Finding: Motherly love 'does breed confidence'

[CleverKrolik]

Hum, well if this is indeed true it explains a whole lot!

[bobbie1374]

My mom run off on us (me and my brother) so we were left with a father who drank too much. After some years of being reunited, I didn't know my mom, and I didn't like the way she treated my father. My father since passed away but my mom to this day feel like a stranger to me, and I feel really uncomfortable to me.

[ReincarnatedRose]

Originally Posted by Meli24R

Well my mother and I are very close. She's always been loving, supportive and affectionate. Despite this, I've always had high anxiety and felt like I couldn't/can't cope. I believe there's a genetic component to my anxiety. I'm a lot like my grandmother(whose gad and panic attacks have gotten so bad that she hardly leaves ever her house)

I feel high certainty that SA is at least in part genetic because both of my parents, both of my siblings, my grandmother, and a few cousins all suffer from it.

There are just way too many people in my family (of different ages, backgrounds, socio-economic status, and even location -- some live in Mexico, aka another country as I live in the United States, born & raised here) who suffer from this for it just to be something I learned.

Then on the flip side of this, it can't be solely genetic because I also have very, very outgoing family members. For instance, my only female cousin from my mom's side has political aspirations. In college she ran a lot of goverment groups. She gets a real thrill from public speaking and debates. Meaning, she's the complete opposite of me. Yet, she's my cousin and she even looks like me...

So it can't be completely genetic.

I read something that I really liked, that said that SA is created from the same thing that creates every individual person. So what created who we are today? Just genetics? Of course not! We were also influenced by our surroundings, by our experiences, and by the people closests to us.

So, I think there are a lot of factors.


And for the record (and to keep on topic), my mother was actually VERY loving but not very affectionate because she was raised in single parent household with an absentee mother to the point of her really being criminally negligent to her kids, and just never learned to hug and kiss her loved ones and say things like "I love you"... all that didn't come until my teens and I was the driving force behind that. I began hugging my mom a lot, and kissing her on the cheek, and telling her I love you and at first it was awkward but more than 10 years later, hugging and kissing my mother on the cheek is not only a daily thing but something that feels very natural.

I'm not sure if her not being as affectionate with me growing up caused anxiety in me but definitely the fact that she herself had anxiety (and my grandmother who at the time lived with us) had anxiety. I think having two highly anxious adults in the house created a lot of anxiety in me at a very early age...

[WintersTale]

I had lots of love from my mother growing up. I still got SA.

[tommyWhite]

Hmm this can't be completely true as I got a lot of love from both parents growing up. Same as my brother yet he is very confident and fine socializing and I am not.

[ambergris]

My parents were affectionate, but overprotective and prone to outbursts of rage. I actually remember learning a number of phobias (dogs, heights, traffic, spiders) from my mother. I wasn't initially anxious about these things, but when I saw her freaking out about them I thought they must be extremely dangerous, and my dad wasn't really around enough to act as a counterbalance. If your primary caregiver is an anxious type then you are going to pick up those behaviours from them regardless of your attachment style.

[Raulz0r]

My mom was very loving to me and protective, and last year after her sudden and unexpected death, I can clearly say that it completely set me off course, so I can testify that "too much" love can be very bad for you, sure parental love is good, but with the right dosage

[readyforachange78]

This is so true. Thank you for the post.

[sociallyretarded]

My mom has many mood swings, almost anything can (and most likely will) set her off. But other than that, she wasn't neglectful, if anything she was too wanting of me and my sister's approval (via buying us stuff). We've gone through some very, very tough times, and I wish she would realize that material items can never replace love.

[thewall]

and motherly abuse breeds self-loathing

[Elleire]

LMAO @ "motherly love." Just hearing the word "mother" is enough to make me want to throw a chair through a window. Mommy Dearest is a pathological narcissist.

[Tangerine]

Yeah, my mother has never shown me any emotion whatsoever, let alone love...

[Karuni]

My parents, especially my mom, have shown that they love and care about me. My mom does hug me every night before bed and says, "I love you." I'm also reminded of how proud they are of me for my academic accomplishments. Both of my parents also would spoil me with material things to show their love too. Especially my dad.

But that was it. Whenever I was sad, upset, or angry, my mom was never "Oh, honey, it's going to be okay. Let's go do something to cheer you up." No. It's always (and still is) "What is wrong this time? Grow up. Quit acting like a 2 year old!" It also doesn't help she has a very short temper, and the house is never quiet for a whole day. I don't know how to properly cope with anger and frustration because I only know yelling and breaking things as a way to deal with it. This has always been a high stress household. =/

I don't think my mom has ever fully understood my sensitivity to things and anxiety. She thinks I can outgrow it anytime I want...

[phoenixwright]

My mom has always loved me. But I can't say my confidence is very good. I wonder how much worse off I'd be if my mom didn't love me. My mom was (and is. lol) way too overprotective though. She played a part in me becoming socially anxious and awkward.

[MojoCrunch]

This is weird because I was somewhat smothered with love from my mother. But at the same time she was very manipulative. Really knew how to guilt trip me in every possible angle. Was compared to other girls. I noticed that she also has antisocial and awkward behaviors. She never encouraged me to hang out with other children and I was not allowed to attend sleep overs. She also has a lot of outbursts and gets randomly angry for no apparent reason. She's extremely controlling over my life and can't really accept how I am. Yeah, her love and affection didn't help me. She actually causes a lot of my anxiety because everything she talks of is negative out of nowhere. She also remembers everything I say just to use it against me later.

Really wish my parents could be happy but when they've worked hard their whole lives and feel like they've gotten nothing it's a different story. For this reason I feel a need to do something great for them because I honestly feel that deep down my parents feel just as miserable as I do sometimes. Yup, it's a family thing. One where everyone is rotting.

[syrella]

I somewhat disagree with this, if only because my mom actually was always there for me. I was held and hugged a lot as a kid and always given lots of encouragements.

Yes, I'd consider myself pretty confident and I have good self-esteem, but I still have my fair share of anxiety.

[phi]

seems to be a cicle of this ever rotating earth.

Mother said she got beat till she bled by her father. The look in moms eyes is so distant as if she is dead. Now is this time for me to give her the love that no one gave us? it causes shame for some reason. Im embarrassed to feel love for her. Im confused. It probably shamed her to love me? Like we are mirroring and going back and forth as in circles like the earth.

[Cottontail]

Read something to contrast this with, albeit focused on general parenting (rather than just the maternal angle) affecting kids' mental health: http://www.purematters.com/news/pare...-mental-health. So my two cents: (1) I don't agree with the linked story, and I'm actually in favor of the BBC quote; (2) more specifically: tailoring parenting to specific needs/dispositions of your child is a good idea for some, but the general "surround them with love and support" approach works much better for me, as someone who deals with all sorts of her own mh issues, not limited to sa or any of its siblings, and more importantly: whose child is similarly afflicted, albeit in his own less intense way (bus anxiety; recess horror stories ...). What I mean is, Thinking about his problems and tailoring my parenting to those needs would probably = equating those problems with my own, and creating a bond with him that's more like a mutual support group for the two of us rather than a motherly crutch for him to lean on. That's what my mother did, and I love her but honestly, it was too much for my 12 yo self to deal with. So what it comes down to is I agree with the "one-size-fits-all" (love love love) approach for parents with sa and related disorders, esp. if their children are similary predisposed--and a lot of times, in my experience, they are.

[rgrwng]

my tiger mom physically abused me until i was 12 or 13, and all she did was scream at my dad and hate his side of the family. she never comforted me correctly, and now i am paying the price.

[Williams]

My mother was both affectionate and abusive. She had bi-polar tendencies. One hour she might be very caring and loving and the next she would be extremely critical, yell and rant about how horrible me and my siblings were... she also spanked us.