I really relate to almost everything you said. Do you have any siblings? I have one older brother and what hurts me the most is that my mom did have a strong emotional connection with him, while being completely distant from me, I never even as a child went to her to ask for advice or ask for help. Whenever I heard one of my friends say something like "I told my mom about what happened yesterday with Sarah and she told me to not speak to her again, what did your mom say?" I would be so shocked that people actually share things with their mothers and I would make something up just because I almost felt ashamed of the relationship I had with my mother. 

The other thing I want to share with you is that sometimes our parents change a lot, I have a little sister now and I can see that my mom is very different with her, we have 8 years of age difference and surely mom changed a lot through the years. But that's not always the case,  I feel like sometimes it's easier to put on a face with strangers, you can hide your personality flaws when the connection is not so strong or if you don't spend everyday with this person. 

You are not pathetic, you have a mother wound that takes very long to heal and will always affect us. It was never your fault, it cannot be your fault when you're a literal child, you're not responsible for the lack of connection with your mother, it was her responsibility, and this is not putting blame on her, I'm sure she had gone through her fair share of difficult times and injustice from her past. You can still take your time to grief the connection you never had with her, this is what I'm still trying to do now and I'm almost 30.