"Nobody can pit you down without your consent"

[xJoyfulCalmWisdomx]

Is this still true if it's your mother projecting everything from paranoia, anger, sensitivity, insanity and entitlement on to you?

Could I ever get to a place where I could be so unaffected by her low opinion of me that I could merrily talk about the garden and the weather?

I can cope with strangers' low opinions of me. I can cope with not being liked by everybody. I was raised to be a people pleaser and I bend with the wind far less now. This has been good for me with relationships friendships, at work..... but my entire family hates me now. The only version of me that isn't selfish and abusive is the old one that would have apologised for the bad feeling they caused when they hurt me again

What am I asking? I don't know. I feel like I'm at a crossroads. Do I give up forever and leave them alone as they hurtful leave me alone in punishment for saying they hurt me, or do I just die a little on the inside and play the part they need me to play. The part of crazy emotional angry middle aged daughter. But have the outward bad feeling resolved a bit.

I am none of those things when I'm away from them.

I was in a similar situation once.

I cut contact with some of the family, it is still sometimes hard for me but then I think about pros and cons in detail.

It took about a year but I trained my mother on what she’s not allowed to say to me. I would tell her she is not respecting me and hang up. Ashamed to say I was not always calm and screamed. She eventually learnt. She lives overseas so contact mostly on the phone which I think helped me.

I also had a therapist, ostensibly to help me with divorce, but mother ended up being the root cause of where I learnt behaviours.

Now, importantly, therapy validated my feelings. Which meant I became stronger and didn’t need them to understand what I was feeling or why. That freed me from being the crazy emotional person.

Put yourself first.
Dying a little each time you interact is no way to live.

That saying isn't meant to imply you stick around and magically become immune to the poison.
It doesn't mean you somehow try hard enough and find your feelings are hardened to the bile that spews forth.

It means you don't tolerate being disrespected.
With some people, that would mean telling them off and establishing boundaries which they then accept and respect. A glance, a sharp word, a calm discussion whatever form the rebuke takes but the result is the disrespect stops.
With some people this will never happen no matter how firmly you draw the boundaries and for those people not tolerating their put downs takes the shape of cutting yourself out of their life.

So people either treat you right or lose you. That's what it means.

I could have written your OP and In fact only today have I been thinking about the bigger picture and what to do.

I think for me, helpful for you or not, it'll be basically cutting off all unnecessary contact. With all of them.

It sounds like you don't like nor feel good about the person they make you become- with good reason it sounds. Don't allow them that power anymore.

I don't think that saying's true at the best of times, it's a bit victim-blamey, isn't it? Like it's up to the person to be impervious to hurt, not on the abusive party not to be a dick.

But anyway, it sounds like it's emotionally healthier for you to be low to no contact. It's not a painless or easy choice, it's kind of weighing up the personal costs. You could probably restart contact if it ended up feeling worse.

Thank you for all of these thoughts.

I have reacted with a lot of anger at not being heard/ being stonewalled and it made me angrier again that they wouldn't acknowledge the connection between shutting somebody down and their anger.

So if I coukd do it again I'd do it differently but bottom line, they have been determined not to hear me and they have succeeded.