High-control religions & mother wounds
7 ways high-control religions disrupt the mother-child attachment bond
Issue #1 | Publication Date: July 4th, 2025
Key Points:
I think it’s nearly impossible to be raised in a high-control religion without developing a mother wound.
But before we go further, I want to clarify what I mean when I use the term “mother wound.”
I think of a mother wound as an attachment injury within the mother-child relationship that develops in response to abuse, neglect, abandonment, or enmeshment.
While the term “mother wound” isn’t an official clinical diagnosis or widely defined in academic literature, it describes a very real experience.
Attachment theory, first introduced by John Bowlby and later expanded by Mary Ainsworth, explains how a child’s sense of safety and self forms through consistent emotional attunement and responsiveness from a primary caregiver, often the mother.
When this connection is disrupted, whether through neglect, control, enmeshment, or emotional unavailability, the child’s nervous system experiences it as a threat to their sense of safety and belonging.
Over time, these disruptions create deep relational injuries, which many people refer to as a “mother wound.” The pain from this unique type of wounding is a natural response to unmet needs for love, acceptance, safety, and emotional connection.
The Mother Wound & High-Control Religion
The reason I believe mother wounds and high-control religions go hand-in-hand is because the use of an authoritarian parenting style and/or chronic emotional neglect is so common among families indoctrinated into these groups.
Parents who are indoctrinated into high-control religions often believe obedience and compliance take priority over nurture and emotional connection. This results in an environment of authoritarian control where children learn to suppress their needs and feelings to avoid punishment or disapproval. Often, the outcome of this type of fear-based, dominating approach to parenting is a deep attachment injury.
- If you’d like to learn more about the connection between an authoritarian religious upbringing and attachment wounds, I wrote a detailed article on this exact topic: How Your Authoritarian Religious Upbringing Led to an Insecure Attachment Style
But not every mother wound comes from strict or controlling parenting. In some families, the harm comes through emotional neglect. These are homes where caregivers weren’t necessarily harsh or demanding but were emotionally unavailable or unable to truly see and respond to your needs.
Growing up in this kind of environment can result in childhood emotional neglect (CEN). Dr. Jonice Webb, in her book Running on Empty, describes CEN as the experience of having your emotional needs overlooked or dismissed, leaving you feeling unseen and unworthy. Over time, this lack of attunement can create the same kind of deep relational wounds as overt control.
Whether it came from authoritarian control or emotional neglect, the impact is similar. You didn’t receive the emotional safety and support you needed to develop a secure sense of self, leading to a mother wound that can show up later in relationships, self-esteem, and overall well-being.
As a caveat, having a mother wound doesn’t automatically mean your mother was intentionally harming you. Oftentimes, mothers unintentionally perpetuate emotional harm because of their own unresolved trauma or because of deep indoctrination into an authoritarian system that prescribes a specific parenting style.
But whether the emotional harm was intentional or unintentional, the impact to you was still the same: a mother wound that has endured into your adulthood.
As I’ve come to terms with my own mother wound and supported many clients with theirs, I’ve identified seven ways a high-control religious upbringing can contribute to attachment injuries in the mother-child relationship.
1. Her belief you were born with a “sin nature”
When a mother views her child as inherently sinful, she’s more likely to prioritize punishment and control over connection and nurturance.
This message plants seeds of shame from an early age, teaching you to distrust your own feelings and impulses rather than feel safe exploring them with her.
2. Love and acceptance felt conditional
If your beliefs or behavior didn’t align with your mother’s religious expectations, she may have withdrawn love or approval.
This creates an environment where love feels earned, not freely given, which often translates into people-pleasing or perfectionist patterns in adulthood.
3. She used god to manipulate you
As a way of controlling your behavior, she used phrases like:
- “If you loved god, you would ______”
- “god is always watching”
- “god will be disappointed if you ______”
These types of phrases are meant to enforce compliance by generating deep anxiety or shame.
When a mother uses phrases like these, she’s inhibiting you from developing an authentic relationship with either her or yourself, because maintaining a connection hinges on spiritual performance.
4. She turned your emotional needs over to god
Instead of offering warmth and presence, she expected you to “take it to god.”
You learned that your emotions were too much, or that turning to her for comfort was somehow wrong or selfish.
This left you feeling fundamentally alone, even though you may have been surrounded by others.
5. She became a co-creator of your sexual subjugation
When a mother participates in indoctrination into purity culture, she contributes to sexual repression and body shame.
The body becomes a source of danger or disgust, and sexuality is framed as something to fear or control rather than explore and understand.
This betrayal often fractures your trust and your ability to feel safe in your own body.
6. She supported your self-abandonment
When mothers operate from the belief that their worth comes from self-sacrifice and denying their own needs to serve the family or the church, they normalize self-abandonment.
Everything is secondary to the mission of the religious group.
By watching her ignore or minimize her own thoughts, feelings, and needs, you learned to also suppress yours to avoid being “selfish.”
7. She became an enforcer of patriarchal beliefs
In many high-control religions, mothers actively uphold patriarchal rules, teaching daughters to be submissive and sons to be stoic and dominant.
This creates deep internal conflicts about identity, worth, and autonomy, significantly influencing how you relate to yourself and to others.
Next steps if you have a mother wound.
If you experienced either authoritarian parenting or childhood emotional neglect, here are a few books I recommend:
If you’d like to begin cultivating healthier attachment patterns in your adult relationships, both of these books are excellent resources:
Having the language to describe your experience can be incredibly healing. It offers validation for something that may have gone unrecognized for a long time.
If you find yourself really struggling with this topic, consider connecting with a therapist who has training in attachment theory.
A skilled clinician will remain objective as you explore the role your mother played in your experiences with religious harm. Ideally, they won’t demonize your mother but will help you process the emotional fallout from growing up with a mother who wasn’t able to meet your emotional needs.
And for those of you wondering, “What about father wounds?,” I’ve covered that in the next newsletter (linked below).