OP spent much of her childhood feeling like she had no control over her own body or choices.
Her mother constantly criticized her appearance, restricted her food, controlled her clothing and hair, and treated OP’s body as something she had the right to manage.
Years later, OP is now an adult with a loving family of her own and has chosen to go no contact with her mother.
After sharing these memories, she is trying to understand why the person who was supposed to protect her instead caused so much pain and why letting go of that relationship still feels so complicated.
Woman reflects on her traumatic childhood after years of controlling abuse from her mother and finally choosing distance
One of the most painful things a child can learn is that love seems conditional on becoming whatever a parent demands.
In this woman’s childhood, food, clothing, hair, puberty, and even potential surgery were not treated as parts of her own developing identity.
They became areas her mother attempted to control.
Years later, the question haunting her is understandable: why would a mother become so preoccupied with reshaping her own daughter?
The emotional pattern described here goes far beyond ordinary strict parenting.
Restricting food until a child goes hungry, punishing attempts to eat, controlling clothing, covering a developing body, and attempting to arrange unwanted breast-reduction surgery all suggest that bodily autonomy was repeatedly overridden.
Her mother’s extreme reaction to a tiny haircut is especially revealing because the haircut itself was almost meaningless.
What mattered was that someone else had helped the daughter make a decision about her own appearance.
A useful perspective is that the exact motive may never be knowable.
Jealousy, insecurity, rigid ideas about femininity, fear of losing control, or unresolved psychological problems could all be possibilities, but diagnosing the mother from a story would be irresponsible.
What matters more is the function of the behavior.
Again and again, the mother appeared unable to tolerate her daughter becoming an autonomous person with preferences, privacy, and an adult body.
That framework helps explain why the daughter did not simply “say no” as a child. Children depend on caregivers for food, shelter, safety, and their understanding of what is normal.
The update, however, shows something important: the pattern did not define the rest of her life.
At 34, she describes a safe home, therapy, children she protects fiercely, and plans to study social work.
Going no contact after becoming a parent appears less like punishment and more like ending access to a system she refuses to reproduce.
Her current guilt about supporting her mother financially may be one final echo of childhood conditioning.
Compassion does not require renewed access, and preventing an abusive parent from experiencing every consequence of their own choices is not automatically a child’s lifelong responsibility.
Her children, household, and stability can come first.
Perhaps the strongest answer to “Why was she like this?” is also the hardest: there may never be an explanation satisfying enough to make the behavior understandable.
Healing may depend less on decoding her mother and more on continuing to protect the autonomy that was denied to her for so long.
Check out how the community responded:
These commenters agreed OP experienced severe abuse and encouraged staying away from her mother
These commenters suggested the mother viewed OP as an extension of herself and projected her own issues onto her daughter
These commenters emphasized that OP needed support from trusted adults and professional help after being failed by caregivers
These commenters shared similar experiences of controlling mothers and encouraged OP to reconnect with her own body and identity
OP’s story shows that the damage was never just about strict rules or a controlling parent.
It was about growing up without ownership over her own body, choices, and voice.
Years later, becoming a mother gave OP the clarity to recognize that protecting her children also meant protecting herself from repeating the same cycle.
Going no contact was not about punishment; it was about creating the safe environment she never had.
Do you think OP was right to cut off contact despite the guilt that came with it?
How can someone balance compassion for an aging parent with protecting themselves and their own children? Share your thoughts below!
