Relationships with abusive parents and the full circle. How to cope?

Llama - I am good with the local 12 step programs and therapy. Thanks for the link, though. I am always working on improving me since trying to improve people who don't want to is no longer on the menu for me :)

Thank goodness for all of you here because through sharing our stories, hope and ideas, it connects us and we really are people of quality and hence, meaningful.

Judda - beautifully stated

I posted on this back about 19 months ago--my relationship with Mother is better only because she is beginning a serious mental decline.
She knows I was sexually abused by my brother (well, "knows" and "accepts as truth" as 2 entirely separate things. Brother is deceased. She knows I do not wish to talk about him, ever. But she seems to need to bring him into conversations--oh how sad a life he had, how amazingly brilliant he was---you get my drift. Last week I said "Mother, I cannot talk about "C" anymore".( I am struggling STILL to deal with the aftereffects of 12+ years of serious abuse. )She said "Oh, you and your "therapy"!! What does it even DO for you?" And she went on to relate that her brother once rolled her up in a heavy Persian rug and left her in there for a few minutes. She said she can't go to Costco because it's so claustrophobic. I really just sat there, jaw on the ground and THOUGHT "You are equating a kid's GAME (because they did this all the time) with the abuse I suffered?" I just...couldn't. She said she knew just how I felt. Tears were coming and I made some excuse and left, quickly. I will NEVER share with my mother the extent and magnitude of the abuse I underwent. Never. She'd not believe me and she'd minimize it. I'm 60, and STILL just beginning to heal. And I realize I might never heal.
My therapist has often said it's amazing I have chosen to maintain a relationship with mother at all. Well, I don't know. She's not perfect, neither am I. I do care about mother, I am just glad I "understand" her. I never expect her to change, and she really doesn't.
Just helped me a little to realize that narcissistic people never really change. They just get old.

Scaredtaker: Okay, if the twelve-step programs are working for you, then great!