My therapist taught me the difference between love and like. She asked me who I liked and I said my husband and she asked why and I said because he's warm, fun and friendly. I knew I loved my stepmother too, like you love your mother, but I certainly didn't find her "warm, fun, and friendly" :-) Figure out what you love in a friend and it's much easier to not feel guilty and to know what you don't like in your mother.

Some of that stuff is inherited, like breathing, and you aren't like her, she's like her mother or great grandfather or who knows who. Personality traits come down just like hair color and dimples! My mother died when I was three, I don't even remember her but I saw an 8 mm motion picture of her taken 12 years before I was born, before she and my father were even married and I "felt" her feelings she displayed. Very odd. Fortunately my mother has no negative connotations for me like my stepmother does. Work on your own issues as yours instead of thinking of them as being like your mother's. Yes we learned some negative things growing up that tend to persist but we can unlearn them if we want to and they served a "good" purpose for somebody somewhere (just like symptoms do) or wouldn't exist in the first place. My controlling stepmother, who was that way because of anxiety taught me controlling behaviors to deal with my anxiety but she was also "strong" and "forceful" very protective and safe feeling in her protection when I was growing up too. Things are seldom only one dimension (or two :-) but have more depth. Maybe your feeling like you're becoming like your mother and feeling that's a negative thing goads you on to do things better and keeps you "moving" forward?