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People Still Remember How Their Moms Were Cruel Enough To Say These 50 Things To Them
Interview With Expert
We come into this world expecting love from the people who brought us into it. But sometimes, that love turns out to be conditional, distant—or even harmful.
One woman on TikTok asked others to share the most toxic thing their mothers have ever said to them, and the replies show just how deep those wounds can run.
Read their stories below, and if something resonates, the comment section is open for whatever you need to say.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
my mom accused me and my dad sleeping together when I was around 14 cause she was convinced he was cheating. I havent really been the same since..
RELATED:
#2
She basically said that no one would ever love me and that I would die alone, I was a teenager
Lyone Fein 3 days ago
You are a lovable person, and I hope that you understand that her words were a reflection of her own problems and had nothing to do with you.
#3
Told my mom my stepdad was s*xually a**sing me and she told me “It wasn’t like that” “he didn’t mean it that way”
As a woman navigating life in a world full of challenges, your mother is often one of your first role models. She’s usually the person who shows you how to relate to others, how to behave in society, and what love, care, or connection is supposed to look like. So when that person treats you with cruelty or only offers love conditionally, it can shape your entire sense of self.
To understand just how deep that impact can go, Bored Panda spoke with Carly Boyle, an inner child specialist who offers one-on-one therapy.
“Emotionally hurtful comments made by a mother during childhood can have a lasting impact that extends far beyond the moment they are spoken,” Boyle explains.
“From birth to around age seven, children are in what is known as the imprinting stage. During this time, they are forming core beliefs about themselves, their relationships, and the world around them. A mother’s words carry immense weight during these years, and what she repeatedly says—or doesn’t say—can become deeply embedded in the child’s subconscious.”
#4
I was exhausted and grieving after birthing and losing my daughter at 21 weeks, she mocked me cuz I didn’t feel like coming down to lunch. My husband made her and my dad leave our house the next day.
#5
I was bringing my first boyfriend to meet my parents. My mom asked, "Aren't you worried that he might fall in love with your sister, since she's so much slimmer and prettier than you?"
While many people associate lasting emotional damage with more visible forms of trauma, such as physical or sexual assault, Boyle points out that trauma isn’t always about what happened, it’s also about what didn’t.
“The absence of nurturing words, encouragement, or emotional attunement can shape a child’s sense of worth just as much as overt criticism or rejection. Silence, emotional distance, or dismissiveness can leave a child feeling unseen, unimportant, or not good enough,” she says.
#7
“Do you know no one has phoned to ask how I am?” This is what she said after I told her I had cancer.
#8
when my parents found out my ex bf had recently cheated on me, her first words were "was the other girl skinny?" even my dad was appalled.
Lyone Fein 3 days ago
Her personal issues got in the way of her being a decent human being……to say nothing of being an adequate mother.
#9
Accused me of being pregnant every time I got bloated (i had undiagnosed celiac’s disease) at age 12 and my entire teenage years
#10
She kicked me out at 18. At 31 she said "you should ask for more help, it's not healthy to do everything on your own." you made me a homeless teen. trusting people is not easy for me now 🤯
#11
she said I was diagnosed autistic when I was 10 and just didn't tell me because she didn't want me to use it as an excuse when I struggled. She told me this at 21.
#12
left me alone in a store after i threw a tantrum at 4yo while telling everyone: "whoever wants her can have her, I don't want her anymore" she proudly tells that story every year
#14
When I was 15, my mom discovered a box full of pictures of me…that my step dad had been taking of me without my knowledge. She had me move out to live with my dad. And is still with him to this day 🥰
#15
forced me to have an abortion due to my age at home then while recovering we went for a walk saw a newborn and I quote she said " I can't wait to be a nana" . while I was going through said abortion
Lyone Fein 3 days ago
This sounds devastating. And so insensitive. Like she was mocking you, trying to hurt you on purpose. What a toxic person.
#17
Reminded my mum of a time she hit me over something trivial and she replied with “I’d never do such a thing, I’ve never layed my hands ever on you, you must be making fake memories in your head.
#18
after my dad died she dragged me around by my hair, slammed my head off the kitchen counter, and then said "I wish your dad was still here he'd be so disappointed in you". because I was outed
#19
my puppy got hit by a car in front of me when i was 14 and i was self harming in those years and my mum said 'you better not cut yourself over this' as we stood next to his flattened corpse
Lyone Fein 3 days ago
How awful. What you needed was someone to give you comfort in your grief and pain. What you got was harsh scolding.
#20
"I will never love your children as much as I love your sister's kids." (Because I'm 🌈)
#21
"She goes or I go!" To my dad. She wanted him to kick me out of the house because she didn't think I appreciated Disneyland enough. I did appreciate it. I'm disabled and was in pain.
#22
Telling her I miscarried at 14weeks pregnancy: "I just gave everyone cake in the office announcing I'm going to be a grandma. How awful, I'm not going to be a grandma. What am I going to tell them?!"
#23
Told me repeatedly that I was fat and ugly. Now I have horrible body issues and don't know how to take a compliment without being awkward
#24
Slept with my ex bf and bragged about it to my other sisters. I was the last to know.
Lyone Fein 3 days ago
A mother who does this has some very deep psychiatric problems . Not on you.
#25
when I was PREGNANT she said once I have a child of my own i will finally know all the misery she's dealt with and all the horrible things I've caused her
#26
“The love a parent is supposed to feel for their child, I don’t feel that for you.” Literally the last time I spoke with her. Cruel and awful.
#27
I was 7. My sister was 5 and admitted to hospital for the flu. I was scared. I went to hug my mom. She pushed me away and said “I don’t do hugs”. I was 7. And scared for my sister. 😩
#28
"I could've given birth to you in Italy and left you in the hospital so no-one at home would've even found out I was ever pregnant, so be grateful i didn't."
Lyone Fein 3 days ago
Um. This is not treatment that you need to be grateful for. You are worth more than this. You are worthy of love.
#29
She told me I looked really great cause I lost weight, then I told her about my eating disorder and how I wasn’t doing well, and she responded: “Well, whatever works!” 😐
Did I say that out loud? (he/him)cis/het 3 days ago
Unless you have a very real concern for someones physical or mental health, never,ever talk about other people's weight. Even then,tread very carefully. My partner had struggled with her body image and food for many years because of comments like this.
#30
"I don't want your stepfather to adopt you, because I don't want another woman having his family name"
#31
She taught my toddler brother(that was from her affair) to call me a disgusting fat pig when I was a teen. She taught a baby that I helped raise and shared a bedroom with, to a***e me.
#32
Where do I start when I was 17 I did 1 semester of school abroad,over the phone I told her I miss her cooking. when I got back she made this delicious stew,asked her what it was and she said w a smirk "Dolly in the pot"-Dolly was my pet bunny
#33
When my dad clocked my scars from self harming and started to ask me about them my mum said ‘ignore her she’s just attention seeking’ at that point aged 13 I knew I was on my own
#34
when I was 7 she packed all my stuff into garbage bags, tossed them outside the front door and locked me out while yelling she wished she aborted me and I was a mistake, it was pouring rain too 💁🏼♀
#35
Said to me, “You’re a spoiled brat,” at the age of 40 when I bought a Louis Vuitton. (I’m married, own a home, employed, etc. and bought myself a new purse for my bday.)
Lyone Fein 3 days ago
Was she mad that you didn’t buy her something too? Too bad. You can do whatever you want with your money.
#36
I had to have a hysterectomy because I had uterine cancer and she said that was gods way of punishing me!
#37
Called me a “hypocritical, manipulative b****” on my 22nd bday because I wanted to spend the day with my dad, not drive her around to flooring stores.
#38
After my Nan passed away - ‘I don’t know what you’re crying about, it’s not like she’s your mother’ ahhhhh she kinda was because you were off having affairs for majority of my childhood 🤔
Lyone Fein 3 days ago
You are allowed to grieve. You are allowed to pick who to love and who not to. You don’t have to be in close contact with toxic people.
#39
"what happened to the NICE little girl you used to be?" "if you keep going like that, you'll need Blacks of Greenock to make you a wedding dress" (they make tents)
#40
I had told my social worker that I felt really bad bc my mom had a s-attempt. When my mom found out she said: “well, you definately don’t give me a will to live” 😅
Lyone Fein 3 days ago
That is up to her. Not you. She was manipulating you. It was part of her mental illness.
#41
we'd never been close but I'd agreed on a day trip with her. we walked past a bridal shop and randomly she just goes "I don't think you'll ever get married". I was barely 20yrs old...
#42
"You are not my daughter anymore", because I was home late. By 5 min. Driving back home from a millitary prep exercise for beeing deployed. So I packed up my s**t and left. That was 13y ago.
#43
My mom got me fired from my first job bc I got grounded for accidentally shrinking her sweaters, took my phone away & wouldn’t let me call in, so they fired me. She then degraded me for getting fired.
StrangeOne 3 days ago
She grounded op from going to her job, too??? I don't think that would have worked as an excuse to not show up.
#44
told me she only had me because she wanted to have two kids, to not have a spoiled only child. then proceeds to only care for my sibling anyway making him spoiled and me severely neglected
#45
My ex attacked me 15 months after I broke up with him and it was really, really bad. After I escaped I called her from the police station and the first things she said was that it was my fault. He's now serving a 20 year prison sentence for multiple felonies and the closest she's come to apologizing is saying she didn't know how bad it was at the time.
#46
I was 15. She said “you’re just jealous I have more of a life than you” during an argument, right after I’d cried to her about how depressed school was making me and how I felt like I had nobody.
Lyone Fein 3 days ago
A decent mother would have given you emotional support. Instead she just made it about her.
#47
She always called me a pig for how much I ate so I stopped eating. I told her years after I recovered from my ED, she said “I told you you ate badly”. Logic goes out the window with the woman🙃
#48
My mom drew me a chart to explaining how every person in the fam disliked/hated me. According to her,the 2 ppl that didn’t hate me “didn’t count”bc “1 liked every1”& the other 1 “didn’t see me enough”
#49
When I had gastritis and became severely underweight, she told me I look like I've just come out of a concentration camp. Another time she said I lost so much weight I was 'nearly attractive'.
#50
I wanted to stay at my mum’s the night I had my second miscarriage, me and my ex stayed and I kept crying and my mum told me to stop crying because she was trying to watch tv
#51
“Nah.. Just leave her, it’ll pass”… after school called that they wanted to call an ambulance after they thought I had a seizure….she was right about that one.: still alive
Christina Born 2 days ago
My mom did this exact thing to me! Except I was having asthma problems. They wanted to transport me, mom said no. My stepdad came and picked me up and took me home. She wouldn't get me asthma meds either. Just over the counter primatine mist. Didn't get my asthma under control until I was grown and a mother myself.
#52
After going back to school in my 40’s to get a degree in Mortuary Science, mother dearest decided to snarl her face and say “guess living people aren’t good enough for you, huh? That’s gross.”
Did I say that out loud? (he/him)cis/het 2 days ago
I really can't wait for "bring mom to work day".
#53
the thing that haunts me the most, is legit 3sec after waking up at the hospital 3 days after trying to not exsist anymore, she looked me dead in the eyes and said 'you're not getting away that easy'
#54
“Well go find a family that loves you then” “Do it properly next time not just for attention” “I’ll give you something to cry about” “I love you because I have to but I don’t like you” “
Lyone Fein 3 days ago
You are a lovable person. And you have the right to choose who to have in your life.
#55
“No wonder your ex didn’t want you.” She said this because I hadn’t put my laundry away within 10 mins 😂😂
#56
back in highschool I found out a colleague has leukemia and I was home crying; mom comes to me and says: oh do not cry, leukemia is not transmissible
#57
she would actually say ‘i don’t like that outfit’, then continue to shred to pieces the new clothes i bought with my own money
#58
My mum told me I couldn't go to my brothers passing out parade as there were limited 2 tickets per family. I found out the next day, my WHOLE family was there. Both parents and my 3 other siblings. 💔
#59
I held my moms hand in parking lot of store when I was about 10 ish and she told me to stop because people will think we’re gay
Lyone Fein 3 days ago
I hope you go out and make a family of friends who hug and hold each other. You deserve love.
#60
I was moving in with a guy friend and she hated that. She said "If anything happens to you, you're on your own." I'm a survivor of csa. I was on my own then too. My bf died suddenly 6 months ago and
I'm on my own now too.
#61
Started failing high school. Told me I’d be nothing more than a maid. Turns out I had undiagnosed ADHD and struggled academically as a result.
#62
‘Has your psychologist called back yet to tell you they got your diagnoses wrong and you don’t have BPD?’ No mom, it’s been 2,5 years… you can stop asking.
#63
I had a fight with my mom, she completely ignored me for a week.. like completely also did not get any food etc etc…. I’m in therapy now 🙂
#64
She told me how I could get kidnapped, tortured and would be a missing person in great detail.. when I was 7 and we had a fight about my HOMEWORK😒
#65
mine explicitly told me word by word that she only loves me bc im her child and that if she met me outside of this dynamic she'd probably hate me... haha
#66
has repeatedly told me that “we” can’t pull certain items of clothing off and protected all of her insecurities onto me and now I also don’t get my legs out bc “i can’t”.
Spannidandoolar 3 days ago (edited)
I look a lot like my mum and my nan's criticism of my mum's looks was passed to me. She 100% tried her best to not do it and broke the cycle on the majority of her abuse as a child but small comments like " you'll never be beautiful when you grow up but you might be classed as attractive" or when I had a portrait drawn on holiday at about 14 "You like it? Oh, I didn't think you would because it looks so much like you?!
#67
"u always ruin everything" in middle of my panic attack. "ur just too sensitive" when i told abt bullying i experienced in elementary school :))) sm more but cant fit them all here
StrangeOne 3 days ago (edited)
Reminds me of when my own mom went ballistic on my daughter when she, my daughter, had an anxiety and had to take a breather, then my mom got super mad at her for wanting to leave that lounge. She proceeded to shout at me and my daughter, and tells her "You have to think about other people." She drives us home. When my mom finally shuts up I was able to lecture her back at how unfair and hurtful she was being and gave her some education on what anxiety is and that my daughter was officially diagnosed with it. My mom scares the c**p out of me, but that was one time she really stepped over the line where I didn't gaf about my fears for my daughter's sake.
#68
my mom told me if i ever have kids, they’ll die under my care b/c i’m irresponsible. 27. no kids yet. my mom cries to other ppl saying that she wants to b a gma…. i haven’t decided if i want any.
nottheactualphoto 3 days ago
Have kids if it works for you. I'm not sure Mom ever needs to meet them.
#69
"This is why you were such a loner". uummm, excuse me?! you pulled me out of public schooling and sheltered me from normal society.
LakotaWolf (she/her) 2 days ago
My mom did this to me as a child. My last year of public school was 7th grade and then she pulled me out of normal school. She forced me to take the GED tests (equivalent to high school graduation diploma) when I was 13 and forced me to start taking college classes when I was 14. It was horrible and I'm still affected by the social repercussions even now (I'm 43.) I never got to have a chance at socializing with kids my own age and was so overwhelmed being around adults at college that I basically withdrew into myself entirely. My only friends were my pets for many years. I'd already been socially awkward as a younger child and had often been bullied and teased for being weird/a nerd, so I never exactly had MANY friends, but I'd finally had a good group of 3 great friends in 6th and 7th grade and I was finally feeling like a very smol social butterfly and hoped our friendships would last through high school. Then my mom ripped me away from them after 7th grade. :(
#70
broke student - at 19 suffering from severe and anxiety and depression. uni therapist said it would help to see a psychiatrist. got the courage to tell them and mom said "you think you have problems"
#71
at 10 watching a survival tv reality show she said "look how those people lose weight you should do this" out of nowhere in front of my family I wasn't fat
#72
That I would keep a dirty house and no one would ever want to come and now I can’t relax in my house until it’s clean and tidy even though no one ever comes round unexpectedly
Lyone Fein 3 days ago
You are good enough. You don’t have to let her control you. You can be free, and live however you want.
#73
she called me a slur when I was 12 cuz I had put on some lip gloss and asked if I could play outside 🤷♀️
weatherwitch 2 days ago
My father hated me wearing fishnet tights. He said they were for prostitutes. It was the fashion at the time and they looked great with my black goth clothing 🙄
#74
She didn’t like my college bf. Didn’t like I wouldn’t break up with him because she said so. Then told me “he’ll probably beat you and you’d be the type that stays”. I married him.
#75
Not what she said but more what she hasn’t said. Whenever me or my sister say „I love you“ she not once said it back
Lyone Fein 3 days ago
This has nothing to do with you. You deserve love. She just doesn’t have it in her.
#76
I have a recording of her saying she didn’t even want my brothers and they were a mistake. Also, I begged and cried to her one night to just be my mom and love me and she just stood there blank faced
Lyone Fein 3 days ago
Some people just don’t have love in their heart. It’s not you. It’s her. You are lovable.
#77
I got to therapy because of her. I am 32 and in the past year she told me: 1. that i should leave my daughter with her because I am not a good mom 💀
Lyone Fein 3 days ago
Don’t do it! You are doing a fine job. Stay in therapy, and stay strong in your truth.
#78
My husband had depression when we first got together, then my brother started dating his girlfriend who has EDS, our mum said ‘why can’t either of you date someone normal’
#79
She didnt say anything to me. For three months. I still lived at my parents home.
#80
Hadn't seen me for a whole month, when she saw me again the first thing that came out wasn't a "hi" or "I missed you" but "you've put on weight" 👍
What do you think ?
Lyone Fein 3 days ago (edited)
I can personally relate to many of these. That is why I tried to respond to so many. My mother is very narcissistic and has never been a warm person. During my childhood she would frequently say things like she wished I was never born, etc. She has always been very emotionally manipulative as well. I am 62 now, and I have only recently decided to stop interacting with her. I have mixed feelings about this because she is so old (83) and somewhat losing her mind to the beginnings of dementia. But I just don’t want to spend any more of my life trying to please her, or explain or talk her down or justify myself, etc. It is always so stressful and exhausting, and I always end up crying. I want to be done with that. I want my next 20 years to be peaceful and self affirming.
amy lee 3 days ago
Mine has recently become sick and everyone seems to expect me to get back in contact to "do what's right". I'm finding it really hard to not feel torn even though I know getting in touch would be like revisiting my childhood.
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Brian Droste 3 days ago
I read down through 20 of these. Can't read anymore of these. These are horrible. I feel for all of OP's.
Ace 3 days ago
Me too, got down to around 30 then skipped to the comments. Heart -breaking, all of them.
Load More Replies...
Lyone Fein 3 days ago (edited)
I can personally relate to many of these. That is why I tried to respond to so many. My mother is very narcissistic and has never been a warm person. During my childhood she would frequently say things like she wished I was never born, etc. She has always been very emotionally manipulative as well. I am 62 now, and I have only recently decided to stop interacting with her. I have mixed feelings about this because she is so old (83) and somewhat losing her mind to the beginnings of dementia. But I just don’t want to spend any more of my life trying to please her, or explain or talk her down or justify myself, etc. It is always so stressful and exhausting, and I always end up crying. I want to be done with that. I want my next 20 years to be peaceful and self affirming.
amy lee 3 days ago
Mine has recently become sick and everyone seems to expect me to get back in contact to "do what's right". I'm finding it really hard to not feel torn even though I know getting in touch would be like revisiting my childhood.
Load More Replies... Brian Droste 3 days ago
I read down through 20 of these. Can't read anymore of these. These are horrible. I feel for all of OP's.
Ace 3 days ago
Me too, got down to around 30 then skipped to the comments. Heart -breaking, all of them.
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