I'd like to first thank you for reading all of it, if you actually have the patience... 

I am new here and I was looking for a support group where I could express my feelings as a daughter of an extremely abusive mother (in the past). I am 39 years old, have been living away from her for the past 16 years, and yet, I still feel down from time to time when those feelings are triggered. It's like a Pandora's box, that I kept putting a lid on for so many years. I feel that I haven't actually dealt with my trauma because I have just been supressing everything since I was a child. It's like a dark chapter of my life that I just kept ignoring... But it looks like it doesn't want to leave me alone.

When I was born, my parents left me with my grandmother until the age of 11. Technically, my granmother was my true mother because she raised me, cared for me, loved me with all her heart and always supported me even when I did something stupid. She loved me unconditionally. When I was a kid, my parents used to come and "see" me almost every day, then took me to their house on weekends... At that time, I was always looking forward to going with them and spending time with them. But after a while, they stopped taking me so often, to the point where I started feeling unwanted... It was at the age of 7 or so when I started having those rejection feelings (if my memory serves me). After a while, I didn't look forward to going with them anymore, and whenever they took me, all I wanted was to go back to my grandmother's house.

At the age of 11, they forced me back to their house and I started living with them, against my will. I was always looking forward to going back to my grandmother's place, and was always yelled at for wanting to go... They could never understand what they had done.. 

Leaving a child for 11 years, the first and most important thing for a "normal" mother to do is to try to compensate for that lost time with love, attention and care.. Nope! All she did was poison my life. She controlled me, humiliated me in front of everyone (all the time), whenever she had a fight with someone, she took it all out on me (behind closed doors), my father never stopped her, never moved a finger to protect me from her. It seemed like both of them were against me ALL the time. - This is just a summary of what happened.

Then came my teen years... a very difficult and emotional time for everyone. They became stricter and stricter and I was never allowed to do anything. I mean anything... No swimming classes, no piano, no going out, I didn't have the right to have friends come over to go visit them, I didn't have the right to have friends... And to add to the mix, I was kinda the blacksheep of the whole family pretty much all the time... Words like: "you idiot", "you can't even do this? how stupid are you?" and "you are so lame" were directed at me from multiple family members (aunts, cousins, etc) and stuff like: "hey eat well, you won't see this kinda food for a long time" or "you can't afford this, you're so fucking poor" (my parents were poor, but only because both of them were lazy asses who wouldn't move a finger to improve their financial situation and provide for their only child)... I was the laughing stock of my family for a very long time... My mother always just stood there, laughing with the others.. The only person who defended me was my grandma. 

My father used to make fun of my grades, he used to tell me that he used to get better grades when he was my age, even if he hadn't prepared for the test... but in fact, my father dropped out of school and didn't even finish high school... he was a loser financially... In fact, I was one of the few kids of my generation in my family who actually graduated and got somewhere in life... 

I did 2 years of college then went on to another university in another city... My mother was still controlling me with phone calls.. making sure I don't go out or do anything that she doesn't like (which was basically everything...) when I found part time jobs, I had to hide it from her... once, I used to give English lessons to a little boy and his family invited me for Christmas dinner, we took a photo together and I kept it in my closet. After a couple of month, I was on vacation at my parents' house and my mother went through my stuff (as usual) and found the photo. She completely flipped out and started freaking out as if I had committed a crime... it got to the point of her asking me to leave the house and never come back... this is just one of the millions of instances when she had such a fit. There were a lot like this one.

After finally graduating, I was desperately looking for a way out of the country, so I took the first job that I could get and flew to another country. I didn't ask for their permission, I just told them at the last minute that I was going away and that they wouldn't see me for a while... They didn't like it of course, but I left.

My first vacation after I left the country, I decided to visit my family (still hoping that we could be friends one day), I had around 30 days of vacation and I was so excited to go back home and see my grandma especially... Little did I know that my parents had become so religious that everything was a sin all of a sudden... that's when I couldn't take it anymore... I flipped out. I wanted to see my cousins (my favorite 2 cousins that I grew up with. We were like brothers and sisters), my father said no, and that it wasn't appropriate for people to see me with a man in the street... long sroty short, we argued, then he said, "if you don't wanna follow the rules of this house, then leave". That was the first time I felt in a position of power, I took my bags and stormed out. They started crying and playing the victim in front of the rest of the family after that... They didn't see me or hear from me for 7 years.

Fast forward a few years ago, I went home to get some papers done and they had calmed down a lot, they were just happy to see me... but still overly religious and almost thinking they're prophets of some sort... they saw that I wasn't agreeing with them on their lifestyle and kept telling me that whatever they believed in was the right thing... Whatever..

The thing is that I could never feel any love for these 2 people. Ever in my life. When my mother used to touch me, I always felt disgusted... This is maybe 0.0000001% of everything that happened (I know it's still a long post), there was way way more that basically screwed me over until today. I have never been able to deal with this. I was depressed and on antidepressants and anti anxiety pills for a very long time, I went for multiple therapy sessions... I had 2 suicide attempts... but it seems like I am just supressing that dark chapter of my life and that I have never truly dealt with it properly. They have completely fucked me over, and although I don't hate my mother anymore, I feel that she hurt me too much for me to love her. I always felt unwanted and definitely not loved. I always felt like she regretted having me... That she absolutely hated me. Those feelings are very hard on a small child... 

The worst thing is that on the outside, my mother wasn't showing everything she did to me... So when I cut the ties with her, I was the bad guy in the eyes of the rest of my family... They never knew what was happening behind closed doors.

Fast forward to today... I am a much happier person, BUT, whenever something triggers those feelings, I sink back to the same hole. I was fine living without knowing anything about them for the past 4 years (since they also criticized my marriage, because of many unreasonable reasons), then someone contacted me (one of my mean cousins) telling me that my mother has a brain tumor and that she is expected to die any moment now... To be honest, I have no idea what do with this or how to deal with this news. I felt nothing, and I was wondering: am I a bad person for not feeling sad about my mother dying? Am I a bad person for not jumping on the first flight to go see her before she goes? I have no desire to go and see her... It will only open that Pandora's box again and all the feelings will come back to me. In fact, just looking at my stupid cousin's emails pissed me off so much because all the bad memories started coming back to me... They all talk to me like I'm the worst daughter in the world, like I'm the worst person in the world, like I have no heart, like I'm so evil for hating my own mother. 

My true mother was my grandma, she was the one who raised me, loved me and protected me. When I heard that she was sick (before she passed away), I jumped on the first flight and went to see her. I don't feel the same way about my birth mother. I feel that if she goes away, it will be a relief. It will be the end of my biggest source of emotional problems. I don't wish her any harm, I hope she goes in peace, but I just don't want to go and see her. I don't have the emotional strength to do it. 

Thanks for reading my post, sorry again that it's very long...