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.