I feel like I’ve finally woken up

TW: Childhood abuse, violence, SA (not graphic), narcissistic parent, CPTSD

I’m in my 40s and I’m only just waking up to the reality that my mother is a narcissist — and a violent one. I grew up thinking her trauma justified everything she put me through, like I owed her my life because she survived hers. But the truth is she used her pain like a weapon, and I was the one she aimed it at.

My childhood was chaos. Rage. Fear. The kind of “love” you only got if you were perfectly obedient, silent, anticipating her moods like you were reading weather patterns to survive a storm.

If I messed up — or just existed wrong — I got screams, beatings, silent punishment, mocking, the threat of abandonment, even a drowning attempt. Imagine being a child and learning that the safest place to be was invisible.

She kicked me out as a young teen after I told her I would call the police. I did call — she charmed them. Six months later she kicked me out again, claiming I might accuse her new husband of SA, something that literally never crossed my 14-year-old mind. I was just a kid trying to survive.

So, I spiralled. Drugs, alcohol, unsafe sex, bouncing between houses — survival mode on autopilot. No safety. No stability. No mother.

Late 20s — I get pregnant to a narcissistic man. Makes sense now, right? When abuse feels like “home,” you don’t see the red flags until you’re choking on them. I left him, restraining order in place, and my mother swooped in to “help.” But she didn’t help. It was just round two of the same war.

Violence came back. Gaslighting. Telling me I was an unfit mother. Throwing water in my face because dinner wasn’t ready. Calling me lazy while I worked full time, raised a kid alone, cleaned, cooked, paid bills, survived court with a violent ex — and somehow still thought I was the problem.

But I met someone good. Someone gentle. Someone who doesn’t mistake control for love. We built a family — my husband, our kids, our own kind of safe. For the first time in my life I had peace, but she still inserted herself into everything. Jealous. Paranoid. Angry my husband won’t play along with her act. Furious she can't puppeteer me anymore.

Recently I set a boundary. A real one. To protect my kid.

Her response?

48 straight hours of messages tearing me apart:

“You’re not loyal.” “You’re abusive.” “Your kids can’t attach to people because of you.” “You’re immature.” “I walk on eggshells around you.” "Why are you putting conditions on me?"

The projection was unreal.

And suddenly, something clicked so violently I think it cracked through decades of conditioning.

She will NEVER be the mother I needed. She will NEVER be safe. She will NEVER choose healing over control.

The voice in my head — the one that tells me I’m failing, I’m not enough, I should be punished — it’s her. It always was. I’ve been carrying her voice like a parasite in my brain, believing it was my own thoughts.

I’m no contact now. I reached out to my therapist. I admitted I’m not okay.

I have CPTSD and for years I wondered why therapy wasn’t “fixing” me. It’s because I was still trying to protect her feelings over my healing. I still felt guilty telling the truth out loud. Like if I said she was abusive, I was betraying her.

But the betrayal was hers — not mine.

I still minimize it. I still tell myself others had worse. I still gaslight myself. But trauma isn’t a competition. What happened happened. And it fucked me up. Pretending it didn’t won’t unbreak anything.

And yet —

I left an abusive man. I protected my child. I made a safe family. I have a husband who loves gently, not violently. Two kids who know tenderness, not terror.

They will never grow up the way I did. Because I did the work. Because I broke the cycle. Because I chose differently.

I built the family I always wished someone would give me. And that matters. It matters so fucking much.