My mother thinks that getting a bridesmaid dress for my best friend’s wedding is a waste of money.

I’m sorry, I know it’s not that deep, but I’m exhausted.

Growing up, my mother controlled things as basic as how often I showered and what can I put in the laundry she often returned stuff from basket “not dirty enough”. I lived in a house full of cockroaches, and yet somehow, at 25, after moving abroad, she still thinks she gets to dictate what I do with my own money.

I’m a bridesmaid at my best friend’s wedding back home. She wants me to wear a dress she bought for me when I was 12, despite it being the wrong color for the bridal party. When I refused, she called me names and turned it into a massive fight.

The irony is that I moved abroad partly because I needed to get away from this kind of control. I came back to my home country for vacation, and it took two days for the same dynamic to start all over again.

I keep thinking about going NC. I want it so badly. I want to experience what life feels like when every tiny decision isn’t followed by an argument, guilt trip, or insult.

But I feel guilty because she’s still my mother, and some part of me keeps wishing things could have been different.

I don’t want to hate her. I just wish I knew what it felt like to have a mother I could actually come home to.