Dear Girija:

Take your time responding. As to your worry that maybe you are the histrionic one, exaggerating your experience, two comments:

(1) Maybe you do exaggerate your experiences from time to time, who hasn’t? Exaggerating is not unique to your mother. I too exaggerated my experiences at times, earlier in my life.  What I look into is patterns of behaviors that persist over years and decades (such as the histrionic pattern). Your mother regularly, and throughout the years of your childhood and onward, exaggerated her negative experiences, aimed at having unfair power over you for the duration of your childhood and adulthood. It doesn’t mean that she always exaggerated, and that she always aimed at having power over you. Maybe she had her moments of affection and fairness. But her dominant behavior toward you, dominant by far, has been power-seeking and abusive.

(2) The identity of a daughter is closely tied to the identity of her mother (in the daughter’s mind). It is natural that you will be confused between the two. The more you understand who your mother really is, the more you will understand who you really are. When you are able to successfully separate the two identities, your mental health will greatly improve!

anita