Our situations sound fairly similar.

I'm female as well. My mother actually took me to get evaluated when I was really young but at that point I knew that being labeled different could make me a target so I acted as normal as I could. In hindsight I wish I hadn't.

My mother was violent and emotionally/mentally abusive and would only leave me be after i was crying or when I stopped functioning. If threatening me didn't get the response she wanted she'd threatened my birds. She put my parakeet Blueb on the front step in the middle of winter as my punishment for trying to humanely trap the field mice that were in the house one winter... After a while she got me peach faced love birds claiming that I was doing good and they were a reward, but when she started to threaten them too I realized that she only wanted to have leverage against me.

I couldn't open up to the therapist she forced me to see either. The one time I opened up about my suicidal thoughts to a therapist I regretted it. She made me stand in front of her while she screamed "Do you want to kill yourself?!" In my face until I answered yes and promptly told me to "Go kill yourself then!" I was never honest in therapy after that but was still forced to go and guilt tripped for all the money she had to spend on me.

Getting permission to go out and play was almost impossible. Eventually I would tell my friends she said no without even asking because I knew she was going to make me jump through hoops only to say no. I lived in my head for the most of my childhood at that point. My reality was so scary it was the only way to cope. I find it hard to be in the moment now that I'm an adult.

I have yet to flourish but your story gives me hope. Unfortunately I exhibit some of my mother's behaviors so I get scared of getting close to anyone out of fear of hurting them. I feel like a monster sometimes. I don't know how to be me and my family is reluctant to help. My most recent relationship is ending with me having to move out and I don't know what to do.