Question from an adult daughter: My mother wasn't a nasty, abusive mother, but she didn't protect me or my brother from my father who (due to C-PTSD/personality disorder) was intolerant and verbally abusive. As well, she was "politely" neglectful. From age five it was up to me to get myself to school on a public bus. I went to five schools before I was 12, and when I had an eating disorder age 16, I went to the hospital alone. She was too busy to collect me after a day of grueling...

Question from a reader: I’m in an endless battle with a narcissistic mother. Despite almost three years of therapy and years of inner work, the psychological damage that I have continues to fester, and I feel I am losing control of a life I never even figured out how to live. I’m also a writer, although my work lives in the notes app on my iPad. How do I stop letting this thought – I’ll only have peace when she’s dead – paralyze me? It can’t be true. Dear Adult Daughter... You're right, it's...

Your mother probably taught you that lying is wrong... ...so why is it so hard to have a honest connection with her? Why can you just tell her the truth about what's okay and what's not okay? What you are willing and not willing to do in the relationship? Rather than people-pleasing her? If you currently people-please her, it's not because you're weak and pathetic. It's not a "you" problem. It's because you were taught, like most of us, that being pleasing is safer than being honest. Her...