Over the past few years of living abroad, I thought I had fully stepped into adulthood. I paid my bills on time, fixed things when they broke, and worked through problems I had to solve on my own. I was capable. I was responsible. I had built a life for myself.

On my own, I am independent. But when I’m with her, I shrink back to being twelve years old.

If a few drops of water fell on the wooden floor, she would tell me off immediately. If I didn’t wipe down the bathroom straight after showering, she assumed I had no intention of cleaning it, even though I had only gone to the bedroom to put on some clothes. In her eyes, I wasn’t an adult who had been living independently for years. I was still the daughter who needed to be corrected, trained and managed.

The strange thing is that other people describe me as smart, driven and full of life. But she never seems to see that side of me. She believes she is teaching me to be a “decent human being”. What I learn instead is how invisible my achievements can be in her eyes.

As much as I resist it, I know I have inherited something from her: her toughness, her self-reliance, the way she handles life herself. That resilience runs through my bones. It stops me from giving up when things get hard. But sometimes I wonder whether I really need to be strong all the time. When is it okay to be soft, to rely on someone else, to admit that I can’t do everything alone?

The truth is, I’m afraid.

I’m afraid that one day I will have no one to rely on, and that if I’m not strong enough, I won’t survive. Slowly, I have come to recognise how much of that fear I inherited from her.

Our relationship wasn’t always a struggle. When I was little, we were close. Even when I was exhausted after school, I would stay awake until she came home late at night. When relatives criticised her, I was furious. To me, they were the villains, and she was the victim. Before I even started secondary school, I had decided I would cut ties with them. I had already chosen my side. I chose my mum.

As I grew older, I began to notice another side of her: how easily she cast herself as the victim, how difficult it could be to feel at ease in her presence, how rarely our conversations touched on my daily life. Even small talk felt almost impossible.

For years, whether she was being reasonable or not, I instinctively took her side. I spoke for her and defended her in every fight. It wasn’t a decision I thought through. It was the instinct of being her child. I believed it was my duty to be loyal, to protect her, to defend her.

I became her shield, even though I was just a child.

As an adult, I started to see things differently. The stories I had believed so fiercely were never the whole truth. They were her version of it. My loyalty had kept me in a role where I could be drawn into her battles without even realising it.

The clearest moment came during a video call. We hadn’t spoken for months. The screen lit up, and her face appeared.

Her first words were, “You look like you’ve gained weight.”

Her next were, “Do this for me.”

Two short sentences. First, diminish. Then, command.

In that moment, I felt that I would always be the child she could criticise and instruct. But I also knew that I had grown up. I had a choice. I no longer had to let those words decide how I felt about myself or what I did next. If I kept obeying, I would remain in the same role, unable to fully embrace the life I had worked so hard to build.

Years later, when she moved to Scotland and lived with me, I thought things might change. Perhaps she would finally see the adult I had become.

I secured the lease for our home. I dealt with the broken heating. I made the calls and sent the emails to help my brother get a place at primary school. Yet she still seemed not to notice the quiet effort it had taken to build a life here.

Instead, she told me, “You should marry a man with connections in Scotland. That way, when you need help, he can step in.”

I wanted her to see that I could build my own network, make my own choices and find help when I needed it. But she seemed to measure security through money and status. The community I was building, and the work I cared about, didn’t seem to count in the same way.

One night, walking home after work, I began to consider something I had resisted for a long time: she might never see me as I see myself.

Perhaps it wasn’t that she didn’t love me. Perhaps she had never learnt another way to show it. In our relationship, love so often arrived as worry, criticism or instructions. I wondered how much of that she had inherited too.

I still wish that one day she could see me for who I am: the person standing in front of her now, with a life of my own, still growing and changing. I want her to be curious about that person.

Maybe that is part of what identity means: carrying the child I was, the daughter I am, and the adult I have become. I can recognise her strength in me and still question the fear that came with it. I can love her and make choices she doesn’t understand.

I am an adult, according to me.