Whenever we get together, my three brother, three nieces and I always tell Mom and Dad stories. Most of them are funny, tender and wonderful. But my brothers, especially the oldest and the youngest one, are always very quick and adament about reminding me how much Mom deliberately hurt me, emotionally and psychologically, over my entire lifetime, how she was always able to figure out my most vulnerable buttons and push them without mercy until she got the reaction she wanted from me...which then set her up to be the injured party and victim, and me to be the wicked daughter.

So essentially, they've been trying to drill it into me that I was the victim of her mental illness, not that she was the victim of my regrettful behavior (which was defensive and mercilessly provoked almost 99% of the time).

Still, there are some responses that she provoked from me that I wish I hadn't given into. The one that haunts me big-time is slamming the phone down in her ear. There is an ugly story behind that slamming of the phone, but I wish with all my heart now that I had just counted to ten, or "accidentally" disconnected the phone mid-conversation. It was the only time in my life I had ever slammed the phone down on anyone, and to have done it to my Mom has been such a huge source of shame and regret to me, no matter what my brothers say. She had just lost my Dad only months before, and was grappling with her own grief and depression, and for me to have done that, regardless of the provocation from her end, was in my mind, incomprehensibly wrong.

Yes, I know I have to forgive myself. She would want me to. I'm trying. But obviously it's not "taking root", is it!