I tagged emotional support because it's the most general one I could find. I'm seeking advice from anyone who has it. Content warning for childhood sexual abuse, neglect and emotional abuse.

Altogether, I feel like I've lost ten years of my childhood and ten years of my adulthood to trauma. My mother was a narcissist, probably because she had undiagnosed ADHD and autism, and she she came from an abusive household. She was an alcoholic for the first part of my life, and when she got into recovery she became way worse. She became utterly dogmatic and spent all her time talking about it. I was exposed to her emotional anxiety at a really young age. I know she was trying her best to end a cycle of family trauma.

When I was a kid, she started dating an old friend from high school. Eventually they got married. He sexually abused me for years. I found out after I came forward as a survivor (at the age of 28) my mother knew he had been on trial for molesting another little girl before they started dating. She knew the whole time. She was so blinded by her need to root for the underdog that she took the risk to expose me to a fucking monster.

My mother did a lot of good things for me. She worked and raised me as a single mom for a long time, she was the breadwinner, she worked her way up from nothing and left me with enough that I don't have to work. She also set the framework for my own ability to work through my baggage. She died in a car accident last year and we were never able to repair our relationship.

Clearly I still blame my mother for a lot of what happened to me. I know that the deep divide between us came from my step father - abuse like that can only work if nobody talks to each other.

There are other deep wounds caused by my mother that she never apologized for. I don't know why it's harder for me to forgive her than it is for me to let go of the actual abuse of my step father. Maybe it's easier to rationalize as him being a monster. He plead guilty and went to jail. He's on a list, and he is not part of my life. I haven't seen him or spoken to him in almost a decade. Maybe I was hard on my mum because she was the one who was there to hear it.

I have good support systems now, and a great therapist. I just wonder if every day is going to be a struggle to let it go all over again so I can live my life and not be the same hyperobsessive narcissist my mother was. It's so hard to choose to not to wallow and let every resentment I have excuse every decision I make. I feel like I'm trapped and it's sabotaging my ability to be the version of my self I want to be. Does anyone have any experience with this? Thanks for sticking around if you managed to get through it.