As you recount the news, you feel the tears in your eyes and your throat tightening thinking about complaining about your mother. You tell your therapist, “I just wish… no, never mind.”

“Go on,” your therapist prompts.

“No, it’s just that, I don’t know. I just wish I could count on my mother for the same thing. God, I can’t even imagine what that would feel like! But, ugh, I hate feeling this way. I feel so guilty for complaining about her. I feel guilty about feeling so disappointed with our relationship. I mean, she tries her best.”

“Why do I still feel so sad?”

You feel so torn. You feel conflicted.

On the one hand, she grew you.

She literally gave you life.

She held you when you were a baby.

She stayed up late at night with you when you were sick.

Each August in elementary school she bought you new school clothes, a backpack, and three-ring Lisa Frank binders.

You know she loves you in her own way. And you feel guilt complaining about your mother.

And you hold these memories, this knowledge of what she sacrificed, alongside painful memories. Vivid memories.

Memories of being criticized for your weight and stockiness. Jokingly, yes, but still…

Memories, too, where you were shamed for your feelings – “Why are you so angry all the time? What’s wrong with you?”

Of being slapped when you talked back as a teen.

Memories of not having her emotional support when you needed it most and the reality of your brittle, surface-level relationship today as adults.

The kind of relationship that will never look like her driving cross country to help you out in your hour of need.

And you struggle with this.

You struggle to reconcile what you know you “should” be grateful for (and what you are grateful for, in some ways), alongside the pain and anger you hold in your heart towards this one very important person in your life.

If you – like so many people – struggle to reconcile your care and appreciation for your mom alongside your pain and anger with her, if you particularly struggle with this when trying to talk or “complain” about your mother in therapy or in any other context, today’s post is for you.

Therapy is not about parent bashing.

I want to go on the record and say something: therapy is not about parent bashing.