After being berated for years by my mom's criticisms I cut her out of my life last January. I feel so much better about life now. No constant worries of what emotional abuse she's going to come up with on any given day. My dad died in Dec 2007. He never criticized me. He was awesome and shielded me from a lot of my mom's toxicity. After he died she got worse and I couldn't take it anymore. Kinda sad when you know your parent didn't want you. So yeah. I don't have to put up with it anymore. It's freeing.