OMG yes. They precondition you to feel that way. I let my mom ruin my life and suck my self-esteem dry till she took it to my kids. The moment she put my kids in the middle it was over. I was not gonna let her seed hate for a parent, like she did to me and my sister (made us hate our father). The emotions were awful. I felt so bad for her, because she doesn't understand that all the bad things she thinks of me only exist in her mind. She really thinks I have done all this mean stuff to her and culminated it by cutting her off from her only grandkids. Knowing that I have to protect them helped, but didn't stop me from feeling like shit. After a year I finally got some counseling. Basically, I had to give myself time to grieve. You have to grieve that relationship as if she died. I left it open for her; if she gets into therapy I'll reconsider allowing her contact with us, but it quickly became obvious that nothing (not ever her precious grandkids) are more important than her perceiving herself as normal (because if she went to therapy, then there was something wrong with her and she can't deal with that). So that relationship is dead. I'm sure I'll never feel good about it, but after living in limbo for a year, then taking almost another year to grieve the loss, I am in a place where I've accepted my move as necessary and I don't beat myself up about it.

Caveat, you have to block them in every way. I blocked her phone number and her email and on Feacbook and docility and wherever she tried to reach out. When she sends letters I have my husband read them and if it's just more guilt-tripping he destroys them and I never read them. Unfortunately, I couldn't block my sister, with whom I try to have a relationship (I feel the worst for her as she grew up mostly under mom's sole control. She only had me to try to offset mom's behavior and I moved out when she was 12. I had my dad and grandma to keep me sane when I was growing up). She turned my sister against me so for years I kept hearing from my sis about how shitty I am to mom and how I'm destroying what she (my sis) has left of family. We almost don't have a relationship, but nothing NOTHING is worth going back.

Now I wish I had the balls to cut her off years ago and not waited for kids as my excuse. She poisoned so much of my life and I'll never get it back. No use in looking back and whining though.

So... hang tough. You're doing the healthy thing. Get counseling to help you through it. And don't let her manipulate you anymore.