I shudder to think how many mothers there are out there like ours.
It is funny you wrote “mommy dearest”. My mother was exactly like how Joan Crawford was portrayed in the movie. Bat s**t crazy, and unbelievably abusive. But without the money or fame.
That movie felt like a documentary to me.
I grew up thinking that all mothers beat their children into submission. It was only after the negative fall-out from the book “Mommie Dearest” did I realize that beating your child is not the norm and that my mother was pure evil. As I got older and became numb to her physical and emotional abuse, she punished me by beating my dog until he yelped in pain. Sick, sick, sick.