How do you deal with being no contact if you know you made mistakes too?
(tl;Dr at the bottom I'm sorry I write long I'm genuinely working on it and I condensed this a lot already).
Last year, before going no contact with my Mom (58), I (34F) had an issue because she does this thing over text that drives me insane. She made an implicit request for emotional labour and I didn't know how to reply so I ignored it and she realized I was ignoring her so she kept sending more texts. As usual, instead of giving me space she kept increasing contact and tactics over the course of 3 weeks to try to provoke me into replying, even after she talked to my siblings and they reassured her I was fine and to give me space. The escalating pressure of new topics, provocative stories, photos, jokes etc made me shut down even more (because funnily enough being pursued and emotionally responsible for someone else's distress does not make you want to contact them). I also have a really bad trigger over this because it mirrors dynamics from past narcissistic abuse that lasted 5+ years.
The therapist I had at the time (who albiet was still new to me and did not have a full history of my relationship with my Mom) told me I should to reply to her and give her a chance to understand what was wrong instead of continuing to practice childhood safety patterns that no longer serve me (avoidance). I spent a really long time writing the response to both the immediate issue but also the deeper patterns in our relationship the were still contributing to the fear and avoidance. I was hoping to become more connected to my Mom by improving communication on things I felt I couldn't say, I wasn't looking to attack her.
Well, the conversation went kind of exactly how I thought it would (which is why I DIDN'T want to say anything), and things exploded emotionally. I made a ton of mistakes with follow up messages where I got too analytical and emotional overloaded. I stopped using the "I statements" from "i feel like this and this is what I need", and analyzed the long-term patterns and childhood wounds that likely came off really overwhelming and accusatory to her. I didn't like, immediately reply to her I genuinely took time to write, (admittedly I did get help with AI) and spent hours trying to make my sentences perfect and not too dense or confusing. I write really badly partially due to my ASD but also because of the narcissistic abuse, so the AI was just to try to condense a lot of my meaning because I tend to be verbose. I feel like I tried really hard to communicate compassionately and acknowledged her own trauma and that she had good intentions and I didn't think she was a bad Mom that I thought she genuinely did her best but that it wasn't enough and that those two don't cross each other out. I told her many times I wanted to have a better relationship and I forgave her already for a lot of the childhood stuff but it's the stuff in adulthood she's still doing that I'm struggling with.
But my Mom could just not handle it. The whole time I cried about it reminded me exactly why I don't tell her how I feel how I don't share anything or have an emotional connection with her. And I still feel so deeply hurt that her response focused more on defending herself and explaining her intentions than trying to understand my emotional experience. I know that's so so so common but I didn't expect her to be SO genuinely defensive and just so uncaring towards my feelings with no curiosity whatsoever. She completely denied my reality at some points in the conversation. But I also know some of that was because of how analytical I got about things.
I'm coming up on a year of no contact with my Mom since that conversation and I've settled into a more reasonable amount of anger with it, anong other regrets about it. I know I'm not wrong about my Mom's abuse growing up (specifically emotional neglect, emotional abuse & coercsive control) that specifically contributed to me having C-PTSD. But despite that, because my message to her wasn't written well and I feel guilty about the way I approached it I feel like all of it was invalid as a result. I just keep thinking if I was better at language or if I had stayed more calm and explained stuff better, that it wouldn't have come off so badly.
I just don't know what to do in this situation because I think I may want a relationship with her but I don't even know if it's possible and I think I'm still grieving that sharing my feelings with her isn't enough to motivate her to actually want to change or care about my emotional safety. My Mom genuinely has gotten a lot better as she got older and I did acknowledge this but it's just so barren of genuine safety and care so it's like how can I have a relationship with you? And I feel endlessly guilty for coming at her which detracts from my goal that part of me wants to try contacting her again but I don't think I have the tools to handle it if it goes the same way.
tl;dr my ex-therapist encouraged me to tell my Mom what wasn't working about our relationship using "I feel statements and I need statements", and I messed up communication by analyzing our deeper patterns and making language mistakes that contributed to my Mom getting defensive, which caused me to go no contact.
Has anyone else dealt with this? How do you go forward (whatever path that may be) if you know you could have done more to try to improve the outcome?