When they were around my mom, she was the coolest mom anyone knew. She made the most mouth-watering desserts. She was HILARIOUS and even outlandish in many scenarios. She was over-hospitable and generous in every way. She’d take me out with my friends and pay for their movie, their dinner, their shopping sprees…She was the mom that all of my friends wanted, or so they thought.

The unfortunate thing is that my mom probably should have been going to therapy her entire life — but she never did. The result has been pretty destructive to our relationship, and her relationship to everyone else as well.

Behind closed doors growing up, she damned me to hell routinely. I really wasn’t a bad kid at all, but she grounded me for anything she could think of: getting a B in a class, making her late to church, or simply disapproving of my father doing all of her papers for her when she went back to college.

She has no filter on her mouth. She’s the most critical person I know and it’s evident to everyone around her that she really does say things solely to hurt other people on a regular basis. She has no problem using racial slurs and calls me a ‘back slider’ when I tell her she’s a racist. She torments me daily over when I’ll get married (despite the fact that I don’t want to and I’ve made that clear). My father has had two heart attacks and she still refuses to buy healthier food for him, even when he asks her to. And no, she doesn’t have a job…but she totally controls my father’s money…even to the point of checking his receipts on a daily basis. It goes on and on and on and on.

Sometimes we have a nice time together. Sometimes she makes me laugh and insists on taking care of me. And even once in a while..she tells me that she loves me.

I feel guilty, however, about my feelings toward my mother. More or less, I think she needs serious help, but even beginning to approach that conversation with her leads to full out war…we’ve all tried this already. I know I’m not the only daughter out there wondering why I can’t get along with my mother…so are they any others on here? Do any of you girls always clash with your mother no matter how hard you try to be friends?