Dear Jessica:

“how can I build something healthy and positive from decades of negative experiences and damage?”- I don’t think you can. Not a good idea to try.

“Past leaking into the Present” because the past is very much recorded in our brain and gets re-activated in the present. Because you had so many years and so much experience with your mother, from such an early age, lots is recorded and lots gets activated and will continue to get activated, this is how the brain works.

Best for you would have been, I believe, to have no contact with her whatsoever. Slowly, with some healing work, the reactivation would lessen, becomes less distressing and your Present will be freer from the Past.

But you don’t see that as an option, you wrote. This is unfortunate. The distress you experience from the presence of your mother in your life may hurt not  only you, but your own relationships with your daughter and husband. What do you think?

anita