Is it normal that i don't love my mother?
My mother is one of those people that only had children because it's what everyone else was doing.
She's always been a workaholic. As soon as she was able to return to work, she started leaving me every day at my grandma's house. I would stay there from 7 in the morning to 8 in the evening when I was very little. When I started going to school, I would end up there after. Whenever I remember my childhood, the first memories that I can recall are of me at my grandparents' house, alone because they live in the middle of nowhere, or at best doing something with grandma.
The memories I have of my mom during that period only involve her being tired and stressed very late in the night, when she would fix herself something to eat and clean the house as much as she could (I have always suspected she has OCD).
I think this constant and unwanted (from my part) separation severed whatever connection I had with her permanently. I didn't know her, and she didn't know me because we NEVER spent any quality time together, aside from the two weeks of summer holidays.
When I became a teenager and therefore started to spend more time in my own house because I didn't need constant supervision, things went downhill. My mother had no idea how to approach me. She secretly read my diary and went through my computer files several times during those years, because clearly when you have a confused teenager that's what you do to understand what's going on, right? I remember feeling so incredibly violated by those actions, and from then on I wasn't able to trust her in the slightest anymore. I still cringe when I see someone picking up my phone, even if it's to just move it out of the way.
I was an overweight teen, like many are, and eating with my parents was an endless stream of "Are you eating THAT?" "Don't you think you have eaten enough?" "You should lose some weight", "We are only telling you this because we care about your health!".
I ended up with bulimia and lost so much weight I also lost my hair.
By that time (I was 15), I was starting to show a severe anxiety disorder that no one recognized as such. I would have full blown panic attacks at the thought of going to school, and my mother would tell me how I was just lazy and she had to go to work and so I had to do my part. The thing is, I've always had fantastic grades. It was the getting there part that was so difficult for me, as (I know that now), I am prone to social anxiety and depression.
I'm now 24. The relationship with my mother is nonexistent because I simply do not like her. I don't feel the telltale love towards her that I so often read in books and hear from other people. I love my dad, but I don't love my mother. I am annoyed by everything she does. I don't want her coming near me because I hate how her breath smells and how she smells in general. My dad is on a similar page I think, as he avoids her as much as he can, for which of course she blames me. Because according to her, everything would've been perfect had I not ruined their idyllic marriage.
This makes me suffer so much, because I know that nothing in this world can be as strong as a parent-child relationship, and I feel like I was robbed.