Hi Change,
Mental illness is not easy to understand unless you have been through it. Your mother's comment was rude and not just insensitive. Most of us at SR are strapped with a mental illness diagnosis(es) and our agonizing addiction is just one costly result of not taking mental illness seriously. One of the reasons I like SR is because almost everyone here has a mental illness diagnosis; it makes me feel normal.
Don't beat yourself up, either. You can learn something from this slip that will make you more resilient for the future.
I am a mom and a freelancer, too. I write about American history, environmental policy and miscellaneous investigative pieces - slow journalism.
