I'm sorry about what happened to you and your relationship with your mother, Peaches. I know where you're coming from. My mother is the same way. She never once stood up for me when my father was being verbally abusive, never asked me what was wrong when I was crying, never acknowledged my mental illnesses (anxiety & depression). Too many times I begged her to help me when I was suicidal and all she did was smile and leave.

This lead me to believe she didn't love me and I eventually stopped trying to connect with her or ask for what I needed. Until a few years ago when my last suicide attempt almost succeeded she came to see me at the hospital when they allowed her to. And the strangest thing happened: she cried and begged me not to leave her.

It seemed beyond unbelievable at the time, but now I understand that she does care about me. In fact she always has and she'll never stop. But. She's also in denial about all those things she can't really handle. My mental health issues, realizing that her daughter isn't like the other kids, not knowing how to help me... all this and so much more was going on in her life and the only way she found to cope with it was to deny it existed. This way she didn't have to suffer because of it and suffer even more because of the helplessness she would have felt if she admitted to herself that everything was going south and she couldn't stop it.

Does this make any sense? Maybe the reasons behind your mother's apparent lack of empathy toward you are similar to my mother's. I think that might explain the inconsistency in what she said 2 days ago that is in so much contrast with how she actually acted when you were growing up. It might be that in her mind she really is a good parent who has always been there for her child, because she meant to be but didn't know how.

Safe hugs to you (if ok) and please know that I'm not invalidating your feelings toward your mother or justifying the fact that she didn't help and protect you as you deserved. I'm just providing one of the possible explanations for her behaviour, based on what I've learned about my own mother in these recent years.
You're not alone in this and please keep posting if it helps

freak