DEAR ABBY: I’m a 14-year old girl. My problem is my mother and the nonstop fights we’ve been having lately. I’m trying hard to do all the right things—keep my grades up, maintain my friendships—and maybe find nice boyfriends. Through it all, I’ve tried to make Mom my No. 1 priority.

My father left us, and Mom has done everything for my brother, sister and me. Even when she only had had 20 bucks in her pocket, she still kept us in our house with food on the table. What’s hardest for me right now is that I can’t do what other kids my age can—or go where they go—because of lack of money.

I have been reading my Bible every day and praying for my family—even for my dad. But I can’t seem to make Mom happy no matter how hard I try. She yells at me every time I turn around. I need some of your best advice, Abby. You can’t imagine how great it would be for me to hear something positive from Mom for a change. Thanks for listening. TROUBLE WITH MOTHER

DEAR TROUBLE WITH MOTHER: From your description, it appears your mother is stressed out and is not the mother she would wish to be. Her short fuse has nothing to do with you and everything to do with her overwhelming responsibilities to you and your siblings. Please don’t take her outbursts personally.

Clip this column and show her this letter. Tell her that you wrote it, and that you love her. Appreciate her, and want to please her. Try to be understanding. She probably doesn’t realize how bad you have been feeling, and she needs all the support she can get right now.

If the yelling continues (too much yelling can be abusive), discuss it with your clergyperson or a counselor at school. They may be able to intervene on your behalf.

Hi Trouble with Mother: You’ve described how screwed up your Mom is quite well; most would agree that you’ve mastered blaming. For example, a responsible person would write, "My problem is the nonstop fights I’ve been having with my mother." Even better, ". . .the nonstop fights I’ve been causing with my mother."

My reply will not support you in getting your Mom to communicate positively with you. For that result you'll first have to master intention, meaning that you have to intend that she communicates the way she does with you.*  You can’t change her and you don't have her permission to coach her. What you can do is fix you and in so doing create space for her to choose to heal, or not.  The curriculum for you is courage, courage to tell the truth about your fear and in so doing disappear it. Most adults didn't learn this at your age when they were supposed to and so they live their entire life in fear of at least one person with whom they are afraid to speak with spontaneously. That person represents one of their parents.

I would have felt less concerned about you had you asked, "How do I get my Mom to therapy?"

Now's the time to bring to the front of the mind one of life's truisms; if you keep doing what you've been doing you’ll keep producing more of the same undesirable results. "Trying to make your Mom your No 1 priority" obviously hasn’t worked, yet you still keep trying. One way to find out what a person has been up to in life (what they have been intending) is to look at the results they've been produing, not what they say they want.

From your description she hasn’t destroyed enough relationships in life to seek help. It’s interesting to note that you capitalize the word "Mom" and not the word "dad." I suspect you got your pattern of blaming from your Mom. Once she drove her husband out of her life she needed another sparring partner so as to get her periodic fix of adrenaline.

It’s evident that reading your Bible hasn’t worked for you. Clearly you’ve been intent on failing with your Mom and now covertly blame God. Someone intent on not arguing simply walks away. Someone stuck in wanting to be right, and making another wrong, starts an argument and then lies about who started it. You should have learned by now that anything other than "trying" might just work; that you haven't learned this reveals that you have been damaged to the extant that you need as much therapy as your Mom. Yes! Equally as much.

A religious person intent on having things work goes to a Bible-reading/interpreting coach (a.k.a. a clergy person), and gets coaching on how to formulate prayers that work. You obviously have not been asking "God" something he/she/it can grant. You have a misunderstanding about prayer. A consciously worded prayer is always always answered. Put another way, you have two relationship problems, your mother and God. When your relationship with God works it works for all relationships. BTW: Very few people have a working (mutually satisfying) relationship with God, ergo most of them, and their friends, are stuck in mediocrity

You have a serious problem. You’ve already been so abused that you no longer know right from wrong. For example: You make excuses for your abusive mother. You are in denial. So what that she has fed you. So what that she has. . . etc. That's her job. It is irrespsonsible of her to make you feel guilty for doing her job. The truth is she is stuck in abusing you and your siblings. I say serious because you have no one to coach you about the ultimatum you're supposed to issue her.

"Mom, get therapy and stop your abusive yelling or I will report you to the authorities." (authorities meaning a teacher, principal, clergy, or the police)

If you don’t have the courage to do it now you certainly won’t when it’s your husband abusing you. And, no matter what you believe, unless you enroll yourself in 25 hours of counseling, you will attract an abusive partner. Why? Because you are already addicted to the abuse. To you verbal abuse means love.

The longer you put off insisting that your Mom get counseling the more damage you cause your Mom to inflict upon your siblings.

Here's the steps to take:

First, say the following words to your Mom: "Mom, tell me something nice about me." Or, "Mom, thank me for doing the laundry." Or, "Mom what have I done that so upsets you that you feel as though you have to yell at me?" "Mom, do you know that when you yell at me it doesn't feel good?" These examples are referred to as being responsible for asking for the acknowledgement your mind needs to hear so as to be complete. Never ever, for even one second, think that you are better than others and that you don't REQUIRE acknowledgement. Your mind needs to hear very specific sentences so as to be complete. Only your mind knows what these sentences sound like and what it will feel like to hear them. When adults in a weekend-long relationship communication skills workshop do the Acknowledgment Process the sounds of crying and mourning from a life-time of grief of not being acknowledged, of not being gotten ever, is beyond description. It's an amazing experience when one experiences their own magnificence.

For example: You say to your Mom.

"Mom, say these words to me. I know it hurts when I yell at you. I also know that it hurts even more when I yell at you and don't follow it up with an acknowledgment that I know it hurt."

Notice that you're not asking for an apology, simply an acknowledgment of what's so, her letting you know that she knows it didn't feel good, that it was abusive. You'll find that the more willing your are to ask for acknowledgment the sooner acknowledgments will start to come without asking. No one can possibly know all the wonderful things you've done (and so you need to ask until your ego no longer runs you). For most it takes decades of service to free one of the separation between self and another. Just as you need to be acknowledged for all the good things you've done so too do you need to be acknowledged for all the perpetrations and withholds you've stuffed. If you can't create someone with whom to be open and honest and spontaneous, zero withholds, then enter everything in a journal.  You can also use the four free communication processes on The Clearing House.

Once you've gotten into communication with your mother ask her to tell you what she did to drive your dad away. It will be very difficult for her to recall the first instance, the very first abusive communication between them, the one she let slide, the consequences for which she is still paying. Most likely she's stuck in blame. She's yet to be acknowledged for having made something more important than her integrity.  In other words, part of what's bothering her is that her integrity is out. She is paying herself back for a life-time of perpetrations. The Clearing Process will support her in restoring her integrity and it will open up the space for loving communication between you.

BTW: If you don't clean up your relationship with your Mom it's almost certain you'll be tempted to find yourself a boyfriend, someone whom you will manipulate into telling you that he loves you, so as to justify sex. Sex that replaces intimacy at home is but an imitation of intercourse and always has undesirable consequences. Such sex begins with the fact that you'll have to deceive your mother to pull it off, and, you'll blame her for the consequences of your deceit (as in "accidental" pregnancy).  And, you'll have to con the boy into deceiving your mother and his parents, hiding his plans to seduce you. It generates a mess that most adults have yet to clean up. I'm certain your mom will tell you that she deceived her parents, she hid her plans to have sex, and supported the boy in deceiving both families.  Selecting a boy who condones deceit guarantees that there will eventually be deceit between you; there are no exceptions to this phenomena.