NC for this.
I had a pretty crap childhood. My DF left my not so DM when I was 9 and that's when the abuse started. My mother couldn't cope with bringing me and my sister, who's 2 years older, up on her own and started beating us if we so much as talked back. I got the worst of it as I would react to her abuse by shouting and calling her names. She would drag me by my hairs (handfuls would come out), punch me, bite me, kick me etc. She would tell me that she wished I'd never been born. The abuse wasn't daily. Sometimes a week or more would go by without one of her outbursts. When things were normal she'd almost behave like a normal mother. Then I would do something like tidy the house (she was very messy) and she'd come home and let rip, shouting abuse at me and beating me up, because 'she couldn't find her stuff'. Other times it would be because I was being a teenager and called her a horrible name (not proud of that). However (now) I think I was a pretty normal teenager. Talking back etc. I never did drugs, played truant, got into trouble with the law etc. Once, when I was about 9 or 10, I was eating a yoghurt and Iaccidentally spilled some on the carpet. She grabbed my head and pushed my face in the yoghurt, whilst screaming at me. She started laughing when I began to cry, brushing it off, as my fault for having spilled the yoghurt. All this time I thought it was my fault that she treated me like that. Well actually I didn't know my life wasn't normal as it was all I had known. The abuse stopped when I was 16 when I slapped her, when she came storming at me again, with her fists clenched. I went mental, shouting at her that I would never let her hurt me again. She just turned and went back to her room. And then called my father to complain about me to him (he never knew, I never told him until later in life. I was ashamed I guess). I sank into a deep depression at 18 but climbed out of it and now I'm doing pretty well. I have a career I love and am happily married. Weirdly I forgot (suppressed) my mother's abuse after she stopped. Until my mid twenties and it all came back. I then went into counselling and decided to go NC with her. Best decision I ever made. I almost lost contact with my sister too as she denies what happened and/or believes that anything that did happen was my fault for 'being naughty'. My mother once strangled me underneath the kitchen table and my sister had to pull her off me. I don't know why or how she has forgotten all of this but I guess it's a coping mechanism.
Anyhow, I haven't seen my mother for over 10 years. Now my sister is getting married, at the end of the year. And I want to be there (my sister wants me to be there too). Thing is, I am absolutely dreading seeing my mother there. I just know that when I see her I will be reduced to a 9 year old girl again who believes she got what she deserved. I know logically that the abuse isn't my fault but it's very hard to remove myself from the child in me who was always told it was my fault. So part of me still believes it. This isn't helped by the fact that I heard that my mother went crying to the rest of the family and her friends after I went NC with her, saying she didn't understand why her daughter had abandoned her. A lot of people (not all, both my GM believed me) sided with her as they'd never seen that cruel side of her that I'm so familiar with. I am scared I will be ganged up on at the wedding, by my mother, her brother (whose children have also gone NC with him, it runs in the family I guess) and her new DH, that I will get sneered at and be told I am a terrible daughter. I am scared that if she starts talking to me and pretending she's the victim I will crumble. Cry, or shout.
My aibu is, would ibu to send an email to my mother before the wedding, along the lines of: 'if you feel any regret at all for what you've done, stay away from me. You can tell others what you like about the reason I went NC with you, but you and I both know the truth'. But a bit longer and more eloquent than that of course. I just want her to know that she is the one in the wrong, and that it doesn't matter how she spins what happened between us to other people, I will never ever forget what happened, or forgive her. Most of all, I don't want her to think that my sister's wedding is an opportunity to rekindle any relationship we might have had. I need her to stay away from me. I'm so scared of losing my composure and doubting myself, being unable to get the right words out, if I have to confront her face to face.
I'm sorry this is so long!