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.