How to talk to an abusive mother

I am 23 years old and in need of some help. I feel like I woke up from a dream some months ago when i understood my mother was abusive towards me.
It started in my early childhood when I would get extreme physical punishments because of things I did or didn't do, because we lived together with my father's parents, which I could never call grandparents, they were more like my enemies. I would get serious beatings with metal sticks or whatever came in handy any time my father's parents told her I did something bad, like "she pressed too hard on the keyboard", "she brought home friends and they made noise" , because my mother wanted to impress her mother-in-law by showing she raised "a perfect person". Any little mistake had to be corrected, because I was not perfect. Anything I did and was not according to my mother's idea of this perfect person, I would get beatings or punishments. The physical part stopped when I was about 12-13 years old.
The emotional abuse... that didn't stop. I don't even know how to describe it. She always told me how much I upset her, how much I disappoint and how much I make her feel ashamed of me. I could not do the smallest thing like buying a shirt without her and not feel guilty about it, because she might not like and tell me how bad my choices were. I spent days just crying, I even attempted suicide at some point or ran away from home just because I could not stand this feeling of guilty worthless human being that I was. The most important part for her was and still is that I do not make her feel ashamed of me. To make her happy, I invented my "house personality", the perfect daughter she always wanted.
There was always this "people" thing, which I don't really understand, something like her family or friends that could see something that would not be ok and could think of me as imperfect and tell her that and she would burn with shame. So she had to beat those deviations out of me.
I was a very good student, had straight As, got into a very good high-school and went to a very good medical university.
Her manipulation did not stop even now though. Because I am busy with college, I can't move out of the house yet and living with her is pure hell. Nothing I do is good enough, I can't even do simple house chores without having her check them and tell me "you are not even capable of doing something like that, are you?".
I am moving from the house in about 4 months, but I would like to just go and tell my mother that she is not ok and that her methods were stupid and that she really hurt me, but I am utterly afraid of that. Really scared of telling her how I really feel, because she might try to trip me into feeling guilty again. Any ideas? Thanks a lot and sorry for the incoherence, it's really hard to put my life events in order on paper.

I'm really really sorry you've been through all of that..
You sound like any parent should be really really proud of you xx

and don't worry, you were really clear and made a lot of sense - it is really difficult to write this stuff down and try to explain to other people how things really were.. you made it really easy to understand though.


I'm not sure how you'd go about telling her.. I never did manage to tell my parents what they'd done to me until a few years after i'd moved out and that was a bit of a disaster..
I think though now that i'm looking back on things - maybe the best place and time for a conversation like that would either have been outside of the house (go for a walk or something with your mother) completely or with another person there as supporter for you - not someone that will join in with speaking, but just someone that will support you afterwards.

Or, perhaps a letter would be helpful.. but maybe leave it until after you've actually moved out in 4 months time.
both talking or writing a letter have the potential to make your situation really really uncomfortable if you do this before you've left there.. I really hope that you're listened to and your mother is able to consider your point of view but be really cautious here please and don't do this if there's even a small chance that she'll treat you badly and say that you're making it up/too sensitive..
we all want our parents to just pause long enough to listen, unfortunately, it often happens that if a parent treats their child this badly, they're also incapable of acknowledging properly what they've actually done - it often gets twisted round and blamed on the child that was hurt.
xx