Please stop asking me about my mom: Notes from an abusive mother-daughter relationship

Please note that the following article contains descriptions of physical and emotional abuse and may be triggering to some readers.

A mother's love is supposed to be unconditional, enduring and eternal. For many people, their mother is their best friend or, at the very least, the person they call when they need advice or want to share good news. That does not ring true for me.

My relationship with my mother is fractured at best. I survived many years of abuse at her hands, most of it mental and emotional, some of it physical and verbal. I do not know what it’s like to get a hug from her that was genuinely filled with love and care. I have never received a genuine compliment from her that wasn’t either backhanded or somehow making her the focus. Even now, we don’t talk for weeks on end, and when she does reach out, it’s to do her a favour as if we’re on great terms, and she doesn’t even ask how I am.