Mother in Journal

I am constantly thinking about how my life relates to my relationship with my mom. This has become glaringly obvious to me since I read a journal entry from this time last year;
“I entered the house and stood there awkwardly while mom busied herself with chopping carrots, bustling to and fro about kitchen, and seemingly doing anything and everything except looking at me. I was not going to get a hug, nor a greeting.”
It became painfully apparent that I was not only basing my response and reaction to my own needs based on how my mom behaves, but whether or not I am allowed to have any needs to begin with!
I am still doing this. If not with my real mom, who is for now cut off from contact, then with the Inner Mom, who is always and forever with me.
I had a chance to speak with Inner Mom just a few days ago. She was vicious and snarling when I first met her; much like my real mom. Yet at the end of our conversation, she was not hostile, but a strict moral Judge with high standards and a real need for accountability. I keep you accountable. she told me. That is actually a incredibly important role.
She has been instrumental in showing me the differences between an impartial Judge and my real mom. I’ll use one example.

My real mom has told me many times that roles are very important to her- perhaps more important than the people that fill them. She loves her mother because she is her mother, and for no other reason. There are a multitude of reasons that mom should hate her mother. Yet, she continues to serve her, wait on her hand and foot, take care of her, etc, etc.
When I asked mom if she thought she deserved my forgiveness, she told me unhesitatingly yes. Why? I asked. Because I am your mother. she told me.
And… when I bring up some concern that I have over how she is to me, how I feel that her mothering has in some way caused me pain, she not only feels that I am attacking her, but that I am a bigger problem than she is. “You didn’t pay any attention to me at that party- it was like you were intentionally trying to hurt me.” she told me recently, after I voiced a concern to her.

So, says my Inner Mom. Our mom is irrationally clinging to the role of mom, and fundamentally unable to fill that role. She cannot even acknowledge that she isn’t filling that role. She can only attack any source of discomfort. Because to cling to the belief that she deserves love because of her role, and fail to fulfill that role, is insanity.

What’s more. She not only falls short in fulfilling her role, but insists that I make up for the difference.
I cannot mother you; I cannot be what you need because I have those same needs. Therefor, you will mother yourself, and also you will fulfill my needs. That is the only way that I will feel somewhat whole again.

At any rate. I did not actually find that our interactions at that birthday party, nor at a more recent family event, were lacking in any way. They were kind, courteous, respectful. And despite her continuing show of pitiful sad rejection, I wholly prefer it to any one-on-one interaction with her.
I think that I can soften my boundaries slightly in that I feel somewhat comforted that she is not going to make a scene in public. She won’t attack me. She won’t scowl and scream and call me names. Seeing her in public seems like the best compromise.