The Pain Behind Surviving the Guilt of Not Being the Mom I Wanted to Be
Surviving the guilt of not being the mom I wanted to be.
This one guts me to write.
Because out of everything I’ve survived, the abuse, the spiritual attacks, the trauma, the silence. This is the wound I carry the heaviest:
I didn’t come into motherhood whole.
I came in bleeding.
Still trying to survive.
Still being triggered.
Still being haunted by demons, both the ones with skin and the ones without.
And I didn’t know how to love the way they needed me to.
Because I never learned what love really was.
Surviving the guilt of not being the mom I wanted to be means living with the ache that I gave my kids a broken version of me. Not because I didn’t care, but because I didn’t know how to do it any differently back then.
What My Children Deserved That I Couldn’t Always Give
And yeah, I can say I did my best.
But the truth is, my best was still full of pain.
My best had yelling.
My best had withdrawal.
My best had emotional shutdowns and overreactions.
My best had days I couldn’t even look my own kids in the eyes because the shame was eating me alive.
Nobody talks about this side of survival.
The side where you’re raising children while still being a child inside, unmothered, unprotected, and undone.
Surviving the guilt of not being the mom I wanted to be means watching your children hurt in ways that echo your own wounds and knowing you were part of it, even if you never meant to be.
Owning It Doesn’t Mean Drowning in Shame
And that guilt? It doesn’t just fade.
It shows up when I see their pain.
It shows up when they pull away.
It shows up in the silence.
It shows up in the questions I don’t have good answers for.
But here’s what I am learning:
Guilt isn’t where this ends.
Truth is.
Because I’m not running from it anymore.
I’m facing it.
I’m speaking it.
And I’m doing the work, not to rewrite the past, but to own it.
Surviving the guilt of not being the mom I wanted to be also means showing up now — raw, broken, healing out loud.
It means being honest with my kids when I never had that honesty growing up.
It means letting them see me trying.
It means letting them see me change — even if it’s late.
Speaking Truth, Even If It Came Late
And if you’re out there carrying the same guilt — I want you to hear me:
You are not your trauma.
You are not the worst things you did while in survival mode.
You are not beyond redemption.
We were failed, and then left to raise others while still figuring out how to raise ourselves.
But the fact that we care now?
That we grieve?
That we show up in truth, even when it hurts?
That’s the start of something sacred.
It’s not perfect.
It’s not polished.
But it’s real.
And real is what breaks the curse.
