Unmasking the Wounded Mother
I feel numb when I think about my mother. Utterly desensitized. It’s a terrifying emptiness, like standing at the edge of a crater where love should be. When I try to reach for warmth, for memory, for something that feels like tenderness, all I find is logic. Cold, mechanical, transactional. I love her because she is my mother, but I do not feel it the way I should.
Being raised by a wounded mother is a slow unraveling, a starvation of the soul. It hollows you out in places you don’t even recognize until much later, when you're grown and aching for something you can’t name. I do not know what it means to have been nurtured by someone who was whole, who was healing, who had the capacity to pour into me without resentment or depletion. That was not my reality. That was not the reality of so many of us raised by women who never had a chance to tend to their own wounds before bringing us into the world.
So now we walk. Two generations deep. Aching, grasping, yearning for love to fill the gaps left in our childhoods. We search for it in lovers, in friendships, in places it was never meant to be found, because we have been starving for so long we no longer know what it means to feel full.
When I sit with my past too long, I see it differently. I see the ways I was manipulated into believing my mother was loving, engaged, and invested in my happiness. I convinced myself that she cared, that she was present, that she wanted what was best for me. But that wasn’t the truth.
My mother was invested in the appearance of being a good mother. She wanted to be recognized for all she had done, to be credited for any success that flowed through me. Her love was performance, a role she played to be seen, to be admired, to be owed.
I missed the biggest red flags. I felt them in my body, in the quiet discomfort that lingered beneath her words, but I did not yet have the language to name them. The clues were always there, hidden in the way she withheld, in the way her presence felt more like absence, in the way love was something I had to earn.
It takes age, experience, and guidance to see what was once invisible. My mother’s loudest and most consistent traits were not just quirks or personality flaws. They were the clearest evidence of her wounds, the very traits that define the wounded mother archetype.
I didn’t see many wounded mothers growing up. When I looked at my friends’ mothers, I saw presence. I saw understanding. I saw more fathers who had failed than mothers who had fractured their children.
But the question followed me. Over and over, from those who got close enough to see behind the illusion. What is wrong with your mother?
That was the question that shattered the denial. That was the question that made me see her for what she was. High conflict. Unhealed. A woman so entangled in her own wounds that mothering was never about me. It was about her.
The High-Conflict Wounded Mother
Chaos follows her like a shadow. It is her comfort, her currency, the air she breathes. Peace unsettles her, so she stirs the pot, creates tension where there is none, and pulls everyone into the storm of her making.
Nothing is ever her fault. She is the victim, always. The world has wronged her, and everyone: family, co-workers, partners, even her own children, becomes either the villain or the savior in her never-ending tragedy. The weight of her wounds is carried by those around her because she refuses to carry them herself.
In her world love is conditional. Control masquerades as care. Conflict is proof that she matters. And if she is unhappy someone must pay.
What I remember most about this part of her was that I never had a moment to breathe. I never had time to stop and recognize that she was the one bringing the conflict because I was too busy being named the villain. No matter what happened, I was the problem.
While I drowned in guilt and the constant feeling that I could never get anything right, she defeated me again and again. There was no winning. No confrontation could be had, no truth could be spoken, because her famous line always shut it down.
"I didn’t do anything to you. That was your perception, and your perception is your reality."
Back then, those words crushed me. Now, I see them for what they were. A feeble excuse. A flimsy shield. The silliest thing any grown woman could say to anyone, much less a child. That was before I knew the word gaslighting. Before I understood what emotional distance looks like. Before I could see the gaping holes in that kind of defensiveness.
The Highly Visible Wounded Mother
The wounded mother does not deceive alone. She has help.
If there was one trait that confused me most as a child, it was this. My mother’s ability to shape how others saw her, how they believed in the illusion she created. As a natural introvert, I found the endless stream of people she knew exhausting, an irritating disruption whenever we were out running errands. But I was too young to see the truth. Too young to realize that those people, her audience, were part of the deception.
Her job, her service work as a soror, her involvement in organizations all upheld the image. They fed the perception of normalcy and cemented her as an upstanding woman, someone to be admired. Because of this, I could never be seen as a child who was emotionally neglected. I wasn’t shy. I wasn’t hurting. I wasn’t struggling with confidence. I was the problem. I was unfriendly. I had an attitude.
But this isn’t just the reality of Black girls raised by unbalanced mothers. Black girls in general are rarely given the space to be introverted, to be sensitive, to exist in a full range of emotions without judgment. My mother’s stark extroversion, her constant need to be seen, to be approved of, to be adored, only made me look like the difficult one.
She played the part of the beloved, charismatic woman with ease. The moment we stepped away, no sooner than we reached the parking lot, she would speak ill of those same people she had just charmed.
Without visibility, the wounded mother has fewer opportunities to shift blame. With an audience, she can make sure the problem is never her. It is always you.
The Envious Wounded Mother
Wounded mothers exist for two reasons. They were raised by wounded mothers themselves, and they refuse to heal. They ignore the subtle cues of spirit, refusing to become more aware of their wounds and the impact of their actions as an unhealed person.
Wounded mothers carry envy because no matter how much they mask, they can never quite reach the place they long to be. Their envy often turns toward their own children. Whether it is a physical trait, a personality trait, or a way of being they always wished for, the child becomes both a source of admiration and a target. What should be a point of pride is twisted into something to be weaponized. It deepens the disconnection on both sides.
I realized too late that my mother’s jealousy of my friendships, the way she spoke about my friends whenever there was a simple falling out, mirrored a deeper envy. It was never just about them. It was about me. It was about the qualities in me that did not come from her, the parts of me that belonged to my father. And in that, I saw the dysfunction of their relationship playing out in real-time.
The wounded mother manifests in many ways, but what remains constant is her need for admiration, her need for control, and the fear that binds her to her wounds. This role is not a soulful designation but a reflection of an unwillingness to be present, to transmute pain into wisdom. Motherhood was never meant to be a pathway to enslaving a child’s identity. It was meant to be a lesson in ascension.
Many on the healing journey can easily name the narcissistic mother, the toxic mother, and demand accountability. But where deep wounds exist, peace will never be found until the wound itself is tended to, given time and grace to heal. Accountability demands are often made by those still unhealed, still walking the linear path toward becoming a wounded mother themselves.
Me? I seek no accountability. I know it would do nothing to expedite my healing. What is done is done. My healing is my choice, my privilege, and the lesson I choose to apply for the edification of my own soul.
If this resonates, take a moment to sit with what arises. Let yourself feel without judgment. Your healing is not dependent on anyone else’s recognition or accountability, it is yours to claim. What will you choose to transmute? What truth are you ready to face? When you are ready, trust that your healing has already begun. Your spirit guides await, offering loving guidance through this part of your journey. And if you feel called, I am here to walk alongside you.