You Should Be Better by Now: Unlearning the Critical Mother Voice

“You should be better by now.”

That voice.
Cold. Precise. Condescending.
It rises up every time I stumble into an old pattern. Every time I follow the familiar pull toward someone who can’t give me what I need.
It doesn’t ask what I’m feeling. It doesn’t offer support.
It just stands there with a clipboard and a scowl, like an inspector evaluating my progress.

“You’ve had seven or eight years of therapy.”
“You’re training to be a counsellor.”
“You’ve done all this work — and still?”

Still.

Still I reach. Still I ache. Still I act a little lost sometimes.
And that voice — the one I now recognize as my mother’s voice, internalized and sharpened — calls it failure.

But it’s not failure.
It’s human.
It’s the shape of old wounds healing in slow, spiraling layers — not neat, not linear.

That voice says I’m boring.
That I should be past this.
That feeling shame for acting out an old pattern is somehow shameful in itself.

And I’m tired of believing it.

Because I’ve learned that healing isn’t about never feeling pain again.
It’s about what I do with the pain now.

• Now, I notice it.
• Now, I name the pull.
• Now, I don’t spiral into self-hatred. I pause. I breathe. I write. I stay.

That’s progress.
That’s everything.

The critical voice wants perfection.
But I want truth.

And the truth is:

I’m still healing.
I’m still growing.
I’m still learning to love myself without conditions.
I’m still learning to offer warmth where there used to be judgement.

I may hear that old voice again.
It may say: “You should be better by now.”

But now I have a quieter voice of my own, rising up in response:

“You’re doing beautifully. This is what healing looks like. Keep going.”