yup at one point my mom was like that - afriad and so on. but one thing I have learned in building a new relationship with my mom is that I could confront til I was blue in the face. The bottom line is that I cant control my mother and her thoughts on the situation just like she cannot control my thoughts and actions on the situation.

I am all for confrontation and bring abuse out in the open so that it is no longer a dirty rotten secret. But i have also learned that talking over and over with family members about what happened doesn't always do any good.

so the way I handle my being in therapy and why now is flat out, and remember some good tips from Laura Davis's work about surviving abuse and reconciliation and so on - I can't control them and they can't control me. there is such a thing as agreeing to disagree and locating the common ground for building a new and better relationship. finding the common ground does not mean being dishonest and hiding what is going on. It just means that sometimes there is no compromising so the people involved need to approach their relationship from the common grounds instead of the confilct - in this case the conflict is different views on thereapy. My mom and I disagree with therapy. she thinks it is airing dirty laundry that should remain in the family and I see it asgetting the help that I need. so instead of focusing on the therapy disagreement we have found other areas that we share common ground.

my mom accepting that I am in therapy is not something I need to force her into just like her forcing me to stop therapy isn't something she is interested in doing. So instead we focus on the common ground issues that we have instead.

we have an honest relationship we just have agreed to disagree and move on.

Moving on and getting better doesn't depend on if people agree with my being in therapy or not kind of thing.