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.
