Very often we are told by wider society that we should not feel that way about our mothers but that doesn't make those feelings go away and it can often make those feelings worse.
In order to understand why we blame our mother, we need to explore what is at the root of those feelings for us. This article will shed some light on why you may struggle with blaming your mother and what you can do with those feelings so that those feelings won’t continue to affect you throughout your life.
What is mother blaming
You can both blame your mom outwardly where we express to others and our mother our disdain about how we feel about her.
On the flip side, we can keep those feelings about our mother inside and not express them at all but the feelings never go away.
Mother blaming basically is feeling that your mother was and is responsible for some or all of your childhood experiences. You may hate or not want anything to do with her and have cut her out of your life. Or you see her frequently but you end up arguing and there is always friction.
Maybe you just have a feeling about her that won’t go away. You see her regularly, you chat, and you laugh together. She is a nice person and you are too but you just don’t feel comfortable with her.
Regardless of how it is coming out for you, many people feel guilty for having those feelings and struggle to open up to others about it. You struggle to have those feelings as you don’t want to be seen as being entitled or spoilt that you are blaming your mom for everything and haven’t taken any responsibility for in your life.
Society as a whole makes this open dialogue difficult because alongside our higher power is our mother and to say anything against her would almost be seen as blasphemous.
The problem is that because you are not allowed in many ways, to voice your feelings, those feelings can remain stuck.
Why do we Blame our Mothers?
Five reasons why we blame our Mothers:
- She actually abused you – Maybe you experienced physical, sexual, spiritual, emotional neglect, or emotional abuse. The pain of the childhood experiences at the hands of your mother is affecting you.
- She Still is abusive – For example, she repeatedly uses words to demean, frighten, or control you. She may even be a narcissist.
- You feel she was complicit in your abuse – this one can be unspeakable for many reasons, especially if in some ways your mother was the victim
- She denies or minimises your childhood experiences.
- She doesn’t take responsibility for things that have happened – You may find that she blames everyone: your father, her childhood, society, etc, etc for her problems but doesn’t accept how her mistakes have affected you and even her own life.
You haven’t processed your experiences and what they meant for you – Because you haven’t been able to openly talk about your experiences and how they affected you, it would be almost impossible to completely move away from them. You may suppress them but that isn’t healthy for you both physically and emotionally.
“How can I Stop Blaming My Mom”
- Decide first if this is something you want to do or do you feel forced to
- Work out for yourself why you want to stop blaming your mom. Is it because everyone else is telling you? Is it because you are feeling guilty? It is important to work out your why because this journey is not easy and being clear on why you want to know would help you.
- Accepting the fact that blaming your mom is a process you must go through. To speak to the unspeakable, to feel what you have been suppressing. If you want to get to the other side of wherever that is for you, you need to go through it.
- You can start by journaling your thoughts and feelings about your mom. Including your experiences. Be honest and open about how you feel and what you think. Journaling is a great way of doing this. It’s great because what you write is confidential and no one would be able to judge your thoughts and feelings.
- You would need help from either a trusted friend who understands. There will be so much healing from this just being able to talk about your feelings to someone who would be able to see your situation objectively and understand that you are not your thoughts, that you are on a journey where your thoughts and feelings will evolve. Also, it would really help you if you are not feeling judged about what you think and feel. That you are still accepted.
- A Trauma-Informed Therapist that would be understanding of your experiences to not collude with you to enable you continually condemn your mother just for the sake of it but to understand, to help you to grieve, and apportion responsibility to her and yourself in order to help you live your life how you see fit.
- Remember that there are so many different views on this and you may need to close your heart so some of them. Unfortunately, some therapists would be very enabling of your mother’s behavior and encourage forgiveness and understanding of your mother before you are ready.
- Remember this is your journey as a response to your life experiences. That weight that you carry due to your experiences with your mother needs care and compassion.
The Blame Game
This article by the Reach Approach is extremely helpful. It is called the Blame Game. The gist of the article is about aiming towards not staying in the blame as it isn’t helpful to you. The Blame Game is about focusing on understanding why things have affected you the way they have.
Part of that process is understanding intergenerational trauma where your mom was likely traumatised herself but passed that trauma to you.
This does not in any way absolve her from any of the responsibilities. In fact, it makes her completely responsible for her role, and going through this process would help you to understand what she was responsible for and what you are now going forward.
It is recognising that blaming your mom is important, to begin with as it helps us to recognise the deficiencies and the strengths of the previous generation, to work out what is important for your own life.
Summary
To sum up, blaming your moms for everything isn’t a bad thing. It is only when we are stuck in that blame that could be a problem. Also where there is zero responsibility for our own lives.
Other people may not understand your experiences with your mother – it is often hard to explain but it is important at least to find someone or a therapist that would understand and help you to make sense of it all in a balanced way.
