I'm starting to realize that all the horrible things that my mom has done to me, isn't because she is evil, it's because she is literally that clueless. She was emotionally and mentally abusive to me during my childhood, I can't even describe the amount of mind games that she would do, and I always thought she was inherently evil and that she loved making me suffer.
But now I'm realizing that it isn't because she is evil, it's because she literally is clueless to how much she has hurt me - CLUELESS!
The things she has done would make any intelligent person say "That's wrong." but she's not intelligent. I don't mean that in a derogatory way, I mean that matter-of-factly.
Her father (my grandpa) was the exact same way. He left his 2 children when my mother was only 3 years old, so she had to grow up without a dad. When I turned 6 I cried to her that I wanted to meet my grandpa, and after 40 something years of them not talking, she finally got in touch with him and we met my grandpa in the deep south where he lived.

They are SO alike. Anyone who meets my grandpa says he comes across as rude and a hard nosed old school deep south prejudice man who is very closed minded. Even into his 70s he's still hanging out in bars getting into physical fist fights like he's 25 years old.
But it isn't because he's a bad man, it's because his intelligence level is low.
My mom is the same way. She has done so many things to me that were horrible and affected who I became in a negative way, but she turns around and denies all of it - because her intelligence level is low.

See, all these years I thought she was doing it on purpose and that she was out to make me suffer because she was a cold hearted person. But I realize now that she is just so naïve, so unaware, so out of touch with what a rational person would do - that she simply doesn't know any better and that's why she has been in denial for so long.

This is just a rant and a revelation for me to vent, because I was always confused about why she would do so much harm to me and then turn around and try to help me, it was the most confusing relationship ever growing up. She's simply not intelligent enough to realize to the full extent, her actions. This has to do with IQ, not a morality issue.

Sort of like when an animal eats their young, you can't explain to that animal what they did was wrong, it was just instinctual for them to do it because that animal wasn't very smart. I know that's kind of a crude analogy but it really makes sense to me now.

I think I can start to forgive her.