Feb 26th 2017
Family sucks. in People suck. Cats are awesome. Dogs are alright.
Revised: 02/26/2017 3:50 p.m.
- Feb. 26, 2017, 3:27 p.m.
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- Public
So I have actual, professionally diagnosed, grief related post traumatic stress disorder; complete with recurring nightmares, because after my father died, my entire remaining family abandoned me. And by “abandoned me”, I mean my mom moved away, (three hundred miles north), my brother returned the birthday card I sent him with the words “never forget there is nothing for you here”written on it in permanent marker, and when I wound up homeless a few months later, NOBODY “had room” for me indoors, so I spent six months living in a broken down van, with no heat, eating cold, food bank, canned goods, through THE COLDEST part of the year. And when I called my mom telling her that I wished we could’ve made it to where she was, she said “I don’t know what you think I could’ve done for you. Don’t put this on me”.
So now she’s dying, and she doesn’t want me to see her again.”You just stress me out too much! I live in an apartment building, you could upset my neighbors! You could get me thrown out! And how are you going to get home? (Presuming that I’m too stupid to to buy a round trip ticket and set aside cab money to get to and from the airport. She’s done that my ENTIRE LIFE, and I HATE it.) I don’t cook very much any more! How are you going to eat? (Presuming that I’m too stupid to bring money for my own food and either get stuff that I can fix myself or eat out.)”
Of course after she told me that, I had the worst meltdown I’d had in YEARS, complete with banging my head against the wall and screaming “WHY?!” at the top of my lungs.
And I didn’t call her again for two weeks. She doesn’t but very rarely call me. She says, “if my kids want to talk to me, they can call me”.
She’s not mean as in cussing and yelling and being stereotypically abusive. She’s condescending and perfectionistic to the point that in her mind, nearly everyone is a “bum”, and no matter what I do, I will never be good enough for this woman.
But then there’s the other side to my mother. The fake side. The act that I learned to recognize when I was still a kid, because she flips between the two facets all the time. It’s fake her whenever she goes to a friend’s or relative’s house, and it’s mean, condescending, her whenever she’s at home alone or relaxed.
And when I called her, after two weeks without speaking to her, to cry to her about how terrible it is to know that your own mother never wants to see you again, I got FAKE her. - And that’s all I’ve seen since. Flat out lying to me, saying “I never said that!” and then, when I quote her, saying, “sigh I didn’t mean it like that.”
Again, presuming that I’m too stupid, in this case to know when the woman I spent the vast majority of my life with is lying. True, I don’t know when most people are lying. But I watched her switch between two personas for decades. I recognize them by now. And I know what I heard with my own ears less than a month before, for crying out loud. - I’m not intellectually challenged, by any stretch of the imagination, but even if I were, I think I’d remember what I heard two freaking weeks ago.
So now I have to make a choice, and it’s hard for me because it’s not a logical choice. I can make logical decisions with no problem. I make our monthly budgets, sell things on Ebay, take care of my animals, and so on. But when it comes to my own feelings I’m in the dark.
I have to rationally work out what my feelings most likely are by deduction. When I was at my therapist’s last week, as usual, at the end, she asked me,”And what feelings were you able to feel today?” And as usual, I said, “I dunno”. So she handed me a printed sheet with a list of emotions printed on it.
I reasoned that, since I’d been talking about the future and potential problems, I was probably “worried”. But like I told her, I don’ “feel” worried. The only time I really “feel” anything is when I’m having a meltdown.
So I have no frickin idea how I feel about my mother, what I should be trying to say to her before she’s dead, or whether I should go visit her before she’s gone.
It doesn’t help that she lives in the same small town as my sister and my brother and their children, none of whom cares for me in the slightest. So if I go there, I will be ALONE. No friendly contacts whatsoever, for however long I’m there, aside from my husband, on the phone, and my pen pal, on the computer. (Obviously I’d take my laptop.)
It would be an excursion into hell. So it would have to have clearly defined goals, that I could at least mostly expect to be able to reach; because going down there for pleasant chit chat ain’t gonna happen.
For a while, I thought it wasn’t worth even contemplating. But the last time I spoke to her on the phone, she was coughing badly; and that brought a, (rare!), feeling very clearly to the forefront: If I don’t go down there, I’ll feel like a rotten failure of a daughter; whether she likes it or not. - I may lack morals, but I do have principles. Old school, southern, ones, inherited from my father. And as a matter of principle, I’d feel worse if I didn’t go at all, than if I went and it went horribly. At least I would’ve tried.
So then, what could my accomplishable goals be, in going there?
To get her to say she’s sorry? - Not very fucking likely. She blames my high school councilors and psychiatrists for not properly diagnosing me, so I could’ve gotten SSI a long time ago, then I would never have been homeless in the first place. - We had that conversation. She holds herself blameless.
To show her that I’m a capable human beng, and not some blithering idiot? - If it were possible to see that at all, she would’ve by now. I own a house, with my husband. I’m a published artist. I sell everything that I paint. I’m not broke. - And yet she thinks that I’m not capable of buying a round trip plane ticket and budgeting money for my own food.- When I told her that I’m going to the next tax auction to see if we can get a bigger house, she said, “just don’t sell the one you’re in first!”. I said “Why would I do that?”. She sighed heavily and pretended to cry and said, “I don’t know”; as if my asking that question was just the most hurtful thing. :/
To tell her that she’s responsible, in large part, for my recurring nightmares? - She already knows that, and she gets angry when I say anything about it. “I said that because you said ‘this wouldn’t have happened if my dad was alive’!” Me: “It wouldn’t ‘ve”. Her: “Huffing and pretending to cry, then sobbing saying ‘good bye’” and hangs up on me.
To reconnect with my estranged siblings? - Aw hell no. My brother is delusional bipolar. My sister is a conservative fundamentalist baptist. - I need them in my life like I need herpes and a house fire.
So I need to either come up with a way to NOT feel like a piece of shit for not going to see my mother on her deathbed, or think of a goal that is actually attainable if I go down there.
And typing this out thus far hasn’t really helped much. Maybe if I re-read later after I think a while I’ll get a better idea.
Edited to add:
My feelings for my husband come primarily from a place of appreciation and comradery. We have a lot in common, and he does a lot of nice things for me.
My feelings for my mother, on the other hand, come from a place of debt and obligation.
She paid my storage fee for over a year, without my asking or needing her to, and like an idiot, I let her; because I thought that she felt she owed me for not trying to be helpful when I was homeless.
Now I wonder if she did it specifically to keep me feeling “guilty” or “indebted”.
And I’m thinking that one attainable goal would be to give her back the money she spent on my storage. Just hand her $600. - Because I could do that. It would leave me just enough money to pay the bills for a month, but we’d be okay.
But would I feel like a terrible daughter, would I feel worse, if I flew all the way down there, took a cab to her place, walked in, and laid $600 on the table, and said “There you go. Financially we’re straight”,
She’d cry and say something like, “you don’t have to do that! I don’t need that! You need that money!”; and she’d say something to the effect that I need it to get home on, or to pay my bills, presuming, as always, that I’m too stupid to do basic financial math. And we would argue, and to end the fight I would have to leave.
So probably not, no, that’s not a great idea either.
So what can I do to repay a $600 monetary debt, that would look like proper gift for an old lady, and not incite further bullshit?
She doesn’t need a roomba, she has a housekeeper. Anybody have any thoughts?
Last updated February 26, 2017
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