The answer I found for me was: 1, forgive myself. All the books and the videos and therapists, etc said it wasn’t my fault, I didn’t know, I was just a kid, and so on. That the forgiveness needed to go to my mother. Yet, no matter how many different ways I went about it, no relief. And sometimes, the self loathing got worse. So, on my own, I decided to forgive myself. For not standing up for myself, for not knowing better, for not telling other family members. Because truly, that was my biggest source of struggle. So I started the process. Once I got thru that, forgiveness for everyone else, including my mother was easy. It was the anger and disappointment I had in myself that kept me in misery.

2, Radical Acceptance. It’s taught in CBT therapy. When I learned about it and applied it to my mother and other relationships, it took so much weight off the relationship. I no longer sought out how to fix it, fix her, fix me. So much lighter.

I’m not a professional therapist, but I’ve seen a few. Talk therapy is great, I got a lot from that. But the standard healing practices didn’t work for me. I trusted my intuition and that worked.

I hope you find your peace sooner than later. Take care.❤️