Dear Miss:

“my mom comes in to sabotage me… the interaction leaves me feeling sad, negative, and like she’s laid the hammer down. To stop me…. hacking away at me… It’s like she puts this energy in me, and I can tell I’ll be behaving in a destructive way as a result”-

– “How do I protect myself?”- same way you protect yourself from any person who rains on your parade of life, remove that cloud from its position above you by moving out and no longer living with her, and then, stay away from her, do not volunteer to be in her presence.

A  mother is too much of a powerful figure in her child’s mind and life because a child is being formed during those formative years of childhood with the interactions with her mother integrated into the child’s brain. In other words, however your mother is “hacking away at” you, you are likely to be hacking away at yourself when you are not longer living with her or being in her presence.

So two things are needed: to stop the damage by not being in her presence and then if you find yourself doing her job against yourself, attend quality psychotherapy so to function better and better in life.

anita