Breaking the Myth of Motherhood: Feminism & Healing

Do you feel guilty because you don't feel loved by the person who should have loved you the most? This question stings, but perhaps it hurts because deep down, you've been asking yourself exactly that.

Society has created a myth of inviolability, that every mother loves, protects, and cares. A mother's love is unconditional, instinctive, and flawless. But what if that's not the case? What if our mother is a spiritual child abuser? What if our children are being spiritually abused by their mother?

Children of Divorce - Destruction of the Family

What if your relationship with your mother leaves traces of absence, rejection, coldness, constant criticism, or excessive control? Is that still love? Many people grow up thinking that their pain is drama, ingratitude, or oversensitivity. They learn to swallow their tears, downplay their own story, and smile while carrying an invisible burden on their backs. But denying this pain only prolongs the suffering.

It's time to break the silence and, above all, shatter the myth

Mother wounds are real, and they don't begin with you, but they can end with you. The mother wound isn't just a sad memory, but like an invisible scar etched deep into our psyche—a scar that has existed since childhood. It appears when the mother, for whatever reason, was unable to give the child the necessary affection, attention, or care. Sometimes this is because she herself was also wounded. We can divide this wound into two main types.

The active wound and the subtle wound

The active wound is more obvious. It arises from experiences such as emotional, physical, or verbal abuse, neglect, abandonment, or direct violence. It is the kind of pain that leaves visible marks and is often recognized as trauma. The subtle wound, on the other hand, is harder to identify but just as destructive. It manifests itself in overprotective, controlling, and overly critical mothers who shower their daughter with conditional love or make her their best friend, thus upending the parent-child dynamic. In these cases, the child grows up believing that they must become something to deserve love.

It's like sweet poison - child abuse

It looks like nurturing, but it's a type of affection that distorts a child's identity. Carl Jung introduces a symbolic and archetypal perspective. The mother is the first image of the world. When this image fails, the child not only feels pain but builds an inner world in which love is unstable. Affection is dangerous, and the self must be reshaped to survive emotionally. It's as if the emotional ground beneath your feet has cracked. You walk, live, and love, but you're always afraid of falling. Therefore, understanding this wound is the first real step toward healing.

Rumpelstiltskin

Not pointing the finger, but naming what hurts. Because once it's named, you can finally accept it. And once you start naming it, something incredible happens. You realize that this pain isn't just one thing. It's spread throughout your life in ways you may not even recognize. In ways that have become almost invisible wounds that still bleed today.

You could spend years feeling like something is wrong with you, not realizing that this feeling stems from an old, invisible, unacknowledged wound—the mother wound, especially when the unnamed wound disguises itself in behaviors that seem like a part of your personality but are actually defense mechanisms built to cope with a love that was never reliable.

You may have trouble trusting others. You always expect the worst. You feel like you'll be abandoned, betrayed, or taken advantage of. This constant distrust may not have started with a romantic betrayal, but with a childhood in which your mother's love was unpredictable, unstable, or conditional.

You may not trust yourself. You feel like you're never good enough. That everything you do needs someone's approval, validation, or criticism. This kind of insecurity often comes from mothers who were overly critical and always demanded and taught perfection without saying it out loud. That making mistakes meant losing love. When it feels impossible to set boundaries. When you feel guilty when you say no.

When you accept things that hurt you just to keep the peace

This, too, could be an emotional legacy. Many mothers have led their children to believe that love only comes from obedience, sacrifice, and self-destruction. A distorted self-image. Fear of being seen. Shame about your body or your voice. All of these are traces of a childhood in which you didn't feel safe to be your true self. The fear of relationships, of love, and of being loved doesn't come from the present, but from a past in which love meant pain and affection was followed by rejection. Hypersensitivity. The feeling that everything hurts more isn't weakness, but adaptation.

It's a nervous system that was trained early on to recognize the slightest signs of rejection and the repetition of emotional patterns. The same types of partners, the same cycles of pain. It's not bad luck; it's your subconscious trying to heal a wound from the past with your present.

But the truth is, all these wounds have a common root: something planted long ago in your earliest years that still determines how you love, or how afraid you are to love from your very first days. All you needed was a look that said you were safe here. The way that look was given to you, or withheld, shaped much more than you realize. It shaped your connection to the world. How you see yourself, how you relate to others—this is what we call an attachment pattern. Attachment theory explains how emotional bonds formed in childhood determine our emotional responses throughout life.

The central figure in this bond is almost always the mother

If this figure provides consistent affection, emotional presence, and predictability, the child develops a secure attachment. This means they grow up feeling they can trust others, that they are worthy of love, and that the world is a place where they can express themselves safely and without fear of rejection. However, if love is unstable, cold, suffocating, or absent, insecure attachment patterns emerge. This is where the mother wound quietly creeps into the way they interact with others.

Anxious attachment develops when the child lives in fear of losing love. The mother is present, but in unpredictable ways—sometimes loving, sometimes critical, sometimes distant. This creates adults who live on the edge, fearful of abandonment, who love too much, who become overly demanding, and who shrink just to avoid losing someone. Avoidant attachment develops when a child learns that expressing emotions is pointless. The mother is cold and rigid, devaluing feelings. The result is adults who distance themselves emotionally, run away from intimacy, and maintain control as a shield against pain.

Disorganized attachment is a mixture of both extremes. It occurs when the mother is both a source of love and fear, as in cases of abuse or emotional violence. The child grows up confused, unsure whether to approach or withdraw. This leads to chaotic relationships, self-sabotage, and a deep fear of themselves.

All of these patterns share the same root: the quality of the attachment to the mother

The wound is created not only by what happened, but also by what didn't happen. The hug that was missing, the silence that lasted too long, the words that never came, and most importantly, these patterns are not a lifelong judgment; they are a map. Recognizing your attachment pattern opens the door to understanding why certain relationships hurt so much and why you sometimes stay stuck in them despite the pain.

Because inside you is an image of your mother that goes far beyond the woman who raised you. There is a mother who lives in your head, who whispers in your ear and who is often much stricter than the real person ever was. When we think of our mothers, we usually imagine the real woman, her face, her actions, her words. But inside us lies something deeper: the psychic mother, the inner image formed by lived experience. We often have a lifelong dialogue with her. Carl Jung called this image the archetype of the Great Mother, a universal symbol in the collective unconscious that represents both nurture and danger.

The archetypal mother has two sides:

the light side, associated with nurture, comfort, and unconditional love
and the dark side, associated with control, smothering, guilt, and abandonment.

The thing is: When the real mother hurts us, the inner image that forms tends to be dominated by this dark side. You can grow up and leave her house, but still be trapped by this inner presence that judges you, demands things from you, and silences you. It's that voice in your head that says, "You're not good enough," "You're wrong," "You have to please to be valuable." At that point, the wound no longer needs the mother's presence; it remains alive, inside you like a silent emotional recording on a continuous loop. Therefore, healing the mother wound doesn't depend on your real mother changing it, but on transforming your inner mother.

This is one of the most liberating truths of depth psychology, because as long as you believe you need your mother's approval to be happy, you remain trapped. But when you realize that what's really holding you back is the image you carry of her, then the healing begins. Transformation doesn't happen by trying to change who it was, but by rebuilding your relationship with this psychic presence, it's like renovating the emotional house you live in:

Suffocating walls replaced with breathing windows,
pressure replaced with compassion,
fear replaced with strength,
silence replaced with listening.

And this separation wasn't accidental. You didn't just wake up one day and decide to lose yourself. Little by little, you put on masks, hid parts of yourself, and silenced your voice until you forgot what your own face looked like. Early on, you learned that you had to be someone else to be accepted.

The Persona

And so, over time, you've built a persona, a social mask. It's the version of yourself that smiles when you want to cry, says you're fine when you're breaking down, that tries to be what others expect, even when it hurts to be who you really are. Jung called this mask the persona. It's not false, but it's incomplete. It helps you survive in the world. But if you identify too closely with it, you forget who you really are.

And very often, this persona was shaped by your relationship with your mother.

You became the simple child, the daughter who doesn't cause trouble. The adult who constantly seeks validation without realizing it, while everything that wasn't accepted—your anger, your sadness, your fear, your desires—was cast into the shadows. The shadow is the basement of the unconscious, where you locked away the parts of yourself that were too condemned to be seen.

But what is suppressed doesn't disappear; it returns in the form of fear, guilt, self-sabotage, and reappears in your relationships, your repeated patterns, your sudden emotional outbursts.

At the center of it all is the mother complex—a set of unconscious emotions and memories centered around the image of your mother.

When this complex is triggered, you react with the same pain you felt as a child. You could be 30, 40, or 50 years old, but in that moment, you feel like a lost child, trying to please, longing for love, or fighting against an emptiness that was never filled. These mechanisms pull you away from your true self because you begin to live. In reaction mode, you shape your life to avoid pain, avoid rejection, and attract a love that may never come, but the love you seek can only be born when you reconnect with what was left behind. Recognizing your personality is the first step to removing the mask that confronts your shadow, and the path to regaining your strength.

Understanding your mother complex helps you recognize when the past is reacting, not you in the present

And it's not just about your relationships with others, but about your relationship with love itself, because the way you love today could actually be a repetition of what you learned from her. You may think you decide who you get involved with, but often it's the image of your mother within you that decides. Jung said we all carry an opposite-sex archetype in our subconscious. For men, it's the anima, an inner representation of the feminine. For women, it's the animus, an inner male figure. And these images are largely shaped by how we interacted with the other parent in childhood. For men, it's the relationship with the mother; for women, it's the father.

Men

In the case of the mother wound, however, this influence can be even stronger: men who were emotionally injured by their mother or experienced unstable love often develop a wounded anima. This anima manifests itself in relationships as an unconscious filter. They are attracted to emotionally unavailable, difficult, or overly demanding women because they unconsciously try to resolve their pain with their mother through their partner.

They seek in romantic love the recognition they didn't receive in childhood.

Women

Women, on the other hand, often develop a negative animus, an inner voice that is critical, authoritarian, and perfectionistic. It's as if they have internalized a judgmental father, often shaped by their relationship with their mother.

This is because their mother may have been the first to reinforce ideas like "You have to be strong, depend on no one, and be perfect." The wounded animus manifests itself in extreme self-criticism, self-sabotage, and attraction to dominant or indifferent partners, thus repeating the cycle of feeling unappreciated.

These archetypes are not to be taken literally, but rather symbolic forces in our psyche that profoundly influence how we show up in love, how we give and receive affection. Until these inner images are healed, love will continue to manifest with pain, but when you recognize that you have loved from a wound, you can now begin to love from an awareness, a love that doesn't need to repair anything, simply needs to be present, a love that doesn't repeat itself, overcomes the past, transforms it. But there is a wound that is even harder to recognize because it isn't created by harshness or abandonment.

Narcissistic Mother - Divorce

Rather, wrapped in a beautiful package with a bow of "I did everything for you" and poison inside, that is the wound of the narcissistic mother. Not every narcissistic mother screams, humiliates, or craves attention; many are subtly sophisticated and socially popular, but at home, they create an emotionally stifling environment in which the child doesn't exist as an individual, but only as an extension of their love, which is conditional, however; you only deserve it if you please them. You fulfill their expectations and don't threaten their ego. It's a bond that looks like affection, but is actually control. The narcissistic mother wants to be loved, admired, obeyed, and often envious of her children's bright side. She may compete with her daughters, criticize their appearance, and downplay her successes with sons, whom she can emotionally seduce by making them her symbolic partner and smothering their self-esteem.

Emotional manipulation is subtle. After all I've done for you, you disappoint me. Don't be selfish. Praise, when it comes, is short-lived and always comes with a catch.

"Mama's Boy"

This dynamic produces children who live for their mother's approval and try to avoid rejection at all costs. They learn from an early age that their existence must be useful, that they must earn love, that they mustn't mess up, shine too brightly, or oppose her.

Jung said that when a mother owns her child's ego, the self cannot fully emerge, the true identity has no room to grow, and is constantly shaped by the mother's wishes.

The child grows up with low self-esteem, a fragile identity, and an inner voice that repeats all the criticisms they heard as a child. They live for others, feel guilty about everything, and have a very hard time knowing who they are unless they try to please. The child adapts so closely to their mother that they lose touch with their own being and, in adulthood, increasingly adapt to everyone—at work, in relationships, in friendships.

They are afraid of taking up space, of being rejected, of simply being themselves. But this psychological prison can be broken. Once you recognize the pattern, it's time to stop waiting for your mother to change. Let go of the illusion that love will one day come from the right side. Begin to rebuild a healthy ego from within—a self born not to serve, but to exist. This becomes even more urgent when you realize that, without meaning to, you are repeating with your own children the very pain you were never able to heal.

Narcissistic Mothers - Child Abusers

It's time to break the cycle. If you're a parent, this change isn't just about you, but about ending a chain that may have lasted for generations.

Because healing is not only your right, but also your greatest act of love for those who come after you. Many women who carry the mother wound become mothers with a silent fear—the fear of repeating with their children what hurt them most. And this fear, as painful as it is, is already a sign of awareness.

Because those who repeat without guilt are still asleep, but those who are afraid of a repetition have already begun.

The truth is that no mother emerges from childhood unscathed, and unfortunately, most carry unprocessed pain, unconscious expectations, and inherited patterns.

Some unwittingly project onto their children what they didn't experience, what they lacked, and what they once dreamed of. Others lose themselves trying to be everything their mothers weren't, and in the process, lose themselves. The good news is that this cycle can be broken—not through perfection, not through preconceived answers, but through presence.

Being present with oneself is already an act of love that is passed on to one's children. Because children don't need perfect mothers; they need awake mothers who know how to pause, look within, notice when they're running on autopilot, and make different choices. The cycle is broken when you begin to treat yourself with the love you never received.

When you learn to forgive yourself for the mistakes you made before you were aware of them.

When you understand that raising a child is also an opportunity to reinvent yourself. Motherhood, in this context, is a constant practice and emotional responsibility. It means knowing that by bearing your pain, you prevent it from being passed on to the next generation. It means giving your children the space to be who they are. You are not who you had to become to survive. You don't have to carry the entire past with you. You can lay aside the pain that isn't yours and say, "Enough!" You can begin where no one ever began with you. And that alone is healing. Because one thing is certain: You can't change what happened. But you can change the burden it still carries in your life. And that doesn't happen through blame or forgetting.

Anger at the Mother

It happens in ways you may not even recognize. When you begin to explore the mother wound, it's normal for anger to arise, and it has to. Because you've tried for a long time to understand, to justify yourself, and to remain silent, but suppressed anger turns into tension, fear, and illness. Anger at your mother doesn't make you a bad person. It makes you someone who is beginning to recognize their own violated boundaries.

But you have to be careful here. Healing doesn't mean blaming her for everything. It's not about making your mother the villain. Turning yourself into a perpetual victim requires feeling anger, but also processing it, so you don't get stuck in it, so it doesn't become another form of emotional dependency. Jung talked about the importance of taking responsibility for your own history, not to feel guilty, but to gain freedom by understanding that your mother acted on her own wounds.

That doesn't justify what you went through, but it gives you the choice to repeat it or transform it.

Healing begins when you stop waiting for the apology that may never come, when you let go of the expectation that she will change or finally see you or give you what she never gave, and choose to give it to yourself.

Forgiving isn't about forgetting, but rather about breaking the emotional chain that still binds you to the past. It means ending the struggle with what was so you can begin to live what could still be. The pain may not disappear completely, but it changes the place. From a prison, it becomes history, and from there you can write a new chapter. There are other practices that can help you rebuild yourself from within.

The Golden Madonna

Meditation with archetypes also helps. Visualizing the archetypal mother in her healing form. The one who nurtures, loves, and doesn't demand can begin to replace the internalized negative image. You can imagine this archetypal mother embracing you, protecting you, and listening to you. Your subconscious understands symbols, and symbols heal. Jung also suggested active imagination, a technique in which you engage in dialogue with parts of your psyche as if they were living characters. It could be the wounded child, the inner mother, the critical voice. What does it say? What do you respond to? This kind of inner encounter can be profoundly transformative. Reprogramming the inner bond means treating yourself with the nurturing you once hoped for from your mother.

Individuation

Setting real boundaries for her is part of this, if necessary. A boundary is not a punishment, but a protection. Sometimes the truest form of love is the one that says you can't cross that line anymore. It's not about blaming your mother, but about finally looking at your pain with the eyes of an adult, with love and courage. It's the process of finally becoming who you were always meant to be—not a figure marked by pain, but your whole self.

The mother wound, no matter how deep, doesn't define who you are. It may have shaped parts of your path, but it doesn't have to determine your destiny. Jung called it individuation—the process of becoming who you truly are—by integrating everything that has been rejected, forgotten, or distorted to please. It's the journey of leaving conditioning behind.

Back to the Center

And returning to the center of your being. Individuation doesn't mean becoming perfect, but the opposite. It means becoming whole, embracing your light and your shadow, your pain and your power. It means no longer looking outside for the love you were missing, but beginning to develop that love from within.

It means recognizing that the wounded child still lives within you, but now there's an adult who can protect them. This journey isn't linear. Individuation takes courage because it often requires letting go of identities you thought were yours, but which were actually created for survival. It's like taking off a tight outfit you've worn your whole life and breathing with your chest wide open for the first time. This process means acknowledging what was missing, but also creating something that was never given; it means reclaiming the value of your voice, your desires, your very existence.

You are not what was done to you; you are who you choose to be now. And when this choice is made consciously, life changes not because the past changes, but because you no longer identify with it. You stop being a reflection of pain and become the author of your own story. You've spent a lifetime trying to understand why you didn't feel loved. You've tried to please, to shape yourself, to explain yourself, to fit into a space that was never meant for you. But maybe now is the time to stop trying, to stop asking for love where it doesn't exist, and to start giving yourself the love you've always longed for.

It's not easy, because behind that longing lies a wounded child who just wanted to be seen, who hoped for a gesture, a look, a word that would confirm their existence. But now you know that sometimes that gesture never comes. And continuing to search for it where it never existed means remaining trapped in the same emptiness you no longer have to beg for, emotional scraps, you no longer have to prove anything. What you felt was real. The pain you carry is valid, but it no longer has to determine your life. Today you can decide for yourself.

The Mother Wound

Healing the mother wound isn't about cutting ties, but about shattering illusions. It's about recognizing that no matter how much the pain of the past has hurt you, the present is in your hands, and you can choose how to move forward with more truth, more presence, and more love—the kind of love that nourishes, that holds, that sets you free. Thousands of people carry the same silent pain, but your courage to face it is already taking you to a new place where there is no shame or guilt anymore, because you want to be whole. Carl Jung said:

He who looks outward dreams; he who looks inward awakens.

Feminism promotes the mother wound and child abuse - the ideology of child abuse

Feminist ideology deceives young women into believing it's okay to spiritually abuse their own children and those of their husbands. Feminism isn't for women, but against men. The ideology of de facto equality transforms young and naive mothers into child abusers.

Rumpelstiltskin – Feminism promotes spiritual child abuse – Society has created a myth of inviolability, that every mother loves, protects, and cares. But what if that’s not the case?