The Nagging: On Complicated Feelings Toward a Parent

Relationships are much cleaner when they fit neatly in a distinct box.

“Oh, I really enjoy that person. We always have so much fun together!”

“I don’t really care for so-and-so…don’t know why, but it seems like the relationship never really took off.”

But what about the relationships that are more ambiguous? Those are the hardest ones, and what often brings most into therapy.

Because these are some of our most foundational relationships. Some of the relationships we are most invested in. They sit like a nagging in the back of our minds.

Most often, this ambivalence is felt best in relationships with parents. And at least in my bias and experience as a trauma therapist working with dissociated parts, it’s a common experience for adult childre

Sometimes adults know early-on they hold difficult feelings—like disgust, embarrassment or deep anger—towards their parent.

In undergraduate school, I had a funny, quirky Psychology 101 teacher who took some interest in Freud’s theories. Every single class, he would sneak in “and that’s why you hate your mother,” just to make sure we were all awake—and perhaps to give our brains a break from the material. Every single class—”and that’s why you hate your mother.”

Then finally on our last day, he said it: “And that’s why you hate your mother,” and then, “and you love her too.”

There’s the ambivalence. The friction of trying to hold two competing emotions. Often, I think the anger or negative emotions win over in these adults, because there’s been too much unresolved pain in the relationship, that the love for their parent is so buried.

But biologically, we love our parents first. We are just built that way. It’s a different kind of love. As children, we depend on our parents to shape and safeguard an entire world up until adulthood. The love is evolutionary.

These difficult feelings can show up as constant anxiety that floods your brain the moment things get quiet. Dreading the phone call from that family member, while also craving it. And feeling vaguely hollow when it's over. Struggling to trust your own feelings, not just with them, but with everyone.

I look at growth and change as flexibility: Can you allow yourself to both love and hate your mother? Can you hold both at the same time without running away from it?

In my experience, the solution doesn't come from figuring out how you feel. It comes from letting yourself feel it. The answer arrives on the other side.

If this is the nagging you've been carrying, I'd love to talk. I offer free 30-minute consultations to explore what's been eating at you, and whether this work might be right for you.