DEAR ABBY: I am a 43-year-old woman who has struggled with self-esteem and personal relationships my entire life. My fiancé and I have talked in depth about past trauma, but it wasn’t until within the past year that I’ve realized how much of an impact my mother had on those aspects of my life.

From as far back as I can remember, she always told me that from the moment I was born, she had a hard time connecting with me, and I wasn’t loving toward her. How could that have possibly been something I caused? I suspect she may have had postpartum issues, and she is now a fully diagnosed bipolar individual.

I watch her have functional relationships with lots of other people, but still, to this day, we have almost no connection. I feel guilty about the state of our relationship but worse when I

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