How I Broke Free From My Mother Toxic Hold

Today, I wanted to do something different from my usual practical posts on parenting and motherhood. Breaking free from my mother toxic hold was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done; it was so difficult because I didn’t realize just how deep the roots of that hold ran. I want to share a personal story about my life to help you see how much parents can cause a lot of damage to their own child if they’re not careful about the way they talk to them.

This morning, as I was dropping my son off at daycare, I was thinking about all the difficult things I’ve been through over the past few years. I’m 34 years old and was born in Canada, and let’s just say I haven’t always had an easy life. For a long time, my mother made me believe that life was only about struggle, disappointment, and surviving. But I slowly realized something: that was her belief, not mine. She had handed me her fear and called it reality. My mother wasn’t always a positive person, and she often passed on her negative outlook and lack of confidence to me, both when I was a child and as an adult.

So I’ve always felt and believed that life was negative, that it was impossible to achieve your dreams, because that’s how I was raised. Whenever I talked to her about it, she made me swallow my anger, so luckily, I was able to find comfort in my friends, in therapy, and in books as well. Except that what really helped me to get off my mother toxic hold was to move away.

I also think the fact that my mother had me when she was 18, with no education, really upset her, and she needed help, but it was easier for her to take her negativity out on me.

Unfortunately, she didn’t realize the serious damage all that negativity was doing to my mind. I was a very sensitive child, and my mother had no filter. Sadly, for a long time, I felt like I was carrying the weight of my mother on my shoulders. I was her confidante, her friend, and her therapist, but when I think about it today, I understand why it affected me so much.

I think she was all over the place; she didn’t know what to show and what to hide, and I lived with my parents until I was 28. When I got pregnant, I finally moved in with my boyfriend. Looking back, I think leaving sooner would have protected me emotionally.

Despite all the therapy I went through when I was young, I should have moved out sooner because it would have saved me psychologically from the negative hold my mother had over me.

I Didn’t Realize How Hurt I Was

For a long time, I didn’t even know I was hurt. I thought this was just who I was: anxious, doubtful, scared to dream too big. But becoming a mother slowly forced me to look at my own childhood with different eyes.

My mother is someone who, even now, tries to impose her dreams and her life on me by asking me to partner with her to start a business. Except that I don’t want to, I just can’t do it anymore. I’ve reached my limit.

Being aware of one’s own limitations

There’s one thing my mother never respected: my boundaries. She often made me endure more than I could handle. Over time, as I distanced myself from her, I relearned how to love myself and accept my limits.

“Mom Creative Blogger” is now part of who I am. By creating this blog, I feel like I’ve been reborn; having my own platform makes me happy. I think my mother needed a guide, but the biggest lesson she taught me was to rely only on myself. And also that I’m not responsible for her traumas or her problems, and that even if it causes her pain, I can’t help her if she doesn’t take responsibility for helping herself.

Little Me

By creating this blog, I’m giving myself a gift: the chance to give my younger self what I was never allowed to have, because I was forced to either have my privacy trampled on, or account for everything I was doing, or be belittled without any regard for my feelings. And believe me, that’s how my life was for a very, very long time.

I’m Worth It

After distancing myself from my mother, I realized that I deserved just as much respect and happiness as she did. For a long time, she made me feel worthless in her eyes, whether through her words, guilt, or pity. And whenever I brought it up with her, she would use it as an opportunity to belittle me even more. I still remember how, as a teenager, it robbed me of all my self-esteem. Today, it feels good to have my own identity and no longer live with her. I’m rediscovering life through my own eyes, and I don’t feel guilty.

Respect your kids

If there’s one thing I’d like you to take away from this story, it’s to respect your children and be careful not to project your own pain onto them, because they aren’t to blame for it. It is your responsibility to seek help. I felt like she saw me as the person who HAD to fix her problems, her life, and her traumas. When I was little, I thought I could save my mother, but I gained nothing from it, and neither did she. The only thing that happened, unfortunately, was that it broke something inside me for a long time, and I felt like I was carrying her baggage. Some people will never change.

If there’s one thing I’d like you to take away from this story, it’s this: respect your children. Be careful not to project your own pain onto them, because they are not responsible for healing what broke you.

When I was little, I thought I could save my mother. But in the end, I lost myself trying.

I’m still healing, but I know this now: I am allowed to have boundaries. I am allowed to build a peaceful life. And I want my child to grow up knowing that love should never feel like a burden.