My mother was neglectful when I was growing up, and my father was an abusive bully. They haven't been together since my early twenties. I could never speak to my father again, he is racist, sexist, homophonic, hateful and cruel, he physically and mentally abused me.
With my mum the neglect manifested in essentially ignoring me for really large chunks of my life. She was very strict with me, to the point it was impossible to get to know one another and she certainly never made no effort to do so. She is a very cold, hateful, judgemental and negative woman with no friendships or passions, I would say also agoraphobic and had her own mental health issues. She had so much rage and I really felt like she hated me growing up, blamed a lot of her problems on me. At some point she stopped doing anything for me and I took on a lot of adult stuff like washing clothes and feeding myself and getting myself to school very early and had jobs from about 13. She and my dad made it clear that i wasn't really welcome in her home. She was disinterested in my life, eg what gcses i did, who I hung around with (tbh a lot of other neglected kids whose parents also weren't checking up on them), and from about 15 I started being groomed by a much older man who was also a drug addict, and well that set the tone for the next few years. But I was clever I did manage to scrap through my A levels to get to uni after they asked me to leave at 18.
Fast forward 20 years and I have had a lot of highs and lows; addictions, eating disorders, toxic relationships, self harm, financial instability, poor mental health, generally being quite reckless and at times unstable, but I have managed to retain a career and friendships, I have got sober, done a lot of therapy, somatic work and have healed so many wounds. I have met an amazing man, we are married now and have two small children, nice house, a business and I have a lot of love and great community around me having moved far away from my family of origin.
I have kept low contact with my mum, she knows v little about my life and it has been an extremely superficial relationship for as long as I remember, i mean its never not been that. From pregnancy with my first child she began to be unhelpful and mean to the point it was affecting my mental health. She really upset me at my wedding also. Since having kids I realise the full extent of her neglect and have had a lot of flashbacks and have been diagnosed with complex ptsd. I decided I needed a break from her completely, so I could learn how to be a mother without her judgement and influence. I have done a lot of work with therapists and healers to get to the point where I do forgive her, and have empathy, she is obviously neuro diverse herself and had a traumatic childhood of her own, she is definitely very emotionally immature, definitely has mental health issues (traumatic birth with me and undiagnosed PND which I am not sure she ever recovered from) and has a small emotional bandwidth. In a way I think she does love me but I also get the feeling - and have done forever - that there is part of her that hates and resents me, and there's something quite sadistic about her, that scares me. I don't trust her tbh. I haven't gone into detail here about all her wrong doings but there are lots more.
Anyway i have given her the top line as to why I was unhappy during childhood and how this impacted me and have told her i forgive her. I wanted to avoid character assassinations because I don't know where that will get us. But she says she needs more info as to what she did wrong as she doesn't understand what she is being forgiven for. She has always shut me down and has obviously done no self reflection in the two years we have not spoken. For me, I have let it go, I am a busy mum to young kids, I don't want to go over it again and retraumatise myself again.
We haven't spoken in two years, she has never met my second child. Nor made any attempt. I got in contact to let her know she is forgiven, to say let's move on, do you want to see the kids as I know she is not in great health and I wanted to give her this opportunity. Yet again she wants me to justify why I feel the way I feel. I have said I don't want to go there and let's focus on the kids and future generations. She has not responded.
I am just wondering if I should just walk away now? She has never been a mother to me, so I am not missing anything and my own family are more than enough for me. It was more for her than me.
I just wanted some advice on how I proceed and move on whilst protecting my own energy.