This is my first time commenting, but I have read for a while now. I have been scared of the reactions as I already deal with guilt at times. I'm often very angry and sad I am estranged from my mother. I still desperately want her to love me and I wish I could fix whatever damaged her so she can't. It took her starting to seriously impact one of my children to realise the damage she was doing to me. My own brother thinks I am crazy and my son too I suppose. I went no contact I guess before reading any of those sorts of articles. I suppose I could tell stories to help people understand, but individual stories are just small pieces of the puzzle and don't always look like justification on their own. I assumed for so long I was a bad person and that is why my brother was treated so differently and why my mother hurt and humiliated me often. I didn't intend estrangement at first, just asked for a break to work on my mental health thinking I was the problem. That's when my son told me his experiences and what he had witnessed growing up, she didn't think to hide her behaviour from a child like she did everyone else. I left home before my brother was old enough to have memories of it all at home and she saved it for when we were alone after that. During the break she was furious and told my family awful things about me. Said I was doing drugs and had "gone mad". I don't even drink. The whole family cut me off. My children were all relieved without her and so glad to have a happier healthy mother and now grandmother. I try to be the mother I wanted so badly. I know my mother had a terrible time as a child and so did I, but I can't break like she did. I think about her often and I hope she is well and happy. I grieve our relationship. I never wanted a perfect parent, I am not perfect and I think if I was I couldn't teach my children how to handle negative emotions or how to be accountable for their mistakes. I had an abusive mother though. Of course there are adult children out there who are awful people and treat their parents appallingly. From what I have read about NC it is an absolute last resort and even with help from professionals I could not fix my relationship with my mother and after following their advice I left the relationship. The wider family had disowned me already. I learnt much in that time about the lies she told to hide the abuse from them. I realised I had my own family and a great network of friends so I didn't fight it. Bad is she is to me, why hurt the family with the truth? Would they even believe me? Doesn't she deserve support too? So if you have tried everything and a relationship is damaging you too much, whether it's a parent, child, sibling, partner or friend... It's OK to let go and walk away. Live your best life. Just don't take your pain out on those who don't deserve it. There isn't two sides here, the estranged and the estrangers... There is just hurt people with individual stories we don't fully know who deserve support, not judgement.
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