The "you don't do anything" speech is one I get often from my own mother, and it's really exhausting. When I was still living at home it was all the time; now it's just whenever I go back home on holiday, but it's still as mentally draining as ever.

I'm sorry you have to pay such an insane amount of money for therapy. I really hope you can work something out with your therapist, because it's clearly important for you to keep going every week. Building a therapeutic relationship can take time.

Also, it doesn't sound like your mother would be able to recognise progress even if it bit her in the arse? I know my own parents find it very easy to judge me, and seem to focus on that instead of looking for positive things to say.

Before I went home for Easter, my university therapist asked me to write a daily journal about the role I play in my family. A clear pattern emerged: my parents dish out the same criticism over and over again, and I respond either with anger or sarcasm. My therapist says that if I want that to change, I have to change my own role in the family script. It's my responsibility to change it, because I can't change them. So rather than falling into the same old pattern, I'm now going to try to respond differently to their criticism. Instead of lashing back at them, I'm going to calmly say, "That's not a very nice thing to say, dad" or "You know, that upsets me, mum" or similar. It will most likely be very hard, because they will try to fight it as they don't know any other way, and there is a space in my family that is shaped just for me. If I'm not in it, no one else can fill it, so there will inevitably be resistance. I'll have to create a new space of my own, and they are going to have to learn to accept it, once they get over the initial discomfort of the script changes.

Do you think you could try something similar with your mother?