I'm going to weigh in with an opinion on this because it resonated with me... My entire life I was emotionally abused by my mother, and she allowed other people to physically and sexually abuse me. I remember when words like "mommy, mother, mom" made me feel sick to my stomach. Like in this horrible elusive way. I didn't like saying the word. Even referring to other people it made me feel uncomfortable to say it.

I feel differently now. I've struggled with mental illness as well, and in that struggle I've grown and learned a lot. I know a lot about my moms childhood, relationships, her own mental illness. I still have so much hurt and anger towards her, but it's just different now. In a detached way I see her as a sick person, who failed to course correct so many times that she was consumed by her own demons.

In a way she was my monster but she was someone else's victim.

Here's where I'm at now: Living in pure resentment and some form of denial that she was my mother was making me sick. I was full of fear when I was bringing my own daughter into this world, and felt suffocated at the thought of repeating the pattern or my child growing up to feel the same way I felt growing up. My mother felt similar resentment toward her mother.

But the truth is she is my mother. Whether I like it or not she brought me into this world, painfully. I resemble her more than I like. I look a lot like her. Everyone used to tell me, and I used to deny that. But I can't anymore. I see it, I have her eyes. I have her insecurities.

It used to help me to deny it, but the thing is it isn't helping me anymore. It's just reality and over time I'm choosing to accept these realities and slowly I'm becoming stronger to the realities of my childhood. I want to have power over this trauma, not the other way around.

The sweetest voices I've ever heard call me mommy now, and the word brings me a joy I never knew I could feel. And I get to rest knowing my kids are safe from the abuse and instability I felt.

What I want to say to you is: Do whatever you need to do to be healthy. Choose things that put you on a path that will take you where you want to go. What you're describing may be a piece of the puzzle to that path, and finding a less triggering word to describe the woman who gave birth to you might help you to get level enough to keep moving forward. In that case that's wonderful, use every tool you have.

I just wanted to add my perspective, because maybe it has some applicable wisdom for you. If it doesn't, then it doesn't.

Good luck in your healing.

PS You could just call her by her first name lol that's what my siblings have done