Thank you Debbie, your response led me to another piece of why we have such communication problems. Especially this part: </font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
It sounds like two way communication on the issues that you are having problems with could be a good place to start to help with your anxiety level. It sounds like that part of her life, she keeps to herself....maybe she hurts also & by avoiding some of those feelings, she can stay in control.

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My mom & I are both self-confessed control freaks, and while we have talked about deep issues and feelings... in general we bottle them up until something happens to force them out. The main problem we have is mutual guilt over what happened.

On my mom's part, she's expressed before how guilty she feels for how I turned out (mental health-wise -- other than that I've done well in my life). I feel guilty for resenting her for her outbursts of anger, her controlling behaviors, and her instability (laughing one minute then yelling) that was present throughout my childhood. She was never abusive, though.

My life-long friends occasionally saw these switches, and would tell me they didn't know how I could stand it. She became another person, & I learned early to keep my mouth shut until it passed.

The bringing a friend thing originated from the fact that she manages her anger/moods better when someone else is around. She's much better now though.

She acknowledges all of her behaviors, and has really been working on them alot. The PTSD really flared up her behaviors, & I think my fear that failure leads to abandonment grew from her outbursts.

I always tried to be the perfect child, & got pretty close -- but of course her almost daily outbursts continued, & I didn't understand that it wasn't (always) because of me. I spent most of my childhood in tears from the anxiety caused by my need to perform perfectly.

So now I feel angry (& bad for feeling angry) and I can't stand to hurt her by telling her I feel her anger helped make me emotionally mal-adjusted. I mean, I constantly went from being utterly comforted & feeling loved by her to feeling afraid of her. How am I supposed to reconcile these two extremes?

I mostly can't stand to say that she "messed up," or damaged me in any way. I've always blamed myself for being so neurotic -- too sensitive, unable to cope. But then I feel like I do now, like I'm a horrible person, like there's something inside of me that can't be loved. I've always felt dirty or sinful and I don't know what I did, or what I'm doing, to feel that way.

Sorry this is so long, your response was very helpful to me, I've had quite an ephiphany. This clarifies alot for me, thank you so much.

Jessie