I'm new, I'm nervous & I don't know how to write this.

I guess I will start with a little background. My father abused my mother during their short marriage & because of it she was VERY overprotective of me. Controlling might be a better word. I wasn't allowed have anything that belonged to me outside of my room & she would go so far as to tell me how many sheets of tp I could use in the bathroom. While in college, I couldn't even have my cousin over to visit without prior permission. Leaving 3 or 4 dishes in the sink was enough to start a huge fight. I don't trust my mom & there is a general tension when we are around each other.

This weekend was very bad. My mother came to visit & we got into a fight again. I asked my mom to not correct my son when his father was already addressing an issue(they were cooking together but my son was safe). This lead to my mother throwing a complete fit & gathering her things to leave. I should have just let her go but we got into a fight. We were yelling at each other & my mother was telling me she couldn't take it any more, I treat her like a dog & that she was going to leave. The implication was that she was leaving for good. I was standing on my back steps with my mom a couple of steps away on the ground. I started to feel cornered & overwhelmed with the yelling. I looked over to my husband, with a look of desperation & asked him to "help me" He was pushing our little boy on the swing. My mother continued even though I told her that I was has having an anxiety attack. I am not so sure that is what it was now, but basically I told her I was in trouble. She responded "That's an Excuse!" & continued to yell. At that point I couldn't stop myself & fell to the ground hitting my head. It was so painful in that moment & now it's so embarrassing to even admit. The next few moments were a blur. My husband tells me that my mother then shrieked "You need to be in a hospital, You're having a nervous breakdown, You need to been seen" while standing over me & shaking her finger in my face. She pretty much told him the same thing to which he replied "If your going, then go."

My mom left for about 20 minutes & returned with donuts wanting to talk. We did for a while but even that got heated. I think our conversation created even more confusion for me. She contradicted much of what she said earlier. Saying that she "knew my anxiety was a real condition" but "everybody has some level of anxiety". She has told me more than once prior to this to "not let things get to me" as if I let this happen. Hysterical, she also told me that she didn't want to start crying because "sometimes it doesn't stop for days". She also said "sometimes I just think I should jump off the B_ Bridge" and " I don't know how much longer I have to live anyway". She is currently dealing with some medical problems but nothing anywhere near life threatening. Also, that she "didn't know when she would see my kids again if she didn't come up here". She had just seen them a couple of months earlier & we had planned a visit for next month. I live three hours from my mother & money is very tight. She knows that. Eventually she left.

I have spent the last three days trying to decompress & figure all this out. Now I am trying to decide, is this abuse? This is not the first time that something like this happened. I mean, I know that my mother loves me, but this is not right. She basically screamed I needed to be in a psych ward in front of my 4 yr old son. I just can't get past that. When I was in pain, she did not comfort me. She just continued her onslaught. Do I need to protect my kids from my mom? If I do, how? I don't even know how to protect myself. Emotionally, I am scared of her. I know that she is clinically depressed, & lonely but she won't get help. I know that I can't help her & that I can't let something like this happen again. I don't know what to do.