{{{{{{{Grace}}}}}}}}

I am so deeply sorry that you had such a painful childhood. I was emotionally abused by a mother with all kinds of mental health issues and though she never physically abused me, I can relate to you wanting to love her in spite of what she did, yet you hate her at the same time and wish hell on her for what she did to you.

This is very important for you and everyone else to know: you are NOT required to remain in a toxic relationship. We all deserve to be safe from harm, to be loved and to have happiness in our lives.

Nothing about our abuse is our fault. For me, what helps is to try to figure out why my mother felt the need to emotionally abuse me. What I come up with is: she learned to do it from her father. I believe that when people abuse each other, it is because they feel inadequate and are trying to gain power and feel strong. So we must remember that when they abuse, what they are feeling is weakness. If we can see through their abuse and picture them as a helpless beetle on its back, we can come to the realization that they have no power over us. They're just lashing out in desperation because they are so unhappy with THEMSELVES. Abuse is not about the abusee-- it's about the abusER. We do not have to absorb the pain they are trying to inflict. If we play into it, it's just as if we took that beetle and helped it onto it's feet so it can continue towards us and crawl under our skin. I don't know if this metaphor is helping, but this is one way I look at it. (I am not against beeltes by the way but I don't think scorpions ever get stuck on their backs so I used the beetle here. )

And the way I see it, there's an amazing reason you don't really want to tie your mother down and do those things to her -- because you are an authentically good and compassionate person. That means you are STRONG and you are seeing to it that the abuse stops with you. I think it's okay for you to journal about it and get your anger out. I've had moments when I wanted to shake my mother until her head pops off and rolls around on the floor. Then I wanted to kick it and pull its hair and tell it never to say another hurtful thing to me again. But then I remember that she doesn't even know what she's doing. I don't want to be a violent person. So I think of my mother as mentally handicapped and I feel nothing but sadness that she is trapped in the hell of her own mind.

Hope this helps. Peace and gentle healing to you!

Kelly