Ihad a mother like yours, and didnt know my father. I am not sure how to forgive, but I did after many many years. I realized she was mentally ill and was her own worst enemy. Every year my sister and I get together and talk about our childhood and how amazing it was/is that we escaped the craziness. The book that saved my life: The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans. Abusers usually are very insecure and put onto you...what they really feel about themselves. It might help you to write a letter of restorative justice.....that says...this is what you did, this is how it made me feel.

As an aside (about me, LOL). Igrew up in poverty...no phone, car, refrigerator, tub or shower, molested, fatherless, physically and verbally abusive mother, etc. etc. in a 120-yer old tenement house with roaches, and low-life neighbors.. It is interesting that you used the word (food) provider. My sister said the same thing about our mother, that she was just a provider. I made the decision that I would never be like her and joined the army... to escape all of that.

Is there a way yu can distance yourself from her?

That shame you feel has nothing to do with who you are; that belongs to someone else. She will never change so you will have to find a way to respond differently...... When you were born you were perfect and innocent and then your mother told you lies about yourself; that is really the way she feels about herself. There is NOTHING wrong with you and everything wrong......with her. Ihope you can find a way to stop her from controlling your life. You are suffering and she is not.