Hi Anon
re your comment:-
"She has behaved better recently so I thought that I could reach her. Basically, with nice words, asked her to please treat me like an individual, treat me with respect, like an adult. She reacted like I had said something absolutely horrible to her".
Yep, that is typical narcissistic type behaviour from your mother as well. I did not even have to read the second part of your sentence initially because I knew what was coming next.
Your mother's basically made you in her mind an extension of her, no wonder you have problems working out who you are. She trained you to serve her needs.
BACP are good but you need to find someone who fits in with your approach, the first one may not be the right one for you. Also you need to find someone who has no familial bias about keeping families together despite the presence of mistreatment.
It is not possible to have a relationship with a narcissist and your mother will never be the mother you want her to be. She will not ever alter. It is NOT your fault she is the way she is; you did not make her this way.
I would also suggest you look at the website entitled "Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers" as this could help.
This excerpt may help you as well:-
"Children of narcissists keep trying, as if by bonding with narcissists we could somehow cure our narcissistic parents by finding the key to their heart. Thus, we've been trained to keep loving people who can't love us back, and we will often tolerate or actively work to maintain connections with narcissistic individuals whom others, lacking our special training, find alienating and repellent from first contact, setting ourselves up to be hurt yet again in the same old way. Once narcissists know that you care for them, they'll suck you dry demand all your time, be more work than a newborn babe and they'll test your love by outrageous demands and power moves. In their world, love is a weakness and saying "I love you" is asking to be hurt, so be careful: they'll hurt you out of a sort of sacred duty. They can't or won't trust, so they will test your total devotion. If you won't submit to their tyranny, then you will be discarded as "no good," "a waste of time," "you don't really love me or you'd do whatever I ask," "I give up on you." (Note: In many instances, narcissists' demands are not only outrageous but also impossible to fulfill even if you want to please them. Plus if you actually want to do what they want you to do, that would be too much like sharing, so they won't want it anymore.)
If you've had a narcissist for a parent, you are probably not afraid of dying and going to hell -- you have lived hell on Earth. Narcissists cannot be satisfied and do a tremendous amount of damage to their children and partners in their relentless demand for a perfect outer appearance to reflect the perfect inner image that obsesses them. Kyrie eleison".