Ever since my childhood, she has been completely unable to cope with anyone coming home late or comparable minor events where you are out of control and there is a slim possibility of catastrophe - we're talking things like 10 minutes late getting home here. She makes a scene, calls the police, but most of all just makes everyone's life a misery. This would happen at least once a week throughout my childhood. On larger topics, her low self-esteem seemed to project itself on to what she thought of her children. She is obsessed by the class system (a grammar school girl's fears of the secondary modern crowd and a yearning to have a brother at Eton). So for 8 years she fixated on a family we knew as a sort of substitute fantasy family - discussing the ins and outs of their lives at every meal in sickening detail. They had no idea! As for her own children, she always thought we were not good enough because we had not gone to private school. When I split up with a boyfriend she would say "why do all these men reject you?". An awful thing to say, but she loves me, and wouldn't actually want to hurt me - it's as if she was saying to me what she felt about herself and presumed would be my life too.
I'm 38 now so only just able to process all the misery we went through. I'm lucky - my parents are not abusive - or certainly not intentionally. But wondered if anyone else was similar.