Tl;dr: I'm either putting myself up too high (comforting myself to the extreme that it's not my fault) or putting myself down way too low (taking too much responsibility and feeling guilty) and can't seem to find the balance that would allow me to move forward.

I've struggled and still struggling with mental health, and one of the things that help is brutal authenticity with myself.

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However, after consuming TRP content for a while now, I realized that the way I took this "brutal" honesty was influenced by psychology books that tell you your feelings matter, that you should be your own best friend, that you shouldn't be your own bully, and that beating yourself up for things that aren't your fault is the result of someone putting those victim-blaming beliefs inside your head.

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Now, the issue I have is when does it stop being "fighting-victim-blaming-mentality" and starts being "entitlement". I'm very confused right now and I can no longer trust my inner dialogue at all. I feel like I'm definitely lying to myself in some way, but I just can't put my hand on it.

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So, here I am, I want to get an objective eye on my story that's different from therapists and the like because all they ever do is bounce off your thoughts in an attempt to empathize with you. I know now that empathy isn't what I need at this moment. I need clarity.

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My mom brought up six children by herself and I'm the youngest one. Growing up, I witnessed her mistreating my sisters while me and my brother as we were the last youngest ones, got a totally different treatment. She never believed in hitting me for instance, and she was proud of adopting another more sophisticated method while raising me particularly.

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The thing is, while I was raised normally, I saw what she did to them on a daily basis. I was put on a pedestal while they were the bad girls, the ones that were all driving her mad even though I wasn't doing anything special. But I thought I was special. I believed I was special. And this likely has to do with why I'm struggling with entitlement vs responsibility now.

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Now the issue I'm having is forging an identity for myself outside of my mother's.

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An example of my entitled behavior is that I keep blaming her for my lack of personal agency over my life. I can't seem to determine where my resentment and anger for her using me in that way ends and where my responsibility begins. Once I try to take "responsibility", I beat myself up real bad.

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I'm either putting myself up too high or putting myself down way too low and can't seem to find the balance that would allow me to move forward :/

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Any tips please? Any insight would be helpful and thanks a lot for reading up here.