Dear Victoria:

Regarding your fear of your mother I want to share a bit about my own experience of fear of my mother, maybe  it will help the two of us to understand it better, especially in the  context of that verb, murder.

My mother when angry at me threatened  to murder me, using  this very word, murder (in another language), not kill, but murder. There is a difference, the second suggests intent, it is a stronger word.

At nights  sometimes I would lie down and feel that I was  falling into a  bottomless pit, keep falling and falling.

I developed tics, severe motor and  vocal tics (Tourette Syndrome) and compulsions (OCD) that occupied almost every moment  of my waking time as a result of my fear  of her.

She physically attacked me, hit me, slapped me, kicked me, yelled at me, tore my  clothes  to shreds and such, kept me alive, no bones broken, no blood shed. But fear, fear vibrated  through me day after day, night after night, year after year, now decades.

If I was  in  your place, having to choose between my mother as she was and a boyfriend who has never been violent to me, not in words and not in acts, I would definitely choose the boyfriend. I would have a chance then,  in my twenties  (I believe you are in your early/ mid twenties) to become less afraid, and then  less afraid. I will attend therapy, never in contact again with  my mother, and I will relax over time and  practice of skills,  into a reality of less and  less fear.

There  is nothing more distressing  than fear, and ongoing fear does harm the brain, the  nervous system, the  body.

Yes, it would be an easy choice for me, now, looking back, if I had your two choices.

anita