Shame and the Mother I Never Had

There are things I’ve carried deep shame about for years.

Using porn. Emotional eating. Smoking cigars when life felt too heavy.
And in my late teens and early twenties — smoking a lot of weed.

Not because I loved those things — but because they worked, at the time.
They gave me something I didn’t know how to ask for:

Comfort. Numbness. A way to feel safe when I didn’t feel safe in myself.

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For a long time, I hated myself for using those strategies.
I thought they meant I was broken or weak.
But I’ve come to see it differently.

These weren’t failures.
They were survival tools.
My nervous system was trying to regulate itself the only way it knew how — because I never had a mother who could help me co-regulate.

No one said, “I’m here, I see you, and I can handle this with you.”
So I did the best I could — and then carried the shame of that for years.

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That’s the cycle:
Need ➝ coping ➝ shame ➝ unmet need ➝ more coping.

It’s hard to escape.
But I’m learning to name it.
To meet those needs more directly now.
And to stop seeing my past as a moral failure.

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And underneath it all — the behaviours, the patterns, the shame — was one feeling I couldn’t name at the time:

I felt unlovable.

That’s what I was running from.
That’s what I was trying to numb.
That’s the wound I inherited from a mother who couldn’t reflect love back to me in the way I needed.

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This isn’t about blaming my mother.
It’s about grieving the love and presence I never had — so I can stop turning that pain inward.

I’m learning how to mother myself now.
Slowly.
With presence.
With honesty.
With love.

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