Parenting Through Triggers: Why Your Child’s Milestones Bring Up Your Past
Hey, Shameless Mamas - Let’s Talk about Maternal Mental Health
Motherhood is often described as one of life’s most joyful and transformative journeys. But for many women, parenting also stirs up unexpected pain. When your child reaches certain milestones—whether it’s their first steps, starting school, or entering adolescence—you may find yourself overwhelmed by emotions or memories you thought were long behind you.
This experience of childhood trauma resurfacing in motherhood or trauma triggered by your child’s age, is more common than many mothers realize. It doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means your body and mind are signaling that healing is needed.
Why Childhood Trauma Resurfaces in Motherhood
Your child’s milestones can act like mirrors, reflecting back moments from your own childhood. When your little one reaches the same age you were during a painful or traumatic event, your nervous system can interpret it as a kind of trauma anniversary.
Even without conscious memories, your body carries the imprint of those experiences. That’s why you may find yourself:
Feeling sudden sadness, anger, or fear without explanation
Experiencing flashbacks or intrusive thoughts
Struggling to connect with your child at certain stages
This is mom trauma—the way your past intersects with your present. It’s not weakness. It’s your system calling for care and resolution.
The Link Between Motherhood and PTSD
For some, these resurfaced experiences resemble symptoms of PTSD in motherhood: hypervigilance, intrusive thoughts, avoidance, or emotional overwhelm. You might even wonder, How can I be a good mom while processing trauma?
The answer: by recognizing what’s happening and allowing yourself the support you deserve. These responses are not a reflection of your love for your child—they’re signs of unresolved pain asking to be healed.
The Gift of Generational Trauma Healing
One of the most profound opportunities in this process is generational trauma healing. When you face what arises, you don’t just free yourself—you interrupt painful cycles before they’re passed down.
The mother wound refers to the emotional pain you experience that stems from a deficit in your relationship with your own mother, weather due to neglect, abuse, emotional disconnect or unmet needs from childhood. Often this pain and trauma will resurface when you have your own children. Healing your mother wound allows you to parent from a place of groundedness and compassion, rather than from old wounds. This work not only benefits you but becomes a gift for your children, too.
Why EMDR Is So Effective for Mothers
If you’re seeking therapy for resurfaced trauma, one of the most powerful approaches is EMDR for trauma in mothers (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). EMDR helps your brain reprocess traumatic memories so they lose their emotional intensity.
Mothers who use EMDR often experience:
Fewer triggers during their child’s milestones
A calmer, more connected presence with their children
Relief from intrusive memories and body-based anxiety
Renewed confidence and empowerment in parenting
Unlike talk therapy alone, EMDR doesn’t just revisit the past—it rewires how your brain responds to it.
Healing Your Mother Wound
Healing your mother wound is a process of facing the pain of your own childhood, acknowledging unmet needs, and giving yourself permission to parent differently. It doesn’t require perfection—it requires presence, compassion, and intentionality.
Some supportive strategies include:
Mindfulness practices that help regulate your nervous system
Journaling or therapy to unpack mom trauma patterns
Surrounding yourself with supportive communities of mothers
If you’ve ever asked, How to heal the mother wound?—the answer is through gentle, consistent care and therapeutic support. Over time, you’ll notice greater resilience and a stronger ability to parent from love rather than survival.
Moving Forward as a Mother
Parenting through triggers is difficult, but it doesn’t have to define your motherhood experience. By seeking therapy for resurfaced trauma and practices like EMDR, you can release the weight of the past and create space for peace, connection, and joy in the present.
You deserve to experience motherhood without being overshadowed by old wounds. Asking for help isn’t weakness—it’s the pathway to freedom for you and a legacy of resilience for your children.
Ready to start your healing journey? Contact Shameless Mama Wellness today to schedule a free consultation.
With Warmth and in Solidarity,
Marilyn
I provide a safe haven to discuss the thoughts you keep hidden.
As a Postpartum Therapist in California, I offer many services utilizing evidence-based treatments. Some services at Shameless Mama Wellness include treatment for postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety, birth trauma therapy, fertility counseling, therapy for miscarriage and loss, pregnancy therapy and treatment for NICU PTSD.
Online therapy available to new moms in California.
