7 Signs You Have "Mommy Issues" & What To Do About It, From Experts

If you don't have the greatest relationship with your mother, maybe you've suspected you have so-called "mommy issues." But what does that actually mean, and what can you do about it? To find out, we asked the experts.

According to psychology expert and doctor of education Gertrude Lyons M.A., Ed.D., we've all been affected by the wiring of our formative years and the caregiving we received—in both empowering and limiting ways. "There is an important truth and possibility that opens up for us when we look into our past and examine everything, from trauma to subtle, seemingly innocuous emotional injuries we experienced in our childhoods," she explains.

It all comes down to how (or whether) your needs were met as a child and how those experiences influence you in adulthood. As Lyons explains, "we adapted behaviors as children in order to survive in our individual situations. For some, it meant literal survival, but for every child, there is an element of adaptation to fit." Based on how secure our attachment is to our earliest caregivers, she says, we decide how safe the world is, what the world expects from us, and what we can expect from the world.

It's important to remember that "mommy issues" is a loose concept that depends on your childhood, what your mom was like, and how you may have internalized everything. As Beurkens explains, mommy issues can include a variety of things and can show up differently in different people. Here are some examples of behaviors that could be attributed to your relationship to your mother, according to her and Lyons:

One sign of potential mommy issues (aka attachment issues) is "clinginess" in relationships, or as Beurkens describes it, "people in adulthood who are particularly needy." If someone had a fraught relationship with their mother growing up, a person may cling to other people in their lives (particularly their partners) to fulfill the needs that weren't met by their mother, she explains.

According to Beurkens, another way mommy issues might show up, particularly in women, is demanding, critical, or controlling behavior. Essentially, if a woman had a mother who exhibited these qualities growing up, she may learn to mirror these and display them in adulthood. "Women can exhibit that in their lives and in their relationships, whether with an intimate partner, in relationships with their own children, or with co-workers and employees," Beurkens adds.

Affection can be difficult if you had a complicated relationship with your mother. This can manifest as being overly affectionate or struggling to show affection at all. If a mother was often emotionally closed off, Beurkens explains, the child may also have a hard time expressing affection.

Depending on a person's relationship to their mother, Lyons notes some people can wind up being overly dependent on other people in their lives. Beurkens says this can look like wanting their partner, friends, or other people in their life to take care of them. "That can mean everything from tangible things like managing the household or managing practical things in life to taking care of them emotionally, to being clingy."

If you had a mother who was detached, this can lead to an "inability to get close to people," Lyons says. This one goes back to struggling with affection and intimacy, and it typically stems from not having that secure attachment modeled for you as a child.

Lyons notes that sometimes, people with mommy issues may caretake for others at the expense of their own self-care. This could be the result of having an overbearing mother, as we learn what love is supposed to look like based on how our parents took care of us.

Even if you don't have a specific behavior you can call to mind, if you know your relationship with your mother isn't great—even if it's just OK—there's a good chance you have some residual "mommy issues" you could look into. We're all influenced by our upbringings, and very few are without some ramifications. So if you know your relationship to mom is fraught, it may be worth looking into how it may be uniquely affecting you and your life.

"Those resentments are like pillows between us and the other person—directly or indirectly," she says. "And the more we do the work to repair the relationships from our past, the closer and more genuine our connections can be with other people."

Then, Lyons says, "We have to practice new behaviors based on our insights. This is not a quick-fix territory—it really takes a commitment to go into this vulnerable territory."

As Beurkens notes, healing from mommy issues is about "becoming aware and then getting more information, learning and analyzing how [mommy issues] show up for you, and then starting to implement some changes."