I am 29 yrs. old and came to a realization last night. I think I've been emotionally and verbally abused by my mother. I'll tell a little bit about my story and please, please, please let me know if this qualifies as abuse?

It's weird how in one night...you can gain so much clarity. This is just a snippit of my life...there's too much to tell. I can remember being a child of six and praying to God that someone would kidnap me. I didn't care what they did with me, I just knew that I wanted to be kidnapped. I'm as young as 8 and my mother would tell me how the man she was in love with got away and how my father was disappointing in every way. I think my mother screamed more than she spoke. Nothing was ever right or good enough and I was a quiet, compliant child. I was ten and I'd vacuum for her and she come along and make me take out the vacuum again and do it over. At 11 I started to put on a little weight and she brought me to the doctor because she thought my bulging tummy was a tumour. I was not allowed to be close with any of my friends because "our family was better than all other families". Every holiday was preceeded with the most incredible hysterical screaming fits that anyone could ever imagine, and then it was expected for everyone to be happy and pretend like nothing happened. I remember being grounded and not allowed to go out for halloween one year because I used her hairspray. She told me and her friends daily how I was a disappointment because I didn't like to cuddle and wouldn't play dolls and dress up. In grade nine, my B's were never good enough and it was always - Why didn't you get an A. Now this wasn't the typical why didn't you get an A, this was hysterical fits. My dad was always doing something wrong and I always had to hear every little detail. She would not allow me to lock the bathroom door and would come into the bathroom while I was cornered and scream about something..it was always something. She would talk about car accidents, rapes, all sorts of horrible things like they were definately going to happen to us. At 14, she told me we were going somewhere but didn't tell me where until we ended up at a weight watchers meeting. At 15, I was not allowed to go out with the other 15 year olds and do 15 year old things. We lived in the country so going sneaking out was impossible. She would make me cry daily. Either she was insulting something about me or my father or ranting about some injustice that had happened or was going to happen to her. I started getting panic attacks only at the time I did not know what they were. It was always...."you could be so good if only you'd....". No achievement was ever recognized. At sixteen, I stopped taking my birth control pills in hopes to get pregnant. I remember thinking that if I got pregnant I could leave my home and be free. Not once did it cross my mind that I could just leave.....leaving was not possible in my mind. I moved out of my house and in with my baby's dad. I can't express the relief I felt..until...she started ringing my apartment all day every day..standing outside my apt. window...calling nonstop...calling all of my friends parents asking them not to help me...etc.. It was so bad that I finally gave up and moved home. After I had my daughter, she started acting like she was her mother. I was not allowed to take her to the mall for fear that her dad might see her and want something to do with her. She would not watch her...not even for a second so that I could go out but...she would control my every move with her while I was at home. When I started dating again at 18, she thought my boyfriend had aids and would tell me how irresponsible I was and that I was going to get it and give it to my daughter and probably kill the both of us. (I'm still with this guy and he did not have aids!!). The day that I moved out the second time my daughter was covering her ears rocking back and forth in a chair. The screaming had escalated.
I've lived away from my mother for 11 years now. In this time I have earned two degrees and a diploma. I am now a teacher. I also have a second daughter. She, to this day, calls me and tells me what a horrible parent I am, screams at me when I visit, calls me fat (now she is a little more justified), tells me how her friends all think I'm scummy etc..etc. She still makes me cry. I have to take panic medication when I'm around her for too long. My self esteem is zilch. She's the only person in the world who talks down to me. My dad is now dying and she is continuing to scream at him about things I do. I tell her to stop but she tell me that I need to stop making her scream at him. I can't even visit my dad unless I'm up for some abuse - which I have to take because I don't want a scene in front of him.

I'm so confused!!! I go to work and am respected and seen as worthwhile and then I come home and have to deal with insults and yelling. Am I a person? Some days I can't even bring myself to leave my house...my anxiety level are ridiculous. My brother's and my father say to me "you know your mother is quirky, you'll just have to learn how to deal with her better". Is this true? Is this abuse? I'm a grown adult yet I feel like a scolded child? I'm really at a loss.......