Waves of Crazy

Last Monday was a dark day for me.  The weather almost mirrored my emotional sequence: heavy, blinding rain followed by hours of fog.

The details: my mother remains delusional, but sober...and scared.  God it kills me.  She is at a high volume inner city homeless shelter with 6pm curfews and large rooms with cots for all the women and children.  When I pulled up to drop off her suitcases, she was standing huddled under the awning looking out for me (back story: we have these because she was MIA last year and the woman she was living with was going to throw them away otherwise...still not totally sure we are glad to have gotten this stuff...even though we did salvage family photos and birth records, but I digress).

She came to meet me at the car, we hugged and both wept.  I couldn't do this in the rain.  Whatever "this" was, it couldn't be done in 1 minute in the pouring rain in front of this depressing place.

I told her to get in the car and took her to breakfast.  We sat and I ordered food so that she would too but I couldn't eat anything.  In fact, until dinner, I couldn't really eat at all.  (I considered looking on the bright side and turning this into some sort of get ready for summer cleanse, but instead just made up for it with wine and chocolate later that night).  

I could discuss what we talked about, but it is more of the same, although this time we were not angry, either of us, just profoundly sad.  After lunch I drove her back.  Dropping her off, with her suitcases was one of the hardest things I have ever done.  

What followed for me was a day sinking into an emotional abyss.  I imagined my office turned into a room for my mother, I imagined how we could reallocate our not unlimited funds and pay for an apartment for her.  Like puzzling over a rubiks cube, my mind kept turning and twisting and trying to make fit this horror into my life that would make it better for her and not undo me, my husband, my kids, in the process.  I puzzled over it so much and wept so hard that my head ached and my eyes are still sore today from the crying. Needless to say my graduate class I attended that afternoon was not awesome and my head was FAR from in the game.

The next day I did no school work.  I had to get in front of this wave so that it didn't take me for more of a ride than it already had.  

During my breakfast I told my mother that I am not trying to "school her" on her choices, but I have to guard my resources, emotional and otherwise, so that I will not fall apart.  Part of her illness is, I believe, never being able to really know another person fully.  She seemed shocked by the toll this has taken on me.  She then told me a story about when she was in her 40s and felt drained by her mother and was crying so much a neighbor came to check on her.  My mother went on to say that she always told herself, "well, at least my daughters will not have to go through this." 

I get a chill thinking of this.  Thinking of my mother telling herself similar things that I tell myself about my children.  

How much control do I have about this?  How in front of this wave of crazy can I get?  I think my mother did want and did try, in her way, to shield us from what she felt, but she did so in a closeted way.  She acted as if problems didn't exist.  As if she could will them away or by ignoring the monster looming it would just disappear.  I think she really believed that if she just got all her external ducks in a row, the internal would either heal itself or be quiet enough that she could just ignore it.  

So, I am swinging in the opposite direction.  I am choosing openness.  I am airing my dirty laundry so as to hopefully purge the toxins from my heart.  I want it out there so that it does not fester and turn into resentment, bitterness and loneliness.  

I am still in process, but, like being an alcoholic, I feel like I will always be in process.  Even if certain things are better, or crises pass, I will be in recovery always and need to tread carefully.  As much as I would like to move past this and be done with it.  Check it off.  Done!  It is just not one of those things. I am working to accept this.  

Emotional Seepage

I have been waiting for an insightful moment, a profound thought, a realization or a definitive change of heart before writing again, but I can't rush this process and, yet, I need to share.

So there we are.

The holidays were rough.  No matter how strong my boundaries, no matter how clear my mind, knowing my mother is homeless over Christmas sucks.  I tried not to dwell on it, and for this issue, I am trying to compartmentalize.  I have to, or the emotional seepage will take over and I fear it is even with attempted compartmentalization.

So I say my mantras to myself about being at peace with a lack of peace, accepting imperfection, knowing what is in my control and what is not, and allowing the good things to take a larger place in my heart, mind and life.  However, when I then find I am having concerns about my child at school, my response feels huge and I wonder if emotional seepage has, at least, in part fueled the fire.

I wait before speaking these days, or I try to.  I wait before emailing (most of the time).  And I try to see if both the feelings and the sheer volume of the feelings is appropriate to the situation.  There are times when I am not sure, however, and, well, I am sure I make mistakes.

I am sure to act the things that I do care about, but sometimes it feels like it comes out like a flood of emotion.  I wonder if this is because I am unknowingly channeling my grief and lack of control about my mother into this other arena.  I try not to do this, but it happens from time to time.  I know we all probably do this in some ways or another, but I feel like the huge despair that is my feelings about my mother could drown me and my whole family if I let it and I fear the floodgates opening.

For years now I have worked on not letting those floodgates open in the direction of my children, but it is the rest of my life that is more confusing.

When is my inability to let something go a sign that it is worth the fight and when it is it a sign that I am seeking control over things that are, and perhaps should be, out of my control to somehow heal these other areas?  My child's schooling is one of these issues.  Kind of my jurisdiction, kind of not. It is his first foray into a social and ordered world outside of the home that he needs to learn to navigate.  When do I help him rise to the situation, and when do I try to change the situation?

While I struggle with this, as many parents do I'm certain, I am hearing from my mother via email that she is in a homeless shelter that used to be a jail and is full of mothers and children and a fair share of child abuse, and she wants....from me.  She just simply wants from me, anything and everything.  I am left asking myself: do I help her with her situation or do I let her rise to the situation?  I think sadly about how my husband may be dropping off some winter clothes (she only has one outfit right now) and how I will go to target and get her a toothbrush and toothpaste too.  It nearly makes me cry thinking that this where things are.  I can't see her as I fear a hive-ridden anxiety response to seeing her there.  But I am trying to think of an appropriate "homeless shelter care package."  No one prepared me for this.

So there it is.  Yesterday I called said homeless shelter and left such a strange message.  It went something like this "Hi there, I have two things I am inquiring about.  First of all, I have lots of toddler toys I would like to give away and thought of you all, please let me know if you could use them.  Second, I thought of you all because my mother is currently staying there and I am hoping to speak to her case manager to give some background information."

I haven't heard back yet, but I realize my response vis-a-vis the toys is in direct response to hearing there is child abuse in the shelter.  I feel like this is a good place for our toys, whether her assertion about child abuse is true or not, and whether or not toys would mitigate any stresses mothers would face in a shelter or not, but I feel like part of my motivation is to improve her situation, even in a round about distant way.

One more bit of trivia that I will leave you with is, in a state of emotional despair/hope I applied my mother for the show Intervention in December.  The producers have been calling and would like to do a show about her, but I just don't know.  I don't know for so many reasons.  I worry about heading down a path of trying to control this unwieldy and dangerous situation in any way.  For fear that it wouldn't work and would undo me in the process. But, I haven't made my mind up completely yet.  If any of you have any thoughts about this, I would love to hear them.  And for the record, I have no desire to actually be on TV, particularly in this way, but thought perhaps she could get better (and funded) treatment that way.

As always, thanks for reading.