My mom is kind of like yours. She depended on me emotionally while I was growing up (NOT healthy!), and always guilted me into "being nice" and following her rules. I didn't realize how completely co-dependent my mother is until I started moving out and being around other people for a change (uber-religious cultism there, too). As I learned about healthy boundaries and how badly I was enabling my mother's co-dependency, I started to set boundaries with her. I did have to deal with the pity parties, the excess guilt, the whining and crying spells, but I held firm to my boundaries. I'm the CHILD, not the adult in this relationship! Now, as an adult child, she understands that I still need some of the emotional parenting and support I never got, and sometimes I can be there for her when she needs me too, but I'm not her SOLE support anymore, and I don't expect her to be mine either. This has helped to balance out the relationship a little bit, although she still tends to be very controlling about what I'm allowed to do when I live at my parents house. That's something we may have an opportunity to work on later :-)
Since my mother never really had good emotional support for us kids, I've been having to learn about what that looks like in the healthy world. And my relationship with my mother, while strained (she still goes off on uber-religious rants), is better than it has been for my whole life. I flat-out told her one day that "other people are not responsible for your happiness, only you are" and "This family can't be everything you need emotionally. You need to find social supports elsewhere". She cried, but once she processed what I was saying, she took charge of her own emotional life and found happiness outside our nuclear family. I'm so proud of her, even if I can't stand interacting with her for very long.
Setting boundaries with parents can be extremely difficult, especially those of us raised in cults or if we have any kind of C-PTSD type issues. be prepared for explosive and juvenile displays, passive-aggression (if she's calling you out with that when you're setting healthy boundaries, its probably projection on her part), maybe even getting kicked out of the house. But honestly, at this point, is losing contact for a while really that bad a punishment? I usually RELISH the time I don't have to deal with my mother's issues! Once the boundaries are established and holding firm, she just may change her tune. Or she might not. That's the risk we take to expect healthy treatment in relationships. We are worth standing up for ourselves. We have every right to find happiness and peace in this life, just like any other human being on this planet. NO ONE is more or less worthy of respect than anyone else, ourselves included!
Wishing you peace and progress on your journey.
