8 señales de que te crió una madre tóxica y cómo te afecta

Las madres son seres humanos fuertes y divinos. Te llevan nueve meses en su vientre sin quejarse nunca. Después, te alimentan, cocinan, visten y aman incondicionalmente.

But sometimes, even mothers can fail in their parental roles, and that’s when they become toxic.

• Perhaps a mother’s intentions were pure, but she failed to express them the right way, so the child ends up being raised in a toxic environment, which can influence their further growth.

• We shouldn’t forget that a mother is never just a mother. She has many roles that she either imposed on herself or is expected to perform by others or society.

• Also, we shouldn’t forget that sometimes even our mothers grow up having a toxic relationship with their parents, which later on shifts to their children. Speaking of a vicious cycle.

Pero no toda esperanza está perdida.

Si aprendes más sobre el comportamiento tóxico característico de un padre tóxico, tendrás la oportunidad de romper ese círculo vicioso y protegerte a ti mismo y a tus hijos actuales o futuros.

Below you’ll find the most common 8 signs you were raised by a madre tóxicacomportamientos de una madre tóxica, y cómo esto influye en tu salud mental.

8 señales de que te crió una madre tóxica

Si algunos o todos los signos siguientes te suenan, lo más probable es que hayas sido criado por una madre tóxica:

1. No puedes evitar anteponer las necesidades de los demás a las tuyas propias

Cuando eras niño, siempre hacías todo lo posible por complacer a tu madre para ganarte su amor y su afecto. Pero eso rara vez o nunca ocurría.

Como adulto, sigues sintiendo la necesidad de dar prioridad a los demás antes que a ti mismo. Establecer límites es un verdadero reto para ti.

No se puede céntrate en tus propias necesidades because you feel responsible for other people’s happiness and well-being (just as you feel/felt responsible for your mother’s happiness).

Debido a eso, a menudo terminas siendo tomado por sentado, y atraes a personas que se alimentan de tu amor y empatía, como jugadores, narcisistas y similares.

2. Sientes que no eres y nunca serás lo suficientemente bueno

De todas las 8 señales de que fuiste criado por una madre tóxica, ésta es una de las más dolorosas. Luchas con baja autoestima y el perfeccionismo constante.

Ser duro contigo mismo se ha convertido en tu rutina diaria. If your mother ever acknowledged your worth and gave you unconditional love, you’ll feel like you were never deserving of it in the first place.

In other words, you feel like you’re not and will never be suficientemente bueno no importa cuánto te esfuerces por crecer y lograr cosas en la vida.

Por ello, es posible que acabes trabajando en exceso y complacer a los demás mientras descuidas tu propio bienestar.

You’ll do all that only to prove to yourself and others that you are good enough and worthy of love and attention. Sin embargo, este juego de perseguir el perfeccionismo sólo dará lugar a más decepciones.

3. Buscas constantemente la aprobación y validación de los demás

This one is connected with the previous sign. If you feel like you’re not good enough, you’ll also feel the need to constantly seek approval and validation from others.

Regardless of whether it’s something regarding your job or outfit, your choices (self-esteem and self-worth) will greatly rely on other people’s opinions.

If they say that they don’t approve of something, you’ll instantly feel the need to change it and adapt to their preferences. En busca de validación pronto se convierte en respirar.

The more you depend on others, the more you lose yourself. “I don’t know who I am anymore” is a sentence you hear yourself saying often.

4. Le cuesta tomar decisiones (incluso las más sencillas)

If you grew up with a controlling parent, chances are you’ll have difficulty making decisions both as a child and as an adult-child. Even the simplest tasks, such as choosing between two T-shirts, will overwhelm you. Why?

Because you’re scared of making a mistake. That is why you often resort to serious pensando demasiado antes de tomar una decisión definitiva. However, I’m not talking about a healthy amount of overthinking, but the kind that ruins your salud mental y provoca insomnio.

Cuanto más seria es la decisión que tienes que tomar, más frustrado te sientes. The pressure is high. If your mother never allowed you to make mistakes, you’ll feel enormous pressure to avoid failing at anything, which is connected with making a wrong decision.

5. Le cuesta aceptar y procesar el fracaso

¿Tu madre siempre te criticaba cuando cometías un error o fracasabas en algo? ¿Te hacía sentir incompetente?

If yes, then you know why you have difficulty processing failure. Let’s say that you fail an exam or fail to create a project the way your boss expected you to. How would this make you feel?

Deja que te ayude. If you grew up with a toxic parent, you’d immediately feel like an ultimate failure who is not allowed to make mistakes.

You’ll feel disappointed not only in yourself and your boss or parents but also in the whole world. In such cases, tantrums become inevitable.

You process even the smallest failures for weeks and even months. You have difficulty understanding that you’re allowed to make mistakes, and this doesn’t make you less worthy.

6. Tiene graves problemas de confianza

If your mother had manipulative tendencies, chances are you’ll develop problemas de confianza hacia otros miembros de tu familia, tus mejores amigos, tu pareja y otras personas de tu vida.

You’ll have difficulty opening up to other people because your first thought is that they’ll hurt you one way or another. Your toxic relationship with your mother is a prototype of every other relationship you’ll have with others.

You don’t trust anyone, and you need lots of time and testing of other people’s intentions before you decide to trust them.

7. Tiene un estilo de apego evasivo

If your parent-child relationship wasn’t healthy, you would become a legit candidate for developing an estilo de apego evitativo during adulthood. Here’s how la psicología del estilo de evitación-apego se explica por Insider:

“When our needs aren’t met consistently by our primary caregivers, we form the belief that they won’t be met by any significant other, [and] that we can’t ever rely on others.”

If you feel like you can’t rely on your potential partner, you’ll avoid investing in them emotionally to protect yourself. Sometimes, you’ll avoid relationships altogether.

Indisponibilidad emocional puede pasarle factura e impedirle establecer una relación sana y significativa con los demás. Even if the person is right for you, you’ll still find a way to justify your refusal or inability to commit.

You’ll do all this out of fear that you’ll be hurt like you were hurt by your parent(s).

8. Falta de amor propio

Have your emotional needs ever been met by your mother? If not, you’ll have a hard time loving yourself and creating relaciones sanas con otros.

Falta de amor propio y codependencia (dependencia emocional o psicológica de una pareja) dominará tu ser.

If you’ve never experienced a mother’s amor incondicional, you’ll feel undeserving of it. Subconsciously, you’ll think that you’re the one to blame for not being properly taken care of and loved as a child.

You’ll feel the consequences of this in every aspect of your life, from communicating with others to your job performance. Lack of self-love means having low self-confidence and not believing that you can achieve greatness.

También puede manifestarse como ansiedad social, miedo a los discursos en público y miedo a ser el centro de atención en general.

Los 8 comportamientos más comunes de una madre tóxica

Now that we’re done with the 8 signs you were raised by a toxic mother, it’s time to check out the behaviors of a toxic mother.

Esto te ayudará a entender mejor la relación paterno-filial con tu madre. Y lo que es más importante, evitará que cometas los mismos errores que tu progenitora:

• Manipulation, guilt trip, and gaslighting.

Manipulación, culpabilización y luz de gas are the most common signs of a toxic parent. A toxic mother will manipulate her child into doing what she wants and not what’s best for her child. She’ll use guilt trips and gaslighting to establish control and create confusion.

• Unrealistic expectations.

Healthy parents give their children space to make mistakes. Toxic parents are highly demanding, and if you don’t meet their expectations, they give you the tratamiento silencioso o recurrir a medios físicos o abuso verbal.

• Overreacting.

All children make mistakes, get their clothes dirty, and are stubborn because they’re children, and this isn’t something mothers should take too seriously.

If a mother can’t help herself but overreact every time a child makes even a minor mistake, this can leave severe consequences on her child.

• Criticizing your accomplishments.

Toxic mothers don’t acknowledge their children’s accomplishments.

En cambio, aprovechan cualquier oportunidad para seguir recordando a sus hijos que sus logros no son algo digno de celebración.

They treat their children this way because they aren’t satisfied with themselves in the first place, so they project it on their children.

• Inability/unwillingness to respect boundaries.

Establecer límites sanos es imposible. Si intentas poner límites, ella los rechazará al instante y los ignorará.

Respecting boundaries would interfere with her manipulative and controlling behavior, and that’s why she’s hesitant to implement it.

Además, le cuesta entender la necesidad de establecer límites y cómo es realmente el concepto de relación sana.

• Lack of empathy.

Being raised by a toxic mother is often connected with a lack of empathy. This is especially true if we’re talking about abuso narcisista por una madre narcisista o padres narcisistas. Such people don’t understand the consequences of their words and actions.

Even if a child tells them how they feel when they’re treated like that, their parents express zero concern and empathy. Instead, they resort to echar la culpa a otros y haciendo que el niño se sienta responsable de recibir este trato por su parte.

• Controlling behavior.

Gente tóxica’s main method of manipulation is, without a doubt, controlling behavior. You know you’ve been/you’re being raised in a toxic family if one or both of your parents exhibited such behavior.

Esto incluye controlar tu comportamiento en las redes sociales, tus aficiones, tus deseos, elegir amigos por ti y cosas similares.

Because of that, children start suffocating and feeling like they don’t have a choice. As a result, in the future, they become indecisive adults who have difficulty making even the simplest decisions.

• Not feeling the need to apologize or admit her mistakes.

Tanto los padres como los hijos cometen errores. Todos los cometemos. Pero, ¿sabes cuál es la diferencia entre una crianza sana y una crianza tóxica?

The main difference is that toxic parents will never feel the need to apologize to their children because they think they’re superior to them.

Nunca admitirán sus errores por miedo a perder autoridad ante sus hijos.

Losing authority = losing power. The real truth is that children appreciate and respect parents who don’t have a problem admitting when they’re wrong and apologizing for it.

¿Qué dicen las madres tóxicas?

Las madres tóxicas tienden a menospreciar a sus hijos, invalidar sus opiniones, compararlos con otros, chantajearlos, hacerles cuestionar su valía, etc.

Las madres tóxicas suelen decir inconscientemente cosas hirientes a sus hijos debido a sus luchas mentales internas o externas. He aquí algunos ejemplos:

• “Look at yourself in the mirror. You’re too small, fat, ugly, too thin.”

• “I don’t understand why you have to act so weirdly?”

- “Why do you talk like that/walk like that?”

• “I wish you were different.”

• “You have no idea how hard it is to take care of you.”

- “Why do you have to be like that? Why aren’t you like other children?”

• “You’re useless and stupid!”

• “You’ll never make it because you’re incompetent.”

- “If you keep behaving like that, I’ll leave you.”

• “Do this/say this one more time, and you’ll never see me again.”

• “If you do (this), I’ll buy you (this).”

- “How dare you contradict me?”

• “I don’t remember giving you permission to speak to me.”

La influencia de una madre tóxica en tu salud mental

If you’ve carefully read these 8 signs you were raised by a toxic mother, you already know the answer.

Ser criado por una madre tóxica repercute en tu salud mental de diversas maneras, y todo ello depende de la cantidad de tiempo que pases con ella, la gravedad de su toxicidad y otros factores.

Por lo general, los niños criados por un progenitor tóxico tienen altas probabilidades de padecer ansiedad, depresión, y TEPT. Algunos también encuentran consuelo en el abuso del alcohol y las drogas.

Ser criado por un progenitor tóxico también puede dar lugar a tener una relación tóxica con tus propios hijos.

Protegerse es imprescindible

If the above 8 signs you were raised by a toxic mother resonate with you, I’m truly sorry for what you had to go through or are still going through.

Recuerda que haber sido criado por un padre tóxico no es culpa tuya. You’re not responsible for their behavior, and no matter how hard you try to be “perfect” for them, you’ll never succeed. ¿Por qué?

Because the problem is not you but them, to be more exact, the problem lies in the battles they’re fighting with themselves, so they end up projecting them on their children.

Protegerse de un padre tóxico es imprescindible, y puedes hacerlo estableciendo límites y aprendiendo a separar tu autoestima de su toxicidad.