“Mommy Issues”: What I’m Listening For as a Therapist When I Hear that Term

“My ex called it ‘mommy issues,’” she said.

I’ll call her Talia. [not her real name]

She wasn’t dramatic. She wasn’t chaotic. She was thoughtful, articulate, and self-aware.

And she was exhausted.

“Every relationship I’m in,” she said, “there’s this moment where I feel myself leaning in too hard.

Wanting reassurance. Wanting to know where I stand.”

She paused.

“And then I hate myself for it.”

I watched her as she spoke. Her body leaned forward slightly—toward me, toward the words, toward something she couldn’t name.

And then it tightened. Almost imperceptibly.

I didn’t hear pathology.

I heard a nervous system that learned early that connection required effort.

I slowed us down.

“Can we pause here?” I asked. “As you talk about wanting closeness, notice what’s happening in your body.”

Talia closed her eyes.

“There’s this pull,” she said. “Like I need to move closer. And then my chest tightens. Like something bad could happen.”

That moment told me more than any timeline ever could.

Because what shows up in moments like that is how attachment actually lives in the body.

This is what most people miss about attachment. It isn’t just fear of abandonment or difficulty with intimacy.

It’s movement.

Reaching.
Waiting.
Grasping.
Pulling back.
Collapsing once contact is made.
Staying alert even while close.

Talia’s body had learned this sequence decades ago.

Reach toward connection—then brace for it to disappear.

By adulthood, it felt like personality.

Clinically, it was a pattern of action.

Over the following months, we didn’t try to fix the pattern. We stayed with it.

I’d watch for the moment her body leaned forward. We’d slow down right there.

“What does that pull want?” I’d ask.

Sometimes she’d say closeness. Sometimes safety. Sometimes just to know she wasn’t too much.

And then we’d notice what came next—the tightening, the holding, the bracing for loss.

That’s where trauma actually lives.

As Pat Ogden teaches:
“Trauma is enacted—in posture, impulse, breath, orientation—not just remembered.”

So we weren’t working with Talia’s story about her mother.

We were working with what her body still believed about closeness.

When closeness has been inconsistent, the nervous system doesn’t just learn to avoid.

It learns to reach harder.

To stay vigilant.
To monitor.
To perform.
To grasp.

Not because the person is needy—but because contact never felt secure enough to relax into.

Urgency before closeness. Anxiety inside it. Shame right after.

By adulthood, this shows up as “I’m too much” or “I ruin relationships.”

Talia had heard both.

But then I started seeing shifts.

They didn’t happen all at once. They happened in moments I almost missed.

One session, she was telling me about a text she’d sent to someone she was dating.

In the past, this would have been followed by a flood of second-guessing. Did I say too much? Was I too eager? Should I not have reached out first?

But this time, she just told me what she wrote.

And then she stopped.

“I’m waiting for the panic,” she said. “But it’s not coming.”

I noticed her hands were open in her lap. Not gripping. Not bracing.

A few weeks later, she came in talking about a hard conversation she’d had—the kind that used to send her into a spiral for days.

But her shoulders had dropped.
Her breath was slower.

She wasn’t scanning my face the way she used to.

I didn’t say anything. I just waited.

“I still feel the wanting,” she said finally. She looked up.

“But it doesn’t feel dangerous anymore.”

I let that land.

Because that’s the shift. Not the absence of need. But the absence of fear inside it.

The nervous system learns it doesn’t have to rush.
Longing doesn’t have to turn into grasping.
Closeness doesn’t require self-erasure.

That’s not willpower. That’s reorganization.

This is why I don’t call it “mommy issues.”

Because the same patterns can come from many histories.

Any environment where connection was unpredictable.
Any relationship where you had to work for attunement.
Any early bond where wanting carried risk.

What matters isn’t the label.

What matters is the pattern—and whether it can finally change.

If you’ve ever been told you have “mommy issues,” or wondered why you relate the way you do, I want you to hear this:

You’re not broken.
You’re not immature.
You’re not failing at relationships.

You’re carrying patterns your nervous system learned early—patterns that once made sense.

And with trauma-informed therapy grounded in somatic, attachment-based, and developmental work, those patterns can shift. Not by shaming them.

But by finally understanding how they formed—and giving them a new ending.

So if this lands, I hope you offer some grace to your heart as you move ahead in understanding yourself a bit better.

Live in New York and seeking some personalized one-on-one support? We are here for you!

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We offer trauma-informed therapy integrating somatic work, sensorimotor psychotherapy, EMDR, and Internal Family Systems (IFS).

If you’re ready to work with the patterns—and get support and improve your life, we are here for you!

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With care,
Esther

For Therapists and Psychologists

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