Didn’t mean to make it sound obligatory! And yes, I gave a relationship with my mother a final try. I set boundaries, which of course she crossed and now and very low contact with her. I myself had a lot of residual emotions left over from my childhood yearning for her to be the parent I needed. When she couldn’t live up to my (admittedly unjustified) expectations I was crushed. I understand now that I was only entitled to having a loving well adjusted parent in childhood. It’s up to me to provide myself with the parenting and self love I never received growing up, not my sick mother’s. If I could do it again I would approach the relationship tentatively and with a more open heart and mind that was less clouded by so much past hurt. I wasn’t in that place then, so her inevitable spirals left me gutted all over again.