Again, you have no idea what it's like to have my mother, or one like her.
Really? Don't assume anything. I didn't give details because I didn't want this to turn into a "my mother is worse than your mother" contest. I can guarantee that my mother would win that competition.
I could tell you stories about my mother that would make you cringe. Let's just say that I am very lucky to be alive, as is one of my younger sisters. She hated us because of her choices and she made sure we paid for it. She was a miserable alcoholic who was physically, verbally, and emotionally abusive. She took partiular pleasure in waking me at 3:00 a.m. just to administer a beating while berating me for whatever offense she thought I had committed. She was combative with everyone. She would verbally attack anyone for any reason--usually some imagined slight. She went to a political dinner with an aunt and got into an argument with the Mayor because she didn't like something he said. My aunt was humiliated and didn't speak to my mother for years. When I was very young, she physically attacked a neighbor because the woman was humming. My mother was placed in a mental institution, which would have probably done her some good had she stayed, but she checked herself out after a few days. She never got the treatment she so desperately needed.
And you could not possibly know, unless you have been there, how hard that really is to do.
Even after everything my mother did to me, I could never completely break the ties with her. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's just because she was my Mom. Maybe a part of me remembered back to when she wasn't quite so insane. I took many breaks from her, but I could never completely break the ties. No matter how badly she treated me, it would never occur to me to slight her on Mother's Day. I just couldn't. Even when I was taking a break from her, I'd call and send a card.
I did enter therapy and realized that our relationship was what it was. She was not going to be warm and fuzzy Mommy, no matter how bad I wanted it.
The result of getting help for myself was that (after many months) I learned that I didn't have to fear her any more. She could nothing to hurt me--unless I allowed it. I then was able to look at things from her point of view and realized that she was in a LOT of pain. She was sad, lonely, and very scared. Not that it was an excuse for her actions--there is no excuse--but I could better understand why she might have done some of the things she did. I took pity on her. Our relationship got a bit better. We were never going to be close friends and I was o.k. with that.
She's gone now, she died at age 56. She's finally at peace and no longer able to lash out at anyone in pain and anger. My last words to her were "I love you, Mom." Her's to me were "I love you too. And, thank you." She went into a coma and died a week later.
So, yeah. I've been in your shoes--and worse. And, I stand by my original advice to look at things from your mother's point of view for this one instance.
For me, it wasn't any ONE moment where I said, "That's it, I'm done with this crapola." It was a gradual thing. Good luck tomorrow.
