I don’t care what she thinks anymore.

My mother and I have a rough relationship. It really stems from the fact that through ages 10-18, she bullied me over my appearance and what I later discovered to be a form of OCD. For years, she would sit me down at the kitchen table and call me names, tell me that my teachers and the parents of my friends were talking about me behind my back. She told me that if my friends ever found out, that they wouldn’t want to be friends with me. Ya know, classic bully stuff.However, when it comes from someone who should be your most trusted adult and who claims to be doing it out of love, it really messes with your head. So I have some pretty intense trust issues. We’ve talked about it a lot in the years since and she’s said that she didn’t know how to handle my OCD and she was doing her best. She also said that she should have realized that I was more sensitive than all my siblings, so maybe it was too much.I think because she always wanted more from me, I was always trying to give it to her. Even now, I desperately want her approval. I guess it’s the little kid in me just wanting her to say that I’m enough.While I have more stories than I can count, I‘ve been working hard to reestablish a healthy relationship with her. That is, until she showed that she hasn’t changed that much. The only difference is that when she starts ramping up, I can just leave. So, the healthiest thing is to stop caring what she thinks. She is welcome to her opinion, but I would prefer she not share it. It also won’t make any difference because she forfeited the right to my caring when she emotionally abused me during my most formative years. via /r/toxicparents https://ift.tt/30xkWoe