Olethea Pimenta • September 8, 2026
If you lost your mom young and are still struggling while everyone else seems to have moved forward, there may be a reason.
You may not have had the opportunity to feel what was happening when your mom was dying. You were too busy taking care of her—and everyone else.
Many of the women I work with were the main caregivers for their moms.
They attended appointments, spoke with doctors, managed medications and made difficult decisions. When their dad, siblings or other family members became overwhelmed, they took on even more.
You may have looked strong during this time. People may have praised you for everything you handled. But being capable during a crisis does not mean you had time to process what was happening.
Your feelings had to wait because your mom’s needs could not.
Although your family lost the same person, you did not all have the same experience of her illness and death.
While you managed appointments and emergencies, other people may have had more room to feel sad, seek support or begin accepting what was happening. They could fall apart because you were keeping things together.
After your mom died, you may have arranged the funeral, completed paperwork, sorted through her belongings and checked on everyone else. Your family may have started grieving while your mom was still alive. You may only have begun after everyone else expected you to move on.
When caregiving ends and life becomes quieter, your mind and body finally have room to register what happened.
You might experience exhaustion, numbness, anxiety or intense reactions around birthdays and anniversaries. You may feel angry that others did not help enough—or guilty for feeling angry at all.
This does not mean you are grieving incorrectly. It may mean that responsibility postponed your grief.
You may also be grieving what caregiving took from you: time, relationships, opportunities or your sense of who you were outside of being needed. Everyone may remember how much you did. Few people understand what you had to suppress in order to do it.
You may have spent years organizing your life around your mom’s needs and holding your family together. After she died, you kept functioning, but perhaps you no longer knew how to return to yourself.
I work with women who lost their moms young and became the caregiver, decision-maker or strong one in their families. Therapy can help you move out of constant responsibility, reconnect with what you want and begin building a life that is not organized around taking care of everyone else.
The work is not only about understanding your loss. It is about helping you feel steady again and move forward without leaving yourself—or your connection to your mom—behind.
