When I was a little girl, I idolised her. To me, she was nothing short of a goddess. She was dazzling and glamorous and I’d watch in awe as she painted her already beautiful face with makeup. I’d try on her heels and faux fur coats and drape myself in her sparkling jewellery — wishing and hoping that one day I, too, would be as fantastical a being as she.

She was fearless and brave. When I woke from a bad dream, I would slip in the darkness to her side, climbing under her covers, knowing I would always be quietly welcomed and fiercely protected — the sound of her heartbeat and the warmth of her arms all the assurance I needed to fall back into a fear-free sleep. She was the cleverest person I’d met. There was no question she couldn’t answer or problem she couldn’t solve. She was miraculous — the best mummy in the world.

Sadly, as I reached puberty, my mother tumbled from the lofty pedestal I had put her on as she became — to 13-year-old me — the most unenlightened, socially inept, idiotic and daggy person I knew. The invisible ties that had bound us so tightly snapped and communication between us deteriorated to a series of screaming matches.

I spent hours sulking in my room, entrenched in self-absorbed teenagedom and desperate to be away from her. I wondered why she had changed and why she hated me, one moment yearning for our former closeness, the next wishing I was someone else’s daughter.

My mother and I both survived my girlhood, in spite of our best attempts to drive each other nuts during the rebellion of my turbulent teen years. Now, in my 30s and a parent myself, she is my dear friend. And I adore her as much as I did when, eyes smeared with her gaudy blue eye-shadow (it was the 70s, after all,) I played happily in her wardrobe.

The relationship between mother and daughter can be both beautiful and explosive — often at the same time. You love her and you hate her. Sometimes, she is the last person you want to see, but she’s often the first one you turn to for counsel. When you’re feeling down, the visceral desire to hear her voice can become an almost physical longing. The wildly oscillating feelings that occur between mothers and daughters over the years make for a complicated relationship that at its worst can be soul destroying and at its best can be a powerful and magical thing.

So why is the mother-daughter relationship so fraught with complications? Freud believed a battle for the attention and love of the husband and father created early jealousy and tension between mother and daughter. While some research does suggest that children tend to bond more closely with the parent of the opposite gender, it is a theory that oversimplifies this most important of familial relationships.

Gisela Preuschoff, family therapist and author of Raising Girls, believes the unique nature of mother and daughter relationships is primal and begins even before birth. “The unborn female baby already has the egg cells of her future babies inside. So, in a sense, your daughter has been inside the mother of the mother. As well as creating an intense connection, this can transport both positive and negative qualities.”