Was Your Mother Emotionally Unavailable? How this Impacts You Now
One of the central relationships in a woman’s life is the one she has with her mother. This is the relationship that will influence how she views herself, her partners, intimacy, and the kind of mother she will be. The bond you have with your mother has a lasting impact on your life. A lack of connection with your mother can have the same impact, though in a possibly adverse way. What does it mean for a child, a young adult, and an adult woman when she feels unloved by her mother?
Impact on Self-Esteem
The messages we receive from our mothers while we are growing up shape our sense of self-worth. Our mother’s opinion of us is one we often internalize. Your mother’s language towards you when you are a child has the power to become the voice of your inner voice. As a daughter, how you perceive yourself is often through the filter of your mother. This is why, when the messaging you receive from your mother is negative, critical, or unloving, it can have a detrimental effect on your self-esteem.
For children of narcissistic mothers, this can be heightened. Being raised by a narcissistic mother can have adverse mental health outcomes. These can last late into life unless treated by a mental health professional.
Issues with Intimacy
We learn about love first from our parents. When you lack a strong emotional, loving connection with your mother, it can leave you confused as to what real love looks like. You may have trouble establishing intimate connections because you are unsure what that entails.
Woman who had an emotionally unavailable mother are more likely to get into relationships with an abusive dynamic. This is in part due to ineffective personal boundaries, issues with self-worth, and not having a clear idea of what love entails.
Feeling unloved by your mother can make you question your worthiness to be loved by anyone. It skews your view of yourself and how you believe others see you. You may get into a relationship with the first person that gives you attention that you misconstrue as true affection. For some people, the search for emotional acceptance is conducted through the physical. You may go through multiple partners in an attempt to find emotional validation.
Affect on Your Attachment Style
The way you are parented can have an affect on your attachment style in relationships. Your attachment style is the way you behave in and respond to your relationship. It influences what you expect from your partner, and how you respond and react to events in your relationship. A sense of estrangement or disconnect with your mother – from an early age – can impact the way you form intimate attachments as an adult. There are three main types of attachment styles secure, anxious, and avoidant.
If your attachment style is secure, it means you are secure in your relationship and your place and role in it. You have realistic expectations, and are able to engage in give and take, communicate, compromise, and open yourself up to intimacy.
Someone with an anxious attachment style is insecure in their relationship. You approach your relationship with a degree of uncertainty and require a lot of reassurance.
An avoidant attachment style is when you keep intimacy at a distance. You find closeness in a relationship suffocating and are overly concerned about maintaining your independence.
How Having An Emotionally Unavailable Mother Affects You as a Parent
A lot of what we do – or do not do - as parents has been modeled for us by our own parents and caregivers.
Having an emotionally unavailable mother can have a positive impact on you when you become a parent. For example, you may maintain an awareness around how you talk to and interact with your child. You may be more attuned both to your feelings and your child’s. It can result in you being a more attentive, expressive, and loving mother.
On the other hand, it can also result in feeling emotionally distant from your own children. You may have difficulty expressing your affection for them, or with accepting it from them. It might be hard for you to give them the validation, approval, and appreciation that they need. When we feel unseen, we may not see others, even if they are our own children. You may struggle to meet the emotional needs of your children, as yours were not met when you were a child.
Anxiety and Depression
Feeling unloved by your mother can have adverse mental health consequences for you. Often, woman who did not have unconditional love and acceptance from their mothers developed anxiety or depression at some stage in their lives. Being raised by an emotionally unavailable parent can also result in your inability to voice what you need. You may have uncertainty about how to go about getting your needs met in an effective and safe way.
Self-Doubt and Insecurity
When your primary caregiver does not provide you the love and nurturing you needed as a child, it can result in self-doubt and insecurity. You may think: if the one person who was supposed to love me unconditionally did not, how can anyone else? This insecurity can seep into relationships and create a sense of mistrust in you. For example, you may doubt your own ability to love, or to gauge another’s feelings for you. Or, you may mistrust your partner’s feelings for you. This mistrust of the love someone feels for you is also tied into low self-worth.
Your relationship with your mother also has an effect on how healthy your self-confidence is. Many women who have lacked a mother’s nurturing report that they feel almost like ‘impostors’ in their daily lives. They are unable to own their success and progress. This is in part because their inner voice, which takes seed in childhood, undermines their self-belief and confidence.
On the Periphery
An unloved daughter may also feel like she is always on the outside looking in. You may not experience a sense of belonging, and tend to experience things on the periphery. This can lead to feeling isolated or lonely.
Doubting Thoughts and Feelings
You may also doubt the validity or accuracy of your own thoughts and feelings. You may question your perception of events or people.
Impaired Emotional Regulation
An adult who was unloved while growing up can have difficulty regulating their emotions. You may be highly sensitive to emotional stimuli, even overreactive. Or, you may suppress your emotions and cut yourself off from them.
Lack of Joy and Connection
Being brought up by an emotionally distant parent can hamper the way in which you regulate, feel, and express your emotions. Since the healthy expression of both negative and positive feelings may not have been modelled for you, it may be difficult to read the emotional temperature of others. It can also result in lack of self-compassion and the ability to understand empathy. This can also lead to feeling disconnected from others, or cause difficulty in building meaningful relationships.
Trouble with Healthy Personal Boundaries
Establishing and maintaining healthy personal boundaries is something that we learn by observing and interacting with other people’s boundaries. Having healthy boundaries is founded in a solid base of self-esteem, confidence, and sense of self. Those who have an emotionally unavailable parent may have a difficult time establishing and maintaining their boundaries. For example, your need to please and be accepted may result in overly flexible or weak boundaries. On the other hand, fear of rejection or trouble with intimacy may cause you to have rigid boundaries.
A Sense of Shame or Guilt
Mothers are universally expected to be giving, affectionate, devoted, and loving. It might make you feel guilty to talk about feeling unloved by your mother, because this is the opposite of what our society classifies as maternal. If you talk about your experience growing up it can add to the sense of guilt as it may feel like you are ‘outing’ or ‘exposing’ your mother. You may also feel some shame around not being lovable enough for your parent.
Help Yourself Heal
Self-care
Look after yourself! When you practice self-care, you are telling yourself and showing yourself that you are worthy of being loved. By showing up for yourself in this way, you can start to build your self-esteem and sense of worth. It will help you realize that you are worth the time and effort you put into yourself. Try to establish some simple self-care practices that you can keep up with and do regularly. This can include getting some form of regular exercise. Moving and strengthening your body can help you feel good and healthy. It can also help with emotional regulation. Other self-care practices include breathing exercises, journaling, taking up a hobby, and spending time with people who care about you and bring you joy.
Research and Learn
The fact that you are reading this article indicates that you are looking for something. Reflect on how you were parented. Learn about attachment styles and what your attachment style may be. Find resources such as self-help books or online forums. The more you learn about the impact of your upbringing, the more self-awareness and understanding you will gain.
Professional Help
Therapy, such as individual therapy, trauma therapy, or depression therapy can help you process any emotional wounds you have relating to your mother. Trust Mental Health has a team of BIPOC therapists that offer mental health therapy in San Jose, California. Our therapists are from diverse backgrounds, and between our team more than 10 languages are spoken. We understand the nuances of our clients’ backgrounds, and offer culturally sensitive and relevant therapy solutions. The many mental health therapies we offer include relationship counseling, individual therapy, depression therapy, trauma therapy, faith-based therapy and therapy for teens. Contact us today for a free 15 minute consultation. We will match you with a therapist you can relate to.
FAQs
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Daughters of emotionally unavailable mothers can experience a range of emotional and psychological challenges, including low self-esteem, difficulty forming healthy relationships, and a tendency to seek validation from others.
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Therapy can provide you with a safe space to explore your feelings, understand the root causes of issues you may be having, and develop healthier coping strategies. Therapists can also help repair attachment wounds and lead to emotional growth.
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Healthy communication is key. You can try to express your feelings and needs calmly and assertively. However, do keep in mind that you may not be able to change your mother's behavior. What you can do - and therapy can help with this - is to develop acceptance of yourself and who your mother is. Self-care is necessary throughout this process.