As I was reading about leaving a toxic relationship with one's mother and it brought back so many dreaded memories of the time that I was trying to get out of non-functional at best and abusive at worst marriage. As I read through the article by a psychologist talking about a client and came to these lines: "She: I will lose all my relatives one by one. Nobody understands I am victim of a toxic mother. They will believe my mother and that I left her when I became independent ." ... it brought back the memory of my ex-mother in law shouting at me over phone! "You are such an ungrateful wretch! You are selfish beyond any imagination. I must say that you can't think of anyone else but yourself. Just because you now earn more than him now, you want to leave him!" I stood holding the phone in shock! I always thought of her as a well educated woman who clearly saw I had much more empathy than her own son as she clearly prefered me over him to take care of her wh