truth.

If you had asked me if I felt unworthy of being loved after that initial conversation with my therapist, I would have said, “Of course not. We are all worthy of being loved.” I understood this to be true on a cognitive level but had pushed the feelings aside as irrelevant. I had taken the admonitions to not trust my feelings very seriously.

Not many who are impacted by insecure attachment understand shame as the root issue. I certainly did not. I also did not walk around with feelings about being unloveable—some do. All I felt were the anxiety and depression which I hoped a therapist could get rid of. (That isn’t how it works by the way.)

How insecure attachment and shame exhibited in my life were far more subtle than feelings of unworthiness. I wish I had understood that the following were not just “who I was”:

• I consistently undervalued my abilities and accomplishments.

• There was a lingering sense of not being enough no matter what my accomplishments.

• Setting boundaries or asking for what I needed was nearly impossible.

• While respecting my mother and caring for her needs, I had no sense of the close relationships other women seemed to have with their mothers.

Even now, while typing that list it feels like it is all about me—I was the problem. In other words, shame tells me that, mother issues are my issues. This is backward. These issues are the result of how my mother’s issues impacted me.

To heal from the harm of the wounds experienced as very young children—the time intended for attachment to occur—it is necessary to understand that for infants or young children, there was no other way to understand neglect or abuse except to believe it is about them.

Healing as an adult requires correctly identifying who was responsible for the lack of attachment so we can grieve over what was missed and realize that we truly are enough—we deserve to be loved.

Did I have mother issues? In the common usage of the term, I say no. As a young child, my mother was unable to meet my needs and the impact of this followed me for a lifetime. It was not my fault. My mother had issues (likely resulting from her unmet needs as a child) and as a result, I carried the shame of believing I was unloveable.

It is very freeing to understand that my “mother issues” were my mother’s issues.

I wish I could have understood this before beginning therapy.

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For more on this topic, see the series below on mother/daughter relationships:

Part I: Let's Be Honest: Exploring Mother/Daughter Relationships
Part II: The Harm Caused by Honor Culture
Part III: Honoring Mothers with a Trauma-Sensitive Lens
Part IV: Honor that Breaks Generational-Trauma Patterns