I share your concerns in that i too worry about this. One thing that I think is helping though is reading up about it. My shelf full of relationship psychology books has been money well spent. From what I can recall the brain lays down pathways... physical neuro-transmitters configure according to how frequently you react or behave in a certain manner. The first step is to acknowledge that you want to start making a change and then you have to substitute another behaviour and then REPEAT....and repeat and repeat. It takes longer to undo something the longer you have been doing it.

My mother is a very damaged person. I choose to call her damaged instead of 'bad'. I don't believe anyone is born bad... they become bad mainly due to environmental influences. She has a very mean streak. I was raised with humilation as her main strategy of discipline. She was raised with physical violence so maybe she thought that humilation was better than hitting? I learned not to trust her from a very early age. The only way i can cope with the incredible sadness of not trusting my own mother is to try to turn it into a positive: like a BB members sig says "if you can't set a good example then be a horrible warning". I apply that to her. I NEVER want my children to fear me. If I learned that they didn't trust me I would be so devestated. this is my motivator. Occassionally i slip up, as any damaged person is bound to do, but I use the situation once again and go up to my child an apologise. This was another thing my mother NEVER did... and still doesn't do to this age. She doesn't say sorry... or if she does it's conditional: "I'm sorry BUT". How I hate that phrase!

There's some great books out there darl... reading up about these issues may help.