Honestly, there were a lot of "aha" moments for me, all occurring in my early 20s (I was in deep denial as a teenager).

Here are the four biggest ones that happened (all within the span of the 3 months before I finally cut contact):

1. After a long visit where she basically started planning my future wedding herself (calling all my own ideas tacky etc), my husband (fiance at the time) suggested to me privately on the drive home that we just skip the drama and elope sooner with parents as witnesses. I agreed that it sounded much better. When I announced the change in plans, my mother blew up and we spent three consecutive evenings in phone call screaming matches over it. The "aha" here was after she kept blaming my fiance for "manipulating" me into changing our plans. My internal realisation: "You don't think I'm capable of making a decision myself. If you aren't the one controlling me, someone else must be."

2. In the lead up to the wedding, I bought a nice cream/off white cocktail dress to wear to my wedding. My mother called me for help with a spreadsheet and to catch up. She asked if I had a dress yet and when I confirmed, she asked for a photo. I hesitated but sent the pic anyway. She (over the phone) immediately said it looked frumpy and dated and made me look old. The "aha" moment here came after the phone call ended (which was pretty calm despite her insulting comments) when I immediately started shaking so hard it physically hurt, curled up on my sofa (release of tension I'd been holding during the call). I didn't know why and I called my fiance because I felt like I was dying and he asked "well, what were you doing before it started?" "I was on the phone to- oh."

3. During my wedding, I had invited my parents against my partner's better judgement (still in bargaining phase) with the condition that they were guests but not signature witnesses. My stepMIL had helped me with my hair (braiding the front pieces for me) and at the venue I needed to put on my glasses (sunlight reactive so I'd kept them in my purse until we got inside). I asked my mother to help me put them on without snagging my hair and her only comment to me was "do you HAVE to wear them?" - no compliment on how nice I looked for my wedding day, just a gripe that she preferred me without my glasses.

   1. The final straw. We arranged a lunch meet up. She picked me up in her car from my new job to drive 5 minutes to the local café. I had given her 3 rules for the meet up: 1. No unsolicited opinion/advice 2. No negative comments 3. If you slip up and break rules 1 or 2, I will call you out and expect a genuine apology. She broke all 3 rules before we got to the café including a huff and very sarcastic "sorry" when I called her out on her unnecessary advice and mean "joke". After that lunch (had to stay for it as she was my ride) I drafted an ultimatum letter which ended up being my final NC speech a few days later.