What has been your experience having mommy issues as a woman?

13 comments

1. I have this overwhelming desire to take care of people and “mother” them in a way that I never got to have.

   It’s actually pretty draining and I get sad that nobody will ever do that for me.. but I just love making sure everyone around me is ok. (probably to avoid conflict)

2. I’ve got ’em. I had a good mom; she just got really sick when I was little, so she didn’t get to be a mom for most of my life. I got lots of anxiety issues (every time I heard an ambulance as a kid, I thought something got worse with my mom and she was being rushed to the hospital) and jealousy about other kids’ moms.

   As an adult, I find that it’s manifested in this strong strong urge to impress older women. I want to do all kinds of things for them and just be super remarkable to make them like me or be proud of me.

   For that matter, now that I think about it, I wonder if worrying about my sick mom has influenced my taste in women? I go weak in the knees for tall, strong women who have really strong personalities.

3. I was always “the kid we don’t have to worry about” and so not only do I feel like my milestones/accomplishments were not celebrated as much (because no one was doubting that I would reach them) but now I have a complex about “taking up space” emotionally because god forbid my existence as a human cause anyone to have to consider my feelings…

4. I become emotionally attached to women who are nice and caring to me like a mother figure

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6. From experiencing abuse from my own mother, I don’t trust anyone of either gender. It will take me months to years to be able to semi trust you let alone open up to you. I keep to myself 99% of the time.

7. I feel like I need to prove my worth constantly. My mom is a woman who literally told me I would never amount to anything and then turn around and tell me I could do anything. It’s a thin line.

   I over apologize. I always feel like a burden. I never ask for help. My image used to be everything, and failure literally defined me.

   Therapy helped a lot.

8. I love my mom very much and we had a tough relationship for a couple years (mainly as a teenager) and I find myself doing things that I don’t like about her. Mainly I would have such anxiety of letting her down or not doing things exactly the way she expected me to. So now I have a low tolerance for people who don’t do what I want exactly how I want. I’ll loose my temper internally finding them to be “useless to me” when I in turn hated feeling useless to my mom. I work on changing my reactions, I don’t want important people in my life to feel like they’re letting me down or I have expectations that are hard to please, like her. Mommy issues are worse than daddy issues for sure.

9. My parents divorced last year and it was very messy on my Mom’s side, to the point that it greatly affected my own relationship with her. I try to maintain a cordial relationship with her, but I know things will never be the same after everything she put my family through.

   The hardest time I’ve had with it actually came a few weeks ago, when my boyfriend and I met each other’s families. While I was so happy to meet his family and have him meet mine, it also made me really sad that my mom wasn’t around to be a part of that, and that I’m not sure if or when I’ll even feel comfortable introducing him to her.

10. my partner is 10 years older than I am if that says anything.

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12. My mom put me on diets and made me feel like she loved me less because of my weight. I now cannot handle criticism and feel the need to be perfect at everything. Plus major food issues

13. I simply cannot accept anyone actually liking me, let alone loving me, and feel insanely uncomfortable with compliments, kindness, or affection. I have both mommy *and* daddy issues so it’s hard to tell what caused what but this feels like a real mommy issue thing.