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.