I experienced so much grief with my mother. She was so critical, unsupportive and manipulative . She often told me she wished she had never had children, etc. It was always a struggle to be with her, yet being the only one of children who lived locally, her care as she aged was left up to me. The only thing that helped me was to limit contact and make my interactions with her short.

It was very sad really. I held the fantasy that some how, some way i would find a way to gain her approval and feel loved and be able to show her I loved her, but she did not allow that.

As a child, she often told me that things that happened, had not. I couldn't understand how i knew I had seen or experienced something, when said it never happened. This was extremely confusing as a child and resulted in many problems for me later as I grew up. I came to a point where I didn't know what to believe anymore and felt so alone and confused. To this day, I doubt myself so much.

As I became an adult and she aged, my experience was that she continued to behave as she always had, only more often and more intensely. What finally convinced me that she behaved and did and said the things she did, was when my children who are now adults, confirmed it. They could not understand why she behaved the way she did. They were comforting to me. I took some solace in the fact that I had witnesses to her behavior, who could tell me that they experienced her the same way I did.

It was towards the end of her life when I finally started to realize that no matter what I did or said, it was just not good enough. She was very bitter and it was very difficult for me to care for her as all I wanted to do was run the other way. I loved her and wanted to take care of her, but it was very difficult. Accepting this reality was so sad and was a process of grieving for what I would never experience with her.

I am sure this had so much to do with my current feelings of just not being good enough and the fear that somewhere inside me, I am like her. My children say that I am not. I hang on to that. My therapist tells me I am not my mother. That helps.