Wanting to go NC with my mom

Hello all! I am in search of advice. So I do have some posts with more back story but I will try and give you the story just more condensed. So right now I am LC with my mom but every time I have to talk to her I have so much anxiety and it just feels awful. I have a reminder on my phone that goes off every week so I text her because if I do not text her often enough she texts me asking me what wrong and why I am not talking to her and I just have to do reassurances and it just makes it harder.

Context. My siblings and I think my mom is an undiagnosed narcissist and that her sister and mother are the same. So I have two siblings (older sister and younger brother) and I have always been my mom's least favorite. I think it all started because when I was young, I was a daddy's girl and I do not think my mom ever forgave me for it since both my siblings preferred her. Once upon a time I think my childhood was happy, at least I seem to have that feeling it was. I do not remember most of my childhood, which I have heard is a trauma response but I do not know. I want to be in therapy for it all but seeing as how we can barely afford the necessities right now this has become my best therapy (apart from having my wonderful husband who is always there for me).

My mom had an accident when she was a teen and suffers from pain from it to today so she takes pain pills, and she abuses them as well as alcohol. Looking back at what I can remember, she was almost always on something. When she inevitably ran out of her pain pills before she could get more, she would go on drunken stupors that would last a few days, till I think she got more pills and then would only drink some. When we were younger she would ask me and my siblings why we hated her. In those exact words - we were just kids and had to tell our mother many times that we did not hate her, and in fact explain that we loved her. It was both tiring and traumatizing to us.

My sister had to get multiple surgeries in high school and was diagnosed with depression because of them. When I heard about it and her symptoms I was only like 13. I was being bullied in school and felt that I might also be depressed. When I brought it up to my mom, she said depression is not something to joke about. That led to me fighting myself all the time. I just thought I was being lazy or whatever for not being able to complete what everyone else did and that there was just something wrong with me. 20 years later I still struggle with acknowledging that I am depressed because that feeling of "faking" it is so ingrained it me.

I always craved my mothers attention. I knew I was her least favorite so I always felt like I had to fight for her love and attentions. This led her to tell me - when I was in high school - that she always heard that you had to wait till your kids were older to have them as friends, but that she thought of me as a friend. Even back then I knew this was a strange thing, and even back then I had started to pull away from telling her things that really mattered to me. I would still crack and want the love of a mother and would tell her things even though I knew it would never be what I wanted, and it usually just made things worse. She always found a way to make it about herself. Even when she was trying to help it was always about her need to help, not my need for help.

So, since my mother considered me a friend she would complain to me about my siblings and my dad. Needless to say, that as a high-school-aged-kid this was not good for me. I am so embarrassed about how I treated them. I would side with my mother in almost everything and became the mediator in my family, always in the middle trying to make each side understand the other. It was like every person in my family spoke a different language and I was the only one who could speak them all and translate. It was exhausting and really took a bigger toll on my mental health, not that I understood that at the time.

My mother finally acknowledged that I had depression when I told her about everything while I was at college. Never mind the fact that I was so under weight from my inability to eat, and the fact that most days I could hardly get myself out of bed to get to school, let alone do anything else. When I was at my first year there, I wanted my parents to come to parents weekend. Well it happened to be the same one at my sisters college and she wanted them there too, never mind that it was her third year there. I was angry at my sister for asking them to come there that year when it was my first but I am long since over that. What really hurts is my mom told me about it and of course not wanting to rock the boat I told her she should go to my sisters. I knew she would accept but I have always been a people pleaser. Still working on that in my life to this day but its not always easy.

I am bisexual and came out to my mother and I thought she was supportive of me. Well when I told her I was going out on a date with a girl she asked me when I would just pick a gender. Later on when asked why I share big things with her and then just stop talking to her about them I recounted this instance. She told me she did not remember saying that. Reminds me of the saying: the tree remembers but the ax forgets.

There are 2 previous posts about my sister's wedding; read if you want, but lets just say it was awful. The point is, my mom tried to make everything about herself, and honestly after that I did not want to talk to my mother but I did. When Thanksgiving came around that year, I went to my parents. My mom was hiding out in her room, drunk, and asked me to come in there. I do not remember most of it, but what I remember is her saying something like: out of all her children who disdain her, that I hurt her the most. I just remember getting out of there, and she texted me telling me to leave. My siblings convinced me to stay the night and I did since my mom did not even come out of her room.

The next day though, she did, and took a few jabs at me, framing them as jokes but everyone knew. So that is when I finally decided to go no contact. It honestly ended up making the problem so much worse. She texted and called me more frequently trying to get me to talk to her. She also harassed my siblings to get me to talk to her. For Christmas, I was wanting to go to my aunt's (her sister) instead of going home, and this did not sit well with my mom. They have always had a bad relationship. My dad called me and begged me not to go to my aunt's, and I told him in no uncertain terms that even if I did not go to my aunts I would rather sit alone in my own place then go home to my parents.

My brother went home for this Christmas and told me mom was basically incoherent on alcohol the whole time, and when she could talk to him, she blamed me for all of it. I still went to my aunt's, and both her and my grandma spent much of the time comforting me. I broke down so many times that it was hard for me to enjoy the time even with cousins kids who I consider nephews. I still struggle with that holiday in particular even almost a decade later. Some wounds do not fully heal, they just become manageable.

Sometime during my no contact, my grandma went to see my mom and found her so drunk she was unconscious. My dad wasn't there and so my grandma got her to the hospital. She woke up there and somehow attacked cops that were there, and was charged with assaulting police officers. Needless to say, my dad was furious saying that she did not need to be taken to the hospital as this was a normal occurrence. My dad was a huge enabler, always has been. He has always taken my mom's side, even when we were children and she was awful to us, he took her side.

I purposefully have not gotten all the specifics but as far as I am aware, the court battle ended with her on parole(? not sure if that is the right word). She had a year where she had random alcohol tests so she had to be sober, from alcohol at least. We reconnected, but only for me because it was easier than the alternative. I know she still dislikes my life. She hates that I do not go to church anymore, and that I will not be having any kids. This is when me and my siblings really had a heart to heart and talked about a lot. I hold absolutely no ill will to them, but this is when they figured out exactly how much had been placed on my shoulders. Since then, they have both been wonderful in playing buffers for me and honestly it has meant a world of difference for me.

Eventually with the prospect of being closer to grandkids, my parents finally moved down to where both of my siblings reside and honestly I was/am thrilled they live down there now. So much less pressure on me to see them all the time. A part of me feels bad for being so relieved that I no longer have to deal with them, but my siblings are more accepting of them. Maybe it is because they never had to shoulder them as much as I have, I do not know. But they actually lived with my brother for like a 6 months before they found their own place. I would rather live on the streets then ever live with my mother again.

When I got married I gave so much attention and took so many photos with my mom to hope she would let me have my day. I asked her how she liked my make up the day of my wedding, big mistake, she told me she did not like it and looked like I had a black eye. Who does that? I also had her walk the flower girls (her grand kids) up the aisle during the wedding so she would be satisfied and not ask my dad to walk her up the aisle (she had my brother and dad walk her up the aisle at my sister's wedding because not having my dad with her made her feel like a widow). I even asked my brother if he would be willing to walk me up the aisle in case she refused, because I refused to let her take that from me.

Safe to say she still found this to complain about at my wedding, and I just did my best to ignore her. Nowadays, anytime I do end up going down to see my siblings, I have to see her to and she always has negative things to say. She tells me my teeth look bad, she hates my tattoos and my hair. Honestly, it is never-ending with her. When we were down there once, she asked me about my experience getting my teeth removed. I tried to tell the story and kept getting interrupted and after a few times of me continuing back on topic she told me she knew I was drinking because I just kept talking. As if she did not ask me about a story and then continually interrupt me.

We have been in this same holding pattern for a while now. I text/call her because I feel like I have to, even though I feel an anxiety attack every time I have to. I do not want to talk to her. I hate it. It probably makes me a horrible person but I wish she was gone. I still feel that thing where I wish I could talk to a mother, but I do not want it to be here. I feel like if I cut her off now it will just make everything worse. I know my dad will take her side, so I will have to be no contact with him too. My siblings will end up in the middle, and I do not want that. When I go to see them it will just make everything so much more complicated. And I know, just like the last time, she will try ten times harder to try and talk to me, and I will have to deal with that.

There is not anything that has triggered this; I am just so tired. I feel like I am just fighting to keep my head above water right now, mentally. It is the worst kind of chore for me just to send her a text and pretend like I want to talk to her when I would rather she just disappeared. Please, I need help. Anyone who can give advice, I would greatly appreciate it. And if anyone has any questions, I will try to answer. I know this might be a little jumbled, but I just need to get it out and I do not know what is fully relevant.