For those who are only children that grew up with single moms, I am wondering if there is someone that can relate and maybe give advice for how they healed or at least knew that they were not seriously messed up by this relationship. Today I (32F) was on vacation with my mom (60) in a small town and she didn't sleep well. We only have one day in this town and it was scheduled to start raining at noon, so I said I wanted to check out a highly recommended preserve area before the rain and also get food - I had looked up a bunch of good restaurants to try.
On the way there she mentions she doesn't have an appetite since she didn't sleep well so I assumed she wasn't hungry, so I took us to the preserve first. It turned out to be a 3 mile flat trail (literally through horse fields), which was longer than we both expected, but she didn't say anything so we hiked it through to the end. We had a traumatic experience with an unexpected river crossing (required taking shoes off and walking through shallow water) which was not in the reviews and I didn't know, and my mom was not happy about this (asian lady, likes to stay clean/warm, not outdoorsy). Then, we went home and cleaned up and went to a restaurant, but it was raining pretty hard now and the line was super long and it was unclear if there were even available tables and the menu was also confusing so I decided to check out another place. The other place was a 5 min drive away so we got there and as we were looking at the menu, she suddenly blew up in public and went on a rant about how food is so important to me and why I always have to eat organic and blah blah blah (the restaurant happened to have organic ingredients, i didn't even know. it was just a highly recommended place in this hippie-ish town). She slams the menu on the counter next to the cashier and attempts to storm out of the restaurant and says she's going back home to the east coast (she's visiting me in california and we were in a california town for vacation a few hours away). She refuses to order and instead buys a banana. I manage to get a hold of her backpack so she doesn't just walk away and eventually she calmed down but still (even now) does not apologize for blowing up in public. She blames it on me for making such a big deal out of food and says if it's raining and we're tired we should just eat whatever (which is a personal choice), but she did not voice any of this and when I ask her to communicate her needs, she says shes afraid I will say no.
This gives me flashbacks to one holiday time she chased me to the bathroom with a knife because i opened my christmas gift early. I was in middle school. When I brought this up today, she says it's because I was crazy and drove her to that limit.
I also sometimes have nightmares or flashes of thoughts of my mom doing something crazy. During the pandemic, she threatened suicide at her lowest point ( but a lot of people in the pandemic were suffering) since she lives alone.
I feel completely stuck because I don't really have any other family and I'm an only child/no siblings. I absolutely resent her behavior, but also she raised me on her own and when she doesn't blow up like this, she's obviously a very dutiful mother and flew all the way across the US to help me move several times this year. I'd like to know if this is within the realm of normal difficult family dynamics that everyone has but doesn't often talk about or if I should be seriously concerned that this has impacted me in ways I can't even remember (I do not remember a lot of my childhood interactions since the past few years, esp pandemic, have been rough / full of changes). And yes, I've been going to therapy since 2015 (have seen many therapists, have tried many types of therapy/meditation/whathaveyou) but feel stuck in that I kind of know/understand everything but not sure how I can "move forward" or how I can tell that Im OK or not?