Seek...I admire your efforts to raise your interactions with AND feelings about your mother to a higher level. My mother has become somewhat less toxic now that she is 80 but it is still wise to keep the contact down to a minimum.

You know, at one point, I began to see/feel that continuing to go around my mother and subjecting myself to her abuse was no different than women who stay in an abusive relationship with a spouse and I just stopped seeing and talking with her for a long time. Eventually, the contact resumed and I found quickly that the less frequent the contact, the less frequent the abuse. Sad but true.