I actually have this headcanon that thinking about his mom isn't painful necessarily, it's just personal to him. Like- I compared it in a post to when you have a favorite book that you love so much that you just want to keep it to yourself in your heart because god forbid you talk about it and you forget all the things you love about it, but sometimes you mention it, if somebody asked you'd answer about it- that's Stiles with his mom, she's that favorite book to him, you know what i mean?
I love that headcanon!
Based on the way Stiles reacts to seeing his mom or thinking about his mom in canon, though (see Lydia’s wolfsbane party and the Required Reading hallucinations), I think remembering his mom is still pretty painful. (Although I wish your headcanon were true too!)
Hopefully one day Stiles’s mom will be that favorite book because I think that would be beautiful :)
