Highly passive-aggressive. Finally, after much heartache and tears on my part, I just realised that this is the way she is always going to be, how she expresses herself, how she feels about me. And there is never going to be anything I can do to change it. It seems trite somehow to write it like that, but it really was something I simply accepted one day.

Perhaps that was because what I actually accepted was that I wanted some things from her that she was either unwilling or unable to give me. Approval. Kindness. Love. Respect. I wanted them so desperately that I was prepared to blame myself for every painful interaction between us. Perhaps if I behaved better. Perhaps if I were a perfect, model daughter instead of the terrible, evil bitch I had come to convince myself I was.

One day I realised, she wouldn’t give me what I was wanting even if I was perfect. In fact, she’d probably have even more to say. I stopped trying to get the impossible from her. I looked to those who loved me (who had been waiting for this to get through to me for some time already, poor things).

It was hard. I had to remind myself often, sometimes daily, and certainly every few minutes or so when I was around her, that I could not get this from her and that I would not stop hurting until I let it go. Eventually I did and I can tell you this: it was the single best, healthiest thing I have ever done for myself. Ever.