Well, I would say things are at an all time low.

My mother curses at me for walking away from my family in favour of a stranger, and I can't help but wonder, why on earth would I walk towards her? I've done nothing unduly hostile towards the rest of my family, except block them from my photos: because she would not stop using that situation to attack me. It's between her and I. Just like when I was a child and my mother and brother were at near constant state of war; she tried every method of using me as leverage against my brother. As she often worded it, we were a "Packaged deal" and he wasn't allowed access to me unless he chose her as well. Ain't it a peachy family I grew up with? Damn she even leveraged my father ordering it as often as her packaged deal crap. Present day, every now and then I get bitched at because I have little to do with my brother. He now lives 70 miles away. Well guess what, when he lived 200 feet away I was regularly forbidden from having anything to do with him without being given much pain for trying to. We've more or less been grown into our present relationship, by our mother, because that is what she wanted for years, and expressed on more occasions than I can enumerate. Just because they're at peace now is magically supposed to change something there? That is ridiculous! It changes nothing that my turning 18 didn't. Now she makes efforts to do the same bologna with bringing extended family into the affair. I don't care. 95% of my extended family have nothing to do with me 100% of the year: her GOD parents and occasionally my father's sister. It's not a weapon, it's just words she can throw. My mother is a small and hateful person in private. I and the girl I love have been verbally abused and slandered enough that I am no longer on speaking terms with my mother until an apology is issued wich is about as likely as being hit by a meteor. And I have no intentions of changing that decision what so ever, my concious will not be bothered in the least if that lasts for life. Some time ago I learned the meaning of "A hater is going to hate", because that's how my mother is. She doesn't know how to love or care past her own concerns, not in my experience over twenty some years. I gave my mother nearly seven years of my life, as unpaid labour in her under the table cleaning business. I put up with her trying to crush my efforts to get a driver's license and a real job; I tolerated her hatred for me finding a truly awesome job and her attempts to derail it; I paid her more than I could afford out of my income, never asking for a dime back; I skipped moving out so I'd know she'd be O.K. and paid for it, then let her skip paying it back; I have even loaned her money, to the point of skipping my desires and getting in danger of being stranded, and allowed her to borrow enough that I'm not writing it off. But I am not a retard. My mother complains that she didn't get anything out of having kids: since my grace, patience, and mercy are not as great as Mother Teresa, I think maybe she shouldn't of had any then. I once needed antibotics for an abssessed tooth that had my jaw swollen up like a golf ball. That's the kind of condition that can become fatal if left untreated. It's been used against me at every turn she pleases, that she took me to a dentist for that (instead of letting me get worse and die?). I've given her many times the cost of that dentist trip without any expectation of return and loaned her many times more past that, to the point that I need to make it a standard debt just to stop her from using me for a blank check. Every time she has needed to go in for a checkup, I've taken her and lost count of how much I've helped her there in terms of cash. But wait, it's still attempted leverage against me because it fits into her little world view of things. Everything a parent should do in that type of regard, is used against me and I'm treated like the scum of the earth when I help her. I don't think my mother can love or care for anyone because it seems like nothing can get past her shelfishness, or maybe I'm the only one that thinks you have to care more about someone else than your own interests, at least some of the time. Is that being a loving and caring parent? I don't think so. I think maybe my mother could use mental help but I'll be damned if I'm paying this time.