My mother has the ability to make me feel like shite....

[SirSugar]

.. and I have come to realise that the abusive relationships I have involved myself with throughout my life are comparable to the way she behaves towards me, though subtler.

I can only see this now as I am in a much better, healthier place. My mother now believes our relationship is at its lowest ebb ever.

I have no brothers or sisters, my father died 18 years ago. I find the best way is to just agree to whatever she has sat around thinking about all day.

Her most memorable line ever, when I was a teenager, during an argument...'I wish you'd never been born'. Despite this her desire to exercise control over me since I was born has not diminished.

Got to do dinner will be back later

Were people abusing you in these past relationships or were you abusing them?

I don't have much to contribute other than saying that I really understand where you're coming from OP (wrt having a 'difficult' mother-daughter relationship).

Do you live near to her or see her frequently? Maybe you would benefit from moving further away and getting a bit of distance, if that is possible.

Abuse by others. I personally abused myself killed the pain by taking drugs, notably a twenty year addiction to painkillers which I recently kicked by going cold turkey.

Regret your toxic mum, and mine. I read a book which helped - Will I ever be good enough? healing the daughter's of narcissistic mothers.

Haven't got much time for self help books tbh, but it really made a difference reading it and realising it actually wasn't that abnormal and a lot of people have much worse.