My mother left when I was 3. We would see her most weekends, a lot of the time she would be asleep or have her boyfriends over. She was always angry, probably because of the depression but it's hard to understand that as a child. She would call me fat, ***** about my father who I lived with and always fight violently with my sister who moved in with her. My older sister became a drug addict and prostitute before she died of a heroin overdose. My mother tricked me out of about $5000 that was left to me, wrote a suicide note whilst sitting next to me and took me with her to jail to visit a man who had beat the crap out of her, telling me he beat her because she wanted to spend more time with me.

All of these mistakes can be forgiven, but what cannot be forgiven to easily is that I have a life that's not bearable. I have bipolar II which I think is environmental as there's no known history of it in my family. I have disordered eating, I push everyone away, I'm obsessed with weight loss and I'm always secretly criticising others. My mother taught me to hate, to hate my father and family and just everyone. I try to control it but it always creeps back slowly. I'm also incapable of being in a relationship or initiating romance. My mother tried to crush my confidence and it worked. She made up lies saying my dad was a molester and it's stayed with me. I end up hating all of the men I've been with.

She's calmed down a lot over the years, maybe since her parents, who were not nice people, passed away. Also since my dad died. She's probably being well medicated, and her boyfriend has finally decided to stay for good. I've also grown up a lot and she's learned that she can't control me, so maybe giving up that power has calmed her.

My trouble now is that I don't want a relationship with her. Having her in my life has caused me a lot of pain and damage. She can no longer affect me but I still feel no affection toward her and I'm still angry at how difficult it is for me to function. Worse is that I hate her boyfriend who is very sleezy but at the same time I don't want them to break up.

I know if I cut off contact it would break her heart, anyway, what good reason do I have if I can't be further damaged by her?

Do you think I have a moral responsibility to continue a relationship with my mother? Is it possible that if I finally give up I could become the person I want to be? Am I just continuing a pattern of pushing people away like I have always done? Am I being selfish?

It's not like the movies where if the parent screws up, the kids yells at them and they stops talking for years. It's more like Shameless with Frank the alcoholic dad. Even though he's a terrible father, he's family so they never cut him off.