I’m thankful you realize what is happening to you — because if you didn’t, there wouldn’t be much hope that you’d ever change.

In fact, you’d probably only get worse and worse. But God doesn’t want you to be a captive to the past — and He certainly doesn’t want you to be an angry, critical person the way your mother was. And you don’t need to be that way, because God wants to come into your life and change you. He wants to help you get rid of things that are bad and replace them with things that are good.

The Bible says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). Begin by making a new start — with Jesus Christ. Tell Him that you know these bad things are wrong, and you can’t conquer them on your own. Then ask Him to come into your life, to forgive your sins and begin changing you from within by the power of His Holy Spirit.

Ask God to help you learn to deal with problems in a mature and Godly way. Your mother dealt with problems by lashing out in anger — and as a result, you never learned how to handle them. But God has a better way for you. Learn it from others, and most of all learn it from God’s Word, the Bible.