Hi Alison. Welcome to Psych Central.

I don't have a controlling mother, but I'm still dealing with a controlling ex-husband. I can point you in the direction of two books that have given me some insight into the situation.

One is The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner, Ph.D. It explains that, as you probably already realize, we can't change the person we're in conflict with, so we have to change our own behavior. If we have a new response for the same old arguments, it's ultimately going to alter the other person's response, and then some changes should be able to be made. There's a chapter specifically for daughters and controlling mothers.

The other is The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans. One of the latter chapters gives instructions on how to respond when they start in with the abuse, and it explains how to respond to each of the different kinds of verbal abuse. There are actually 15 categories.

I can't give you any sound feedback on either of these yet, since I'm still new to them myself, but it has given me some food for thought and has helped me keep my cool when I want to explode at him.

Hopefully someone will come along who's further along in the recovery process with some more advice for you. I'm actually four years past my divorce and I'm just now trying to stand up for myself.