HI Sue,
it is funny you say your mother worked you like crazy and ignored your pain. mine did too! wow. i am so surprised each time we chat at how similiar our lives have been. yes, she did, what i now know to be sexual abuse to me while i was in the cast ... she made it seem like she was so caring to everyone, and they thought she was so doting. it was years before i figured out why, what everyone else was praising, 'felt' so wrong, and why i had nightmares about her hands all my life ... talk about phobias. i always thought she hated me for not being 'perfect' and i believe that now for sure. she resented taking care of me. she even told my daughter that she never enjoyed having children. i have worked through all that though. it took a while but i have come to terms with it all, and i have not turned out anything like her and so i am at peace. i was, and am, a good mother and love my kids and grandchildren so much. and i rarely see her. i have a great therapist and she did not know about rsd either but she knew all about pain and all about sadness and that was all i needed. i still go once a week. it is so helpful.
i will drive up to see you one day ... i can find springfield i am sure. you are already a sister in my heart. it is a unique experience to have felt alone in your soul for so long, and then meet someone who has lived the unique pains, emotional and physical, that we have endured, and now here we are rsd sisters ... i never in a million years thought i would meet such a person.
take care, lovingly joan