Committed

I have talked to my mother 3 times in the last 2 days and it is somehow about 5 times too many.

She was just released from the crisis center, again, and is off with a new person, sure to call/email/harass me in 1-4 weeks time about what a shitty daughter I am, how I need to "man up," how I need to take care of my family--after all, it is my responsibility.  All of these I have been told (and often repeatedly, for the record) and am now at the point of grimly anticipating it as I hear the name of the new person and think, soon this person will think I am the enemy and find ways of disturbing my peace.

But the thing is, it is my mother who is disturbing my peace.  These people are misguided and, though some have their hearts in the right place, they don't know what they are getting into when they say "sure you can stay with me for a week."

My mother's delusional world is, in some ways, quite impressive.  It is astounding how it is impervious to reason and even fact.  In her world fact is not the fact of my world but a manipulative that we all have interpretations of.  In some ways talking with her about even the events of the day is like having an intense philosophical argument...what is reality?  Except, she cannot and will not entertain your notion of what it is.  Contrary notions of reality are only presented to her to "be mean and hurtful."

What pained me yesterday, to the point of somewhat hysterical laughter, was how lucid she sounded in the midst of this period of homelessness, pennilessness, and drug and alcohol addiction.  I hear what she is saying and see how ridiculous it is in light of what has actually transpired over the years and yet I also hear what she is saying as I would if I didn't know her.

Her story actually sounded plausible and *could* possibly land a person in the particular maelstrom of crap she is currently in.  Which brings me to my second point, which may be over before it begins...

I am in the process of contacting probate courts to see about involuntary treatment.

Putting aside the incredibly emotional and painful exercise this is for me, her daughter, I am now wondering exactly how possible this is going to be.  When she is not intoxicated, she can still sound, on the phone at least, like she was the unwitting victim of this recent string of bad luck.

Is this how she sees herself?  Does she actually buy it?  Or is it a straight up manipulation?  I used to think she just saw things like this, but she has shown cracks at times, acknowledging alternative perspectives and then deliberately choosing to put the rose-tinted glasses back on.

I am now doubtful that my court method will work.  As a family member said, she is very ill and the worst part is, she doesn't know she is ill.  Her illness is killing her, slowly, graphically and exhaustingly and she doesn't see it.  I either need to do something to stop it or turn away completely because I cannot watch.

Allergies

It has been many months since my last post about my dealing with having a mentally ill mother. There are several reasons for this:

1. I wanted to distance myself from this thinking for a bit and felt free enough to do so

2. I engaged in more EMDR to help with my processing and wanted to give it time to do its thing

3. I lost my password to the blog and inertia got the better of me.

okay, so now that the air is cleared, let me catch up on what has transpired in the last few months. While I got through Mother's day and the Summer mostly unscathed, I started feeling doubtful about my course of action as I reached the one year mark with my mother, or she-who-shall-not-be-named (as I like to call her these days after reading my son Harry Potter).

As of August it was 1 year since I had seen my mother. I was deep in the throes of contemplating exactly what I was trying to achieve with my mother: Was I cutting her off as a way to somehow teach her to be more sane? Was I actually saying goodbye forever (without the actual goodbye)? Was I doing this out of self-protection and solid boundary creation with a very disturbed and mentally ill woman or was I secretly hoping that this would wake her up and make her better?

I believe that part of my heart continues to hope that she will get better. I have been told by countless people, therapists included, that I need to kill that hope. It will not happen, she is not getting better. Her disorder is actually one in which she is patently incapable of seeing herself clearly. I need to let go. But I continue to hope and it really sucks to hate one's hopefulness.

So as I reached the year mark I started thinking about what it would look like to have her in my life. Could I just say to myself "this is my mother. She is extremely mentally ill and often in crisis. She will not get better. She will often be worse than the last time. I'll have coffee once per month to show her pictures of the kids, talk about myself and tell her she is loved. And that is all." Could I do that? Would it be worth it to me? Was this the final step in giving up? I was trying to accept that if I ever want my mother in my life again I just needed to figure out where a disturbed person could fit in without wrecking everything. This was my thinking.

It was on such a day that she called my phone, it was my birthday, and she called from an unknown number and for some reason I answered. I hadn't heard her voice in 9 months. I told her I would consider seeing her.

I sent her an email the following week stating that I could not be part of her solutions and that I could not be a part of her logistics. I asked her if this was possible. If it was, I said, I would be willing to meet for coffee.

I heard nothing.

I gave a call to make sure I emailed the correct address. After all I had not contacted her in 1 year.

No response. Days later I told my sister. She tried contacting. She got no response too.

I was feeling unnerved, wondering what particular state of crisis I had found her in now. I had started this communication with clear intentions of not getting involved logistically or in my heart in her drama and here, with a lack of response, I was doing just that.

Fast forward 1.5 weeks later...(and my third week of my return to my phd program after a 2 year leave, for the record, so a sub-optimal time for me to say the least)

I find out she was in a crisis center again. She checked herself in hoping to get help for substances (which she still is claiming is her primary issue, not secondary issue). We find out that she has been living with an abusive, bipolar woman who has routinely locked my mother in the house and beaten her.

When she was discharged from the crisis center, she returned to this woman. She told me she was desperate to get away.

She emailed me and says that is her only way to openly talk with me. She implored me to call her and ask her to meet me so she can have an excuse to get away. I was working at a cafe, it was a Friday morning. I had 3 hours before I pick up the kids. I called her. She met me at the cafe.

I could go on about how she was, how the littlest details of her off appearance seemed to disturb me the most, how it felt to see her after all that time, but I won't. I will say that my feeble attempt at engaging with her on my terms failed epically.

That day I agreed to help her with a moving truck and logistics. Fail Fail Fail. I could almost see my therapist shaking her head at me.

2 hours later, the itching began. I thought I got stung by mosquitos and lots of them. That night we went to a party. I thought my dress was terribly itchy. That night when I got home and took it off we realized I was covered in hives.

The hives lasted for 5 days and ended up in 1 and almost 2 emergency room visits and 2 calls/visits to the doctor. I was in bed, shivering and in pain until my doctor cranked me up on steroids for one week. Thankfully, they then went away.

There is debate about whether the hives were a reaction to a medication I had been on for 1 month or whether it was a psychological reaction to stress. I concede that it could have been a combination of triggering causes, but in my bones, I know it was a reaction to seeing my mother and getting sucked into the vortex of her disorder.

I wrote to her and told her that I could not be involved. I was sorry she was in such a terrible position and I really hoped she can get what she needs, but that I cannot do it. Even thinking about it made me terribly sick.

Since then she continues to implore me to contact her and I have not. I can't handle her because handling her is handling her illness and I am, frankly, allergic to it. She'll never see her illness and therefore never get the treatment she needs for it, so I don't know what to say to her except nothing.

EMDR and welcomed connections

It has been a while since I wrote. I wanted to give some time and thought to the EMDR process before writing about it here. Now that I have had several sessions I feel I can comment on it and it’s effects. First of all, as someone used to therapy, it was odd to be in a therapeutic setting where memories and traumas were not discussed in the normal, talk therapy way. Amazingly, it was sort of refreshing.

I was a bit skeptical, but very intrigued. So, I did my best. I was told to think about the event that best sums up my childhood feelings with my mother and that I feel most upset about.

I gamely thought about my mother and me, when I was 8 years old and we were living in an apartment in Nashville. We had lived away from all extended family for the better part of 2 years by then, having moved away from family in Virginia when I was 6 and on to North Carolina for a year before settling in Nashville for 3 years (one of the most stable times of my childhood). My mother was weeping in the bathroom, lying on the floor. I went to her, cradled her, and told her everything was going to be okay.

Instead of later feeling horrified for using her trapped and isolated child to comfort her and issuing an apology, she later told me how great I was. And so confirmed my role of caretaker, smoother, fixer, enabler and thereby cementing my life long fascination with super hero movies. My powers felt greater than that of a child. I am a child who takes care of an adult, how strong am I? But it was false and too much of a burden on my little girl self.

As an adult, I cannot imagine doing that to a child. As a mother, I cannot fathom resting my weeping head in my son’s arms for him to pick up the pieces…alone. But when I thought about it I felt like, shaking my head…what is wrong with her? How could she do that?

To tell the truth, my event was not one I felt the most upset over. I truthfully could not engage with an old memory with feeling. I could engage in current issues regarding my mother, my children or my sister with feeling…with HUGE feeling, but these old childhood feelings? No. I thought perhaps this therapy would not work for me after all.

As I processed this somewhat numb memory in EMDR, I was shocked at where my mind went. As much thought as I have given to my mother and our relationship, there were certain meaningful connections that I never made until I was in that office, dutifully watching the red dot travel from left to right to left to right to left to right.

Engaging both sides of my brain, it slipped past my overthinking ways and got right to the core of the issue. I couldn’t feel sad or angry about that event now because I couldn’t feel sad or angry about it then. There was no room in our family for my feelings. And my feelings scared me…if I felt them, where would they take me. I just needed to soldier on and act stronger than I really was. If I acknowledged my mother wasn’t great, where would that leave me with 10 more years with her? I needed my delusion.

But emotionally I found what I needed. As my mind traversed the sometimes oddly connected memories I remembered a friend’s mother. She lived up the street and I regularly spent the night with them. My mother would go on dates and would not be reachable for much of the time I was there. I remember weeping in this mother’s arms, shaking, panicky about my mother. “Was she okay? Where was she? Would she return? What if she is in trouble?” My friend’s mother, unable to reach my mother, cradled me until I fell asleep.

And she had me back a second and third and more times and again I wept. And again she held me.

In EMDR, I remembered this and it occurred to me as clearly as anything what was happening. I knew that this woman, this lovely, beautiful woman, was capable of handling my feelings. She would not crash if I let them show. I felt safe there and safe with her. It was an important outlet for me and I think helped preserve a tender part of me.

I found out later that she was going through a rough patch in her own life at that time. I vaguely knew something was happening in their family, but the way it was treated in their home (or the way it seemed to me, at least), was that it was an adult matter, so the kids would not notice a disruption in food, electricity, safety, warmth, fun and play because of it. In my home all of the above was directly related to my mother’s mood, so I became damned good at safe guarding it.

As I write about this friend’s mother, I get teary, but in a good way. I want to thank her for what she did for me, whether she realized what she was doing or not. I keep this in mind when I encounter my son’s friends and I realize that you never know who you were meant to be an angel for. And I hope to be open, just as my friend’s mother was to me.

So, I will continue with EMDR a bit longer to try to reach some peace and closure on a few other triggers, and after this first cycle, I am grateful and calm.

PTSD and going forward

My therapist says I have PTSD. I checked out the description on wikipedia:

Posttraumatic stress disorder (also known as post-traumatic stress disorder orPTSD) is a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to any event that results in psychological trauma.^[1][2][3] This event may involve the threat of death to oneself or to someone else, or to one's own or someone else's physical, sexual, or psychological integrity,^[1] overwhelming the individual's ability to cope. As an effect of psychological trauma, PTSD is less frequent and more enduring than the more commonly seen acute stress response.

Diagnostic symptoms for PTSD include re-experiencing the original trauma(s) through flashbacks or nightmares, avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma, and increased arousal – such as difficulty falling or staying asleep, anger, andhypervigilance.

And I agree. This label has both freaked me out and brought me comfort. "Oh...that's what it is. Of course..." Or, "Oh that's what it is! Crap!" Either way, it is accurate.

I have not been able to stay asleep lately and I am, as ever, hyper vigilant. If I spy a tan sedan, my heart races....and not in a good way. I have spent so many years now feeling like I am holding back the wall of crazy to create a clear space for my children to have a crazy free childhood. Now I see that I have paid little attention to what holding that back in such a way is doing to me. I am starting to crack. But I am getting help.

I am talking with my therapist regularly and I am now talking with my family doctor. She has suggested EMDR, a therapy that I admittedly do not understand very well, but apparently helps to connect the left and right sides of the brain and can help take the visceral emotional response out of the equation...or at least let me see it through more rational adult eyes. My doctor is also giving me something to help me get to and stay asleep for more than 30 minutes.

I am happy with my plan. As happy as a situationally depressed, anxious and traumatized person can be. We'll see how it works out for me. More on that later.

Last night my mother emailed me again. Well, me, my sister and my uncle. I wept after reading it. She may not be using, but she is still a mess. She is delusional at best. And now she doesn't even know how to keep up the facade well enough to fool people for long. Who knows how long this newest person will last. My rational brain said, I really should just block her emails. I have made my position clear and she is choosing to not hear it. I do not need to hear from her in delusionville. It is not good for me. My emotional brain said, she wants pictures of us. Her kids...her grandkids...oh my god, if I was deprived of the joy of my children I would be lost. How can I do this to her? How can I deprive her of us? And then I try to fall asleep and wake up panicked...again...and realize, I cannot do this.

I just can't hear from her right now. Not "harmless" yet delusion filled emails. The perverted message is getting through my defenses and knocking me down. And I cannot afford to go through my life as me, as a mother, knocked out.

What am I forgetting?

You know that really awful feeling that you are forgetting something? Do you know how that feeling gets worse when you have kids? Forgetting stakes get higher and more panic worthy. My panicky, waking moments in the middle of the night are exhausting. "Oh no! I forgot something...what was it?!?!"

Well, I've been having them about my mother now that I know where she is.

When I didn't know, it is not that I thought she was in a different place or that she was in a better place. In fact, she is in a better place than I was imagining. However, even if I imagined a bad scenario...with a dangerous man and no one knows she is there and he knows it...I told myself, I'm just imagining this. No one really knows. She could also be in another state. She could be using some nice person and wrecking their life or marriage or both. Who knows?

Somehow not actually being able to visualize where she is and what her day might be like helped me to keep her out of focus. It helped me to not focus on her. It helped me to hold to my boundaries. We have an agreement based on healthy behavior. I hold up my end and maybe she will someday hold up her end. And if not, at least one of us is being healthy.

However, now I picture her. In our county's crisis center. Where she has been for "a while." Wanting desperately to reconnect with her daughters whose number she lost. I found this out not because I was searching or because she contacted me, but because a woman who befriended her there bought her story, took up her cause and looked me up.

This enabler du jour tells me that she was raised with alcoholic parents and is getting involved because she thinks my mom has hit rock bottom and now she really needs my support. She only wishes her parents had done that for her. Okay. Let me discuss.

She seemed sincere. She seemed like a decent person who has been through some stuff and is trying to help. I think I fall into that category myself sometimes and sometimes I overstep in efforts to help as well, largely because of being so hurt myself in the past. I don't begrudge her for getting in touch, exactly. I get it.

But that is just it. She doesn't get it. My mother is not an alcoholic, perse. She has a personality disorder at the least. She is using alcohol and drugs today to self medicate, yes. But I would never characterize her as an alcoholic. That would be the first step in a much longer and more painful path to wellness for her and for us.

Even while self medicating like this her disorder runs amok, and perhaps even moreso. She lies, she manipulates, she distorts, she sneaks, she takes. This woman is seeing an alcoholic trying to get better. I hear her trying to get back in. Again. I am not my mother's answer. I never have been and never will be.

She tried to make me her answer for years. And as a kid you do not know better. You think you are. I was the only 8 year old I knew who had panicky wake ups during sleep overs away worrying about her mother. I was made to understand from a very early age that my own survival was dependent upon her delusional upkeep. That is no longer the case. I refuse that job.

But the panic still comes...when my guard is down...and I resent it.

And now, she is on my mind. On the way home from the farmer's market yesterday I realized I was right down the street from the center. It is like my GPS which has been flitting here and there unable to grasp the location has finally zeroed in on the location to direct these feelings and the feelings are coming on hard.

I don't know how to process this. I don't know a script in our culture for handling this in a healthy way. I was shopping and saw flowers and thought, I should buy flowers. But for whom? Just buy them...somehow someone here needs cheering up. Shoot. We all do. I know this sucks for my mom too. But I cannot save her. I have been down that road before. I will not risk my family's well being again.

And the fact that I have to tell myself these things again and again concerns me. Why can't I get it? Why can't my boundary wall go ahead and become non-porous already? When will I stop feeling about this? When will it stop taking up room in my heart and mind that I would like to put toward other things?

Somedays I feel I have a better grasp on the answers to these questions. Somedays not so much. Today is a not so much day. And that is okay. It is what it is. I am doing what I need to do. I feel like crap about it. But I feel good about the fact that in a few minutes I am going to buy my kids their easter basket goodies. Here's for focusing on things you can have an impact on.

on control

All my life I've compensated for lack of external order by seizing control where I can. Therefore you can tell that there are forces in my life that are particularly wacky if my house really shines. It is almost a joke coping mechanism...I clean. I work. These are things that I do to seize control. I realize they are useful (and believe me I'm glad they are), but they are still coping mechanisms and therefore not always 100% healthy. But cleaning and working are within my control and somehow make me feel like all is not lost. I do make a difference. Look at how that countertop shines! Look at that stack of work I got through!

Sitting still and being is hard for me. I do. Constantly it seems. Particularly when I am faced with forces that appear to mock my seemingly spare control in this life. Sometimes this works well as a parent. I plan, I arrange, I get things done. But I have to consciously make myself sit down and just be as a parent when I am in one of these zones.

Yesterday I heard that my mother's perhaps most unhealthy enabler is calling my sister, again. She is saying "We've got to do something! Your mother is running out of money. Soon she will be a streetwalker! What can we do?!?" This is the woman who in the past stuck her nose where it didn't belong and called and yelled at my sister to be nicer to our mother. This, when my sister was 18 and incredibly wounded herself and had just barely escaped from the craziness. This woman has routinely shown poor judgment. I'll leave it at that.

At any rate, if you had asked me yesterday morning, "what is the status update with your mom?" I probably would have said she is going to be running out of money soon or already has. She is either in an Atlanta area hotel, hospital or crashing with some unsavory man. Really, not so different from this woman's information.

As I have not seen my mother and have only talked to my mother on the phone once since August 2010 (and that was accidentally...I really should get caller id at home) and have only corresponded via email about 3 times since Christmas, I really do not know what is going on. I do better not knowing. I am a better mother not knowing. I am a better me not knowing.

Hearing this, albeit not reliable, confirmation of my suspicion about my mother's status managed to derail my day and my husband's. We didn't realize it until late at night after other things tapped us...other things that probably would not have tapped us in isolation.

We have moved our children into the same room (the 1.5 year old in with the 5.5 year old). Last night was the 3rd night. The first two nights were remarkably good. Books, cuddles, kisses and goodnight. Asleep in no time. Both seemed peacefully delighted to be in the same room. We knew it wouldn't be like this every night. We anticipated poor nights from the get go. We had rolled up our sleeves ready for the 3 week adjustment. And then were pleasantly surprised. So, we had a rough night. Two steps forward, one step back. We were due.

My daughter was being a nut. Noisy and climbing around...yelling and banging. My son was trying to fall asleep but, for obvious reasons, could not. My husband was unsure how long we should let it ride and then after that what we should or could do if anything. My daughter didn't seem to be slowing after 20 and then 30 minutes. I tried too. My daughter's late night naughtiness was making me quake with frustration. I felt cornered. I had thrown my back out only 3 days prior making this bedroom situation possible and now this is what I get. I lost it. I went to Peter saying "I don't know what to do. I am fine with her being a goofball on her own but what do we do about him? I don't know how to stop this. I don't know how to control this! And my mother might be a homeless person soon for real!" And then the tears came and came. What my mother has to do with bedtime, I don't know. Except clearly it had been there, in my emotional space, eating up my reserves all day and it impacted my parenting. I wasn't cool. I wasn't patient. I was irritated and snappy with my children. Thank goodness my husband was there. He sent me away and handled the kids. Soon they were asleep.

If you look at them and their progress toward room-sharing, it was not a great night, but really, it wasn't that bad, and really, what I expect if you ask me in the light of day with a full tank of reserve mama energy. After all, I had rolled up my sleeves right?

Well, this is why it is better for me not to know about my mother. It is pernicious. It sneaks in the backway and later, only in the midst of some other headache or frustration does it come out. Damn it!

I am trying to disable the connectors in my brain that remind me of her. You know the movie, eternal sunshine on the spotless mind? Well, I have days when I dream of that...I wish I didn't see a homeless person muttering to himself angrily standing in the drizzle on the side of the road and think of my mother. I wish I didn't hear about an unknown woman attacked and killed in a hotel room and think of my mother.

Aside from what I have been doing I'm not sure what there is left. I'm pretty sure she thinks I don't care. The irony is if I knew it would save her I would do almost anything. If she knew I felt that way she would be continuing to tell me that I can save her...oh yes...and she needs saving...oh my...and here are her specifics on how to save her: have her move in with me and destroy my life and frighten my children. And it wouldn't work anyway.

So, there it is. I have no control here. She may end up dead. She may end up homeless and crazy and taken advantage of. She may spend the rest of her days in a deluded drugged cloud. She may never contact me again or she may show up at my door this afternoon.

It is hard to just calmly do my bedtime routine with my children when this is my emotional backdrop. So, I often think I need to eliminate it from the background. Others have told me to accept it and realize my helplessness. Embrace the helplessness. I just still don't know. I haven't yet made it to an Al-Anon meeting and think I will this week. The problem with this situation is that I don't want to dwell on it, but don't want to let it linger in this festering way either. So when it is out of mind, I do not rush to think of it. I allow myself the respite. But sometimes I think it is the respites that do me in. For then I hear some bit of news and it comes rushing back to me and that is no fun at all.

heartbreaking perspective

I will warn you that this post is off of my usual subject. I am full of conflicting emotions today as a result of news about a woman I never had the chance to meet. It is about this that I write today and this post is dedicated to her.

I've been following a friend of a friend's pregnancy for a couple of months. I've heard some details about a baby shower and that it was their first and how exciting that first baby can be. I heard that the mother was interested in using cloth diapers, so I provided (perhaps too much) information with my thoughts on the subject. I was enjoying hearing details about this joyous event and reflecting back on our own experience with our first. What a wild ride the first can be.

Then last week I heard from my friend that her friend was epileptic (like me) and had suffered a seizure while pregnant. She was near the due date. The baby was taken by emergency c-section and was fine. She was placed on life support. She stayed on life support until last night when she was taken off. She passed away early this morning.

No. No way. This was not the ending that was supposed to be. A miraculous recovery? A slow but steady improvement? Not this young mother gone. Not this young father solo with his newborn son to raise. Not this newborn child never knowing this woman who brought him into this world?

I am awash with conflicting feelings: grief, joy that the baby is healthy, relief that this father and son have family in town, near panic at the roll of the dice that pregnancy can be, especially when you have a condition such as epilepsy, relief and thankfulness and shock for my two pregnancies.

I knew I was taking risks when I was pregnant, but just like there are risks in all things, you know there is a remote chance of the "unthinkable" happening. I don't know this woman, but I would imagine she probably had a series of similar thoughts and conversations about epilepsy and pregnancy. It was definitely not something I took lightly, however when I considered my risks, I was 95% concerned with how it would affect my baby. I didn't even really consider myself. I had had seizures before, I would be fine. It was my baby. That was what I really was concerned about.

Three days after my son was born I had a series of seizures that almost sent me into status epilepticus. I was hospitalized and out of it for days. My husband thought I might have permanent brain damage as I couldn't remember anything. I had to be reminded that I had already had the baby. I remember seeing him across the hospital room in his snugride carseat. All eyes on me. I remember thinking, who cares about me? What about our baby? Take care of our baby. I was heartsick I hadn't been able to do it myself during those days I was incapacitated.

Becoming a mother was such a transference of concern and focus it was overwhelming. As I hear this heartbreaking story of my friend's friend, I hope and pray that she, wherever she is, is relieved to know that the focus can now be more fully on her son, on her baby who is healthy and perfect and loved and will shine brightly with his mother's love shining on him from afar.

Embrace the helplessness

My therapist told me that I should go to Al-Anon meetings. I think she is right. She told me that they would likely be telling me that I should embrace the helplessness of the situation. Anyone who knows me knows that sounds about as opposite as you can get from my general way of being.

So, embracing the helplessness. I keep trying to make it an active thing. Like I need to get groceries, pick up my son from school and embrace the helplessness. Check. Check. Check. But, no, not so fast, this one does not fit. This one seeps. This one sinks in. This one is different.

I come to new levels in my grief over my mother all the time. It is sometimes just because of my processing of the situation and other times it is in reaction to an event or interaction. I continue to be sadly amazed at how much grief I manage to have for her and how deep and far reaching it is.

I received a disturbed email from my mother 5 days ago. It went something like this:

_________

subject: help me please

in pqim

bleeding

-19we

scaredlonelyy092

blackeye074

if love me come this onc 6[1

_______

Okay. No, wait. What?! How is anyone supposed to respond to this? It is barely legible (though the key words somehow, miraculously are not misspelled to the point of incomprehension).

I was more of the opinion that we should just call 911. My husband decided that he wanted to go to her hotel and check on her/confront her. We got home and he set out.

He found her at her hotel, blackeye, bruised ribs, blood in her hair, a complete mess. She complained that her side hurt and my husband took her to the ER. They did x-rays for her ribs. She claimed she must have fallen. Most in our circle think she was beaten up again. When the nurse asked her who the man was who was with her she said she met him in the bar. (My husband was mortified. Thankfully the nurse understood that they indeed had not just met in the bar.)

The nurse finally told my husband that they were probably going to discharge her soon unless she consented to psychiatric evaluation. As she was sobering up by then, when confronted with this, my mother put on her best psychobabble and said "I really prefer an outpatient setting." My husband handed her $20 for a cab and left.

He got a call the next day (as the hotel now has his number) that she was readmitted to the same hospital by them.

And this goes on and on and on and on. Again and again. Often in different states or in different hotels and in different hospitals and with different people around. Thereby not leaving a discernible trail. And for what? To elude what?

This morning I heard from my sister that mom showed up at her front door first thing this morning. She told my sister that if only I would let her back in my life she would be fine. I am the reason she is a disaster. My sister bravely pointed out that she had it backwards. I wasn't letting her in my life BECAUSE she is a disaster. Somehow, my sister managed to get my mother to leave without intervention.

For the rest of the day I was worried she would show up at my house or at my son's school. And then I remembered, I moved to a new place when my mother started drinking heavily this time around and she probably doesn't remember where it is. So, to my old house and it's lovely new occupants: I am sorry if she knocks on your door!

I am working on embracing the helplessness. There is nothing else in my life about which I think "this is terrible and only getting worse and there is nothing I can do to stop it." But this is that and it is hard to just let it be.

I worry that she will get herself killed by overdosing or bringing the wrong person back to her hotel or that she will kill someone else while driving. I asked my therapist if this would constitute her being a danger to herself and others. Sadly, it does not fit the bill. So, I leave this post with nothing upbeat to say. I leave this post with my heart just as it started and I am trying my best to embrace my helplessness in this situation. It is out of my hands and I believe it needs to be out of my head too.

What I want

What do I want? Sometimes it is hard for me to tell. When I find I am expending all of my energy on pushing away and holding at bay the crazy it is hard to find the quiet peace to hear what I actually want. After all, framing my life around what I want is very different from framing my life around avoiding what I do not want.

The first step has been avoiding what I do not want. It has been so very important. I could not have jumped over this step if I tried, even conceptually. However, now I do feel it is time to move on.

This is relevant for my relationship with my mother but also for other relationships and pretty much every other area of my life. But first let me put these thoughts of today regarding my mother in context.

My mother is back in Atlanta as of about 5 days ago as best as I can gather. Yesterday, and one to two days after telling her via email that I am not going to be hanging out any time soon, she is in the hospital, again. I heard this from my sister who received a call from a hospital social worker. Heart pain or some such thing.

**Pause here for the feeling to wash over me that my mother is in a local hospital with heart pain and I am not only not going, I am not calling and I am actually only writing about it to best explain where I find myself this morning. Yucky feeling.**

Okay, now. I started writing this in January of this year to get out the toxic, festering and isolating bits of this unwanted part of my life. My thinking had become compulsive and unhealthy.

Last Fall I heard from my mother sporadically. In November I heard from her a few days before Thanksgiving. She contacted me to see if she could come for Thanksgiving. No. No word from her until two days before Christmas when she asked, from a hotel in Virginia or Maryland, if she got a job, a therapist and an apartment by Christmas (in 2 days) if she could come over for Christmas. No (and really? Really?!). I found myself thinking about her over the holidays frequently. "Is she dead?" went through my head about a dozen times a day. Given her frequent overdoses and driving while intoxicated and other reckless behavior it is simply a matter of time. Not to mention that at some point she might really, actually, have a real physical illness. She has already given herself a bleeding ulcer from her abuse.

I went to my therapist at a loss. I felt like I was chained one way or the other to her fate. I felt the only way I could actually be free of it was if she actually were to die. And given her slightly absurd ability to survive really awful situations, I felt like that would be a really long time coming. My therapist told me I do not have to wait until she dies for me to get what I want.

This was a revelation. A friend's very sweet message lately reminded me of this. In the midst of this current shitstorm happening in my mother's life, I am actually not involved. I am aware of it, peripherally, and plan to make myself less aware of its evolution.

I know I do not want to be involved in her self-created chaos and despair. Got it. But what do I want when it comes to my mother?

My feelings regarding having a "mother" have become distinctly separate from my actual mother. When I am sick (which I feel like I have been now for weeks) and I have a sick and needy toddler and my son is having anxiety or defiance issues I so wish I had a mother to talk to, a mother to come in and say "here honey, you go rest. I'll take care of this for now." But in my dreams, I never picture her. I think I picture some combination of my late grandmothers. And I do wish I had a little more of that in my life some days.

But what do I want from her? The actual person who is my mother? To be left alone.

I almost wrote I want for her to not drag me down. But did not because I have been working on taking ownership of everything I can control. Being dragged down is largely one of those things. I am not getting involved. And I am getting a lot better at not getting involved in my head and heart too. With each passing crisis I get wind of I find it easier and easier to think, "mom's in the hospital. Alrighty, lets see what is for dinner."

This time I actually thought, well of course she is in the hospital. She, literally, has been in the hospital about once per week for months now. In different hospitals in different states. Why wouldn't she be in the hospital?

It was new when I heard she was in jail in the Fall. That was a new one. That *almost* ruined a date with Peter. But it didn't. We still went to dinner and a movie. So there.

So given that what I want is nothing from her and nothing to do with her, if I let myself I can find myself awash in sadness for her. I mean if I ever go there and think about her life it makes me unthinkably sad. So I don't. Or, I try not to. But when I do things in life I think to myself, somewhat reflexively, how will this be received? It is not a bad way to be with healthy human beings...in fact, it has served me well...but with her...dangerous.

My therapist told me what happens when you empathize with a crazy person: you go crazy. Don't do it. So, instead of thinking about what it is like for her I will tell you a bit about how it has been for me and what I hope for the future.

I want to focus my energies on the things in my life that grow, that heal, that give back. Things that inspire and things that enrich and add beauty to this world.

It has been amazing not having chaos and despair in my day to day life. It has been wonderful being less and less and less involved in the chaos to the point of not even knowing it is happening most of the time. I have felt safe. I have been blossoming. Finally, at 35, I am cultivating a safe space for me to thrive and bloom. And that has to be my priority. Regardless of how sad it is for my mother.

Why not? Let me tell you.

My mom is back in town and wants to hang. Or if not hang at least "just see my face," even "from across the street while I'm going into church." Guess who did not go to church this weekend, at least in part due to this Saturday threat...er...voicemail?

I am potentially revising my previous assessment of my mother. Old hypothesis: mom is either a complete a-hole or mentally ill. New hypothesis: mom is a complete a-hole, mom is mentally ill, mom has brain damage or all of the above.

She now claims that she remembers nothing from the last few months and can't for the life of her imagine why I'm so darned angry. Geez, aren't you prickly, dear daughter? So fussy and demanding and so full of stipulations. Her tone and her actual words tell me that she knows I have a few ridiculous hoops for her to jump through and she is willing to do some of that to appease me because, well, she knows I, for totally unknown reasons require all of this work. She will be such a big person to follow through (in a purely token b.s. way) because she just loves me so very much even though I am so very difficult. How kind and generous of her.

So now daughter dear, why are you still so bent out of shape? I think you might need help. Poor thing. You just can't let things go. Here is a totally pointless youtube clip. Lets talk about happy things. I'm going to distract you like you are a toddler trying to climb the stairs.

Hypothesis further amended: I think regardless of whether it is A) a-hole factor, B) mental illness, or C) brain damage, I think it is safe to say that she thinks I am a complete idiot.

After dismissively saying that she "only wishes she knew why..." I was so angry with her (read clearly daughter is unreasonable jerk), she tells me "Let's think about happy things instead." And thus follows bizarre youtube clips.

We had an agreement when I last saw her in late August 2010 in our family therapist's office. The agreement was that she would work with her own therapist, get help for her addiction, and once that was handled, her therapist would contact our family therapist and say it is safe for us to resume family therapy. Then, maybe, we could discuss further contact off of a therapist's couch. You see, we got to the point last summer where I would see her, and not only would it derail my, my kid's and my husband's day completely, but she would end up in the ER two days later with a overdose. Seeing her was just not an option. And talking to her on the phone was exceedingly unpleasant to me. Thus, we arrived at email contact only during this period.

She didn't remember our agreement, she said. I was happy to remind her of that. Having a firm boundary, especially one agreed upon by both of us at a therapist's office (a therapist of her choosing...key!), whether she claims to remember it or not, is paramount to my survival her re-emergence. As my husband says, it is stress inducing and depressing to see the dark cloud coming near and feel powerless to stop it. But maybe this time we can. Maybe this time whether she is near or far we can stop the seepage of crazy into our days. Time will tell.

Contact

After more than six weeks of silence, my mother contacted me and my little sister two days ago. Did she explain what has been happening in her life? No. Did she ask how we were? No. Inquire about grandkids and how their Christmas was? No. Did she send a youtube video of an ultra dramatic Queen song with no additional commentary? Why, yes she did.

I looked on my email, as I often do after the kids are in bed, on Monday night. It flashed up and I saw my mother's email address and before I realized it I clicked off my email as if I saw something terrifying.

I took a breath and opened my email again. I thought, it could be a virus. I looked at the email and it was to me and my sister. Likely not a virus then. I opened it. It was a video. I called Peter over and clicked on the video. He recognized the song immediately. He said, turn it off. I didn't. I watched it. Like standing at the beach while waves hit me. I thought to myself, bring it. I can handle your message. I can take it.

These are the lyrics:

Love of my life,
You hurt me,
You broken my heart,
Now you leave me

Love of my life can't you see,
Bring it back bring it back,
Don't take it away from me,
Because you don't know what it means to me

Love of my life don't leave me,
You've stolen my love you now desert me,

Love of my life can't you see,
Bring it back bring it back,
Don't take it away from me,
Because you don't know what it means to me

You will remember when this is blown over,
And everything's all by the way,
When I grow older,
I will be there at your side,
To remind how I still love you
I still love you
I still love you

Hurry back hurry back,
Don't take it away from me,
Because you don't know what it means to me

Love of my life,
Love of my life

The truth of my mother's unhealthy partner-like attachment to her daughters being shared here makes me feel both sick and free. Sick and free, awesome.

I remember when I bought it. When I was a willing participant. One time comes to mind very clearly. I was 9. My mother was single and we were living in Nashville. She would cry and I would hold her and tell her it was okay. I would clean the house when she was out or make her a present so that when she returned she would be happy and would stay with me.

She told me when I was 9 that she was lonely. I remember thinking, so clearly, "but mom, I don't know what you mean? You have me." I told her that. She let me comfort her. I really felt like her partner. At the time I thought that was how it was supposed to be.

Now as an adult, I know she was lonely. I know she needed other adults. I don't fault her for that. I don't fault her for feeling sad. I do fault her for letting me think I was all she needed when I was all she had and then letting me feel like I was in the way when something better came along.

Apparently she is lonely again. She wants "the love of her life" back. No thanks.

I feel for her and feel sad writing this, like I am betraying some trust. But I never agreed to silence. I don't want her to suffer. I don't want her to think I don't love her. But this shade of love? This is not what I want with my mother.

I was taught that protecting this warped relationship would protect my mother. Silence, loyalty, deference: if I continued in this vein, she would be okay. That is all. Just give my life over to her totally. Why can't I do that? Don't I love her? This is the mom voice in my head.

Not only do I see now that doing these things would not and did not protect my mother, but the cost is too high even if it did. The cost is me and my life and my children's mother. And that is unacceptable.

The other day, I was feeling sad. We were cooking dinner and all of a sudden my son said with an odd smile on his face, "I know Mama, why don't we turn off all electronics for tonight?" I asked him why he said that, and he said "I thought that would make you happy." He clearly didn't want to turn things off, but somehow got the idea that he had to fix my unhappiness and this was the way.

It snapped me out of my head for a moment. I got down in his face. I told him that I appreciated so much that he was wishing I was not feeling sad but that my sadness is not his fault or his responsibility. It happens sometimes. There are days like this.

The next generation

I am having one of those days. One of those days that your mother theoretically told you about. The kind of day that my mother never did tell me about. Ever flailing in the face of somberness, sadness, confusion and worry, my mother presented me with no model for how to face darkness with wisdom and calm.

Since I am not interested in railing against it or running from it, I am here, feeling it. I've been here, in this somber spot, a little more lately than usual. Either that or I am just more open to it now than I have been in the past. It is hard to say. I have been trying to experience it in the moment instead of trying to step outside of it and figure out why and where and how long it is. It is an exceedingly uncomfortable thing to do.

It feels like giving up control of my steering wheel...and my kids are on board...and that, more than anything, frightens me.

So, what is concerning me these days? Lots of things. Chief among them is my son. I am worried about my son. Or, rather, I am worried about whether I should be worried about my son. And the meta-ness and confusion builds from there.

My son is sometimes so up and happy and goofy and carefree. My son is sometimes so anxious and twitchy and ticking and worried. The latter concerns me. The fact that he vacillates concerns me (why the vacillation? is it due to his external world or internal world that the switch comes on? Is it something about us, his family, that brings it on?). I worry that my worry is the problem and that these swings are more or less normal in child development. For every good few months, I've read, and experienced, that there can be a rough few months. As kids master a phase, they retreat, regress and subconsciously grasp that they are maturing. It is both exciting and nerve-wracking for them.

So, am I just not seeing the forest for the trees here? Am I so in the midst of a rough patch full of ticks and anxieties that I have lost sight of the pattern that I should calmly be helping him through? If I make too much of it will it make it worse? If I make too little of it will it make it worse?

And so goes my neurotic mind.

And believe me, it is not lost on me that I am so much like my son. But I feel like that is part of the problem. Someone not as much like him, not so passionate and prone to over thinking might handle this better from him. Someone not like me, might give the calm wisdom that would best help him through this.

Where does one learn that? Where do folks learn it when they are trying to not replicate their own mothering experience? Where do folks learn it when they are also trying to not swing so completely in the other direction to compensate? Books? I've tried books. I can gain some insights from books, but, I can't help but ask, who wrote these books? How do I know they know what they are talking about? How do I know their adult daughter isn't out there horrified that their parenting book is being read?

How can I trust? How can I be open? How can I do this while helping my children navigate the difficult times they encounter? I know there is no manual, but when I have to scrap 90% of what I experienced, I am making it up as I go along. When my instinct is strong and sure and things are good I am golden. When I feel disconnected from my instinct and intuition or my child is going through a rough time I doubt how to course correct. I doubt and doubt and doubt...

I want for my children to grow up as emotionally privileged as the next healthy family. Can I really stop the damage from previous generations from leaking through? Is it even possible? Do I carry the torch of dysfunction as well, and, like my mother, not even know it?

These are my dark feelings today. Dark feelings that I am not running from. Dark feelings that I am not raging against. Dark feelings that are mine, today. And now that I have put them down here, they feel a little less scary.

Less impact

I've heard through the enabler grapevine that my mother is up to her usual shenanigans. This is not to say that I had any doubt about this, but having confirmation always makes it more real, puts it in context, and I can picture her in her current state a little more clearly.

Picturing her in this state is not a joyful task. I hear she has gone back to a friend in Boston 10 years forgotten who, in quite a state of alarm and panic, called my little sister repeatedly (even at work) to tell her of the bad shape my mother is in. Yes, we know old friend, unfortunately sounding the alarm is unnecessary and redundant.

If you listen closely, you can hear the alarms going off in her wake from Atlanta to Boston over the last 8 months, and, sadly, to no avail. I am tired of hearing them, for they seem to serve no purpose other than distracting me from my life and my sister from hers.

In the conversation with an old friend I hear the shattering of yet another image of my mother as a healthy, functioning woman and mother.

A confused mass of feelings come over me: sadness to reveal this truth, anger with having to mop up behind her, relief that the truth is out and a bizarre appreciation/disgust for the sympathetic feelings people then bestow upon me for having to deal with it.

I am thinking of creating a document that I can send to enablers as they begin to see the frayed edges and missing liquor...

Dear ________,

I know you have been helping/housing/caring for/worried about my mother. I want you to know that sadly this has been going on for many years with this latest cycle starting in earnest Spring of 2010. She has repeatedly and consistently refused treatment for her mental illness and substance abuse issues and is burning through all old friends and acquaintances, often leaving heartache and disaster in her wake. For her sake as well as yours, I advise you to direct her to the hospital and to not help her any further as that is only serving to enable her unhealthiness.

Sincerely,

Her eldest daughter

Writing such a letter, sending such a letter, feels like a kind thing to do. But it also feels like a mean thing to do. It feels like too much involvement and too little.

The good news for me however is that I am beginning to feel at peace in the middle of this paradox. And maybe that is the key to my well being as I make my way through this unwanted journey.

Joy in the midst of sadness

I derive so much joy from my children. They are a constant source of laughter and delight. I feel such gratitude for them. I feel honored to be their mother, to be able to shepherd them through their childhoods, to be the one whose arms they run to when they are hurt or scared or sad. It is a tremendous blessing, the good and the bad. But there are days when I am just sad and down and I have at times struggled with these days in how to best parent through it.

On exhausted days I remind myself that there will come a day when my kids are older that I long for R (my one year old) wanting to crawl into my lap continually and bring me a "boo" (book). Or for L (my 5 year old) to have a seemingly endless list of questions about stars and the solar system while upside down on the couch and kicking his legs around. They will likely not be doing this same thing when they are 18 and 14 or even 9 and 5. I want to appreciate it in the moment, while it is happening, really soak it up and let it feed my soul. But, and isn't this always the kicker, it is exactly at those moments when you have been home with your kids for 5 continuous snow days that you feel like a crazy person who needs just a moment of silence with her body to herself. Yet, here comes R with another "boo" and there is L with repeated and increasingly loud questions about the Sun.

When I fall short in moments like this, when I do not react with loving warmth and patience, I have, in the recent past, been hard on myself. When I say, "No R, not now," Or "L, enough with the questions for now. You need to find something quiet to do," I feel that I will kick myself down the road for this missed opportunity to connect with my children in a mutually enriching way.

So steeped am I in healing from my own childhood that I sometimes forget what it is to be healthy.

Being healthy is not about never showing that you are tired or sad. Being healthy is not about denying those feelings and faking it. Being healthy is not about white knuckling it. Being healthy does not exclude sad feelings, tired or overwhelmed moments. And my children can see me in those moments.

It is okay. It is good even. Because then they see me recover. They see me need a moment of silence, and then seek them out to read a book. They see me need to have my body to myself and 10 minutes later be ready to wrestle and tickle them on the floor. They see me rise and fall in healthy rhythms throughout my days.

Talking about these rhythms and needs with my son have even helped him identify his own needs for space and quiet times in the midst of over stimulation. So fearful am I of my mother's very erratic and scary ups and downs that I have tried to negate all signs of somber and tired moods. But I am not my mother and my kids are not me. They continue to fearlessly run around not worried that I am going to explode. Because I don't. I do lots of things, but I do not turn on them. I am predictable, even in my sad moments. They do not look at me with cautious fear when I feel sad.

And even in the midst of my sad day I find unspeakable joy in this.

And good morning to you too!

There is nothing like waking up to an email from my mother. Well, I should say, a phone call or a knock on the door would surely trump an email in terms of day ruination, but an email, even a forwarded one can sure set my day to spinning.

Yesterday I received such an email. My mother's little brother (and my dear uncle) received an email from my mother chronicling her latest mishaps. I won't go into the details, but suffice it to say that if this email was from a healthy family member, one not prone to hallucinations, manipulations and delusion, I would already be on an airplane to go to her.

But every email is that way these days. And it is getting easier to not react. It is easier to tell myself: the panic you feel-dismiss, the sadness you feel-let it go, the worry and fear you feel-breathe it out.

So, I dismiss, I let go, I breathe it out. And what am I left with? A lingering and profound sadness at the entire situation. A sadness larger than my mother probably imagines I feel. For while she survives one fire only to move on to the next, I see her whole life, a wasted life, my mother's wasted life, totally overrun with mental illness. Like kudzu, it can look beautiful at times, but keep it out of your yard or everything else will die.

I vacillate in my thinking about her and her mental illness. This vacillation can be best described by what I put to her about 4 years ago after a "stroke" (read overdose...dozens of empty pill bottles from different doctors and different pharmacies in different states, some with different patient names too). I said, "Mom, you either have some serious mental illness issues or you are a complete asshole." I mean, just looking at the behavior, I see only those two conclusions.

I was telling her this with a generous spirit, I really was. I wanted her to see how far our family had stretched into our discomfort to accommodate her terrible behavior and exactly why we could not do it any longer. I wanted her to see that I know she is not a bad person, that she is not an asshole, that she is in the grips of a really serious mental illness and there is no shame in that. And that I really wanted my mother back. The mother who was overrun with this kudzu.

To which, while literally hugging her DSM-IV at the Olive Garden in Southeastern Virginia and 600 miles from my husband and toddler, she shockingly claimed that she has multiple personality disorder instead and blamed all of her bad behavior on "Gregory." I kid you not.

Ok. This is how we are doing it. Sure thing Mom. Gregory is the bad guy, not you. But did she get help for her self-diagnosed and acknowledged MPD? Nope. She used it to buy her time and when things died down she said she was confused and wasn't that silly? And "Oh, dear, you are so funny and confused, of course I don't have BPD or MPD. I used to work in a clinic that specializes in BPD. Wouldn't I know if I were? But why aren't we close anymore?!?" So, what conclusion are we to draw? Yep, you guessed it. My mother, the asshole.

So, here we are many disasters later and I feel numb. A good friend of mine with a similarly troubled mother told me this, "you know, my mother could be walking the streets in a sheet, but I don't know about it. There are benefits to having no contact." Indeed there are. But I hear about her from time to time and am not sure what to do with the information when I receive it.

What do I currently do?

Well, in the past I cleaned. I mean, I have had one clean house at times. When my husband came home and found the house sparkling clean, he had but one question, "did you talk to your mother today?" Out of a desire to stop being so compulsive and move into more healthy (and more interesting) coping, I've started cooking.

Yesterday my in-laws just happened to be in town. I had already planned to make a big dinner. It was perfect. I spent 4 hours in the kitchen and made, essentially, a thanksgiving dinner, complete with blueberry-raspberry pie and brussels sprouts with caramelized pearl onions. So, I'm learning and adapting. I'm trying to cope in ways that do not restrict and control my world but open my world up and make my world a more beautiful and joyful (and delicious) place to be. I survived the drama of the past, but I want to more than survive. Can I thrive too?

Friend or Foe?

My mother's most recent "other", point person, enabler wonders why we are no longer facebook friends. She caught on to my recent silent friend deletion. In an attempt to rid my life of the drama, and after she left cursing, screaming ugly posts on my mother's facebook wall, I defriended her and now she wants to know why. Where to begin?

I share an awkward relationship with my mother's other enablers. I have been known to warn them at the beginning. I say something to the effect of: "I know my mother is reaching out to you lately. I'm not sure what she is saying, but I just want you to know that she is sick and really needs help." In response to this I have heard a mix of responses.

The most recent "other" responded by telling me that my mother is indeed sick and does need help--from me, her ungrateful daughter. To which I did not reply. It is a sickening feeling to know that out there in the world your name and reputation are being dragged through the mud by your mother and her "others". I've gotten more used to it by now, but it never feels good.

I feel sympathetic for these others, as I know the disturbingly bewitching ways of my mother. I understand what is like to have her say you are the only one who truly understands her and to have her shower you with praise. This is how she begins to pull others into her reality. A place I resided for much of the 80s and 90s.

For all the sympathy I feel however, do I want to be facebook friends? We were in contact while my mother was actively using her when I was more interested in my mother's whereabouts. But really, is this a connection that is anything but depressing and ugly for me?

My mother's enablers fall into three main categories. The first is the kind and naive friend. This person hears my mother's very convincing tales of woe and persecution and takes it upon themselves to offer her a "fresh start."

The second type is the person with an agenda of their own. These folks have issues themselves: an ex boyfriend who was controlling and abusive, a friend who was an alcoholic. These people fall for the lines but also weave them into their own distorted reality to create a compounded delusion. These alliances can be the ugliest and most long lasting.

The third category of my mother's enablers are her daughters. Her daughters are hewn into the shape of attack dog, fierce defender, loyal abider and dream continuer. We are extensions of her when it feels good to her and separate from her when it does not. We were raised to be this so it was the easiest and most natural of enabling situations for my mother. We have had to fight our way out of the tangled web and we continue to work on rewiring our minds and hearts. It is as if my pain, panic, worry and joy sensors were all connected to my mother's well being...thus making her well being paramount to my own wellness.

This connection has had to be severed.

Becoming a mother and realizing that I now have little people dependent on me made me wake up. Having my mother live perilously close to the edge or over the edge, as the case may be, also made me wake up.

My mother's other "others" out there in the world are like ghost relatives. They have been likewise used and abused, some more grotesquely than others. Some have seen that my mother is sick, some are still vying to be her "other" again soon.

I am trying to move on with my life. For myself and for my children and husband and, truthfully, there just is not room in that picture for hauntings by these others. So, yes, I am no longer her facebook friend and hopefully soon she will move on too.

Slow death

I've recently been receiving emails about a friend whose wife's mother just passed away after battling a terminal illness. My heart goes out to this friend and his wife and family. After I received this email I thought, I do not envy them this situation (I mean, who would?), but there was, if I am totally honest, a part of me, that envies the clarity with which one can speak of such an event.

It is tragic and it is life's unavoidable sadness when a loved one dies. We mourn, we pay respects, we weep, we come together, we galvanize around the love shaped hole that this person left in our lives. It is terrible and sad and life upending, but it doesn't feel perverse.

In my life I go forward with straightforward sincerity and honesty, as much as a cynical and slightly jaded person can, yet with my mother all feelings are perverse and convoluted. With love comes hate, with worry comes rage, with sadness comes apathy...I feel dirty when I think of her and there is no one else in my world who makes me feel that way, thank god.

I'm ashamed to say that in more than a little way I envy the straightforward despair and longing. Now, to be fair, I don't really know this woman's family and for all I know there is a convoluted jumble of feelings there too, but this is how I perceive these events and how I have experienced death with other family members. Family members who are somberly and beautifully just...missed and loved.

I am currently working on not becoming a bitter person. Usually I can see the relativity of situations when people discuss family, but sometimes, like now, when things are raw and my mom is found wandering the streets of another state in a sheet, I have a hard time feeling anything but bitter rage at this f'd up hand I've been dealt.

I will not intervene for she doesn't want actual help. And now I'm trying not to even think of her because it only makes me anxious and depressed imagining what she is doing today, right now, as I type this. The only thing that my thinking of her accomplishes, as far as I can see it, is it makes me less available for myself, my husband and my children. The very thing I swore I would not do.

But as I have aged I have seen that the promises of youth are steeped in idealism that often blur with time. So, my kids occasionally see me distracted or stressed. It is less than ideal, sure. But they also see me recover and do so more and more quickly. Such is life. But I will not have my kids hold me while I cry about my mother like my mother did to me. That buck stops here.

On the one hand I have no issue with that as I am not mentally ill like my mother and feel no impulse to rely on my children emotionally (and for that I am so so grateful). On the other hand it is difficult to be the emotional shock absorber as it needs to go somewhere other than deeper into me. I do not want it and will not take it anymore.

I have some ideas for how to channel it and remain hopeful that they will be healthy outlets. For now, I'll end.

To begin

I tried to start this blog a few months ago. I was beginning to see the deep need to share and open up about my situation with my mother. But then I stopped short of posting anything for fear that my mother would find it. I was paralyzed.

What I have realized is that if I predicate my actions and freedoms based around my mother I will go crazy, or stay crazy, as the case may be.

I believe with all my heart that my mother has a borderline personality disorder. It took me many years to figure out what to call it. It looks like different things at different points in her life, but all tallied, this is my best fit for what I see and experience.

The problem is (and to be honest, there are many problems) that my mother is a psychologist. A clinical psychologist, no less, who has worked at borderline clinics. But that is not all. She also writes books on parenting. Try bringing this one in for family therapy.

However, in her last iteration of instability, we did just that, or at least we tried, until our therapist told us she could not continue until my mother was off of substances.

In the past year she went from a well paid job, an apartment in the same town we live in and occasional dinners with my family, to being homeless for four months, crashing with friends, ruining marriages, and drinking and drugging so much she has to be regularly hospitalized.

Fantastic. So how do I respond to this? 15 years ago I would have been with her in the moment, enabling and defending her and upholding her deluded reality. 10 years ago I would have stepped in to help with the crisis (for my little sister's sake more than for my mother's at that point, as she was only 13). 5 years go I was starting to take a stand, but would still put a next day ticket on an almost maxxed out credit card to fly to be with my mother who "had a stroke" (with many empty pill bottles around). Now, I distance.

A wise woman once told me what happens to people who empathize with crazy people: they go crazy. And that was where I was, trying to connect my mother's "reality" to reality. I was trained well and it has taken years of consistent work to free myself and I'm not quite there, but I'm pretty damned far along.

I will not get into the back story right now. But I did want to finally commit to putting something out there in this shared space, bravely as a testimony to my experience.

A friend reminded me the other day that it will not always feel this raw. And I think that is true. Her roller coaster is never ending, yes, but I am finally getting off of her ride.