Lissanya, I forget, but are you going to therapy? If not.... I strongly suggest you do, ok? They're the best person to help you sort out your feelings about all of this.

Your mother saying that she's the only one who loves you and the only person you can trust is manipulation. She was convincing you that it was ok to abuse you "because she loves you". She was isolating you from everyone else when she said things like that, so that you would believe all of the horrible things she's said about you - which is true, you DO believe the things that she's said, and you're only just starting to sort those out now.

Here's an article that I read a while ago, about Narcissitc mothers. While I read it, I was identifying my mom and/or my brother in just about everything. I even printed it off and highlighted what fit (and as I'm weird, I used three colours - one for my mom, one for my brother, and one for both. The colour for both was the predominant one used, and almost the entire article was highlighted)

And your mom's logic on things is wrong, btw. "I don't feel like anyone ever loved me" is NOT proof that you were NOT abused. It doesn't equate to "I was imagining that no one loved me so I must have imagined the abuse as well" - doesn't that sound ridiculous? Because it is ridiculous. If a child doesn't feel loved... there's a reason for it. If it's the sort of feeling that only lasts for a day or so, it could just be a child reacting normally to something like not being allowed to eat ice cream before going to bed. But that feeling a child has will go away when things return to a loving family relationship. If that feeling lasts all the way into adulthood, like it has for you, then it is NOT an overreaction or something imagined - it means that love was missing from your life.

How did your mother treat you better than your brother? If you were truly her favourite, she would have treated you a lot better. I'm sorry, but I'm going to take a little guess here ok? It sounds like your mother simply used that sentence, that you were the favourite, as a tactic to manipulate your brother. It was said to create jealousy between you and to make your brother cooperate more easily with the abuse towards you. On the other hand, it also served as a simple tool to convince you that you were wrong - because who would abuse the favourite if they hadn't done something wrong, right? I'm sorry, but it really sounds like it was a lie that your mother told as a way to control both of you. You would have struggled to maintain that belief because it was probably one of the few things that "proved" your mom loved you, right? So you wouldn't have questioned the abuse as you would have believed that she wouldn't do that to you unless she REALLY had to?

Anyway. I am really making a lot of guesses and assumptions here, and I am soooo sorry if I have any of that totally wrong or say anything to upset you... I'm just probably thinking a bit about my own family and about what I've read about the topic.

((Fyi, my mom's "favourite" was publicly me right up until my brother joined the army at age 18. I was smart, well-behaved and all of those things... all the things that would be good to boast and brag about as a parent. At home, however, I stopped being the "favourite" by the time I was 6. As soon as I started to speak up for myself at home I immediately stopped being that favourite because I wasn't the exact copy of her that I suppose she wanted me to be. My brother, on the other hand, is pretty much her spitting image except male. As a kid, publicly, he was not the favourite as he got into trouble at school a lot and wasn't very academic. At home he was the favourite as he could do whatever he wanted and although he got into trouble more often than I did... his "punishment" would last like 10 minutes. So... he still holds on to yelling at me that I was always the favourite and got treated better - but he can't tell me how except that I didn't get into trouble. My response was always "I didn't get into trouble because I didn't cause **** at school and I didn't argue or throw or break things". But if you look at the THINGS - he was always the favourite as he could do what he wanted, he could visit friends whenever he wanted, he did not have to essentially be a slave at home during his summers, and they paid and took him to whatever sports he wanted, and there was zero pressure ever put on him to perform well. But he'll never see that, because he's a narcissist. He just sees that his image that he wanted was not supported by my family publicly until he joined the army)).